thriller – G.S. Bailey

“Bittersweet” alright!

BOOK REVIEW: What a thrill ride! This picks up at the height of tension we were left with in the first part of the story. It picks up there and never backs off. Right to the final confrontation we are on the edge of the seat – heart in mouth. The style of storytelling here is sharp, gripping, take-no-prisoners. The action, including the love making, is graphic and powerful, but in that it is just keeping up with the mood of the story. The characters portrayed here are gritty and real. The bad guys are total scum and not easily defeated – more tension! The hero and heroine earn every bit of the ending…. Awesome, powerhouse read!

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Full-on Wit and Intrigue

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Just as retired G-man John Hixon recovers from wounds incurred from a security detail in which he saved the life of billionaire investor Julian F. Thibaut, Thibaut calls him again. This time, his talents, intuition, and experience are put to the test as he attempts to protect seven of Thibaut’s friends while investigating a murder. In this, his second novel, FCEtier brings eight new characters into play along with several from his previous novel, The Tourist Killer.

Hixon and company, along with his loyal K-9 corps, must defend their home turf as they seek the truth behind international conspiracies and encounter the seat of ultimate power — the puppeteers who control the world’s finances. Hixon and company discover that those same powerful forces who control the world’s money also control the destinies of those who oppose them. FCEtier takes readers on a breathless and perilous trek through the jungles of politics and the palaces of power.

Standouts in this novel are the realistic characters and their dialogue, and an intelligent plot. The club of old men at the centre of things seem ordinary and innocuous. You are fascinated by their interactions and their minds, but you wonder where it’s all leading. You are actually pulled quite unsuspectingly into the intrigue – or perhaps it’s a case of the characters being so interesting and well written that you are distracted from the plot and freshly surprised by the way it steadily builds and escalates into a powerful political thriller. Yes, the strength of both the plot and the characters are quite impressive. I’d highly recommend this novel to readers who like an intellectual challenge to go with their serving of wit, humour and suspense.

Frigging Hell

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The Deadly Caress is a fast-paced story set in California. Suspenseful and thrilling, it is holds a mystery that Amanda Blake, a freelance photographer, must unravel.

Amanda tracks down her birth mother, the multi millionaire Jean Campbell. Hours after her arrival, Jean is murdered.

Amanda sets out to discover her mother’s killer. Her quest takes to Australia to find the man she thinks holds the answer to the killer’s identity. While visiting this man, she has to run for her life under a hail of bullets. Someone will stop at nothing until she is dead. If she thought things were bad enough, they are about to get much worse…

BOOK REVIEW: This doesn’t let up. Heart pounding, nail biting… if you’re looking for a relaxing read – this ain’t it! This is masterly suspense and a great thriller. You want to climb into the book and help out the goodies – save them from the relentless bad guys, whoever they are. It’s not clear exactly who to fear until the end. The who-done-it is brilliant. Get comfy because you won’t be putting this book down, although you’re likely going to be pacing the room while you read rather than relaxing in a chair…

True to life

Strong-willed ginger Bella Grant is a take-charge television journalist with an appetite for adventure. Handsome and sexy Luke McGillicutty is a world-weary photographer coaxed out of premature retirement with the promise of traveling the world with a smart, spunky redhead. They’ve been paired up to create a new brand of television travel program.

Traveling to romantic destinations, staying in first-class hotels, finding adventure at every turn, it’s not surprising that the two fall in love. Luke is stunned to realize that Bella is the woman he’s looked for his whole life. She’s beautiful, smart, funny, and courageous.

The only thing is, Luke hasn’t been completely up front with her. He hasn’t told her that he’s into BDSM. He could play it safe, keep the relationship going exactly the way it is. But Luke wants more. As a Dominant, he craves the intimacy that a Dom/sub relationship provides. And he knows without a doubt that Bella is the perfect submissive. How will she react if he approaches her about submitting to him as a Dominant? Maybe she’d be intrigued by the idea. On the other hand, he could lose her forever.

Life on the road working with Bella is great. Nights spent in Bella’s arms are amazing. Should Luke just be satisfied with the way things are? Or should he risk everything on the chance that they could have it all?

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BOOK REVIEW: A captivating, easy-to-read contemporary romance. This story is as cool as it is hot. It’s cool in that it’s smart, witty and not over-stated. An absolute must for any romance is to like and care about the characters. We certainly want to do that here, but more than that, we can easily believe who the hero and heroine are because they’re just like real people. Very cool…. As for hot – well it gets kind of steamy (smile). Actually I’d probably describe this one as sexy more so than steamy. It doesn’t always venture so far into the erotic action but it certainly teases the imagination, and this is a very sexy couple…. The fun adventure setting works too!

Big action adventure with well-placed humour

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FirstWorld is at the centre of the multiverse and it is under threat. If the Balance tips entirely to Chaos then time will end. A Hero is needed and the Hero needs a powerful Sword, perhaps the most powerful weapon in the multiverse. An inexperienced young man, Simon Redhead, is saved from nuclear annihilation in Melbourne 2043 and reluctantly pressed into service. Will he accept the fate that his genes dictate, retrieve his sword and adopt the role of killing machine to aid his new friends? Or, will he find sanctuary and peace in the past with a Palaeolithic tribe? Who is the evil wizard Weylyn the Wolf working for and why does his master want time to end? Will Simon Redhead embrace the role of Everlasting Hero and become the saviour of not only his friends but the entire multiverse? And if he does, what will it cost him?

A flawed hero with no idea who/what he is. The future of the universe at stake. The scene is set for action and adventure, which is delivered with just enough detail to evoke the imagery you need in an alternate world, without drowning you in description. The breadth and depth of this fantasy world is impressive – the depiction of multi-dimensions is smooth. This is a fast paced story that leads you on a fascinating quest while keeping you grounded and often amused through the thoughts and impressions of our hero Simon Redhead. The scene is set for an awful lot more to come.

Steamy and Smart

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It was meant to be just another open house….

After their cars are vandalised, real estate tycoon Jensen Kingsley and his quiet employee, Emma Williams, are stranded miles from anywhere in an empty house in the middle of a storm. With no one able to rescue them for days, they must face the truth – they’re stuck…. together.

Playboy Jensen is faced with the temptation of his life. A weekend alone with a woman who has been under his skin for two years. However demons from his past force him back, and he vows to keep his distance.Emma has always secretly wondered what Jensen would be like in bed. He’s asked her a few times but she knows better than to let her handsome boss get too close. So why does he appear to have changed his mind? Determined to prove that he wants her, she sets out to do the one thing she swore she’d never do…. seduce her boss.

Emma is playing a dangerous game. With stakes this high, she stands to lose not only her pride…. but her heart.

Can they survive the fallout?

It’s cold shower time after the hot love scenes early on in this one. The seemingly shallow hero has been brought to life, and we’re starting to understand he has depth. While the lovely heroine – sensible and controlled – has fallen apart, unable to resist what she swore she would never do. There are lots of twists and difficulties in the path of these lovers. It’s a bit of a rollercoaster read, cleverly plotted. I’d recommend it as a good one to take to bed one night for the opening chapters, with a free day following to relax on the couch as you read on through all the ensuing drama an unplanned erotic encounter can create… As well as steamy and intriguing, this is a nice love story.

I was shocked by how far this went…

BOOK REVIEW: This is an intense, shadowy thriller, paced for a quick read. There’s plenty of angst in the awkward, fledgling, arranged romance between our main characters before the real challenge even begins…. The 1980s setting is authentic and well suited to stories about this kind of crime – it’s kind of what makes it so shadowy. It works well. The descent into the murky depths of perversion as the thriller aspect of the story builds is another highlight. The climax is grim and hard-hitting. The romance finds a way…. This stands alone as a terrific read, but there’s definite potential for a follow-up and study of some of the secondary characters.

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“Bittersweet” alright!

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High octane suspense…

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BOOK REVIEW: This book has deep down grunt that gives the storyline a rich and meaningful foundation. Corporate greed. The making of a psychopathic killer. Corruption. Murder. Cruelty. Love and loyalty. An epic idea in the suicide seed technology…. Everything builds inch by inch. Slowly and relentlessly. Like multiple angles to the same force that explodes in the final chapters…. An intriguing setting in 3rd world Africa. Great characters, both the good guys and the bad. And a wonderful dog hero that is worth the read on his own…. But above all, there’s a latent power here that I also noticed in a previous read of this author. Fry writes real, gritty stuff.

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BOOK REVIEW: It’s the contrast between the unrelenting, high octane suspense and the excruciatingly slow burn of romance. That’s what it is about this author’s writing. Of course you get that a lot in these kinds of books, but Sandra S. Kerns does it so well. The crime here is complicated and deeply woven through the cast of characters. This is a damned fine police story. The action starts with the witness to a murder unconscious in an ER, our hero by his side, our heroine nursing them both. Unravelling what happened is a great read… The romance is between a strong, positive, yet damaged, woman and a tough, gritty man who is all heart and impatience. Expertly drawn, these two have you feeling that slow burn and living it with them. I was particularly pleased with how things came together at the end – the way the hero took charge… Excellent romantic mystery/thriller.

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BOOK REVIEW: The feel of this book takes me back to the musty halls of the Hermitage Museum and the iron curtain mentality of the real Russia that still smoulders today. We are expertly pulled into this mood chapter one and never really get to crawl up out of it. The characters and plot – the mystery of Brodsky – kind of tumble in on top of us, abstract and disjointed at first, building and tightening as we crawl through the maze (walk the endless corridors of The Hermitage, the towering portraits of lives past eyeballing us)…. Yes, I found the setting here to be tremendously powerful. The mystery itself is classy and intelligent, and develops into a killer of a finale…. Try this one if you like your art-heist thrillers to be gritty, real, and steeped in history.

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Flawed characters – great drama…

BOOK REVIEW: Julia’s life is not extraordinary, but it is fascinating. She steps off a plane, returning from an unplanned trip away, and is faced with a whole bunch of problems that have sprung up in her absence. It’s a scene easily related to – everything falling apart at the same time. Everyone who has lived a bit of a life has experienced this… What are the decisions and incidents that shaped your life and brought you to that point? Well, in this story, Julia is a flawed character. Reading through the chapters of her life, there were times I didn’t particularly like her. But she is human – brilliantly depicted as such. And I found myself cheering for her in the end. The real heroine in this story, to me, is her best friend. Raz is mysterious… strong. We don’t spend much time inside her head, but that adds to the story, lending a depth of dimension that exist in all of our lives… This is a captivating read. Authentic.

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BOOK REVIEW: Actually, I’ve been to the beach house, metaphorically. Any place with important personal history is the beach house. It’s horrible when you drive past somewhere you remember fondly from some life event years ago and find it’s been re-developed. It’s gone… This is a wonderfully uplifting read. The many stories, brilliantly intertwined, are so real and inspiring… If you’re an Aussie you will probably like this book. If you’re not an Aussie you will probably like this book.

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BOOK REVIEW: True to life characters and an outback Aussie road trip… this is a touching and shocking human drama, the telling of which begins in turmoil and takes us on two journeys. One is the road trip – onward into discovery and hurt. The other is a series of flashbacks that lead us to our starting point and an expertly crafted reveal. Wonderfully written – mesmerizing… this is a terrific novel.

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