19 & 20. Ice Station and Area 7 by Matthew Reilly

Going to write only one review for both the books as I didn't find anything different in them even though the author tried really hard for that.

Ice station is based on a research centre in Antarctica.

Area 7 is based on a research centre in the deserts of Utah.

Other than that I found zilch.

Both has got a team of marines reconnaissance unit (The same unit as this is a second in the series) In both the books the main theme is that the good people(the marines) are trapped inside the centre with the bad people and are trying to save their asses.

And in both the books there's a time bomb ticking over their heads !

There's just too much of running around. Too much of description of the vehicles in which they are trying to escape and just too much of action going on.

In the midst of all this the main plot of the books just disappears because we are only thinking as to who would get killed next.

Both the books involve scientists who are on the verge of a huge discovery and become the reason to attract all this attention. The Marines unit are the one who try protect them and their discoveries and thus begins all this cat and mouse chases.

Oh! I found one more difference amongst the books. In Ice Station the hero of the book goes deep underwater in the frozen sea to escape briefly from his enemies and in Area 7 he actually goes into the space (yeah you read that right!!)

he actually gets into a space shuttle and it travels above the earth and he ends up in the outer space for a brief amount of time.

Whew !!

18. In Her Shoes by Jennifer Weiner

This is a story about 2 sisters Rose and Maggie who have absolutely nothing in common except for their shoe sizes.

Elder sister Rose has everything going on for her with a high profile lawyer job, a good looking boyfriend, lots of money. She also has loads of designer shoes but never wears them as she is insecure about her weight and just stacks it up in her closet.

The younger sister is a good looking and good for nothing kind. She has dyslexia and lack of confidence in herself and has difficulties finding a job. She stays mostly on her father and step mother's money and at times with her sister.

This goes on until one day Rose comes home and finds Maggie in bed with her boyfriend which leads to big altercation between them and she throws Maggie out of her house.

The younger sister now finds herself on street with nowhere to go when she finds a letter from her grandmother in Florida amongst her old stuff. And so she goes to stay with her grandmother.

The rest of the story is about how the sisters find their true characters and how they really need each other in their lives and how they make amends with each other and their past.

This is truly an endearing and a heart warming story and anyone who has a sister can actually connect with this one even more.

And also for people who are really lazy to read a book they can see the movie which was made with the same title starring Toni Collette and Cameron Diaz as the Elder and Younger sisters.

17. Doomsday Conspiracy by Sidney Sheldon

I only have 2 questions to the author..

A) Are you kidding me?

and

B) Are you frikkin kidding me ??

This is the story line.

An alien spacecraft crashes on some fields of Switzerland. A tourist bus going through that area stops and 11 people witness the event.
The NSA eliminates all of these witnesses one by one in the name of National Security and the man responsible for this bloody trail finds himself running for life at the end.
Does he escape or not forms the second half of the book.

The fact that none of these tourists managed to get a single picture of the event and the only one who does get few pics ends up dead in a fire at his home along with all the pictures sounds far fetched.
And get this, the aliens supposedly come to earth to warn the officials of all major countries that we should stop polluting the atmosphere and close all industries else they would wage a war against us.

The whole concept sounds ridiculous but it does manage to get one point across. Global Warming. It's definitely a nice thought that other aliens care more about the place where we live in than us humans can ever.

16. Play Dirty by Sandra Brown

It's a story about an American football player, Griff Burkett, who is at the top of his game but gets involved in gambling, gathers up such huge debts that his only option to work them off is to get into a match fixing deal with some bookies.

But he gets caught red handed and is sent to prison for serving a sentence.

He thinks his problem should end there but well, it doesn't. Even after he is released he is stalked by someone who is very keen on putting him behind bars for an unsolved murder. He gets involved in a secret affair with a very rich businessman's wife and gets trapped in a huge web of betrayal.

The story continues with how he redeems himself of all the accusations and if at all he lives to see another day.

The way Sandra Brown has written the novel is very unique. The mysteries are hidden beneath one another. And these layers start opening up only at the very end.

I didn't find the book to be a "thriller" as its categorized to be, I think it should come under the category of "Late Bloomers". Up until midway I did not even know what was happening.

So, if you find yourself yawning up until half way through the book, I guess its a pretty normal reaction.

15. Evil Under the Sun by Agatha Christie

Was getting bored of reading long and intense novels for some time now. So, chose this quick read by Agatha Christie.

I don't think much of a review is needed here. Anyone who is familiar with her work especially the Hercule Poirot series can guess pretty much what it's about.

A seaside resort, with many guests having a good time and in the middle of a day a murder happens. Hercule Poirot along with the local police try to find the murderer who is definitely one among the guests at the resort.

What makes her novels so interesting is that she lays down the clues as and when the police find them. So, it keeps us guessing and glued to the book.

14. Lottery by Patricia Wood

Very reminiscent of the movie Forrest Gump.

To be stupid one must have an IQ of 75 or less but Perry L. Crandall has an IQ of 76 and this winner of Orange Prize for fiction book is all about him and how he survives in this ever greedy world.

Perry's world revolves around his grandmother. Before she passes away she teaches Perry all the essential things in life, how to be organized, how to play lottery and especially whom to trust and who not to.

But as luck has it he suddenly wins a million dollars in lottery and that's when the story picks up the pace. All his relatives swoop in on him and try to get his winnings.

Does Perry give in to the nagging of his cousins or his few trusted friends come to his rescue ? That forms the rest of the book.

Its an immensely light and a delightful read. Enjoyed every page of it. I am rating this one 7.5 out of 10 .

11, 12 & 13. Seven Ancient Wonders, The Six Sacred Stones and The Five Greatest Warriors by Matthew Reilly

These 3 books are in a series, so I am writing this blog as one.

The author has tried his hand to bring out a trilogy hoping to recreate the magic of Lord of The Rings(He says so himself in an interview). Well, it doesn't come anywhere close to the legendary take of LOTR by Tolkien but it it is surprisingly very captivating with lots of action packed scenes.

It is also a perfect script for an Indiana Jones movie as the story delves into ancient myths and lores, finding hidden treasures hidden by the ancient civilization (the humankind that existed before ours) and contains some pretty bad and ruthless villains.

The main theme of the book is to save the world from the eventual destruction (apocalypse) much like the movie 2012 and Knowing. But here the reason given for the Apocalypse is that at a particular date and time an equal and opposite energy to that of Sun will cross our Solar System and thus destroy everything.

The Ancient Civilization is supposed to have built a machine which when reconstructed would eventually negate this opposite force and thus save our whole solar system. This is what the team of 7-8 people lead by the hero Jack West Jr. set out to do. They start by trying to find the seven ancient wonders of the world in the first book and in the next 2 books they try finding six pillars which are essential to reconstructing this machine that is to save the world.

I know, reading these couple of line would sound very very absurd, even I thought so at first. But the way in which the author (Matthew Reilly) has written the whole thing is fantastic, to say the least.

The book takes you through many interesting and weird locations. The Great Pyramid of Giza, Stonehenge, Easter Island of Chile, Hanging gardens of Babylon, Cape of Good Hope, A Tribe from the Congo Republic in Africa. Well, its nothing short of a roller coaster journey.

In between you find many traces of the Dan Brown’s book Da Vinci Code. Again here, the author himself admits that this book is his favourite. The Author also compares many of the Egyptian Mythologies to Christianity. One particular thing that really caught me was that the Egyptian Sun God is referred to as Amun-Ra. The Amun here can also be pronounced as Amen (as every Christian prayer ends).

All in all, if you like Ancient Myths and legends, Action thrillers, Indiana Jones movies this would be a good recommendation.

I would rate this entire series as 8 out of 10.