Reviews for Alexandra Sokloff & Laura Griffin @AlexSokoloff @Laura_Griff

Posted on November 6, 2022 by fundinmental

I won both these books and was super excited to put everything else aside and read them. I was not disappointed and would love to read more of their work

Shadow Moon (The Huntress/FBI Thrillers, #6)

MY REVIEW

Cara Lindstom is Matt Roarke’s motivation, giving him purpose, a mission in life. What happened to her, shouldn’t happen to anyone…her entire family slaughtered and her left for dead. She was five and he was nine. It drove him to become an FBI agent. There is a mystical connection between them.

IT (evil) came and killed her family, trying to kill her too. IT follows her relentlessly, she can’t escape it, only turn to face it head on, leaving a trail of dead bodies in her wake. I agree with her need for vigilante justice. They deserve the worst. I wonder…could I hand out the same punishment?

Singh, one of the FBI agents working the case, becomes obsessed with Cara and Matt. The red string of fate draws them all to Cara.

Shadow Moon rehashes past events, but that’s okay. It has been a while since I read the last one, so a refresher is fine, but it’s new to Singh, who I know will have a big role to play. I just don’t know what it will be…yet.

Shadow Moon goes from past to present and is told from multiple points of view. I feel there is still more to the story and I want to know how it ends for Cara and Matt. Can they find peace and happiness?

My only problem is the rehashing of the past. It took up a lot of the book and sometimes I wonder, is the publisher or author trying to stretch the story out……

Animated Animals. Pictures, Images and Photos — 4 Stars

MY REVIEW

Hidden by Laura Griffin was a wonderful surprise for me. It is beautifully written and made me think of Person of Interest, a TV series. It is believable and has everything I could want in a romantic suspense novel. No jump in the sack sex, but more of an itch they try hard not to scratch. Once I began reading, I couldn’t put it down. I loved the characters and their need to go above and beyond to do the right thing, though it could cost them their lives.

MY REVIEW LINKS FOR ALEXANDRA SOKOLOFF

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You can see my Reviews HERE.
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Interview & Review – Hunger Moon by Alexandra Sokoloff @AlexSokoloff

Posted on February 26, 2018 by fundinmental

Continue reading →

Monsters Are Real!!! Bitter Moon by Alexandra Sokoloff @AlexSokoloff

Posted on January 11, 2018 by fundinmental

OMG..Alexandra Sokoloff did it again in Bitter Moon, Book IV in the Huntress/FBI Thriller series.

Goodreads / Amazon

MY REVIEW

I had received several books of this series and loved them so much, I binge read all three. So apt this book comes after the others. I think I got a lot more from it, because I am totally engrossed in how Cara came to be a vigilante.

In Bitter Moon, Cara relives her tragic past and it is brutal, horrifying, terrifying, and haunting. The insight into her motivation makes me see evil in its purest form. It’s no wonder she takes her revenge as a vigilante on all the users and abusers. The atrocities committed on defenseless children by family, friends, strangers, they need a guardian angel and Cara will fight to her dying breath for herself and for them.

Roarke has walked away from the FBI because of his conflicted feelings about her. He is lost, isolated, confused…As he tries to find answers for himself, Roarke tracks her past. He walks where she walked, meeting some people she knew, gaining insight. The nun simplified if for him, he is on a mission.

Can evil be drawn to a particular person? Can someone attract the bad through no fault of their own?

It is frightening and horrifying as I read of her past and know these things really happen, that the depravity of humans are going on right now. I am at a loss for words with an overwhelming feeling of hopelessness.

I love Cara and don’t know how she can have a happy ever after, but I so much want it for here. If any character I have ever read about deserves something good in her life, Cara does. She is dogged by evil, she never quits, never gives up, willing to take them out one by one.

She runs from IT, but IT follows here everywhere she goes.

Monsters are real!

Research? If half of what Alexandra Sokoloff has written about rape and trafficking, the women and children, throwaway kids, the predatory people out there is true, we should all be afraid. It may be easier to turn the other way, but you never know when EVIL might come for you.

I had wondered if there would be more, because the rest of Cara and Roarke’s story needs to be told, and I am so happy to know…there is.

There are so many great quotes, that I had to share a few of them.

“Look too long into the abyss and the abyss looks back into you.”

“Fear the wolf, or be the wolf.”

“Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.” John Stuart Millshad

Alexandra Sokoloff had me wound so tight, I felt like I would explode. My emotions were all over the place and I did breathe a sigh of relief…and regret…when I was done. The characters have captured my heart and I miss them as soon as I close the ‘cover’. Stay safe everyone, I’ll be back.

I voluntarily reviewed a free copy of Bitter Moon by Alexandra Sokoloff and these novels will be sitting on my reread shelf!!!!

5 Stars

GOODREADS BLURB

FBI agent Matthew Roarke has been on leave, and in seclusion, since the capture of mass killer Cara Lindstrom—the victim turned avenger who preys on predators. Torn between devotion to the law and a powerful attraction to Cara and her lethal brand of justice, Roarke has retreated from both to search his soul. But Cara’s escape from custody and a police detective’s cryptic challenge soon draw him out of exile—into the California desert and deep into Cara’s past—to probe an unsolved murder that could be the key to her long and deadly career.

Following young Cara’s trail, Roarke uncovers a horrifying attack on a schoolgirl, the shocking suicide of another, and a human monster stalking Cara’s old high school. Separated by sixteen years, crossing paths in the present and past, Roarke and fourteen-year-old Cara must race to find and stop the sadistic sexual predator before more young women are brutalized.

ABOUT ALEXANDRA SOKOLOFF

I’m the Thriller Award-winning and Bram Stoker and Anthony Award-nominated author of the Amazon bestselling crime and supernatural thrillers The Harrowing, The Price, Book of Shadows, The Unseen, The Space Between, and the new Thriller Award- nominated Huntress/FBI thriller series: Huntress Moon, Blood Moon, Cold Moon. Bitter Moon, Hunger Moon. The New York Times Book Review has called me “a daughter of Mary Shelley” and my novels “some of the most original and freshly unnerving work in the genre.”

I’m a California native and a graduate of U.C. Berkeley, where I majored in theater and minored in everything that Berkeley has a reputation for. After college I moved to Los Angeles, where I’ve made an interesting living doing novel adaptations and selling original thriller scripts to various Hollywood studios.

In my stories I like to cross the possibility of the supernatural with very real life explanations for any strangeness going on, and base the action squarely in fact. THE UNSEEN is based on real paranormal research conducted at the Duke University parapsychology lab, and BOOK OF SHADOWS teams a Boston homicide detective and a practicing Salem witch in a race to solve what may be a Satanic killing. THE SPACE BETWEEN, is an edgy supernatural YA about a troubled high school girl who is having dreams of a terrible massacre at her school, and becomes convinced that she can prevent the shooting if she can unravel the dream.

I also have written paranormal romance (THE SHIFTERS, KEEPER OF THE SHADOWS) and the non-fiction workbooks SCREENWRITING TRICKS FOR AUTHORS and WRITING LOVE, based on my internationally acclaimed workshops and blog (http://screenwritingtricks.com)

I live in Los Angeles and in Scotland, with Scottish crime author Craig Robertson.

When I’m not writing I dance: jazz, ballet, salsa, Lindy, swing – I do it all, every chance I get.

Website / Twitter / Facebook / Pinterest

MY REVIEW LINKS FOR ALEXANDRA SOKOLOF

I love these gorgeous covers.

You can see my Giveaways HERE.
You can see my Reviews HERE.
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Look on the right sidebar and let’s talk.
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Dark and Dangerous – Cold Moon by Alexandra Sokoloff @AlexSokoloff

Posted on December 7, 2017 by fundinmental

Alexandra Sokoloff has blown me away, with her Huntress/FBI Thriller Series. Huntress Moon, Book I (see my review here) continues through Blood Moon, Book II (see my review here) and I am unable to stop reading. It’s like Lays Potato Chips…you can’t eat just one. Well, I couldn’t read just one. I went through Book II, III and IV on a binge read. And…I see there is a Book V, Hunger Moon, and I aim to get my hands on that one too.

The covers are awesome and kudos to the designers. Cold Moon is done by…

Inkd

Goodreads / Amazon US / Amazon UK / Amazon CA

MY REVIEW

After reading Blood Moon, Book II, by Alexandra Sokoloff, there was no way I could stop. I kept on reading through Cold Moon and Bitter Moon. Now I see we have Hunger Moon, which would be Book V, and I will jump through hoops to get my hands on it.

The moon talks to Cara. Does it talk to you? What does it say?

We begin with Roarke’s nightmare, waking him. Cara…

She faces her own terror in the night, but vows IT will never take her.

“Fair as the moon and cold as ice.”

Roark’s team functions like a well oiled machine, even when personalities occasionally clash and opinions differ. They always get their ‘man’.

Cold Moon takes an even closer look into the depraved, the abused, the lost and those who care about them. Human trafficking of women and children, enslaved in prostitution, bought and sold, used and abused. Who will stand up for them, defend them, save them?

How can an online presence affect people, politics, legalities, courts…The anonymity of cyber activism.

I do not want to spoil any of the goodies contained in Cold Moon, the third book of Cara and Roarke’s story, so I will just throw out some hints and ask you…what would you do?

Evil…can you see it, smell it, touch it, feel it? Is it alive? Do you do something about it yourself?

Is it self defense, if you know evil is coming your way, and you take it out first?

My emotions are raging in anger and disgust. I know this goes on, day in and day out, and I wonder if those who, in real life, try to stem the flow of evil feel it is too big, there are too many. One by one they WILL fall.

“There is something larger at work…a force beyond the simply human. A female vengeance against outrages.” Santa Muerte

“Sometimes death for one is salvation for another.”

I love the dark and dangerous, unique and original, direction Alexandrar Sokoloff takes in this story. I am afraid to google some of the online forums she talks about. I am afraid of what I will find out. Will evil know I am looking and come for me? She continues to thrill and amaze me, disgust and frighten me, leaving me ALWAYS wanting more.

I voluntarily reviewed a free copy of Cold Moon by Alexandra Sokoloff.

5 Stars

GOODREADS BLURB

The hunt for mass murderer Cara Lindstrom is over. FBI Special Agent Matthew Roarke has been working for this moment: the capture of a killer who savagely hunts the worst of humanity. But Roarke remains traumatized by his own near-death at the hands of the serial killer who slaughtered Cara’s family…and haunted by the enigmatic woman who saved his life.

Then the sixteen-year-old prostitute who witnessed Cara’s most recent murder goes missing, and suddenly pimps are turning up dead on the streets of San Francisco, killed with an MO eerily similar to Cara’s handiwork.

Is a new killer on the loose with a mission even more deadly than hers? In the pulse-pounding third Huntress/FBI Thrillers book, Roarke will have to go on the hunt…and every woman he meets, even those closest to him, may prove deadly.

ABOUT ALEXANDRA SOKOLOFF

I live in Los Angeles and in Scotland, with Scottish crime author Craig Robertson.

When I’m not writing I dance: jazz, ballet, salsa, Lindy, swing – I do it all, every chance I get.

Website / Twitter / Facebook / Pinterest

MY ALEXANDRA SOKOLOFF REVIEWS

You can see my Giveaways HERE.
You can see my Reviews HERE.
If you like what you see, why don’t you follow me?
Look on the right sidebar and let’ talk.
Leave your link in the comments and I will drop by to see what’s shakin’.
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Badass Female Vigilante Serial Killer – Blood Moon by Alexandra Sokoloff @AlexSokoloff

Posted on November 8, 2017 by fundinmental

Alexandra Sokoloff has reeled me in, hook, line and sinker, with her Huntress/FBI Thriller Series. Huntress Moon (see my review here) blew me away and she has kept it up in Blood Moon, Book II.

The covers scream out to me…and I do not hesitate to answer…I’m coming.

Cover: Brandi Doane

Goodreads / Amazon US / Amazon UK / Amazon CA

MY REVIEW

I am so excited to be back with Special Agent Matthew Roarke, kicking down doors and taking down the bad guys, as his hunt for Cara continues. I love action from the opening page, getting me fully invested in the story and Blood Moon has it in spades.

This book picks up where Huntress Moon, Book I, left off. It does fill in some blanks from the first book, but I will tell you now, I am so happy I started at the beginning. I don’t want to miss a thing and I don’t think you will either.

Cara is a female serial killer, but she is so much more than that. She is a vigilante that Roarke has been chasing since Huntress Moon, Book I of the series. Cara was not born this was, she was created…by The Reaper. She touched me deeply. Right or wrong? Who are we to judge? She is exorcising her demons the only way she knows how, saving innocent lives along the way.

Life is not black and white, but many shades of gray. Blood Moon makes many questions come to mind as man’s inhumanity to those unable to protect themselves is shoved in your face. Is evil alive? Does it have a physical presence?

How far should they, the FBI, go to draw her out? Roarke has conflicting feelings, but comes up with the plan. Cara was Roarke’s incentive to become an FBI agent, since he learned about the tragedy surrounding her at when he was nine years old.

Alexandra Sokoloff has written a story that pushes and pulls me in so many directions making me question myself. My morals and ethics. Who is right? Who is wrong?

She skillullly weaves the past and the present, sharing the storyline from Cara and Roarke’s perspective. The investigation takes them to surprising places, the clues and evidence leading them in unexpected ways. This is not your typical police procedural. Reading all the evidence takes a meticulous and detailed mind, thinking outside the box. I think it takes a special kind of person, whether you are deciphering the clues as a reader or creating them as a writer.

Alexandra Sokoloff is able to ramp up the intrigue, my curiosity, the suspense, and my anticipation to a horrifying, frantic level, making me wonder how this can possibly end.

Would you care if the traffickers, rapists, and pimps were offed? Would you go out of your way to find the vigilante who protects children who are unable to protect themselves and others have cast aside?

The characters come to life in a way I never anticipated. I loved them, I hated them, I worried about them, I raged at them, I fretted with fear and terror, and I wished they would go down in flames, and I mean that literally.

I love/hate the ending, BUT don’t think for a minute that the story is done, because Alexandra Sokoloff has so much more coming in Cold Moon, Book III, and I do not want to miss one second of Roarke’s and Cara’s story. I didn’t wait…I immediately began to read it.

I voluntarily reviewed a free copy of Blood Moon by Alexandra Sokoloff.

5 Stars

GOODREADS BLURB

Book II in the Thriller Award-nominated Huntress/FBI series

Twenty-five years have passed since a savage killer terrorized California, massacring three ordinary families before disappearing without a trace.

The haunted child who was the only surviving victim of his rampage is now wanted by the FBI for brutal crimes of her own, and Special Agent Matthew Roarke is on an interstate manhunt for her, despite his conflicted sympathies for her history and motives.

But when his search for her unearths evidence of new family slayings, the dangerous woman Roarke seeks – and wants – may be his only hope of preventing another bloodbath.

It is highly recommended that you read Book 1 of the series, Huntress Moon, first.

ABOUT ALEXANDRA SOKOLOFF

I live in Los Angeles and in Scotland, with Scottish crime author Craig Robertson.

When I’m not writing I dance: jazz, ballet, salsa, Lindy, swing – I do it all, every chance I get.

Website / Twitter / Facebook / Pinterest

MY REVIEW FOR HUNTRESS MOON, BOOK I

You can see my Giveaways HERE.
You can see my Reviews HERE.
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Leave your link in the comments and I will drop by to see what’s shakin’.
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She Is On The Hunt – Huntress Moon by Alexandra Sokoloff @AlexSokoloff

Posted on August 30, 2017 by fundinmental

Huntress Moon by Alexandra Sokoloff is a thriller of my favorite kind. I love serial killers, but Alexandra takes me to an even better place. We have a female serial killer.

The beautiful cover makes me feel a sense of danger and I can hardly wait to get on the road.

Cover: Braun Haus Media, LLC / Photo: Lilkar

Amazon US / Amazon UK / Amazon CA / Goodreads

MY REVIEW

I am salivating at the thought of diving into Huntress Moon, a thriller with a female serial killer. I love to read about serial killers, but a female one is very rare. I am ready to be wowed.

FBI Special Agent Matthew Roarke’s spidey senses were tingling. Is it intuition, a cop’s experience honed to pick up subtle vibes, or something more?

He was meeting an undercover agent when he saw her. She stood out…reeked of danger…and as the pieces come together, he is hot on her trail.

Roarke could’ve run the division, but he preferred the autonomy of choosing his own cases, running his own investigations. His work is his life.

Life comes full circle for Roarke and I see why he is drawn to her. I am drawn to her.

She is damaged, in a way that makes me want ‘normal’ for her. But it can’t be. Is she a good killer? A bad killer? Is there such a thing as a good one? Does she save lives even as she takes them? I am ambivalent, seesawing back and forth…

My feelings are all over the place. I am not a black and white, good and bad type of person. I feel a lot of life is filled with gray areas. But, I do have lines that define right and wrong. My big problem is…I love the villain.

The creative approach that Alexandra Sokoloff took with the storyline had this playing out in my mind like a movie script. I was continually amazed at the killers boldness and ability to hide in plain sight. But…we know that can’t go on forever.

I worry for the father and the boy. How callous and cruel is she? How far will she go? The feeling of doom hangs over me, I fear for their lives. After all, she is a serial killer and will do whatever is necessary to get away.

I love a great villain but what happens when the villain is the victim? Of course aren’t all criminals victims, or they wouldn’t be so damaged to begin with. Their past does not excuse their present. I can’t see how this will end in a way I want, because I’m rooting for her.

How long can she go on? When will Roarke catch her, because we know he has to…

I never guessed it. I love it and I hate it! I must have more.

AND…you will need the next book.

I voluntarily reviewed a free copy of Huntress Moon by Alexandra Sokoloff.

4 Stars

GOODREADS BLURB

A Thriller Award nominee for Best eBook Original Novel… Book 1 in award-winning author Alexandra Sokoloff’s riveting new Huntress FBI series about a driven FBI agent on the hunt for that most rare of all killers: a female serial.

FBI Special Agent Matthew Roarke is closing in on a bust of a major criminal organization in San Francisco when he witnesses an undercover member of his team killed right in front of him on a busy street, an accident Roarke can’t believe is coincidental. His suspicions put him on the trail of a mysterious young woman who appears to have been present at each scene of a years-long string of “accidents” and murders, and who may well be that most rare of killers: a female serial.

Roarke’s hunt for her takes him across three states…while in a small coastal town, a young father and his five-year old son, both wounded from a recent divorce, encounter a lost and compelling young woman on the beach and strike up an unlikely friendship without realizing how deadly she may be.

As Roarke uncovers the shocking truth of her background, he realizes she is on a mission of her own, and must race to capture her before more blood is shed.

This is a new release of a previously published edition.

ABOUT ALEXANDRA SOKOLOFF