Review: Dry Bones

Title: Dry Bones
Series: Walt Longmire
Author: Craig Johnson
Publisher: Viking
Genre: Mystery
320 pages
Release Date: May 12, 2015

When the largest, most complete fossil of a Tyrannosaurus Rex is discovered in Absaroka County, it would appear to have nothing to do with Walt. That is, until the Cheyenne rancher who finds her is found face down in a turtle pond. As a number of parties vie for ownership of the priceless remains, including rancher Danny Lone Elk’s family, the Cheyenne tribe, the Deputy Attorney General, and a cadre of FBI men, Walt must recruit undersheriff Victoria Moretti, Henry Standing Bear, and Dog to investigate a sixty-six million year-old cold case that’s starting to heat up fast.

-taken from Goodreads

I received this book as a part of Penguin's First to Read program. I usually request multiple books in the hopes I'll get picked for something...anything...and this one sounded good so I requested it. I have now learned my lesson. I should always research the book at least a little bit because Dry Bones turned out to be book #11 in a series! Whoops - I ended up with lots of wondering who people were and being given glimpses of past events that I knew nothing about. I have to hand it to Craig Johnson though, because he was not one to review copious amounts of detail from previous books and had I read the rest of the series, I would have been really happy about that.

As for the book itself, I did enjoy it. Johnson has a very dry way of writing in. He lays out the facts and tells you a story without cluttering up pages with long descriptive prose and emotions. I still felt like I connected with the characters and it made the book feel fast-paced and constantly moving forward.

I really like Longmire as a character - I love his dry sense of humor the most. It's written from his perspective and I actually chuckled out loud at some his inner thoughts about people. Johnson has an interesting way with phrases that was very entertaining for me. For example, when he said a man "looked like a bad smell." I love interesting writing that avoids cliches and overused phrases!

I definitely plan to start this series from the beginning some time in the future.

Buy it: Amazon, Barnes and Noble

Review: Last Man Off

Title: Last Man Off: A True Story of Disaster and Survival on the Antarctic Seas
Author: Matt Lewis
Publisher: Plume
Genre: Non-Fiction
256 pages
Release Date: May 12, 2015

...a gripping true story of disaster and heroism...against a breathtaking backdrop of icebergs and killer whales. On June 6, 1998, twenty-three-year-old Matt Lewis had just started his dream job as a scientific observer aboard a deep-sea fishing boat in the waters off Antarctica. As the crew haul in the line for the day, a storm begins to brew. When the captain vanishes and they are forced to abandon ship, Lewis leads the escape onto three life rafts, where the battle for survival begins.

-taken from Goodreads

I was immediately interested in this book because of my fascination with Antarctica, which is a result of my fascination with whales (if you're not following, narwhals live in Antarctica) but that's neither here nor here.

The story grabbed me right from the start. Just the idea of being a marine biologist is fascinating to me, so I enjoyed reading about how Matt found his job and the steps he had to go through before finally ending up on a ship. He did a great job of relaying exactly what it's like to be onboard a fishing vessel and what the comraderie is like amongst the crew.

What took me by surprise was how much it made me think. I was taken aback by the actions of some of the crew and it really made me wonder how I would hold up in a life-threatening situation. I commend Matt for being a really good guy who somehow managed to take charge amongst a group of men who had loads more experience than he did.

I received this book from Penguin's First to Read program.

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Review: The Fair Fight

Title: The Fair Fight
Author: Anna Freeman
Publisher: PenguinGenre: Historical Fiction480 pages
Release Date: April 2015

Born into a brothel, Ruth's future looks bleak until she catches the eye of Mr. Dryer. A rich Bristol merchant and enthusiast of the ring, he trains gutsy Ruth as a puglist. Soon she rules the blood-spattered sawdust at the infamous Hatchet Inn.

Dryer's wife Charlotte lives in the shadows. A grieving orphan, she hides away, scarred by smallpox, ignored by Dryer, and engaged in dangerous mind games with her brother.

When Dryer sidelines Ruth after a disastrous fight, and focuses on training her husband Tom, Charlotte presents Ruth with an extraordinary proposition. As the tension mounts before Tom's Championship fight, two worlds collide with electrifying consequences.

- taken from Goodreads

I received this book through the Penguin First to Read program.

The story was a little bit slow to start, but it only took a few chapters to draw me in. It follows three main characters: Ruth, a female fighter who had been born and raised in a brothel, George, a middle class gambler trying to make his way in the world, and Charlotte, the sister of George's best friend. The majority of the plot revolves around the world of fighting in the rings of Bristol, a subject I knew next to nothing about, especially female fighting, so I was intrigued and happy to learn something new.

One of my favorite things about the story is how the three different POVs overlapped so that you could read multiple perspectives on a single scene. Initially I was disappointed in the characters themselves because I didn't really feel a connection with any of them (I like for books to make me feel). But then it seemed that as Charlotte started to grow and change (and her story was my favorite to follow), so did my feelings for these characters. Suddenly they were much more real and I was transformed into a raving feminist on the sidelines, cheering for these poor tragic women to win in life.



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