Dangerous Lies by Becca Fitzpatrick

Series: Standalone

Genera(s): Contemporary Thriller/Romance

Subjects: witness protection, crime, identity, secrets, addiction, summer, small towns

Setting: Thunder Basin, Nebraska

POV/Tense: 1^st person past tense: Estella Goodwin (Stella Gordan)

Age/Grade Level: Teen

Length: 384 pgs.

HC/PB: Hardcover

List Price: $18.99

Publisher: Simon & Schuster: BFYR

Summary/ product description: “A teen is forced to make a fresh start after witnessing a violent crime—but love and danger find her anyway in this novel from Becca Fitzpatrick, the New York Times bestselling author of the Hush, Hush saga.

Stella Gordon is not her real name. Thunder Basin, Nebraska, is not her real home. This is not her real life.

After witnessing a lethal crime, Stella Gordon is sent to the middle of nowhere for her own safety before she testifies against the man she saw kill her mother’s drug dealer.

But Stella was about to start her senior year with the boyfriend she loves. How can she be pulled away from the only life she knows and expected to start a new one in Nebraska? Stella chafes at her protection and is rude to everyone she meets. She’s not planning on staying long, so why be friendly? Then she meets Chet Falconer and it becomes harder to keep her guard up, even as her guilt about having to lie to him grows.

As Stella starts to feel safer, the real threat to her life increases—because her enemies are actually closer than she thinks…

My Review:  It’s not to often I read a book without any fantasy, paranormal or sci-fi elements, but when I do my go-to genera is mystery thrillers. This one didn’t really have a lot of crazy scary thrills, but it did have a hot cowboy. And all I could think of was Tucker from Unearthly, my favorite contemporary cowboy. Chet would now be my second favorite. Most of the book Stella didn’t want Chet romantically, but cowboys are hard to resist.

Dangerous Lies is about Estella Goodwin, who’s given the fake name Stella Gordon and put in witness protection after witnessing her mother’s drug dealer murdering a guy in her home. She ends up in Thunder Basin, Nebraska, which is a small rural town. Carmina, a retired policewoman is taking care of her during her stay. She’s a very tough no-nonsense woman. Stella’s not happy about her situation, but then she mets Chet, the cowboy next store who care for his younger teenage brother ever since their parents we killed by a drunk driver. Chet’s helpful and kind, but Carmina doesn’t seem to like him. Stella befriends him. She also gets a summer job at a diner and make friend with her coworker Inny.

This book was loads of fun, surprisingly. I love the setting. It’s awesome. Summer in Nebraska with country stuff. Sounds like the perfect escape. I love it when fun stuff happen in books, like picnics, rodeos, summer-y things. This is the perfect summer book and makes me wish it was still summer. I love country western stuff to. I imagined accents from the characters, but I’m not sure people in western Nebraska sound like Texans. Probably not. I’ve only been to Nebraska once on my way to Colorado in 2003. It’s pretty much like South Dakota, but less touristy.

There’s a jerk named Trigger in this book. He seems to recognize Stella but can’t place her. He plays baseball and he might even get into the majors. I figured out why her recognized her early on. It was pretty obvious. Stella’s boyfriend Reed was also put into witness protection, but she doesn’t know where. He used to play baseball also. Stella used to play basketball in high school, and Chet say he did too. Stella joins a coed softball team. So, lots of sport stuff mentioned. I’m not athletic, so I don’t care. I used to play basketball for fun, but I wasn’t that great.

I recommend this book to fans of YA thrillers by Cat Patrick, Romily Bernard, Michelle Gagnon, and other, and series like Becoming Mara Dyer (which I have not read, but I understand that Mara Dyer was a fake name). Also, Black Ice, another Becca-thriller I need to read.

Cover Art Review: Simple. Definitely says thriller. I love the raindrop embossment texture. I love stroking this cover.

Walk the Earth a Stranger by Rae Carson

Series: The Gold Seer Trilogy (bk. 1)

Genera(s): Paranormal/Western Historical Fiction

Subjects: adventure, magic, gold rush

Setting: Georgia, Tennessee, Missouri and to California

POV/Tense: 1^st person POV, present tense: Leah Westfall

Age/Grade Level: Teen

Length: 431 pgs.

HC/PB: Hardcover 

List Price: $17.99

Publisher: HarperTeen: Greenwillow Books

Summary/ product description: “Gold is in my blood, in my breath, even in the flecks in my eyes.

Lee Westfall has a strong, loving family. She has a home she loves and a loyal steed. She has a best friend—who might want to be something more.

She also has a secret.

Lee can sense gold in the world around her. Veins deep in the earth. Small nuggets in a stream. Even gold dust caught underneath a fingernail. She has kept her family safe and able to buy provisions, even through the harshest winters. But what would someone do to control a girl with that kind of power? A person might murder for it.

When everything Lee holds dear is ripped away, she flees west to California—where gold has just been discovered. Perhaps this will be the one place a magical girl can be herself. If she survives the journey.

The acclaimed Rae Carson begins a sweeping new trilogy set in Gold Rush-era America, about a young woman with a powerful and dangerous gift.”

My Review:  I don’t usually read historical fiction for fun. I’ve only read the Madman’s Daughter series, which I enjoyed, and A Clockwork Angel and Dead Reckoning, which I didn’t enjoy. But how could I resist trying to read a book about a girl who can sense gold and travels to California during the gold rush? I like Western movies, hot cowboys, all that. Walk on Earth a Stranger is a true western adventure.

Leah is an awesome heroin. When she leaves her home because her uncle murdered her parents, she disguises herself as a boy and pulls it off. She heads to Independence, Missouri to meet up with Jefferson, a guy friend who’s a neighbor. Jeff is part Cherokee and lots of people have negative beliefs about natives at that time. It takes months to get there and see him again. Crossing the plains and the mountain with a caravan takes way longer and some friend she makes even die along the way. It’s a treacherous journey. She hears her uncle took the sea rout to California, which is supposedly faster and easier. She hopes that her uncle won’t find her because he wants her for her ability to find gold.

I really enjoyed this book. Much more that the Girl of Fire and Thorns, which was pretty slow and used a lot of Spanish words, but had fantasy. This book does have some old fashioned/southernisms in it and sometime is a little slow, but not too bad. I wish there was more paranormal stuff that just Leah finding gold, but it’s fine the way it is. I watch Prospectors on the Weather Channel and sometimes other treasure shows. I panned for gold once in Deadwood, South Dakota. It was seven dollar and I got little pieces of gold, like sand grains. I collect rock too. So gold and gem prospecting is really cool to me.

I recommend this book to anyone who likes westerns or pioneer stuff, like True Grit or the Lone Ranger or even Little House on the Prairie.

Cover Art Review: Beautiful Cover. Not sure I like the girl’s dress though. Leah mostly wears boys clothes in the book are a disguise.

Dead Reckoning by Mercedes Lackey and Rosemary Edghill

Publisher: Bloomsbury

Genera: Western/steampunk/paranormal

Subjects: Zombies, cults, cowboys, Native Americans, the Frontier

Length: 324 pgs.

HC/PB: Harcover

Summary/ product description: “Jett is a girl disguised as a boy, living as a gambler in the old West as she searches for her long-lost brother. Honoria Gibbons is a smart, self-sufficient young woman who also happens to be a fabulous inventor. Both young women travel the prairie alone – until they are brought together by a zombie invasion! As Jett and Honoria investigate, they soon learn that these zombies aren’t rising from the dead of their own accord … but who would want an undead army? And why? This gunslinging, hair-raising, zombie western mashup is perfect for fans of Cowboys vs. Aliens and Pride & Prejudice & Zombies”

My Rating: êêê

My Review: This was pretty good for a historical fiction/steampunk book. I’d said I was never gonna touch a steampunk book or historical book again. But after watching a few wild-west movie, I decided I should give westerns a try, and this one just so happens to have zombies. I love cowboys and zombies (for diff reasons). Sure this book was not one of my favs and it still wasn’t interesting enough to be 4 stars, but I liked it enough to give it 3. I really liked the 3 main characters and their different personalities. They’re all very brave in their own ways. The story stuff was interesting too. A religious cult turning people into zombies (rather than a zombie plague). It reminded me of the Lazarus people in some short story I read. The dive resurrection, in this book. And Gibbons kept trying to explain the zombies scientifically since she’s a debunker/cynic. Jett grew up in New Orleans, so she knows about hoodoo and voodoo, and she’s disguised as a boy, which reminds me of a book I read in middle school. White Fox is a tracker, a white boy raised by Natives.

I recommend this to people who saw like Cowboys & Aliens, or love westerns or non-viral zombies. I even suggest watching a western movie or two before or after you read it.

Cover Art Review: Perfect cover (except Jett looks too sassy, could never pass for a boy). Love the zombies. So well done!

~Haley G