Richard Parker (12)

What would you do if your child's life was in danger? Would you kill another human being to keep your child safe from harm? How far would a mother go to protect her child?

Maggie knew all to well the answers to these questions as she was faced with them once before. So when she hears a noise late in the evening, she knows why the intruder is breaking into her home. Maggie grabs her daughter and locks herself in her bedroom. The intruder, Holly, is a mother just like herself and someone is show more pulling her strings forcing her to do things in order to get her baby back. Maggie knows she is running out of time, but what would it take to convince Holly that there might be another way to put an end to the horror they both face.

I really enjoyed the intensity at the beginning of the story. Someone breaking into your home while you are alone with your child would surely scare the life out of me. I am not a mother, so I can only imagine the heart pounding fear one would feel if placed in a situation like this. Maggie was fierce while protecting her child and herself at all cost. It almost made you feel sorry for Holly and the situation she was in. While Maggie did have empathy for Holly, she sure was not going to go down without a fight. I felt that Maggie was definitely the mentally stronger character between the two, but on the other hand Holly seemed to have more of a heart as she questioned if she could really go through with the task at hand in order to save her child.

While the first part of KEEP HER SAFE felt like more of a psychological thriller to me, the second half felt like more of a mystery and definitely gave off a completely different vibe. At this point though, I was really emotionally invested in both Maggie and Holly's story and really needed to see it through to the end. While I liked the second half of the book it was definitely different than the first half. It was still really good, but it didn't hold the same "keep you on the edge of your seat heart stopping action" as the beginning of the story until it reached closer to the end and then the action was back in full force. Although the shift felt quite different they both worked really well together as a whole and I was far from disappointed at the turn of events.

I needed to know who the bad guy was and what turned him into such a sinister manipulator. One thing I would have really enjoyed was getting inside the head of the bad guy and reading his POV inter-weaved through the story. What can I say, I am a sucker for evil characters and love reading their thoughts.

I would highly recommend picking up a copy of KEEP HER SAFE, the action was intense and really had me thinking what I would do if faced with same situation. The author, Richard Jay Parker, really knows how to grab your attention and his writing is top of the line. He grabs your attention right from the beginning and doesn't let go until you are on the very last page. I will be searching out his other books and adding them to my TBR. show less

Holy shit, this is what a call a thriller. To be honest, did it feel like a slasher horror movie in a book format. You know the one with a group of people travel to a remote place and get killed off one by one. It's an old and used format. But, it sure never gets boring. And, Richard Jay Parker has written a damn good book!

The idea for this book, people tweeting #BeMyKiller and how they wanna get killed and then they are killed is a fabulous modern kind of book plot. The BIG questions are; show more who is the killer? Or is it more than one killer and why is "he/they" killing off people? Also, how many in the documentary team will live?

Be My Killer is a great thriller, and if you're a thriller/horror fan will you love this book. I did think the end could have been a bit better, sure it was a bit of a surprise, but I part of me wanted a more shocking explanation. A truly WOW kind of ending. Yes, I know, I'm picky and hard to please. Other than that so did I find the book to be great, and there are some really, really awful gruesome killing scenes that even I found really disturbing.

One thing for sure, this is not the last book by Richard Jay Parker I'm going to read!

Btw I love the cover for the book, it's so gorgeous!

4.5 stars

I want to thank the publisher for providing me with a free copy through NetGalley for an honest review! show less

I wanted this to be so much better than it was. The writing was sound and confident. The very kernel of the book - the logline of "have you ever Googled yourself?" - was the high water mark.

The rest of the book never lives up to the promise of its premise. Very fiddly as a page turner. The characters are all wafer-thin and don't act like people would act (even in the rarified stylized air of "serial killer beach book") and only serve the overcranked plot like checkers on a checkerboard. The show more irradiated doses of exposition were delivered in huge, skimmable chunks - violating Elmore Leonard's rule of writing to "leave out the parts that readers skip."

The plot point machinations were heavy on their feet and the entire exercise is a very shaggy dog of a tale, piling preposterous atop the already preposterous starting point. Which doesn't help because one is immediately criticizing every move the characters make. This serial killer is Rube Goldbergian, setting out a trail of bread crumbs that rely on so much complicated planning for no reason, and over-reliance on luck and timing for any of it to work. Complete with the killer's "before I kill you, Mr. Bond" manifesto at the end that explains the entire 380 pages that came before.

This would be better as a movie script (and reads like there's already a treatment or script in turnaround somewhere).

Thomas Harris' SILENCE OF THE LAMBS casts a long shadow over literate and well-done serial killer thrillers, especially when something inferior comes along. Which is 99% of everything else. This one is in the lower percentile ranges of that 99% for me. show less

Scare Me is a standalone thriller that had quite an intriguing premise. Will, a successful businessman, has to go on a scavenger-type hunt across several countries in order to save his pregnant daughter, Libby, who is being held hostage. He's having to visit seven different houses, all of them horrific crime scenes. Poppy, the person behind it all, is known to the reader from the beginning. But who exactly is she, why did she target Will and his family, and what is her ultimate goal?
Scare Me show more has been optioned for a movie and I can see why. To be honest, I think it might work better on screen than it did reading/listening to this. It's fast-paced and quite entertaining; that is provided you don't start to pick it apart for its plausibility.
I enjoyed it in the way you can enjoy an action-packed movie that doesn't require any thinking or emotional involvement, but I didn't love it. The main shortcoming for me was the characters, who remained rather one-dimensional, which stopped me from really connecting with any of them. The story is told from several perspectives including Will's, his wife's, Libby's and Poppy's as well as a seven-year-old boy's and a reporter's. I felt the inclusion of the latter two didn't really serve any purpose as regards the storyline.
The audiobook narration by Rupert Holliday-Evans was pretty decent. He had a very pleasant voice.
Overall, this was pretty much average, 3 stars. show less