The Good, The Bad, and The Undead - Kim Harrison

This is the 2nd in the series for Rachel Morgan, witch-bounty hunter-badass. I enjoyed this book much better than the first, as the characters were more fleshed out and the story was pretty intense.

Someone is killing ley line witches and Rachel is asked by the FIB to help figure out who. Her investigations lead her to Trent. Trent may be a terrible person but is he a witch serial killer? Or is he a person? Surprisingly Trent's "identity" is revealed in this book and I never would have thought it.

Rachel comes up against Piscary, the pizza master vamp. Ivy is back and ends up on the side of good...or evil? And Jenks is still around although his part seems to be a little bit less. Still love him though.

Good second book. Can't wait to get the third!

Odd Hours - Dean Koontz

I always look forward to the Odd Thomas books, the first one just blew me away. The ones thereafter, not so much.

Odd Hours is a pretty decent book, although not as emotional as the first one. I don't want to give away any major plot lines so I'll be all nice and vague. Odd Thomas was drawn to Magic Beach after living in the monastery (Brother Odd). Elvis is gone, Frank Sinatra is with him. And Boo, the ghost dog, is still by his side. Odd has taken a job as a cook for an old actor living on the beach. Odd has dreams, he meets a woman, he's chased by maniac killers. He needs to save the world!

Memories of Stormy are pretty prevalent through the book and several times my eyes teared up. This was a pretty good book, not as good as the first book, although I thought it was a little bit slow in the beginning. Once it picked up, the book was pretty hard to put down. The ending was....unresolved. So now I have the next Odd Thomas book to look forward to!

In An Instant - Lee Woodruff

My knitting teacher lent me this book and I just got around to reading it. It's about Bob Woodruff, an ABC anchor, who was embedded with the military in Iraq during the war in 2006. He and his cameraman were riding in a tank when an IED exploded next to them. The main IED ammunition was rocks. Woodruff ended up having rocks blasted through his skull, his face and back.

This book is the Woodruff's story about Bob's recovery from such traumatic brain injury. The book flashbacks quite a bit into their past, how they met, how Bob became a journalist, etc. Lee and Bob are obviously a couple meant to be, it's evident in their writing how much they mean to each other.

We get mostly Lee's side of the story, seeing how she wasn't the one in a coma for 5 weeks. Strangely or not, I give her quite a bit of props simply for how she handled her husband being blown up, 4 children and worldwide attention.

I'm not one for biographies, but this one was really pretty good. A little too flashbacky for me but overall a good story.

Phantom Prey - John Sandford

I'm completely addicted to the Prey series. The last one slightly disappointed me so I was tempted to not buy the hardback to this one.

But I did.

And it was great! This involves Lucas Davenport, as per usual, working a couple of cases. The cases for this round involve the death of a "Goth" girl and a mobster type person.

Weather is friends with the Goth girl's mother, who implores Lucas to take the case. He does, out of kindness and the promise of kinky sex with Weather. While he's working the case, someone's coming up behind him killing other Goths. Is it the same person or the work of another?

The next case is going on at the same time as the Goth murder. Siggy is a mobster type fellow and Lucas and co. are running surveillance on his woman. And getting a good show. I really did like how this case ended. Surprise!

All in all, a very good Prey book.