Michael Laurence (1)

This book is a ride, and I think Netflix should jump on this.
It's right up their dark yet wonderous alley. It has Wednesday vibes, with a sprinkle of cult documentary mixed in. Do you ever read a book and feel like it would make the perfect movie? 100% this book. The imagery is perfection and plot has early twenties dark drama all over it.

I'll be honest, I'm knocking a star off mostly because I really felt the ending was unsatisfying and that is completely a "I'm a weirdo and want ALL the aftermath" thing. So if you are okay with endings that don't give you all the details, and finish out all the threads pretend I gave it five stars.

Seraphina is weird, whimsical, and I love her. Her authentic self is well written, and following her on this journey left me on edge with each turn of the story. We all need siblings as dedicated to finding out the truth as she is.

I love that she goes on this journey for justice, but ends up also find out a lot about herself too. A bit ironic since that is the supposed point of the merry dredgers in the first place.

The abandon theme park setting is swoon worthy creepy, with all of the cast having various quirks, some of which are hard to place if they are drug induced, mental ailments, or just living their best life. It's all surreal, yet life like, and each chapter builds to the ending in a comforting way that I relaxed into the cultists too and was shocked at the reveal.

You'll enjoy this book if you love cults, and eccentric communities living alternative lifestyles. Superhero siblings to the rescue with a splash of personal growth and self discovery mixed in.

Thank you to the publisher, Meerkat Press, for a copy of this book.… (más)

This was an excellent entrant to this series, and one that potentially allows Laurence to pivot the series a bit if needed. Laurence shows excellent creative work in coming up with some very interesting chemical weapon delivery mechanisms, to the point that I would not be surprised to learn he has drawn the attention of various alphabet soup agencies while researching this book or at least once it publishes and they begin reading it. Interesting use of a long-known-yet-still-not-officially-acknowledged bit of world history to further this saga, and particularly well executed there as well. While I very much hope Laurence is allowed to pursue the initial direction of the series, this book sets up a pivot into a short Black List type tale with much more at stake than that show ever really had going and that pivot could be very nearly as interesting given Laurence's storytelling abilities. Very much recommended.… (más)

Great Setup. In this book, Laurence does an excellent job of telling a complete tale that winds up setting up a compelling overall mythos. There are a couple of issues that others may criticize more heavily than I will, but I thought that at minimum these issues didn't really detract from the overall story. In fact, the one most likely to be criticized actually serves as a plausible motivation generally, that Laurence works to great effect in his telling of this tale. Action fans will love the sequences in this book, which can be very inventive.

Overall truly a strong tale, but unfortunately for me the entire series will be compared to another that wrapped up last year and had a very similar premise (and was astounding) - Brett Battles' PROJECT EDEN series. This particular effort does well in differentiating itself in key ways from that effort, and I look forward to seeing how this series progresses. Very much recommended.… (más)

FBI Special Agent James Mason and his team discover a conspiracy to inflict a deadly virus on humanity. They launch a night raid to prevent release of the pathogen, but the group behind the cosnpiracy knows they are coming. The building explodes, killing most of the strike force. Mason realizes the plot is much worse than first thought and at the center is an evil that has caused pandemics in the past. And Mason is determined to stop the killing...once and for all.

This story has a real Mission Impossible vibe to it. I liked the characters, action, and vivid detail. The author definitely did a lot of research and mixes many, many facts into this fictional story. I like his writing style, although at times the story did get bogged down in a lot of extra details. It didn't harm my enjoyment of the story -- I got sucked into the action and couldn't stop reading. There is definitely a lot of suspense, gruesome details and action sequences. I could see this book being made into a movie. I would definitely watch it!

Enjoyable story! I will definitely read more by this author!

**I voluntarily read a review copy of this book from St. Martin's Press via NetGalley. All opinions expressed are entirely my own.**… (más)