Tag: Fiction

The Trajectory of Dreams by Nicole Wolverton

~ Jennifer @ The Relentless Reader ~ 9 Comments

The Trajectory of Dreams by Nicole Wolverton
Publisher: Bitingduck Press
Publication Date: March 2013
Category: Adult Psychological Thriller
Source: Bitingduck Press

Description via Nicole Wolverton’s website:

For Lela White, a Houston sleep lab technician, sleep doesn’t come easy—there’s a price to be paid for a poor night’s sleep, and she’s the judge, jury, and executioner.
Everyone around Lela considers her a private woman with a passion for her lab work. But nighttime reveals her for what she is: a woman on a critical secret mission. Lela lives in the grip of a mental disorder that compels her to break into astronauts’ homes to ensure they can sleep well and believes that by doing so, she keeps the revitalized U.S. space program safe from fatal accidents. What began at the age of ten when her mother confessed to blowing up the space shuttle has evolved into Lela’s life’s work. She dreads the day when an astronaut doesn’t pass her testing, but she’s prepared to kill for the greater good.
When Zory Korchagin, a Russian cosmonaut on loan to the U.S. shuttle program, finds himself drawn to Lela, he puts her carefully-constructed world at risk of an explosion as surely as he does his own upcoming launch. As Lela’s universe unravels, no one is safe.
My Thoughts:
For reals. That was my face while I read Trajectory of Dreams. At first I was thinking, ok this Lela girl is a little weird maybe? Why is she talking to her cat like he can answer her? Maybe she’s lonely? 
Nicole Wolverton takes us aboard the crazy train with this book. As I read I knew something was off about certain characters. However, I had no idea how deep the insanity of this story was going to go. Towards the end of the book there were surprise twists and turns that I didn’t see coming. Oooh, how I looove that! Trajectory is a true psychological thriller.
The synopsis of this tale is fab but the book isn’t without a few issues. The editing is a bit unpolished and some of the language can be chunky. Neither of those things should distract you too much from the story. It’s worth the ride.

Quick Thoughts: Tigers in Red Weather by Liza Klaussman

~ Jennifer @ The Relentless Reader ~ 17 Comments

Tigers in Red Weather by Liza Klaussman
Publisher: Little, Brown & Company
Publication Date: July 2012
Categories: Coming of Age, Suspense, Literary
Source: Public Library

Description via Indiebound.org:
Nick and her cousin, Helena, have grown up sharing sultry summer heat, sunbleached boat docks, and midnight gin parties on Martha’s Vineyard in a glorious old family estate known as Tiger House. In the days following the end of the Second World War, the world seems to offer itself up, and the two women are on the cusp of their ‘real lives’: Helena is off to Hollywood and a new marriage, while Nick is heading for a reunion with her own young husband, Hughes, about to return from the war. 

Soon the gilt begins to crack. Helena’s husband is not the man he seemed to be, and Hughes has returned from the war distant, his inner light curtained over. On the brink of the 1960s, back at Tiger House, Nick and Helena–with their children, Daisy and Ed–try to recapture that sense of possibility. But when Daisy and Ed discover the victim of a brutal murder, the intrusion of violence causes everything to unravel. The members of the family spin out of their prescribed orbits, secrets come to light, and nothing about their lives will ever be the same.

My Quick Thoughts:

  • This is told from different characters viewpoints. I liked Nick’s section best and missed her voice throughout the rest of the read.
  • Hughes was wooden. Helena was a boozy stereotype. Ed was one dimensional. Meh.
  • This didn’t read like a suspense to me…until the last few chapters. In fact, I was surprised to see the big red SUSPENSE sticker on the spine when I was halfway through the book.
  • I would take this one for what it is, a nice and easy read that doesn’t strain your brain.