My only goal for this much-needed spring break was to relax. For me, that meant doing something I used to love doing and that is reading. So I took to the public library and grabbed three books that caught my eye and somehow managed to read all of them in nine days.
While two of the books told gripping tales, the third was disappointingly boring.
The Night Bird by Brian Freeman
When the book started out with the protagonist describing her best friend as the cliché fun, tall blonde with “legs for days”, I thought I would hate this book. But when that fun, tall blonde had a random psychotic breakdown in the middle of a traffic jam on a bridge in San Francisco and jumped to her death, I was hooked.
This mystery thriller had my attention page after page with a cliffhanger leaving me wanting more at the end of every chapter.
Her death is not the first where a woman has died due to a violent meltdown. This has happened before and they were both patients of psychiatrist Francesca Stein.
Fear not, investigator Frost Easton is on the case.
A serial killer is tormenting psychiatrist Dr. Stein. Known for her controversial practice of helping those get over their phobias by toying with their memories, the killer known as the Night Bird is using her methods to target her patients.
A series of clues sent as cryptic emails leads to the dramatic conclusion with lives on the line and one already dead.
‘The Night Bird’ was an easy read for anyone interested in psychological thrillers.
The River at Night by Erica Ferencik
Four friends are reuniting for their annual get-together. But this year, things are different.
Lifelong friends, Rachel, Pia, Sandra and Wini are all facing a midlife crisis. Adventurous Pia decides they will go white-water rafting for their tradition in “middle-of-nowhere” Maine.
Tensions begin to rise when Pia is overly flirty with their tour guide Riley and she loses focus from the whole reason they went on the trip–to be together as friends.
Working together to learn the ways of the violent river water, spirits run high once again. But when their tour guide loses his life to the water, the women must fight to survive.
With no supplies or raft, a sign of a fire seems to be their way to salvation, but they soon find out the people responsible for the fire are not their friends.
With over thirty miles of river left to navigate and a death sentence over their heads, the ladies will find out that they’re better off when they’re working together.
Of the three books I read over break, this one fell short for me with the catty drama. With that aside, the fight for survival kept my attention through the book’s entirety.
Waking Lions by Ayelet Gundar-Goshen
The book starts out with a bang then slowly fizzles out.
Eitan Green, a neurosurgeon in Israel, decides to partake in some fun by driving his SUV through the desert. A decision he will soon come to regret when he hits a man with his vehicle and kills him.
Eitan questions who he is when he decides to leave the man on the road without calling for help, knowing he’s as good as dead. This choice will haunt him when the dead man’s wife, Sirkit, comes to Eitan’s home to return the wallet he left at the scene.
The interaction with the dead man’s wife is the beginning of a two-month journey where Eitan and Sirkit run an illegal clinic in an abandoned garage on the side of the road.
The story was rather uneventful except for the intro and conclusion of the book and was mostly rambling thoughts with very little dialogue.
Eitan further questions himself when he hides the truth from his wife, Liat, who happens to be the detective investigating the hit-and-run.
‘Waking Lions’ was an unhappy story with an equally unhappy ending.