Two Book Reviews

I thought this was going to be more of a science fiction story than it was, mostly because I didn’t realize that Second Life was a real video game. But even though I had no experience with the game, I still really enjoyed this mystery by one of my favorite authors. I did listen to the audiobook, and although I liked the narrator’s voice and thought he did a good job, the story doesn’t really work well for that format.

The reason I think this is because of the way the dialogue inside the game is written. In the game they are using DMs to communicate with each other and a lot of short cut words, for example LOL, which doesn’t work super well in audiobooks.

I really liked all of the characters, especially Michael who narrates most of the story. I also really liked Doobie, a woman he meets in the game. The story unfolds in both the real world and in the game and as usual I was guessing until the end who was committing these murders. Although I was not surprised at the big reveal, it was a lot of fun getting there. I also liked that the characters you meet in the game are not necessarily who you think they are in real life.

If you are a fan of Peter May’s books than this one should be on your list. It is not my favorite, and it is a bit dated, but I still enjoyed it.

This was a fun historical mystery romance with a 90’s music setting. I really liked Jane Pyre and could totally relate to her feelings and personality. The romance between her and Elijah was super sweet, even when it was falling apart. This definitely has Daisy Jones vibes, even though it is quite different.

The setting for the story was perfect. The music scene in the 90’s was very chaotic and full of drugs and alcohol. I’m always surprised that any of the music stars from back then survived it all. Jane had to hide her feelings and how much she contributed to the duo’s music, because no one wanted to think that a woman could write songs like that. The media vilified her and blamed her for what happened to Elijah, which I think happened a lot back then. We only got to see Elijah through Jane’s eyes, but he was such a sweet and gentle guy. He had an addiction issue before he even met Jane, but the pressures of being a star pushed him over the edge.

This story does deal with a lot, grief, addiction, heartbreak and how much music means to people. I really liked how there were two story lines, the present timeline focused on the mystery of what happened to Elijah and the clues that Jane was following. The past focused on their romance and their rise to fame and how it all crashed around them. The two timelines lined up nicely in that the past led to the clues Jane was following in the present. I also really liked the music aspect of the story. There were a lot of real life bands and people thinly disguised in the characters that the duo meet.

This was a good read that I would recommend if you like books set in the 90’s and has a bit of a mystery to it. I would also recommend it to those of you who liked Daisy Jones, it has a lot of the same themes and felt very similar.