This is Christy Grace Scarlet Pen – so I decided to read some books on my shelf that are red to celebrate my site.

Theives Gambit (Kavyion Lewis)

4.5 stars

I loved this so much. Teenage thieves may be a bit of a niche story concept, but it read less like teenagers and more like adults olds who are only a little younger at heart.
A competition where thieves in training come together and try and win an ultimate prize, prove themselves and have some fun while trying.
Honestly, I can’t wait for the next book.
The characters were great, but I do think some of the motivations and emotions were a little over exaggerated (but only a little, and I understand they are technically teenagers, but sometimes it felt like flipping back and forth with teenager and adult mindsets and emotions).
Loved seeing the thieving challenges and dynamics between all the thieves.

A Cross To Kill (Andrew Huff)

3 stars

A former CIA assassin turns Baptist pastor. When his past comes back to haunt him, can he keep his new vow of peace while saving himself and those he cares about?

The story was really interesting – a great idea!
Unfortunately for me, the execution wasn’t as amazing. Some of that may come down to my PERSONAL PREFERENCE in writing style, but here are my thoughts on A Cross To Kill:
(There could be some off the cuff spoilers in this review, but they aren’t outright story spoilers. Just be aware – I tried to keep as vague as possible)

For me, the story didn’t have enough breathing room.
The action was SO quick that I found it hard to keep up without those small breaks. Even a stray thought or observation outside the action would have assisted with this. The first chapter was great, but after that, all the action just became too confusing. I had to either read several sections multiple times to keep up, or just skip over it and pick up from another section where we were. I LOVE action, don’t get me wrong – but that little bit of break for my brain would have been helpful. Perhaps lengthening all the action scenes and fleshing it out a bit would have also helped.

I found the character of John Cross to be a little contradictory. I think his religious mindset was more catholic than baptist. The whole idea of Jesus IS forgiveness, so for John to punish himself is contradictory to that overall message. Catholics have more of a ‘pay penance’ mindset, but the baptist denomination doesn’t carry that (save for a few i’m sure) so even a shift to another denomination would have helped with this.
It frustrated me whenever that side to him came up – he preached that forgiveness, but forgot it when it came to his own life (yes, that does happen in reality, but the story didn’t end in a satisfying way regarding that part of the character/story for me).

John accepting the pastor position, with all he had to deal with in his own mind and heart, also seemed unusual. There wasn’t a clear enough lead up to how he became a pastor. Churches don’t hire any old bloke off the street – it’s usually a bit more complex than that when you decide who leads your church.

Sometimes the sentences felt unnecessarily complex and long. That was just a minor frustration.

I loved relationship between John and Christine. It was great. I also liked Christine’s character.
Overall, the story was really great. Interesting, action packed and overall, I loved the premise and character interactions.

A.D.33 (Ted Dekker)

3 stars

Okay, so I have mixed feelings for this book.
I marked spoilers so here it all goes:
If you haven’t read it yet and don’t want to know, then stop reading this review.
I don’t understand the point of killing off Judah In the first few chapters. A beautiful Romance was set up, he had the most to learn out of all three characters, then was just suddenly killed.
Mariah and Saba never made sense to me, Her adopted son was so out of the blue and didn’t feel easily weaved, and most annoyingly, Mariah and other characters essentially unlearned EVERYTHING they had found in the first book. All the character development was just gone. And they learnt the exact same things in a different way.
I think it was a lot more preachy than the first book, to the point where we heard about God and the good news so often it lost meaning.
I still love Teds style, and some of his imagery was beautifully written.
A lot of moments gave me such incredible revelation and pause for my own relationship with Jesus.
But overall, compared to the first, I was disappointed

Taken (Dee Henderson)

3 stars

My gosh, I first tried to read this book almost three years ago! And now here I am, I finished it…
So, this book of Dee’s is not my favourite one. There was a distinct shift in how she started writing and this was a big point in that pivot.

It wasn’t as slow reading if you haven’t read another one of her books recently, and I listened to the audiobook so that helped me get through it.
I am a plot driven gal, and this was definitely character driven at the core! It was looking at an exciting crime plot, AFTER all the action has taken place…
So it read as somewhat interesting but mostly dull. The perfect example of a book that is entirely tell don’t show….
If we had even been given flashbacks that would have helped, but nope. Just aftermath.

Honestly, the romance gave me a sense of ick. She’s vulnerable, he’s funnelling his feelings about his daughter being taken through her… I just didn’t enjoy this romance at all!

It was odd that Everyone is way too willing to step back and let Shannon do exactly what she wants and totally satisfied to not ask any questions… which I felt was pretty unrealistic

I will say though, that this was the second book of Paul and Anne – so if you like them, you will like this.

I rated this three stars because the “secret plot” was so interesting and we did get to explore SOME of it… just not enough for my tastes.

Justice Delayed (Patricia Bradley)

3 stars

I like Patricia’s writing, and the concept for this was interesting, but I was not as engrossed as the other two in this series that I’ve read.

I think there was too much middle padding for my liking. Though the characters were interesting, some plot points seemed to drop off the earth and be inserted into odd places. I don’t know if it’s related to the rest of the series or just the way it was written.

Overall it was a pretty good story and characters but for me, Patricia has better books to read.

Tiger Queen (Annie Sullivan)

4 stars

Great read! It was exciting, the character arcs felt realistic and seamless as they went through the plot, and the world was well defined.
I thought Kateri was strong and independent but not too stuck in that mindset that she didn’t appreciate the help around her and realise when her false ideas needed to be adjusted – a fabulous balance.

Content warning: violence (fighting and injury descriptive), minor sexual harassment type content

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Well, some of those were fun, and super on theme 😀

See You in The Adventures
Christy Grace