January 2008 reads Part One

Book One of 2008 was COUNT TO TEN by Karen Rose (Warner, c2006, ISBN 978-0-446-61690-4). Mia Mitchell is a detective with the Chicago, IL Police Department and her partner is in the hospital so when a case comes up, arson with a homicide, she is paired with Reed Solliday, a fire investigator, to find this firebug. And he's a nasty one, raping and murdering women, setting them on fire along with their houses. Is it random or revenge? Good, solid story with a creepy bad guy and sparks galore between the two protags.

It starts:

Springdale, Indiana

Thursday, November 23, 11:45 P.M.

He stared at the flames with grim satisfaction.

My second read of the year was Michelle Bardsley's I'M THE VAMPIRE, THAT'S WHY (Signet Eclipse, c2006, ISBN 0-451-21937-6) a smokin' hot book! I'm not one who blushes over many things, but the sexual content and description in this book had me blushing red from ear to ear and to my toes!!! I would give it a strong R rating for sexual content.

Written in first person, Jessica Matthews is living in Broken Heart, OK and is single mom to Bryan and Jenny when she attacked and turned into a vampire. Now she has to figure out how to be both, while at the same time fighting her increasing attraction to Patrick O'Halloran, the super-hot vampire who turned her and turns her on.

It begins:

The night I died, I was wrestling a garbage can to the curb.

Third up, was IDENTITY by Steven Piziks (Pocket Books, c2003, ISBN 0-7434-7653-0). Set just outside of Las Vegas, NV there is a cast of characters too numerous to mention. One part of the story has eleven strangers stranded at a motel during a freak rain storm in the desert. They start dying off, one by one - the killer leaving room keys at the scenes as a countdown. The second part of th story has to do with an evidence hearing for Malcolm Rivers, a man who's to be put to death the very next day.
With the number of characters in the book I was pretty sure I'd hate it and then ended up reading it in one afternoon. The end made me go, "Whoa!" and as it's based on a movie that I've now added to my queue at Netflix.

The book begins:

Greg Kerrick closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, and says, "Gary Home" into his cell phone.