Tag Archives: janet evanovich

Dirty Thirty – Janet Evanovich

Dirty Thirty – Janet Evanovich

I have been eagerly awaiting this book. If you have read any of the Stephanie Plum books, then you know what to expect.

Here’s the blurb …

Stephanie Plum, Trenton’s hardest working, most underappreciated bounty hunter, is offered a freelance assignment that seems simple enough. Local jeweler Martin Rabner wants her to locate his former security guard, Andy Manley (a.k.a. Nutsy), who he is convinced stole a fortune in diamonds out of his safe. Stephanie is also looking for another troubled man, Duncan Dugan, a fugitive from justice arrested for robbing the same jewelry store on the same day.

With her boyfriend Morelli away in Miami on police business, Stephanie is taking care of Bob, Morelli’s giant orange dog who will devour anything, from Stephanie’s stray donuts to the upholstery in her car. Morelli’s absence also means the inscrutable, irresistible security expert Ranger is front and center in Stephanie’s life when things inevitably go sideways. And he seems determined to stay there.

To complicate matters, her best friend Lula is convinced she is being stalked by a mythological demon hell-bent on relieving her of her wardrobe. An overnight stakeout with Stephanie’s mother and Grandma Mazur reveals three generations of women with nerves of steel and driving skills worthy of NASCAR champions.

As the body count rises and witnesses start to disappear, it won’t be easy for Stephanie to keep herself clean when everyone else is playing dirty. It’s a good thing Stephanie isn’t afraid of getting a little dirty, too.

This was a weekend read. It’s a lot of fun, laugh out loud funny, and the Ranger/Morelli tangle is heating up.

A review

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Going Rogue – Janet Evanovich

Going Rogue – Janet Evanovich

This is the twenty ninth book in the Stephanie Plum series, an amazing achievement.

Here’s the blurb …

Monday mornings aren’t supposed to be fun, but they should be predictable. However, on this particular Monday, Stephanie Plum knows that something is amiss when she turns up for work at Vinnie’s Bail Bonds to find that longtime office manager Connie Rosolli, who is as reliable as the tides in Atlantic City, hasn’t shown up.

Stephanie’s worst fears are confirmed when she gets a call from Connie’s abductor. He says he will only release her in exchange for a mysterious coin that a recently murdered man left as collateral for his bail. Unfortunately, this coin, which should be in the office—just like Connie—is nowhere to be found.

The quest to discover the coin, learn its value, and save Connie will require the help of Stephanie’s Grandma Mazur, her best pal Lula, her boyfriend Morelli, and hunky security expert Ranger. As they get closer to unraveling the reasons behind Connie’s kidnapping, Connie’s captor grows more threatening and soon Stephanie has no choice but to throw caution to the wind, follow her instincts, and go rogue.

If you have read any of these novels, then you know what to expect. They’re racy and pacy, with laugh out loud moments. Very fun and quick to read.

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Game On – Janet Evanovich

Game On – Janet Evanovich

I do love the Stephanie Plum series (all twenty eight of them – some more than others), so I bought this on the day it was published. And read it within a couple of days.

Here’s the blurb …

Stephanie Plum returns to hunt down a master cyber-criminal operating out of Trenton in the 28th book in the wildly popular series by #1 New York Times bestselling author Janet Evanovich.

When Stephanie Plum is woken up in the middle of the night by the sound of footsteps in her apartment, she wishes she didn’t keep her gun in the cookie jar in her kitchen. And when she finds out the intruder is fellow apprehension agent Diesel, six feet of hard muscle and bad attitude who she hasn’t seen in more than two years, she still thinks the gun might come in handy.

Turns out Diesel and Stephanie are on the trail of the same fugitive: Oswald Wednesday, an international computer hacker as brilliant as he is ruthless. Stephanie may not be the most technologically savvy sleuth, but she more than makes up for that with her dogged determination, her understanding of human nature, and her willingness to do just about anything to bring a fugitive to justice. Unsure if Diesel is her partner or her competition in this case, she’ll need to watch her back every step of the way as she sets the stage to draw Wednesday out from behind his computer and into the real world.

Not as much will she/won’t she between Ranger and Morelli, but Diesel is back. Lula and Grandma are as crazy as ever, Stephanie’s mum has taken to knitting (an enormous thing). Cars explode, shots get fired. It’s racy and pacy. A fun, light read.

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Twisted Twenty Six – Janet Evanovich

Twisted Twenty Six – Janet Evanovich

The first Stephanie Plum novel (One for the Money) was published in 1994 – that’s 25 years and we are on to the 26th novel – quite an achievement.

These novels are racy and pacy and follow a similar plot line.

Here’s the blurb for this one…

Stephanie Plum’s career has taken more wrong turns than a student driver on the Jersey Turnpike, and her love life is a hopeless tangle. In order to save someone dear to her, she’ll have to straighten things out in Twisted Twenty-Six the latest, novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author Janet Evanovich.

Grandma Mazur is a widow…again. This time her marriage lasted a whole 45 minutes. The unlucky groom was one Jimmy Rosolli, local gangster, lothario (senior division) and heart attack waiting to happen…well, the waiting’s over.

It’s a sad day, but if she can’t have Jimmy at least Grandma can have all the attention she wants as the dutiful widow. But some kinds of attention are not welcomed, particularly when Jimmy’s former “business partners” are convinced that his widow is keeping the keys to their financial success for herself.

As someone who has spent an entire career finding bad guys, a set of missing keys should be no challenge for Stephanie Plum. Problem is, the facts are as twisted as a boardwalk pretzel with mustard.

These novels are light-hearted and laugh out loud funny – I want someone to make them into a T.V. series (not like that awful movie)

Here’s an interview with Janet Evanovich.

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The Job – Janet Evanovich and Lee Goldberg

The Job -

The Job – Janet Evanovich and Lee Goldberg

I really like Ms Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum novels (although they are all the same), so when a friend lent me this one I was happy to give it a go.

Here’s the blurb …

Charming con man Nicolas Fox and dedicated FBI agent Kate O’Hare secretly take down world’s most-wanted and untouchable felons, next job Violante, the brutal leader of a global drug-smuggling empire. The FBI doesn’t know what he looks like, where he is, or how to find him, but Nick knows his tastes in gourmet chocolate.
From Nashville to Lisbon back alleys, from Istanbul rooftops to Thames, they chase clues to lookalike thefts. Pitted against a psychopathic bodyguard Reyna holding Kate hostage and a Portuguese enforcer getting advice from an ancestor’s pickled head, they again call driver Willie for ship, actor Boyd for one-eyed Captain Bridger, special effects carpenter Tom, her father Jake – retired Special Forces, and his talent – machete-wielding Somali pirate Billy Dee. This could be their biggest job – if they survive.

It was a light easy read full of drama and excitement, but it doesn’t have the same joy (or laugh out loud moments) as the Stephanie Plum novels. It would make a good movie though …

Another review…

http://www.austcrimefiction.org/review/review-job-janet-evanovich-and-lee-goldberg

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Wicked Appetite – Janet Evanovich

Janet Evanovich can certainly write an entertaining (and compelling) read. I’m not saying she’s an Austen or Bronte, but her novels are full of laugh-out-loud moments – racy and pacy as a friend says.

Here’s the blurb …

Seven Stones of Power

No one knows when they were created or by whom, each said to represent one of the Seven Deadly Sins.

For centuries, treasure hunters have been eager to possess the Stones, undeterred by their corrupting nature. The list is long – Genghis Khan, Alexander the Great, Napoleon, to name a few. Now the Stones have found their way to Salem, Massachusetts, and so has Gerwulf Grimoire, adding himself to this rogue’s gallery of power seekers. He’s an uncommonly dangerous man with a hunger for the forbidden and a set of abilities that is way beyond ordinary. Abilities that he feels entitle him to possess anything he might desire.

That would include Elizabeth Tucker, the woman he needs to find the Stones. She’s freshly transplanted from New York City to Boston’s North Shore. With a new job as a Pastry Chef at Dazzle’s Bakery and an old house inherited from her Aunt Ophelia, her life is pretty much on track … until it’s suddenly derailed by a man named Diesel, a rude monkey and a ninja cat.

Lizzy can handle the monkey and the cat. She’s not sure about Diesel. He’s offering up his own set of unusual talents and promising to protect her from Grimoire, the kind of protection that Lizzy suspects might involve guarding her body day and night.

The Seven Deadly Sins are pride, greed, lust, envy, wrath, sloth and gluttony. That pretty much covers everything that is wicked. Diesel thinks it also pretty much covers everything that’s fun. And Lizzy thinks Diesel and the Seven Deadly Sins cover everything her mother warned her about.

In this novel Evanovich embarks on a whole new series (Seven I imagine given the ‘Seven Stones of Power’) with a new heroine and a new setting. Elizabeth Tucker lives in Marblehead  and makes exceptionally good cupcakes. Our hero, Diesel, we’ve met  before in the Stephanie Plum between the numbers novels; he has special powers and his job is policing other people with special powers.

Elizabeth is an unmentionable (i.e she has special powers); she can locate special objects like the stones of power (and her amazing cupcakes might also be part of her power). Only two people in the world have this talent – her and a strange man who lives in Florida. Gerwulf (called Wulf for short), an evil and scary man who kills people by burning them with his hands, wants all of the stones so that he can create hell on earth. Diesel wants to find the Stones and hand them over to BUM (Board of Unmentionable Marshalls). What follows is a riotous romp involving, a one-eyed cat, a monkey, explosions, gluttony of various different kinds (food, punishment, etc), spells gone wrong (performed by Glo, Elizabeth’s work colleague, – the Lula of this series) and a bit of sexual tension. Apparently unmentionables can’t have sex because one of them will lose their powers.

If you like the Stephanie Plum novels, then you will enjoy this one.

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Sizzling Sixteen – Janet Evanovich

 

I know it’s July because the Tour De France is on and Janet Evanovich has another Stephanie Plum novel out. I was a late arrival to the Stephanie Plum novels a member at my book club recommended them as ‘racy and pacy’. I’ve been addicted since I read the first one.

These are light novels – I think I read this one in three hours – but they’re witty and fun to read.

Here’s the blurb …

It is summertime in Jersey and our favourite bounty hunter Stephanie Plum is up to her old antics, joined by her gang of memorable characters: Grandma, Lulu, Connie, Vinnie and Mooner. Someone wants to kill Vinnie, Lula s involved in a shabby investment scheme while Stephanie is chasing a dangerous crim. Adding even more heat to Stephanie s life are those two sizzling hot heroes… it s Ranger days and Morelli nights (Or perhaps it’s the other way ’round). Get ready for some grand-scale fun. With hilarious capers and action galore, this is a laugh-a-minute Stephanie Plum novel not to be missed!

There are a lot of hilarious moments in this novel and Lula and Stephanie are as incompetentant as ever. However, there isn’t as much Morelli and/or Ranger action in this one and that’s what I like the best.

These novels are a guilty pleasure; completely over the top and a bit trashy. I like to think of them as the white bread of the reading world and I’m definitely looking forward to them being made into movies.

Here are some other reviews …

http://www.booksandotherthoughts.com/2010/07/sizzling-sixteen.html

http://tansyrr.com/tansywp/how-stephanie-plum-lost-her-sizzle/

http://lightheartedlibrarian.wordpress.com/2010/07/13/just-read-sizzling-sixteen-by-janet-evanovich/

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Finger Lickin’ Fifteen – Janet Evanovich

fingerlickin15

There is something quite comforting about reading Janet Evanovich. The Stephanie Plum novels are all the same – there will be explosions, there will be sexual tension between Stephanie and Ranger or Stephanie and Morelli or maybe both, there will be incredibly incompetent bounty hunter episodes.

Having said that, there also hilarious – definitely a guilty pleasure.

Here is the blurb from the back …

UNBUCKLE YOUR BELT AND PULL UP A CHAIR.  IT’S THE SPICIEST, SAUCIEST, MOST RIB-STICKING PLUM YET.

Recipe for disaster:

Celebrity chef Stanley Chipotle comes to Trenton to participate in a barbecue cook-off and loses his head –literally.

Throw in some spice:

Bail bonds office worker Lula is witness to the crime, and the only one she’ll talk to is Trenton cop, Joe Morelli.

Pump up the heat:

Chipotle’s sponsor is offering a million dollar reward to anyone who can provide information leading to the capture of the killers.

Stir the pot:

Lula recruits bounty hunter Stephanie Plum to help her find the killers and collect the moolah.

Add a secret ingredient:

Stephanie Plum’s Grandma Mazur.  Enough said.

Bring to a boil:

Stephanie Plum is working overtime tracking felons for the bonds office at night and snooping for security expert Carlos Manoso, A.K.A. Ranger, during the day.  Can Stephanie hunt down two killers, a traitor, five skips, keep her grandmother out of the sauce, solve Ranger’s problems and not jump his bones?

Warning:

Habanero hot.  So good you’ll want seconds.  

If you like to read trashy novels and you like them ‘racy and pacy’ then this book is for you. I do wonder how much longer Evanovich can keep going with these stories. However, I will definitely be buying whatever number 16 ends up being called.

At the moment I’m rereading The Children’s Bookby A S Byatt and The Lost Life by Steven Carroll, so expect reviews of them soon.

You might also want to check out my review of Claire Harman’s Jane’s Fame here. Just to prove I do read more than pulp.

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Plum Spooky – Janet Evanovich

This was my ‘beach’ read. It’s racy and pacy. Read it because it’s hilarious (and it will only take a few hours – really!).

Here’s a link

http://www.evanovich.com/plum_spookyjacket.html

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