TBR Pile Challenge

I'm going to try to give the TBR Pile Challenge hosted by Adam at Roof Beam Reader. The challenge is to read 12 books that have been on your TBR Pile for at least a year. You also have 2 alternate books in case one or two of your 12 just don't work for you. So I have a list of 14 books to try to read next year. If you want to get in on the fun, click the TBR Challenge link above.  You have until December 31, 2012 to list your books and link them back at Roof Beam Reader.

Now on to the books that I've chosen from my TBR Pile:

1. What If ?: The World's Foremost Military Historians Imagine What Might Have Been ed. by Robert Cowley
2. Take a Thief by Mercedes Lackey
3. The Handmaid' s Tale by Margaret Atwood
4. Gloriana by Michael Moorcock
5. Soldier of the Mist by Gene Wolfe
6. The Soldier of Arete by Gene Wolfe
7. The Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula LeGion
8. Fantasy Gone Wrong ed. by Martin Greenberg & Brittiany A. Koren
9. Silverlock by John Meyers Meyers
10. Cold Street by P.N. Elrod
11. Unicorn Variations ed. by Roger Zelazny
12. The Lion in Winter by James Goldman

Alternates:

1. Night by Elie Wiesel
2. Middleworld by J & P Voekel

Unlike last year, I'm not jumping into a ton of challenges. So far, this is the only one I'm formally joining. I just haven't had a chance to look around and see what else is up there.

Review: Smash Cut

Smash Cut by Sandra Brown

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



This is a book that's been sitting on my shelf for awhile, one that I won through GoodReads. Like many of the other books on my shelves, I'd been meaning to get through it for some time. It took a badly sprained ankle to do so and I wondered why I'd waited.

Julie Rutledge stands by helplessly while her companion, Paul Wheeler, is murdered in what seems to be a hold-up in the elevator of a hotel. But she knows that robbery wasn't the motive. Murder was. And the person responsible, Paul's nephew Creighton, has a rock solid alibi. She needs to find a way to make him pay. When she finds out that the Wheelers have retained high-profile lawyer Derek Mitchell to represent him, she does her best to discredit him. Instead, she finds a man that becomes enamored with her, and who realizes that Julie just may be telling the truth about how unbalanced Creighton really is.

Creighton is one of the creepiest villains I've come across in a long, long time. He's a psychopath through and through, expertly using the plots of his beloved movies to plan and execute his uncle's murder while laying the blame purely at Julie's feet. And his money and charm make it next to impossible for most people to see the truth. What was really scary was finding just how far back his depravity went.

The story started strong and exciting and from the first page turn, with more mystery being added to the mix with each chapter. Who was the mysterious woman that Derek met on his flight back from Paris? What is Julie hiding? Could Creighton be right about her? It had me wanting to turn to the back of the book and read the end just to figure out what was going to happen.

The book had me so engaged that I fought sleep and stayed up until midnight to finish it. Each page turn brought more excitement, horror, sexiness and intrigue. The only problem I had with the whole book was the surprise twist at the end. And not because of the twist itself (which I'm not going into so I don't spoil this for anyone), but because it really didn't seem to be alluded to through the rest of the story. I have no problem with twists, as long as I can go back later and say, "I should have guessed that!"

Even with this small annoyance, it was still a very solid book, heavy on the mystery and not overly sexed. I've enjoyed Sandra Brown's books in the past, and I was glad to find that this one did not disappoint.



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