True Devotion by Dee Henderson

From Barnes and Noble:

"Kelly Jacobs watched with pride as her husband, Nick, triumphed in his demanding SEALs military training. When he dies on a mission three years later, she is wounded to the soul-yet copes with the determination of a SEAL's wife; bracing herself to keep going despite the loss. In return, Nick's comrades watch over Kelly as part of their family. Joe Baker had been leading the team when Nick was killed. He takes the loss especially hard: Nick had led him to Christ and was his best friend. When Nick dies, Joe suffers survivor's guilt. He takes care of Kelly and plans to find her a new husband. He figures he owes her that-he just hadn't counted on falling in love with her. As Kelly struggles to move on and Joe is torn between loyalty to Nick and love for Kelly, God provides surprising answers to their dilemmas and reveals the beauty of the truth that "a friend loves at all times."

I couldn't wait to get home and blog about this book. It's been a long time since I've wanted to read and read and keep reading.
I was a little bit skeptical about reading it because first thing was that Kelly is a war widow. I wasn't sure if I was quite ready for that yet. BUT, I read alot of firefighter books with DH was a fireman, so I figured it would be ok.
I have been wanting to read Henderson for a while now. I sort of gathered that she was similar to Terri Blackstock, and I love her.
I was not disappointed. She does a great job developing characters and building suspense. I loved these people. I loved how she worked the Word into this book.
There was lots of great build up that had me coming back for more. She did a great job of making the people real. I felt like I got to know them.
I highly recommend this book. I'm going to finish this series and start on the next.  

Whiplash by Catherine Coulter

From Barnes and Noble:

Coulter was trying to take on somethine big in this book. She didn't quite get there for me. I think it's because she is now consistently putting two different plots in the same book. I think that the drug angle was a bit too much for a half of a book.

Yale professor Dr. Edward Kender’s father is undergoing chemotherapy when the supply of a critical accompanying drug, Culovort, suddenly runs out. Unwilling to accept the drug manufacturer’s disingenuous excuse of production line problems, Dr. Kender hires private investigator Erin Pulaski to prove that something more sinister is going on at Schiffer Hartwin.
Meanwhile, in Maryland, married FBI agents Lacey Sherlock and Dillon Savich are investigating a rather unusual case: Senator David Hoffman is experiencing a ghostly apparition with possible malicious intent. The case is baffling, and Sherlock and Savich are not sure what to believe, even after witnessing the disturbing specter for themselves. They’re no closer to cracking the case when a call comes in from Connecticut: A top foreign Schiffer Hartwin employee has been found murdered behind the drug company’s U.S. headquarters.
Unbeknownst to the FBI, Erin Pulaski had uncovered a bombshell in her investigation: The Culovort shortage is set to bring in a windfall profit in excess of two billion dollars. Upon learning of the murder, Erin is certain it has something to do with her findings, but she risks exposing herself by coming forward. As the feds move in, the case becomes even more complicated for Erin, since the murder of a foreign national on federal land can mean only that the pharmaceutical house has a secret of epic proportions — one it would do anything to keep hidden.

I also didn't like how she put so much in the plot with the senator for it to just flop. That's how it felt to me. It's like she started with this whole elaborate other-worldly story and then she just let it drop by using a lame excuse.
It took me a long time to read this series, and I'm glad that they it's over for now. I may come back to Coulter at some time, but I can say that she's not really one of my favorites.

Knockout by Catherine Coulter

From Barnes and Noble:

"The first time she spoke to him was at midnight. Seven-year-old Autumn Backman needed a hero. When she saw Special Agent Dillon Savich on TV after he’d brought down bank robbers in a Georgetown bank, she knew she’d found him. She called Savich, but she didn’t use the phone. They were burying dead people in my daddy’s grave . . . they’re coming after us. Please help me. Who’s they? Blessed, he’s coming. Ethan Merriweather, sheriff of Titusville, Virginia, a small mountain town near the Titus Hitch Wilderness, goes looking for a missing little girl. Soon after he finds her, Ethan realizes that Autumn has brought him a huge problem – a relentless madman who has the ability to control others simply by looking at them. And the madman is after her and her mom.
It’s Uncle Blessed, and he wants Autumn.When Savich answers Autumn’s call, she tells him Blessed is from Bricker’s Bowl, Georgia. Savich and Sherlock go to Blessed’s home, learn about his brother, Grace, and meet their mother, Shepherd. Savich soon realizes the only way to stop Blessed is to “cut off the snake’s head.” Back in Titusville, Ethan, Autumn, and her mother, Joanna, are forced to hide from Blessed and Grace in the wilderness. Ethan knows the brothers will never give up their insane pursuit for Autumn.
It’s a race to stop the madness, or the madness will destroy them all.

Weird, weird I tell you. I loved little Autumn. I feel like Coulter keeps pointing more and more to Savich and Sherlock having another child. I loved how Autumn was critical in both cases. I tend to get tired of one author if I read them too much in a row. Right now I'm finding Coulter to be lacking in some parts of a story line.
It's hard to have a romantic suspense without the romantic. She elludes characters having a relationship after the book is over. That's not really a romance.



Tailspin by Catherine Coulter

From Barnes and Noble:

"When a fellow agent's plane crashes deep in the Appalachian Mountains, married FBI agents Savich and Sherlock find the pilot and his passenger alive. But that's just the beginning of a case that plummets them into a whirlwind of vicious murder attempts, powerful suspects, political secrets, and escalating terror. "

Somewhere along the way this book lost me. Totally lost me. It was a chore really, for me to finish. The last couple of books have had several completely different story lines going on. These two story lines were just all over the map. They sort of came together in a few places, but really it was just ALOT.
I liked Rachael, but Jack was lacking something for me.
There are also some weird things going on here with Savich and Sherlock. I haven't quite put my finger on it yet, it could just be that I'm tired of them both.
For some reason this book is lacking the suspense and chemistry that most of the series has had. I had to make myself finish it.

Double Take by Catherine Coulter

From Fantasticfiction.com:

"It's been more than six months since her husband's brutal death, and Julia Ransom is just beginning to breathe again. She loved her husband, renowned psychic August Ransom, but the media frenzy that followed his murder sapped what little strength she had left. Now, after dinner with friends, strolling along San Francisco's Pier 39, she realizes that she's happy. Standing at the railing, she savors the sounds around her-tourists, seals on a barge-and for a moment enjoys the sheer normalcy of it all. And then it comes to an end.
Out of nowhere she's approached by a respectable-looking man who distracts her with conversation before violently attacking her and throwing her the railing. If it hadn't been for Special Agent Cheney Stone, out to stretch his legs between courses at a local restaurant, Julia would have vanished into the bay's murky depths. Not only does he save her from a watery grave, but he senses a connection between her assault and her husband's death, and sets out to serve as her protector while reopening August Ransom's murder investigation.
Meanwhile, in Maestro, Virginia, Sheriff Dixon Noble-last seen in Point Blank-still mourns his wife, Christie, who vanished hree years earlier. His life, too, is just getting back to normal when he learns of a San Francisco woman named Charlotte Pallack, whose shocking resemblance to Christie sends Dix across the country. Though he knows in his heart that she can't possibly be his wife, Dix is compelled to see her with his own eyes. Once in San Francisco, Dix and Cheney's paths inevitably cross. With the help of agents Dillon Savich and Lacey Sherlock, whose San Francisco connections prove essential in unlocking the mystery behind Charlotte Pallack's identity as well as the forces behind Julia Ransom's attempted murder, Sheriff Noble and Agent Stone push deep into a complex world of psychics and poseurs. As the stakes and the body count rise, Savich, Sherlock, Dix, and Cheney fight for answers-and their lives."

Woah, I feel like I just went on a roller coaster ride. What a ton of stuff going on here. We've got the psychic world that is interesting to say the least and we've got Ruth and Dix AND we've got some crazy stuff going on with Sherlock and Savich. What a ride.
I was shown some new perspective on things that I have never even thought of while they were interviewing the psychics. For a fluff fiction book to make me take a different look at things is rather nifty.
I was a little upset that Dix took a walk on the wild side and that he let things get under his skin enough to make him change his morals. I am also pretty upset with him in reguards to Ruth. I wonder where that's going to go?
I liked the Julia and Cheney element. I thought they were cute and a breath of fresh air.
It seems like things are getting a little stressful and too much for Savich. I think he's having a harder time dealing with things that Sherlock is.

Point Blank by Catherine Coulter

From Barnes and Noble:

"The tenth installment of Catherine Coulter's FBI saga (Blowout, Blindside, et al.) may be her most action-packed, psychologically intense thriller to date. As husband-and-wife agents Dillon Savich and Lacey Sherlock are faced with the most intimately frightening case of their careers (apprehending a psychopath obsessed with evening the score with Savich for some long-ago injustice), FBI special agent Ruth Warnecki is busy trying to unravel the bizarre mystery of a murdered music student found in a rural Virginia cave."

Coulter had two seperate story lines going on this time, they had nothing to do with one another. It should have been a mess and it should have been confusing, but somehow it wasn't. She had a nice blend of the both. If she had done a book per mystery it would have gotten boring at some point. But since she played them both at the same time, it didn't get bogged down.
When we first meet Dix, he seems old. He seems like he's too old to be in this series. Still in the end of this he seems like an old soul. Could be the grief, could be the perpetual confusion he seems to be in.
Ruth is very independant. She doesn't place herself in the middle of Dix's family, but somehow she ends up there. Their relationship isn't the type that either person will just simply DIE without the other, but it works.
I LOVED the scene when Savich and Sherlock get in a fight. I thought he was being a total pig about the whole thing.
This was a pleasant book. For some reason it took me longer to get through it than it should have. I'm not sure if my mind just wasn't fully engaged or what.



Blow Out by Catherine Coulter

From Barnes and Noble:

Secrets, surprises, and suspense are the hallmarks of the novels in Catharine Coulter's bestselling series of contemporary FBI thrillers. That has been true ever since The Cove came out in 1996, with its chilling story of a woman on the run and the FBI agent who saved her.

Coulter's Blowout heralds the return of handsome, perceptive Detective Ben Raven (from Blindside) of the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington, D.C., working again with the ever-popular FBI couple, Lacey Sherlock and Dillon Savich. Raven is less than pleased when his federal agent friends ask him to team up with investigative reporter Callie Markham in their new case involving the brutal murder of a Supreme Court justice who happens to be Callie's stepfather. And it soon becomes clear that the crafty killer isn't about to stop at one victim, no matter how highly placed.
With the press keeping a spotlight on the growing peril in the nation's capital, Savich must also come to grips with a more elusive case he came upon by chance. Following a minor traffic accident while on vacation in the Poconos, Savich encountered a desperate young woman who pleaded for his help and led him to the scene of a violent crime only to disappear. When Savich goes to the local authorities, he's told that everything he "witnessed" took place almost 30 years earlier -- a revelation supported by evidence (or lack of it) when he returns to the scene and finds that the elegant house he'd searched before was now a ramshackle shell. But that doesn't mean Savich can forget the fear that haunted the woman who came to him for help or change her need for justice.

So Coulter's been walking the line with adding a supernatural element to this series for a bit now. Up until now she was just dancing on the line, but this book she stepped on over. I've got nothing against some "other" elements going on in books, I'm cool with it.
This book took a little bit to get moving. I liked Callie and I'm glad that Ben got his own book. I was pretty happy that Sherlock got to be the lead in this. Savich is usually the one who is the brains behind everything, but this time Sherlock was the one that was on top of things this time.
The whole scene with Samantha and Austin was a little bit out there. Not so much out there as in too much supernatural, just out there as in not really in the storyline. It didn't mesh at all with the bigger story.
I'm thinking that the whole thing with Callie's mom is going to come back. It just didn't wrap up like most things Coulter does. There wasn't a neat little bow. I also didn't like how the bad guy picked his victims. That seemed just a little too easy. Maybe those two things will come back around at some point.
This book lacked some of the suspense and excitment of some of the others.
I didn't not like it, but I do hope that the next one's a bit better.