The President's Daughter by Jack Higgins

Synopsis :

When an evil extremist named Judas Maccabeus discovers that the president of the United States has an illegitimate daughter living in France, he strikes quickly, kidnapping and threatening to execute her if the president does not launch a military attack against Iraq, Iran, and Syria.

And it's up to our heron Sean Dillon to rescue her.  And rescue her he did. The End.

That basically sums up the entire book.  


Thrilling....yes.
  
Plot....acceptable.

Character development....not really. 

 It's very much the type of book you read during holidays, sitting by the pool or keeping boredom away while waiting for flights.


 

Babyhood by Paul Raiser

Synopsis :

I'm going to be totally honest. This is not the kind of book that can help you. It's not a "how-to, " a "when-to, " or a "what-to-expect." 

Let's compare: Those "know-it-all" books tell you how to have a happy, healthy pregnancy. My book mentions a squirrel. Those books tell you how to care for a newborn child. My book describes how tired I am. Those books give you essential information you can use in a life-threatening emergency. My book has some very amusing anecdotes about poop. So really, it's up to you. If you want to be prepared and well-informed, I understand. But if you enjoy seeing the words "pterodactyl" and "uterus" in the same book, you've come to the right place.
 
Funny man Paul Reiser gave an interesting and first hand account of the experience he and his wife went through in expecting their first baby.  It started with Paul and his bride encountering another couple with a young baby while on a flight and it ended with them and their young baby encountering another couple thinking of having their first child while on another flight so you can say they came full circle.

While the writing is very funny, it's very honest as well and certainly earns a few chuckle out of you as you go through the book which wasn't very thick and wasn't difficult to read at all.

Whether you are expecting or not and whether you are a parent or not, it's an enlightening book and quite fun to pass time with.  This is yet another book that I read in the car while waiting for traffic to move.

Buried Secrets by Joseph Finder

Synopsis :

Nick has returned to his old home town of Boston to set up his own shop. There he’s urgently summoned by an old family friend. Hedge fund titan Marshall Marcus desperately needs Nick’s help. His teenaged daughter, Alexa, has just been kidnapped. Her abduction was clearly a sophisticated professional job, done with extraordinary precision. Alexa, whom Nick has known since she was young, is now buried alive, held prisoner in an underground crypt, a camera trained on her, her suffering streaming live over the internet. She’s been left with a limited supply of food and water and, if her father doesn’t meet the demands of her shadowy kidnappers, she’ll die. 

As Nick begins to probe, he discovers that all is not quite right with Marshall Marcus’s business. He’s being investigated by the FBI, he has a lot of shady investors, his fund is in danger and now he has a lot of powerful enemies who may have the motivation to go after Marcus’s daughter. But to find out who’s holding Alexa Marcus hostage, Nick has to find out why. Once he does, he uncovers an astonishing conspiracy that reaches far beyond anything he could have imagined. 

If he’s going to find Alexa in time, he will have to flush out and confront some of his deadliest opponents ever.

Nick  Heller to me is the new James Bond...He's the new Jason Bourne probably even the new Jack Reacher and to me he's the new guy in town and he's here to stay.  If only more people are aware of him. If only there's a movie adaptation of his stories. *sigh*

I like this character as much as I like Scott Fenney by Mark Gimenez except Nick's more street smart, more resourceful than Scott.

This thriller certainly thrills and the momentum was very consistent and when I reach the last page, I actually went, 'oh! it's ending...I want more' and yes, I guess I can hame more of Nick as this is the second of three books featuring this character that the author has penned so far.  However, I won't be surprise if there's more titles featuring this hero.  I will certainly be on the lookout for the other two titles in the bookstores and also other titles by Joseph Finder.



 

Who Doesn't Want Free Books?

I certainly do and I received some free copies recently from someone who wanted to give away hers.  I must say that I don't know this person at all. She posted in a FB group that I belong to that she'll be in town at certain dates and that she would like to giveaway some of her books to whoever wants them.

I was quite blessed to be the first one to reply to her and after a few online discussion, we made plans to meet up and viola! I am now the proud custodian of all these books :

There are five titles and out of these The Wicked Boy and Girl in the Woods came highly recommended.


I use the word custodian because that's how I view myself.

I am just a keeper and keeping them books for a period of time for me to read them and after I read them, it is my intention and plan to pass them on to others so that they can enjoy the books too and hopefully, they will pass them on to the next and the next and the legacy of such generosity lives on and on.

I really can't wait to get started on them but I have other TBR waiting for me too so I guess they will just have to wait their turn. :)

A Heartbeat Away by Michael Plamer

Synopsis :

On the night of the State of the Union address, President James Allaire expects to give the speech of his career. But no one anticipates the terrifying turn of events that forces him to quarantine everyone in the Capitol building. A terrorist group calling itself “Genesis” has unleashed WRX3883, a deadly, highly contagious virus, into the building. No one fully knows the deadly effect of the germ except for the team responsible for its development—a team headed by Allaire, himself. The only one who might be able to help is virologist Griffin Rhodes, currently in solitary confinement in a maximum security federal prison for alleged terrorist acts, including the attempted theft of WRX3883 from the lab where he worked. Rhodes has no idea why he has been arrested, but when Allaire offers to free him in exchange for his help combating the virus, he reluctantly agrees to do what he can to support the government that has imprisoned him without apparent cause.

Meanwhile, every single person in line for presidential succession is trapped inside the Capitol—every person except one: the Director of Homeland Security, who is safely at home in Minnesota, having been selected as the “Designated Survivor” for this event. With enemies both named and unnamed closing in, and the security of the nation at stake, Griff must unravel the mysteries of WRX3883 without violating his pledge as a scientist to use no animal testing in his experiments…and time is running out.

Having high expectations from my thriller, I wasn't putting much high hopes in A Heartbeat Away.  I haven't read Michael Plamer before and there's a lot of 'so so' thriller in the market so you can't really blame me for being pessimistic.

A Heartbeat Away started off by trying to change my mind and change my mind, I did for it was a very exciting start.  The virus was released and the president seems to be taking control and I was looking forward to an exciting read.

However, like a few books that I read recently, the author wasn't able to maintain the momentum and the book lost it's thrill factor a bit toward the middle of the book and it was quite a struggle to read and I developed a dislike towards the president but I am happy to share that that drop in momentum was just for a couple of chapters and the story picks up again and ended in a high note.

A Heartbeat Away indeed is a wonderful thriller and you can be sure I shall be on a lookout for other titles by Michael Plamer.