I had no idea this was a sequel.  I also had no idea that it was a spinoff of Harlan Coben's adult series.  I picked it up and started reading, and was tossed into the middle of a story I didn't know anything about. Seconds Away picks up immediately after the events of the first book, Shelter.  Mickey Bolitar finds himself in the home of an apparently crazy old lady who informs him that his dead father is not in fact dead, and that the paramedic that supposedly helped them is in fact a Nazi from 80 years ago, unaged.

I didn't immediately understand any of this, but the story is well recapped so I got the gist of the previous book.  Mickey and his outcast friends saved another classmate from a terrible situation, but it left the town and his new school under the impression that he was a troublemaking bad kid. 

Now an even sorrier situation comes up: the most popular, prettiest girl in the school (who incidentally helped Mickey out in the previous installment) is now in hospital, having been shot.  Her mother was murdered in the same incident.  Mickey is determined to get to the bottom of this. 

Also, he's trying to make the school basketball team.  Priorities, you know?

Seconds Away feels forced, almost as if the author was holding back in the name of writing for teens.  That said, it's still pretty page-turney.  You can pick it up without having read the first book or the adult series and still get a good idea of what's going on. This is probably best suited to kids who are reasonably advanced readers but are still maybe a little too young for more mature sex and violence.  Make no mistake, there is murder here, but nothing graphic.

You know what got me reading this book?

The cover.

I can't quite remember when all the teen book covers started using photographs and looking like movie and shampoo ads - but once upon a time the majority of book covers consisted of drawings. The stylized retro look of this cover -- plus the huge eyes made me pick up the book right away.

Surprise, surprise -- it's another dystopian. But, having heard of Saci Lloyd's Carbon Diaries (confession: I haven't read it yet), I decided to give this a try.

In this future society, the world is going through an energy crisis and everyone is scrambling to figure out how to generate more energy. Society has been split into two main groups: the wealthy, powerful Citizens and the poor Outsiders who rebelled against harsh government regulations. Everyone is hooked up to an eyepiece that enables them to escape to a virtual reality and communicate with each other.

Hunter Nash is a privileged citizen who secretly sneaks into the favelas, Outsider territory. He's fascinated by their freedom and the way they run up walls and jump from rooftop to rooftop. Here the Outsiders are hunted by Kossaks, the brutal government army force who destroys their homes and indiscriminately beats and kills them. Hunter knows there'll be serious trouble if he's seen in the favelas, but he's training himself to jump like the Outsiders and can't stay away.

The trouble starts when Hunter sees a Kossak shoot down a young Outsider boy and stumbles on the boy's secret funeral procession. Suddenly he's caught up in hiding the key that will reveal the Outsider's security network -- something that the Citizen government would kill for.


I like how the action in this book starts right away (someone gets killed in the first ten pages) and pretty much keeps rolling through the book. There are a couple good surprises along the way and I found the conclusion to be satisfying in that it was realistically open ended, but resolved enough of the plot to end the book.

I would have liked to have the whole jumping from building to building thing among the Outsiders play a larger part in the plot (I thought this element was actually cooler than the virtual reality bit) and I'm not convinced that Hunter's character was as developed as it could have been, but all in all, this book is a good high energy, fast paced one that will grab the attention of most readers.

Check out Saci Lloyd's website where you can watch Momentum's book trailer and find information on her other two books, Carbon Diaries 2015 and Carbon Diaries 2017. Oh, and take a look at the links on her website to youtube videos of Pakour -- yes, real-life people actually scale walls and leap from buildings like the Outsiders in Momentum...

Will and His father have a strange pastime -- they like to dig. All their lives they have dreamed of uncovering something spectacular and of great archeological significance-- and perhaps even become famous in the process. But Will realizes that their seemingly harmless pastime may be more dangerous than they think when his father suddenly goes mysteriously missing. Will thinks something suspicious is going on -- especially with all the strange pale-faced men in dark coats walking around his neighbourhood. So Will and his friend, Chester, begin where his father is most likely to have gone: underground. It is then that they find a hidden underworld governed by the Styx, a murderous subterranean race who want to extend their rule to the world above. Unfortunately Will and Chester are captured before they can return home. 

The book is slow to start (which might lose some readers), but once Will finds the underground world, the pace picks up and there are plenty of chase scenes, fights and tense moments. I found the tone quite dark and serious, which made things suspenseful and more scary. Gordon does a good job of creating the underworld and the bad guys. I've always felt the antagonist(s) of a story play a large part in making the plot exciting. If they're not evil enough, why would you care if the characters got away or not? In this case, the Styx were terrible enough to keep me rooting for Will...

I wouldn't recommend this to readers looking for immediate action since it takes so long for the excitement to start, but those who don't mind sticking around longer will probably get hooked on the series, as it really does have a good plot and ends with a bit of a cliffhanger. And while it's categorized as children's fiction, the dark storyline would probably make it suitable for young teens too.

This is the first in the series of six books (five have been published so far). Visit the Tunnels website for info on the sequels, plus special documents (e.g. Will's journal) and deleted scenes.

Mia, Antoine and Midori are the envy of the world. They are the three lucky teenagers who have been randomly chosen to go on a trip to the moon  to commemorate the first landing.  As everyone tunes in to watch the takeoff, we find Oleg Himmelfarb in front of the TV at his nursing home, trying to remember something as the footage of the moon plays. No one is supposed to go back to the moon, he thinks. What is it they find on the moon again?

First off, 172 Hours on the Moon by Johan Harstad is not the best written book. Perhaps something is lost in translation from the Norwegian original. Nevertheless, this science fiction still has its merits and good entertainment value. Here's our joint review (contains spoiler):

Steven: It took way too long to get into the real story. The first 150, maybe even 200 pages, were just setting up who these characters were, but this background info, except maybe in the case of Mia, was not mentioned ever again in the rest of the book.  This book seriously violates the principle of Chekhov's Gun and it makes for a frustrating reading experience. None of the background info helps us care more about the characters because their backstories are irrelevant to the rest of the plot.
Like the bit about Antoine's girlfriend. The chapter from her point of view in which she feels that something bad has happened to him is quite pointless, since readers already knew about it.

Virginia: That is definitely my biggest complaint about this book too. Fortunately, for those who stick with the book, it does get better and progressively more intense. Once they were on the moon and mysterious and horrible things started to happen, we have a story. You kinda knew that there's no hope for these guys, and I'm glad they stick with that throughout, rather than taking the easy way out.  I like the ending. Feels right to me and it fits.


Steven: The book could have ended a couple of pages earlier, though.  Things are spelled out to us that may have been better left to the imagination.  I already know that a threat exists: it was explained to us more than once already.

Virginia:  Maybe it's priming for a sequel...  Well, like we said, despite its flaws and plot holes, the book is still worth recommending. One thing I know we both really like is that this book is one of the rare cases where even though we have a female protagonist, it's not about a girl, and so there's no girly-ness to it at all. 


Steven: The book also really reminded me of a Japanese horror Manga.  I haven't read many, but the ones I have read felt much like this: hopeless and bleak.  Come to think of it, it seems most Nordic entertainment that we get over here is like that.  Maybe this isn't unusual.  You tell me, Virginia.  You read Nordic authors.


Virginia: Yah, probably pretty grim, even for crime fiction. The main guys are generally more flawed, and  at least for the ones I've read, you don't really feel the triumph of solving a crime and a job well done at the end. Can't get enough of them though. 


Despite its flaws, we'll still recommend this sci-fi/horror to readers who enjoy Alien, Event Horizon, Solaris, or the more depressing Philip K. Dick works.