DNF Round Up for March

The Harvest Man  (Scotland Yard's Murder Squad #4) by Alex Grecian

 

In The Devil’s Workshop, London discovered that Jack the Ripper was back, sending the city—and Scotland Yard’s Murder Squad—into chaos. But now it is even worse. Not only is the Ripper still at large, but so is another killer just as bad.

 

 For Inspector Walter Day, it has been a difficult time. His wife has given birth to twins, his hostile in-laws have come to stay, and a leg injury has kept him at his desk. But when the Harvest Man begins killing, carving people’s faces off their skulls, the Yard knows they need Day in the field.

 

 Not so Sergeant Nevil Hammersmith. Rash actions have cost him his job, but that doesn’t stop his obsessive hunt for the Ripper. When the mutilated bodies of prostitutes start turning up again, Hammersmith enlists the help of a criminal network to stop Saucy Jack, his methods carrying him further and further from the ideals of the Yard, so far in fact that he may never be able to find his way back.

 

Of course, the Ripper’s been playing a game with him—with Walter Day, as well. He is pushing both of them to their limits, and what happens when they get there . . . no one can say. 

So, I started reading this one way back in September and only made it to chapter 4. I had heard amazing things about the author, but sadly, this one didn’t work for me. While it’s gory and creepy, it’s soooo boring. I even tried jumping ahead and still couldn’t get interested in the book. I thought perhaps it was because this was the fourth book in, but I sampled the first book and the writing style is the same.

 

The Snow Bride by Debbie Macomber

Practical Jenna Campbell has done something impractical. She's met a man on the Internet and now, a month before Christmas, she's going to Alaska to marry him. Dalton Gray seems to be everything she wants in a husband -- sensitive, gallant, romantic....

 

On the flight to Fairbanks, she has the misfortune to sit beside Reid Jamison, who obviously isn't sensitive, gallant or romantic. However, he's not impressed with her plan to marry Dalton, a man he detests (for good reason, as Jenna later finds out). So Reid takes it upon himself to change her destination -- and her marriage plans.

Which is why Jenna ends up at Reid's cabin in tiny Snowbound, Alaska. It's currently a one-woman town (and the other woman's out of town). That leaves Reid, a bunch of eccentric old men, a few grizzly bears -- and Jenna. Kidnapped! And then there's a blizzard. The two of them alone, stranded in Snowbound...

So, this one is actually the second short story in Christmas in Alaska and Debbie Macomber’s books are hit and miss with me, so I wasn’t really sure what to expect when I received this one for review. I forced myself to read the first one and couldn’t stand it, and when I finally made it to this one, I sort of just didn’t really care.

 

The just of it is a woman meets a guy online, decides to give up her life and move to Alaska, when she arrives in Fairbanks the guy she was supposed to me isn’t there instead she meets a guy who kidnaps her for her own good because guy number one was a total creep. Then, of course, there’s drama, so much drama and bickering, and there’s no real cause, it was just drama for drama’s sake. So, since I’ve been reading this one since October, I finally decided to just let it go.

 

She baited a cop and hooked a killer. She crosses the line… Sonya Savonski has something to prove as the only female drift boat captain fishing the deadly depths of the Bering Sea. She stirs the waters, luring a murderer to the surface, and gets the unwanted attention of an Alaska State Trooper. He tows the line… "Fish cops" don’t mix with fisherman, but if Alaska State Trooper Garrett Hunt can reel Sonya in - before a killer uses her for bait - she could be the catch of his life.

I loved the first book in this series, Edge. The second book, not so much. Edge drew me in from the start with its suspense and intrigue. This one, I couldn’t get into. I couldn’t connect with Sonya and there’s just so much about fishing from the very start that it just made me tune out. I tried several times to get into this one but I just couldn’t. Because it’s an audio, I can’t skim through it. Perhaps the print version would have been a better option. I also learned something about the main character in the next book, a character that I thought I was going to like, that sort of turned me off of the next book in the series.

It happens. The dreaded DNF. You know you’ve had one or two, or ten. Rather than posting them individually, I decided to do a monthly roundup of the books I’ve DNF’d.