Falling Through Portals

I’ve just stepped off a reading binge that’s left me blissfully nostalgic. Turning jock in fifth grade could never get me away from the steady reading habit I picked up in kindergarten (thank you Mrs. Harwood). Through the years, I somehow lost this beautiful habit of jumping through portals, but every now and then, I remember the skill, and find rifts in time and space.

Little Deadly Things, by Harry Steinman and Chosen, by Denise Grover Swank. Both sat on my Kindle for much more time than I can remember, waiting for just the right moment when I could swallow them whole. Which I did, in back-to-back days, doing little else but immerse in these, very different, stories.

LITTLE DEADLY THINGS

Little Deadly Things is a techno-thriller revolved around three of the most carefully crafted characters I’ve had the privilege of meeting. Taking Eva, Marta, and Jim from their tragic youths, brought together through the same charity, given because of their remarkable minds, the three become fast friends. After an estrangement from the brightest of them, the three come back together to create a tech firm that uses nanotechnology as a method for delivering pharmaceutical treatments. With sights set higher, Eva uses their combined brain power to branch their technology into clean water projects, then military contracts involving commercial waste clean-ups.

When tragedy hit the site of a contract granted to another firm, all eyes turn to Eva as the culprit. Her reaction to their claims sets off a chain reaction, that left unbroken, will mean the death of millions.

The amount of research in the psychological profiling, technology, and brilliantly painted worlds of the characters childhoods, had me ignoring this worlds exit until the very end.

CHOSEN

Chosen was a completely different story, appreciated for entirely different reasons. What hooked me was the instant fast pace of mother and son running from some unknown men in a blacked out SUV. Cliche, maybe, as chasing men go, but what else are they supposed to look like? The psychic tendencies of the son, that continued to bloom as the book progressed, was the second hook. Add to that a love story, blooming around two characters who wanted anything but, spoke to my girlieness and kept me to the end.

This book was close to calling real tears, as well as laughter, which is always my determinate to push a book to 5 stars instead of 4. While not pulitzer material, this book has everything a good story should: action, suspense, love, heartache, mystery, and a great spin on an archetypal concept. My only worry is that it’s a series, and for whatever illogical reason, I’m worried the story isn’t strong enough to warrant two more books. But that’s a hard judgement before the fact. I guess I’ll have to check them out.

P.S. I wouldn’t have found either of these books without Pixel of Ink

• What’s the best book you’ve read this summer?