This is W.A.R.

First off, I have to apologize to everyone.  Not only are we at our busiest at work right now with summer reading, so my blogging has slowed down a little due to that, but now I'm fighting off a super-stellar chest cold, so this review that I promised you on Saturday is now a few days late. So sorry guys!

This is W.A.R. 
by Lisa and Laura Roecker

This is not a story of forgiveness...

The mystery of their best friend's murder drives four girls to destroy the Gregory family.

Everyone at Hawthorne Lake Country Club saw Willa Ames-Rowan climb into a boat with James Gregory, the Club’s heir apparent.

And everyone at Hawthorne Lake Country Club watched him return. Alone.

They all know he killed her. But none of them will say a word. The Gregory family is very, very good at making problems go away.

Enter the W.A.R.—the war to avenge Willa Ames-Rowan. Four girls. Four very different motives for justice and revenge, and only one rule: destroy the Gregory family at any cost. (Description from Amazon.com)

If you are looking for a great book to read at the beach this summer, look no further! The Roecker sisters have knocked it out of the park again. This book reads just like an episode of a good television soap opera. Upon the "accidental death" of their club's princess, four girls band together to bring down the boy who killed her.  Delicious secrets get revealed in every chapter.  Loyalties become questioned.  Bonds are formed. 

Lives are destroyed.  

This book tackles some serious issues, but in a fun way that kept me turning the pages as quickly as I could. I was pretty sure I knew what was going on (and I was mostly right :P), but there were red herrings thrown into the mix around every corner.  Moments that made me question my suspicions...  

Like Pretty Little Liars, no character in this novel is without flaws, and most of them have been keeping some kind of big secret. Nothing makes for juicier beach reading than those "Shut the Front Door!" revelation moments.  Trust me.  If you like danger, mystery, gossip, and intrigue, you'll want to check this one out! 

Full disclosure: eARC received from Edelweiss, eBook purchased for my Nook 

Blog Tour: This Is W.A.R. - Interview and a Giveaway!

Check out the awesome giveaway at Lisa and Laura's blog, too! 

I am beyond excited to be participating in the blog tour for Lisa and Laura Roecker's THIS IS WAR today.  The Roecker sisters are hilarious authors who write great mystery books.  Their first series, The Liar Society, knocked me right out of my socks and this stand-alone book did nothing less. I'll be posting my review for the book tomorrow, but today, TODAY, I got to interview the Roecker sisters themselves!!! *SQUEE!!*

Lisa, Laura, welcome to the blog! I'm so honored to be part of your tour today. I just wanted to ask you both a few questions... 

1.I know that you write all of your books together, swapping chapters for critiques and such. How long does it take you to go from the first idea for a book to the end of the final revision process?

We spend a lot of time in the pre-writing process. Our outlines are typically 30-40,000 words, so we try and uncover any and all character issues and plot holes before we even begin writing. Obviously, this is impossible, but because there are two of us, it’s very important that we’re on the same page. Once we have a completed outline (which takes a couple weeks), we could have a novel finished in a couple months, even faster if we decide to write two chapters a day. But then we send the document out to readers and our agent and by the time we’ve applied the first round of feedback, that usually takes another month. On average, from idea to completed novel, I’d say it takes us around 6-8 months.

2. If you could each write a book by yourselves under pseudonyms, secret from even each other, are there any genres you'd love to covertly explore?

Laura would definitely write a picture book. She loves a good rhyme. Lisa would write a super-snarky self-help book. (*I would totally love to read BOTH of those, LOL... I suggest you start working on pseudonyms :P)

3. THIS IS W.A.R. sounds like the most perfect blend of mystery and televised revenge story...so cinematic. Did you ladies do any special "research" before writing the book?

Our research is limited to bad television, random movies and paying extra-close attention to the private school students hanging around town during their open period. It’s a seriously great job. 

4. Was there any one character from the book that you had trouble letting go of once the writing was done?

Madge is possibly the least-likeable character in the book, but she was the hardest for us to let go. We understand her motives because we’re sisters. She broke our hearts.

5. If you could cross any one thing off your bucket list tomorrow, what would it be?

Go back to Australia (without having to fly over the ocean). I’ll cross this off when teleportation is a reality.

Ladies, thank you SOOOOO much for stopping by. It was an honor.  

Now, let me tell all the rest of you about the book: 

This is not a story of forgiveness... 

The mystery of their best friend's murder drives four girls to destroy the Gregory family. 

Everyone at Hawthorne Lake Country Club saw Willa Ames-Rowan climb into a boat with James Gregory, the Club’s heir apparent. 

And everyone at Hawthorne Lake Country Club watched him return. Alone.

They all know he killed her. But none of them will say a word. The Gregory family is very, very good at making problems go away.

Enter the W.A.R.—the war to avenge Willa Ames-Rowan. Four girls. Four very different motives for justice and revenge, and only one rule: destroy the Gregory family at any cost.

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Confessions of a Murder Suspect

Confessions of a Murder Suspect

by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro

 

On the night Malcolm and Maud Angel are murdered, Tandy Angel knows just three things: 1) She was the last person to see her parents alive. 2) The police have no suspects besides Tandy and her three siblings. 3) She can't trust anyone--maybe not even herself. Having grown up under Malcolm and Maud's intense perfectionist demands, no child comes away undamaged. Tandy decides that she will have to clear the family name, but digging deeper into her powerful parents' affairs is a dangerous-and revealing-game. Who knows what the Angels are truly capable of?  (description from Amazon.com)

 

Okay, so I'm going to be brutally honest here.  I kind of hated this book. All around.  Yup.

 

Although I thought this was a clever premise and I went into reading with sort of high hopes, from about three chapters in I just wanted this book to be done already. Tandy is supposed to be cold and emotionless and yes, that comes across just fine.  It made me not connect with her or the other characters at all and then, then... then there were the moments when she obnoxiously addressed the reader directly. 

 

Dear Reader... I'm going to be really condescending and tell you that I can't reveal everything to you right now because, *gasp* otherwise, why on Earth would you finish reading the book??

 

Sorry. That got a little mean. I suppose I was struggling my way through the book, hating the voice, but still persisting until the big reveal.  I won't ruin it for any of you that may want to read this book, but I will tell you that I basically ranted to my husband for like 45 minutes about what a cop-out it was.  What a waste of time it was for me to read the book only to find out...

 

I had a raging ball of hate for James Patterson inside of me.  Not good.  So... well, there it is.  I didn't like it and I won't be reading the other books in the series.  I hope that you Patterson fans out there don't let me influence you, but...

 

Full disclosure: Borrowed from my library

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Dead End in Norvelt

Dead End in Norvelt

by Jack Gantos

Melding the entirely true and the wildly fictional, Dead End in Norvelt is a novel about an incredible two months for a kid named Jack Gantos, whose plans for vacation excitement are shot down when he is "grounded for life" by his feuding parents, and whose nose spews bad blood at every little shock he gets. But plenty of excitement (and shocks) are coming Jack's way once his mom loans him out to help a fiesty old neighbor with a most unusual chore—typewriting obituaries filled with stories about the people who founded his utopian town. As one obituary leads to another, Jack is launced on a strange adventure involving molten wax, Eleanor Roosevelt, twisted promises, a homemade airplane, Girl Scout cookies, a man on a trike, a dancing plague, voices from the past, Hells Angels . . . and possibly murder. (description from Amazon.com)

This was a strange and weirdly wonderful book.  Told by Jack Gantos, this is a fictional autobiography...very weird indeed.  These two months in Jack's life, have a very, very strange tone that kept me captivated even as I was trying to piece together exactly what was going on. 

The story starts with a series of seemingly unrelated events.  As the tale spins on, though, both Jack and the reader begin to piece things together and all these strange things meld into one wild tale! I couldn't wait to see what happened next...

I also have to tell you that I listened to this as an audiobook and the author reads it himself. Jack Gantos has this slightly quirky voice that just fit this book perfectly.  It was a great audiobook! I am so glad I experienced the story that way. I highly recommend it.

Full disclosure: Audiobook received at BEA 2011. 

Confessions of the Sullivan Sisters

Confessions of the Sullivan Sisters
by Natalie Standiford

The Sullivan sisters have a big problem. On Christmas Day their rich and imperious grandmother gathers the family and announces that she will soon die . . .and has cut the entire family out of her will. Since she is the source of almost all their income, this means they will soon be penniless.

Someone in the family has offended her deeply. If that person comes forward with a confession of her (or his) crime, submitted in writing to her lawyer by New Year's Day, she will reinstate the family in her will. Or at least consider it.

And so the confessions begin....
(description taken from Amazon.com)

I really loved the premise for this book. The idea of three sisters' stories building into a larger book was very intriguing, and though I enjoyed parts of this book, overall it just didn't do it for me.

Part of that, I think is that I'm really just not a contemporary realistic fiction reader in general. My overall preferences are fantasy/sci-fi/historical, etc. *Sigh* This book got such great reviews, I really wanted to love it.

I did enjoy parts of it very much. I loved Jane's story about blogging her family secrets to the world, and Sassy's story about thinking she'd become indestructible, but I just couldn't really connect at all to Norrie and I felt like I was really reading three individual books rather than one larger one.

Standiford did a good job layering complexities into the stories, building on each girl's experiences during the same time, but there was still a feeling of utter disconnect for me. One of my biggest problems, too, was that a secondary character named Shea was mentioned over and over and over, yet her story was never explained. I really wanted to know why she did the things she did!! *(An update - I emailed the author and she said that though she did not really envision exactly what happened to Shea, that I could imagine a happy ending for her...so I'm choosing to think that she turns her life around!)

This book was well written and I am sure that a lot of people will really enjoy it. Unfortunately, it just didn't quite capture my attention the way I'd hoped it would.