Weekend Reading: Iris Johansen Novels

So how was this week for everyone? I feel like I haven’t chatted with anyone this week. I haven’t visited any blogs. I planned to start writing a new novel this week but that didn’t work out. I had to edit the story I finished writing a few weeks ago which I submitted for publishing a few days ago. Wish me luck! Also, I received the first round of edits for “Intimate Healing”, the contemporary romance I signed in November. The edits are making me a bit depressed and the story I once loved and couldn’t wait to share with the world has now become one I would rather delete. Hopefully, my love for “Intimate Healing” will come back.

Okay, now on to the weekend reading. One of my all time favorite authors is Iris Johansen. When I was younger, I would only read James Patterson. However, when I ran out of reading material and became bored with his books, I needed to find a new author. I stumbled across Iris, and after the first book, I couldn’t put them down. I devoured her books like candy, staying up half the night until I would finish them.

Her heroines are always strong, brave, and smart. They all have tragic lives that turn them into independent women. The heroes always scream alpha! The plots are always full of action and intrigue. She doesn’t spend time with fillers and useless information. Yeah, I wish she would pay more attention to detail as her books usually lack any form of description, but for me, the thrill of the plots and the hunky dangerous heroes with the brave women usually makes up for the lack of detail. Except where the love scenes are concerned. There, I want lots of detail. When it comes to Iris, there are a lot of great books to choose from, but I wouldn’t recommend reading them back to back as eventually the plots start to run together and are a bit similar.

Here are some of my favorites from her:

 
The Killing Game
When a young girl's skeleton is unearthed, forensic sculptor Eve Duncan immediately begins a facial reconstruction of the child's skull. But her discovery is merely bait in a trap laid by a cunning murderer who wants to play his killing game with his new victim: Eve.
 
 

Long After Midnight
Deep in the labs of Genetech gifted research scientist Kate Denby is very close to achieving a major medical breakthrough. But someone will stop at nothing to make sure she never finishes her work . . . someone not interested in holding out hope, but in buying and selling death.


 
Blind Alley

The New York Times bestselling author of Firestorm, Iris Johansen, returns with a psychological thriller so terrifying, so relentlessly paced, it won’t leave you time to catch your breath before the next shock comes. A forensic sculptor is locked in a deadly duel with a serial killer determined to destroy her—one life at a time. ** This is the first book by her I ever read **
 
 
The Ugly Duckling

Plain, soft-spoken Nell Calder isn't the type of woman to inspire envy, lust, or murderous passions. Until one night when Nell's life, dreams, and futures are shattered by a spray of bullets and the razor edge of a blade. Though badly hurt, Nell emerges from the nightmare a woman transformed, with an exquisitely beautiful face and a strong, lithe body, while Nicholas Tanek, a mysterious stranger, givers her a reason to go on living. But divulging the identity of her assailant to Nell might just be the biggest mistake of Tanek's life. For he will find his carefully laid plans jeopardized by Nell's daring to strike out on her own. And Nell will find her mission imperiled by Tanek's dangerous magnetism, a temptation to which she cannot afford to surrender.
 

 
The Face of Deception
After losing her beloved child to a serial killer, forensic sculptor Eve Duncan survives by focusing on her career. The best in her field at rebuilding faces from bare skull bones, Eve specializes in identifying missing children. When billionaire John Logan requests her help in identifying an adult skull, Eve--already swamped with work--tells Logan that she isn't interested. But when he volunteers to donate a large sum of money to a charity for missing children in exchange for her time, Eve reluctantly agrees. Logan neglects to tell her that there are powerful, desperate people who are determined to keep the skull's true identity a secret at any cost. Eve's gut instincts tell her that Logan is holding back vital information: Does the billionaire really believe that he's uncovered new insight into the Kennedy assassination? Or does the skull tie him to a mysterious murder? Eve's wildest guesses don't even come close to the stunning truth that she discovers when she at last studies the restored face. Now she and Logan have proof of a dark secret that could get them killed. And it will take all of their combined cunning and sheer nerve to survive.
 
 
And Then You Die. . .
When Bess Grady and her sister arrive in Mexico on vacation they are expecting paradise. Instead they find every person in the village is dead, killed in a bloodless carnage. The sisters are aided only by a mysterious agent who holds the key to stopping a vicious weapon aimed at America.
 
 
So what are your plans this weekend? What are you reading?