Tag: Read

#ThrowbackThursday Poor Boy Road by James L. Weaver

whatcathyreadnext1 Comment

ThrowbackThursday

Throwback Thursday is a weekly meme hosted by Renee at It’s Book Talk. Throwback Thursday is designed as an opportunity to share old favourites as well as books that we’ve finally got around to reading that were published over a year ago. If you decide to take part, please link back to It’s Book Talk.

I’ve decided to delve back into the earliest days of my blog (not that it’s that old) and share one of my first reviews. It’s for the first in a series of terrifically entertaining action thrillers by James L. Weaver, published in March 2016. You can read my review of the sequel Ares Road here and if you happen to get hooked, you’ll pleased to learn a third book, Blackbird Road, is due out in 2018.

Poor Boy Road (Jake Caldwell #1) by James L. Weaver

poorboyAbout the Book

As a mob enforcer, Jake Caldwell is in the dark business of breaking kneecaps and snapping bones. But each job sends him one step closer to turning into the man he swore he’d never become – his violent and abusive father. Leaving the mob is easier said than done. When his boss offers a bloody way out, Jake has no choice but to take it, even if it means confronting ghosts of old. Arriving in his hometown, Jake has two things on his mind: kill ruthless drug lord Shane Langston and bury his dying father. Racing through the countryside searching for Langston, the web of murder, meth and kidnapping widens, all pointing toward a past Jake can’t escape and a place he never wanted to return – Poor Boy Road.

Purchase Links*
Amazon.co.uk ǀ
*links provided for convenience, not as part of any affiliate programme

Find Poor Boy Road on Goodreads

My Review

Poor Boy Road is the first in a series featuring mob enforcer, Jake Caldwell. In fact, Jake very much wants to be an ex-mob enforcer but the price for this is killing his mob boss’s rival drug lord, Shane Langston. This will mean returning to his hometown which holds nothing but bad memories – of his troubled childhood at the hands of his violent father (now close to death), the trauma of his brother’s death and his abandonment of the woman he loved.

Although the book follows a fairly well-trodden path for an action/thriller, that doesn’t make it any less entertaining. Despite his dubious past exploits, Jake Caldwell makes an really engaging protagonist who one feels still retains his moral compass. It’s to the author’s credit that we care about Jake, who comes across as something of a ‘lost soul’ seeking a path to redemption despite the ‘Devil’s bargain’ he’s had to make with his mob boss, Keats.

‘Sometimes he stared in the mirror at hollow eyes, seeing the face of a man who hid in the shadows, a man he swore he’d never become.’

In fact, many of the characters in the book are looking for a way out: from poverty, crime, drug and alcohol addiction, family breakdown or domestic violence. The author creates a convincing picture of life in small-town America where your life chances can be measured by which side of Poor Boy Road you reside.

‘Every town, every city had their economic dividing line between the haves and the have nots. Poor Boy Road was their line.’

The book is full of twists and turns with plenty of action as Jake teams up with his old friend, Bear, now Sheriff of Benton County, to frustrate the drug gangs that menace the community and achieve the goal that will give him the chance to make a new start in life.   Along the way Jake has to confront unpleasant memories, particularly his troubled relationship with his father, in the hope that he can stop trying to ‘outrun the ghosts’.

I really enjoyed Poor Boy Road and I can’t wait to read the next in the series, Ares Road.

I received a copy of this book courtesy of Lakewater Press in return for an honest review.

About the Author

James L. Weaver is the Kansas City author of the Jake Caldwell series featuring IAN Thriller of the Year finalist Poor Boy Road and soon to be released Ares Road from Lakewater Press. He makes his home in Olathe, Kansas with his wife of 19 years and two children. His previous publishing credits include a six part story called The Nuts and his 5-star rated debut novel Jack & Diane. Author note: a handful of the raters are actually not related to him.

Connect with James

Website ǀ Facebook ǀ Twitter ǀ Goodreads

author-banner

 

 

WWW Wednesday

whatcathyreadnext2 Comments

WWWWednesdays

Hosted by Taking on a World of Words, this meme is all about the three Ws:

  • What are you currently reading?
  • What did you recently finish reading?
  • What do you think you’ll read next?

Why not join in too? Leave a comment with your link at Taking on a World of Words and then go blog hopping!

Currently reading

ItWasOnlyEverYouIt Was Only Ever You by Kate Kerrigan (review copy courtesy of Head of Zeus)

Patrick Murphy has charm to burn and a singing voice to die for. Many people will recognise his talent. Many women will love him. Rose, the sweetheart he leaves behind in Ireland, can never forget him and will move heaven and earth to find him again, long after he has married another woman. Ava, the heiress with no self-confidence except on the dance floor, falls under his spell. And tough Sheila Klein, orphaned by the Holocaust and hungry for success as a music manager, she will be ruthless in her determination to unlock his extraordinary star quality. But in the end, Patrick Murphy’s heart belongs to only one of them. Which one will it be?

TheThirteenthGateThe Thirteenth Gate by Kat Ross (review copy)

Winter 1888. At a private asylum in the English countryside, a man suspected of being Jack the Ripper kills an orderly and flees into the rain-soaked night. His distraught keepers summon the Lady Vivienne Cumberland—who’s interviewed their patient and isn’t sure he’s a man at all. An enigmatic woman who guards her own secrets closely, Lady Vivienne knows a creature from the underworld when she sees one. And he’s the most dangerous she’s ever encountered. As Jack rampages through London, this time targeting rare book collectors, Lady Vivienne begins to suspect what he’s looking for. And if he finds it, the doors to purgatory will be thrown wide open…

Across the Atlantic, an archaeologist is brutally murdered after a Christmas Eve gala at the American Museum of Natural History. Certain peculiar aspects of the crime attract the interest of the Society for Psychical Research and its newest investigator, Harrison Fearing Pell. Is Dr. Julius Sabelline’s death related to his recent dig in Alexandria? Or is the motive something darker? As Harry uncovers troubling connections to a serial murder case she’d believed was definitively solved, two mysteries converge amid the grit and glamor of Gilded Age New York. Harry and Lady Vivienne must join forces to stop an ancient evil. The key is something called the Thirteenth Gate. But where is it? And more importantly, who will find it first?

TheOtherTwinThe Other Twin by L V Hay (review copy)

When India falls to her death from a bridge over a railway, her sister Poppy returns home to Brighton for the first time in years. Unconvinced by official explanations, Poppy begins her own investigation into India’s death. But the deeper she digs, the closer she comes to uncovering deeply buried secrets. Could Matthew Temple, the boyfriend she abandoned, be involved? And what of his powerful and wealthy parents, and his twin sister, Ana? Enter the mysterious and ethereal Jenny: the girl Poppy discovers after hacking into India’s laptop. What is exactly is she hiding, and what did India find out about her? Taking the reader on a breathless ride through the winding lanes of Brighton, into its vibrant party scene and inside the homes of its well-heeled families, The Other Twin is a startling and up-to-the-minute thriller about the social-media world, where resentments and accusations are played out online, where identities are made and remade, and where there is no such thing as truth.

Recently finished

VirginoftheWindRoseThe Virgin of the Wind Rose by Glen Craney (review copy courtesy of the author)

While investigating the murder of an American missionary in Ethiopia, rookie State Department lawyer Jaqueline Quartermane stumbles upon the infamous Templar Word Square, an ancient Latin puzzle that has eluded scholars for centuries. To her horror, she soon discovers the palindrome has been embedded with a cryptographic time bomb. Separated by half a millennium, two global conspiracies dovetail in this historical mystery-thriller to expose the world’s most explosive secret: the real identity and mission of Christopher Columbus.

My verdict: The Da Vinci Code meets Raiders of the Lost Ark in 15th century Portugal!

TheRoombytheLakeThe Room by the Lake by Emma Dibdin (eARC)

When Caitlin moved from London to New York, she thought she had left her problems behind: her alcoholic father, her dead mother, the pressure to succeed. But now, down to her last dollar in a foreign city, she is desperately lonely. Then she meets Jake. Handsome, smart, slightly damaged Jake. He lives off-grid, in a lakeside commune whose members practise regular exercise and frequent group therapy. Before long, Caitlin has settled into her idyllic new home. It looks like she has found the fresh start she longed for. But, as the commune tightens its grip on her freedom and her sanity, Caitlin realizes too late that she might become lost forever…

My verdict: Unsettling psychological thriller (review to follow soon)

TheWatchHouseThe Watch House by Bernie McGill (eARC)

As the twentieth century dawns on the island of Rathlin, a place ravaged by storms and haunted by past tragedies, Nuala Byrne is faced with a difficult decision. Abandoned by her family for the new world, she receives a proposal from the island’s aging tailor. For the price of a roof over her head, she accepts. Meanwhile the island is alive with gossip about the strangers who have arrived from the mainland, armed with mysterious equipment which can reportedly steal a person’s words and transmit them through thin air. When Nuala is sent to cook for these men – engineers, who have been sent to Rathlin by Marconi to conduct experiments in the use of wireless telegraphy – she encounters an Italian named Gabriel, who offers her the chance to equip herself with new skills and knowledge. As her friendship with Gabriel opens up horizons beyond the rocky and treacherous cliffs of her island home, Nuala begins to realise that her deal with the tailor was a bargain she should never have struck.

My verdict: If you loved Hannah Kent’s The Good People, you’ll adore this (review to follow soon)

What Cathy (will) Read Next

TheSixteenTreesoftheSommeThe Sixteen Trees of the Somme by Lars Mytting, trans. Paul Russell Garrett (eARC)

Edvard grows up on a remote mountain farmstead in Norway with his taciturn grandfather, Sverre. The death of his parents, when he was three years old, has always been shrouded in mystery – he has never been told how or where it took place and has only a distant memory of his mother. But he knows that the fate of his grandfather’s brother, Einar, is somehow bound up with this mystery. One day a coffin is delivered for his grandfather long before his death – a meticulous, beautiful piece of craftsmanship. Perhaps Einar is not dead after all. Edvard’s desperate quest to unlock the family’s tragic secrets takes him on a long journey – from Norway to the Shetlands, and to the battlefields of France – to the discovery of a very unusual inheritance. The Sixteen Trees of the Somme is about the love of wood and finding your own self, a beautifully intricate and moving tale that spans an entire century.

InShadowlandIn Shadowland by Timothy Ashby (review copy courtesy of the author)

Teddy Roosevelt’s son Quentin was killed in WWI. So why is another man’s corpse in his grave? J. Edgar Hoover summons reluctant Special Agent Seth Armitage back to the Bureau to investigate the shocking revelation. Armitage must travel the world to probe the mystery, and quickly becomes targeted himself by powerful and ruthless forces on both sides of the Atlantic who are committed to keeping the scandal secret-at any cost. The line between enemy and ally blurs perilously as Seth becomes enmeshed with a WWI vet turned assassin with whom he shares a strange bond, a beautiful double agent with a personal agenda, and the political madmen building the Nazi party. The complex web reaches ever deeper, until Seth finds himself forced to make the terrifying choice to protect or destroy the soon-to-be Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler.