The Night Bird (Frost Easton # 1) By Brian Freeman {Spoiler Free}

Rate: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Synopsis:  Detective Frost Easton is a homicide detective in charge of finding out how random young women in the San Francisco area are seemingly suffering from psychotic breaks and killing themselves in different fashions.  Detective Easton realizes that they all have one thing in common and that is Psychiatrist Francesca Stein.  Frankie performs a controversial therapy that removes bad memories from people..all of the victims were her patients.  Frankie herself seems to be missing time and she can’t figure out what is going on.  Frost and Frankie investigate what is going on while the Night Bird continues to prey on them all.

This book was on my kindle unlimited listing.  I read the synopsis of it on goodreads and realized that it was definitely something that I would be interested in reading.  Once I started reading it I had a hard time putting it down.  I’m not sure if this is Brian Freeman’s first book but I had never heard of him prior to this book.  But I will definitely be on the look out for him from now on.

The book starts with Lucy and Brynn on the San Francisco-Oakland Bay bridge in San Francisco sitting in standstill traffic.  Lucy has a terrifying fear of bridges and even she realizes the irony of living in a place like San Francisco where there are so many bridges.  Brynn tells her that she should see her therapist and Lucy declines saying that it would not help her.  She turns around and sees an old cutlass and the window rolls half way down and she sees the most grotesque mask.  She screams and tries to get Brynn to turn around and see it.  But when she turns around the person has already rolled the window up.  All of a sudden Brynn seems frozen.  Lucy continues to call her name Brynn is somehow terrified of something unseen to Lucy.  She begins to scream and jumps out of the car and starts to climb the side of the bridge and then suddenly she loses her balance and falls.

Detective Frost Easton is assigned the case and he meets the terrified Lucy after she has just watched her best friend/roommate die.  Lucy can’t explain what happened because she isn’t sure herself.  However, Frost realizes that this case matches the case from a couple of weeks earlier where a woman killed herself at a wedding.  Once he realizes that those that have been killed all were patients of Frankie Stein.  He meets with her but she isn’t as forth coming in the beginning.  He thinks it’s because she is hiding something but she is saying its due to the privilege she has with her patients.  Frankie recently lost her father in a tragic accident and she is still coming to grips with this mostly because she doesn’t know if it was an accident or he killed himself.  Frankie decides to start investigating on her own and it brings her closer to Night Bird which puts her life in danger.  Somehow the Night Bird is able to find out all the information about her patients and use it against them.  Frankie and Frost get together to figure out just who the Night Bird is and how to stop him.

There are a few twists and turns in this book and a surprise ending that I kind of saw coming but still wasn’t 100% sure.  There is some violence, language and a small bit of sexual content but nothing to overt.   I would recommend this book to adults not so much for young adults just because of the content.  I give this book 4 out of 5 stars.

 

Nikki 🐛

Skeleton Dolls By Kenny Lewis {Spoiler Free}

Rate: ⭐⭐⭐

Synopsis:  Jennifer and Camille Johnson are twin sisters that have been able to speak their own language ever since they were toddlers.  One day when they are 13 years old one of their oldest friends has an accident.  And it’s what the sisters do next that surprises and shocks those that live in their small town and brings them a lot of attention.

I enjoyed reading this book.  According to the author this is a true story he heard from twin friends of his which makes it all the more interesting.  All in all the storyline was interesting.  The story is about the Johnson twins with special powers but it starts with their mother Maggie who seems to have some powers of her very own.  Maggie has a way with animals she can “hear” what they are saying.  She isn’t completely sure why but apparently it is always something that she has been able to do.

While she was pregnant with the twins she sometimes would hear female voices pointing her in the right direction so to speak with her daily tasks.  She asks her mother about an aunt that she had named Gretchen who was known to be a little crazy and could communicate with spirits and animals.  She was also known to possibly be able to bring back the dead which caused her family to pretend that she didn’t exist.

Without giving too much away the twins were special from the moment they were born.  They spoke in their very own language and they too seemed to be able to understand animals.  They took especially well to an old horse named Luke.  How they helped Luke is an amazing story within itself.  The story grows as the girls grow they are clearly destined for something that nobody can see coming.  This book is YA friendly, its well written, and quite the page turner.  I think you will really enjoy it so give it a chance.

 

Nikki 🐛

Kindle Unlimited…the next best thing?

I’ve had several Nooks by Barnes and Noble over the years and they have been great. Mostly because I used to purchase most of my books from there. Physically and virtually.

I purchased a tablet a couple of years ago and downloaded the Kindle app. I rarely used it because I also had the nook app and because my books were there. A coworker of mine has a Kindle and she and I would talk about the different books we’d read and she said that she could just send them to me on the Kindle app.

Long story short that is how I started actively using the Kindle app. A few months ago I was on Amazon and I saw something called Kindle unlimited. For $9.99 a month I could read unlimited books.  Needless to say I have been doing just that and it’s honestly the best thing ever.

Especially for bookworms like me that love to read any and everything but don’t necessarily have the room to put the physical books anywhere.  Kindle unlimited allows you to keep up to ten books on your shelf at any given time. Once you reach that number when you go to download another book it simply asks you to return one of the previous ones. Easy peasy, and because nobody likes to keep every single book they’ve ever read this is a really good idea. 

I can’t even begin to count the amount of books I’ve read from Kindle unlimited these past few months but I recommend you guys check it out. The good thing about it is you can try it out free for 30 days. If it’s something you aren’t interested in then of course cancel. But I really think this is something any reader will enjoy. So please do yourself a favor and check it out.

Nikki. 🐛