Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Count to Ten by Karen Rose

I have only read one book by Ms. Rose, even though I am sure I have most of her backlist on my shelves, and I enjoyed it a lot. After reading all of the great reviews around the blogosphere, I decided to bump Count to Ten up the TBR list. It was a good read, and I give it a B+.

In all his years in the Chicago Fire Department, Lieutenant Reed Soliday has never experienced anything like this recent outbreak of house fires- devasting, vicious, and in one case, homicidal. He has another problem- his new partner, Detective Mia Mitchell. She's brash, bossy, and taking the case in a direction he never imagined.

Mia's instincts tell her the arsonist is making this personal. And as the infernos become more deadly, one look at the victims' tortured faces convinces her and Reed that they must work closer to catch the killer. With each new blaze, the villian ups the ante, setting firetraps for the people Reed and Mia love. The truth is almost too hot to handle. This monster's desire for death and destruction in unquenchable... and for Mia he's started the countdown to an early grave.

This book was well written. The suspense was done pretty well, though the reader does discover who the killer is about halfway through. I loved the sexual tension between Reed and Mia, and they really seemed to make a great connection. This story does explore something close to me, foster children and the problems that plague the system. Reading some of the things that happen to those children were heartbreaking, but definitely added to the story. While a long book, coming in at 550 pages, it is an easy read. I must be in a slump though, because it took me almost a week to read it. I don't blame the book in any way though. I just got Karen Rose's newest book, Die For Me, which was released yesterday and would like to get to it soon though I have two library books to read first.

Up next is Denial by Keith Ablow. The is the same Dr. Keith Ablow that a talk show on last year and makes the talk show circuits. I have a couple of his later books to read in the shelves, but read a review about this book that was so good and really caught my attention.

Everyone have a great rest of the week and happy reading!

2 comments:

Vickie said...

I hope you like (perhaps a wrong term) Denial. I had a hard time at first as Dr Clevenger is a hard guy to like, but it sucked me in and I ended up raving like a lunatic on my review you commented on.-V-

Kristie said...

He is definitely a different type of character. I loved the way he is flawed, but was happy with his changes.