Synopsis/blurb....
Done with a life of exploitation and violence, Lori Anderson is training to be a bounty hunter. Holed up in the Georgia Mountains with her reclusive mentor, JT, Lori is determined to put her new skills into practice. Behind JT's back, she breaks his rules and grabs the chance she's looking for. Will her gamble pay off, or will she have to learn the hard way?
The Last Resort is the first in the Rookie Bounty Hunter series of short stories, marking the nail-biting start to a high-octane series of thrillers featuring one of the most unforgettable and fearless female protagonists in crime fiction.
Includes a FREE extract of Steph Broadribb's critically acclaimed thriller, Deep Down Dead, book one in the Lori Anderson Series.
Another short read - 55 pages long - offering a preview of Steph Broadribb's work with both a prequel short story and an extract from the beginning of her debut novel. Broadribb is an author who I have heard goods things about and on the back of that praise her first two books sit on the TBR pile anyway.
I probably could have done without the 42 hat-tips to her work from other authors and reviewers taking up about 13% of the book. Three or four and I would have got the message.
The short story takes us through some of Lori Anderson's training as a bounty hunter and is enough to give a few insights into her character - determined, tough, impulsive and more than a little reckless. With her mentor away on a job, Anderson decides to cut her teeth for real, by bringing in an absconder on her own.
An okay short story, but I think I enjoyed the opening to Deep Down Dead a bit more. Almost but not quite totally hooked, though I'll have to bump the book up the TBR pile a bit.
I like reading about tough, resilient females and I think I'll enjoy this author and these books.
4 from 5
Broadribb has three in her Lori Anderson series so far - Deep Down Dead, Deep Blue Trouble, Deep Dirty Truth.Read in January, 2019
Published - 2017
Page count - 55
Source - purchased copy
Format - kindle
I've heard good things about Broadribb too, and may give her work a try sometime soon.
ReplyDeleteI know what you mean about the modern practice of beefing up the page-count with extraneous bumf. My own pet peeve concerns those pages (and pages, and pages) you get at the back of paperbacks for the benefit of reading clubs. Yes, an Author's Note can be useful -- for example, sorting the facts from the inventions in a historical novel -- but does anyone really need or want, say, a list of potential discussion topics, such as you often find?
I do read most of the guff in my books - why? I don't know. I've seen a couple of the type of books you mention and some of it is ok and useful but definitely not all of it.
DeleteI think I paid 99p for this. I wouldn't have hesitated to buy it if it was 10 pages less in length. Looking forward to more from this author, though maybe in a full length book the praise runs to 420 pieces! Gulp...
The reading guides really annoy me too - they read like English lit exam papers. I recently read a (non-crime) memoir that I enjoyed very much, and there was a reading guide at the end. I started glancing through it and realized to my delight that it was a complete piss-take of the genre. Followed by a discussion between the author and one of her real-life boyfriends who had featured in the book: they talked about whether she had been fair to him. Now that, I enjoyed.
DeleteThat sounds like fun, though you're probably going to have to read all of them in future in the expectation of finding similar...
DeleteI'm glad you enjoyed the story, Col. And it's interesting how, sometimes, an extract can get people interested in a book. I agree with you about adding in all of the praise. I don't think it's necessary, and it doesn't add to the story at all.
ReplyDeleteThanks Margot. I'm all for bigging up an author and let's be honest a bit of praise never goes amiss for anyone and it can help create a buzz about a book. In moderation please.
DeleteCol, I usually give reader/author reviews of a book only a cursory glance, unless I'm going out of my way to seek out a review, say, in a newspaper or a blog.
ReplyDeletePrashant, I'm a bit OCD and have to read them, otherwise I don't feel like I have read all of the book. Which is why in this case the 42 rounds of applause bugged me so much.
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