Week Three Prompt- Novelist

1. The next book in the series is The Lunatic Cafe.

2. I would suggest Margaret Atwood, The Heart Goes Last. It has a similar writing style with a complex character and an intensifying pace.

3. You may enjoy The Teahouse Fire by Ellis Avery, or possibly Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden. These are historical novels set in Japan.

4. Well-Schooled in Murder is actually number 3 in the Thomas Lynley mystery series. You might want to start with the first one, A Great Deliverance. Or another series that is similar is the Inspector Armand Gamache series by Louise Penny. The first one is titled Still Life.

5. For zombie apocalypse fans I would suggest reading Black Out by Mira Grant, or The Dead Run by Adam Mansbach next. The Zombie Autopsies by Steven C. Schlozman may interest him as well.

I picked all of these books using Novelist Plus. Some of them I felt I could have done better and quicker using Fantastic Fiction, or Amazon. Both of these sites, along with Good Reads, are how I pick most things for myself and my family. I like the suggestions given by Amazon and the lists on Good Reads. I use Fantastic Fiction mainly for quickly finding the next book in a series or another book by the same author. I like using Novelist for questions involving similar appeal terms, however. It is much quicker and more accurate for those types of questions than browsing reviews on Amazon (which may or may not be written by a sane person).

Thriller Annotation: American Assassin

Author: Vince Flynn
# 1 in Mitch Rapp series
published 10/12/2010
448 pages
Setting: Virginia, Europe, Middle East

A talented college athlete, Mitch Rapp is recruited to become one of a group of new secret operatives trained to meet the rise of Islamic terrorism on their home turf. After losing his girlfriend in the Pan Am Lockerbie terrorist attack, Mitch wants retribution. Six months of training leaves him more than qualified to seek his justice with brutal force. From America to Europe and across the middle-east to Beirut this action-packed, fast-paced story tells how it all began.

Elements of Thrillers:
Fast-pacing- The action starts on page one and keeps going.

Plot Driven- There is some character development but the main focus is the action.

Political Focus- The theme is fighting terrorism on the enemy's doorstep.

Gritty Details- Physical training, hand to hand combat and torture are all described in detail.

Danger/Violence- There is a high-body count in the story, and Mitch faces danger on numerous occasions.

Read-Alikes:
The Teeth of the Tiger by Tom Clancy
Foreign Influence by Brad Thor
The Bell Ringers by Henry Porter

Reading Profile

I’ve been a huge book lover all my life. Well-worn copies of my favorites as a child have a special place in my home library and they always will. As an adult, most of my reading favorites are mysteries. I guess you would call them classic British-type mysteries, not too psycho-thriller with blood and guts, but not cupcake-themed either. Favorite authors include Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Colin Dexter, G. M. Malliet and Veronica Heley. Why mysteries, particularly British ones? I enjoy trying to figure out the murderer, but it’s also the place and the setting that I love. I enjoy visiting the village, greeting old characters and meeting new ones and seeing how they fit into the context of the setting. I like to follow a series and see how things change and develop, particularly over several books. I also love C.S. Lewis, P.G. Wodehouse, Miss Read and Jane Austen, and I am a big Harry Potter fan. It occurs to me that the only author I have listed here that is not British has set her books in an English village. So I guess there is no need to explain what an anglophile I am. My bookshelves will speak to that!
However, as I look around me, my bookshelves also contain a great deal of YA dystopia and children’s fantasy/science fiction. Some series I enjoy are The Hunger Games, Dorothy Must Die, Cinder, The Red Queen, The Maze Runner, and Divergent (except the last one, Allegiant, which was a sad excuse for a conclusion to an otherwise good series). I don’t make lists anymore of what I plan on reading this month or this year, as they either get changed completely, or I am too ambitious and wear myself out just thinking about it, but here are some titles I look forward to reading in the (near-ish) future:
1. I Am Number Four I was waiting for this series to finish before I began it, but after announcing the end they have decided to continue the series. I am tired of waiting.
2. Winter So far this series has been excellent and I have heard the final novel is wonderful.
3. Sidney Chambers and the Shadow of Death This was a great series on PBS based on the books by James Runcie. More England, vicars and bodies.
4. Hogwarts, A History This book has not been written yet, but when it is I hope it is 12 volumes.