Obsession - 2012 Book #11

Obsession is written by one of my favorite LDS authors, Traci Hunter Abramson. In this book, Kendra Blake, who's a famous singer, has a rather paranoid father. He wants her to have security everywhere. She has finally convinced him that she doesn't need all that security and has managed to make it down to having only one bodyguard. But at her latest concert, someone overtakes her bodyguard and plants a bomb that goes off backstage. Everyone is fine, but her dad wants her to come back and live with him and have a huge security team. Kendra doesn't want it, though. She feels as though she's been stifled her whole life and wants some freedom and some time alone to write her songs. Her grandpa offers to let her stay in his cabin in the woods to get away but has an old FBI friend of his put an agent in the cabin next to hers to keep an eye on her without her knowing to make sure she's safe.

The agent in the other cabin is Charlie Whitmore. As he gets to know Kendra, he is surprised to find that she's not the typical celebrity as he had originally thought and dreads the day that she might find out that he works for the FBI and has been sent there to protect her.

Power outages, serial killers, and suspects keep the plot moving as Charlie tries to help figure out who set off the bomb at Kendra's concert and determine whether or not it is safe for her to return home.

This book is written in such a way that it keeps the reader going from chapter to chapter to find out what is going to happen next. It has great character building from the beginnning of the book to the end as the reader gets to know the characters, and they get to know each other. The book has some unexpected twists nearer to the end of the book and keeps the reader guessing. I'm happy to say, though, that I figured it out before the FBI did. All the clues are there to find.

This was a great read that ties into the other books written by Traci Hunter Abramson. Charlie Whitmore is the brother of Amy Whitmore in the Saint Squad Series, and his brother is one of the main characters in the Undercurrents trilogy.

Dragon Slippers - 2012 Book #10

Dragon Slippers by Jessica Day George is the first book in the series that tells the story of the girl Creel.  It's told in first person by Creel herself and starts out with Creel saying she is going to be sacrificed to a dragon. Her parents died from the fever, and she's been living with her aunt and uncle who are very poor. Her aunt comes up with the perfect solution for what to do with the girl: let her get captured by a dragon and talk a knight into rescuing her, who will then have to marry her. So Creel lets herself get captured by the dragon, but she doesn't want to marry the knight who's coming to rescue her. She wants to go to the capital city and get a job sewing. That will solve her aunt's problem of caring for her, and she gets to do what she wants. So Creel talks the dragon into letting her go and into giving her something from it's hoard. What she chooses is a pair of slippers. The dragon is shocked at her choice and doesn't want her to take them, but he had promised her she could have whatever she wanted, so he lets her take them.

Creel is pleased with her new slippers and continues on her journey to the capital city where she hopes to find work sewing. When the slippers start making her feet itch, and a spoiled princess wants her slippers, Creel wonders if the slippers are worth keeping. But deep down inside, she knows that if anyone else gets their hands on the slippers, something terrible will happen. As Creel tries to figure out the secret of the slippers, she makes some new friends and some enemies, some of them from unexpected places.

This was a really good read with some very surprising things right at the end of the story that make the reader want to read the next book in the series.