Illusion by Edmond Cheng

Synopsis from back cover: A haunting, a vision, a nasty headache, and a murder… What’s next? Illusion will distort and re-shape your view.

My thoughts: The first chapter begins with us seeing an unknown couple dumping an unconscious man into the sea.

In the second chapter we meet Thomas, and his wife Karen. Everything seems quite normal at this stage in the story. As yet, it is unclear how the first chapter will relate to the rest of the story. But after Thomas is paid a visit by his old friend’s mother, Wai Ha, things start to get weird for Thomas. When he gets home he finds out that Wai Ha has been dead for weeks, and there is no way that it was her that visited him.

Thomas begins to try and solve the mystery of Wai Ha’s visit. Did he imagine it? Is someone playing tricks on him? He doesn’t know. He starts having more visions, and the story takes lots of twists and turns. Thomas finds himself in the frame for murder and his wife is kidnapped. He gets some unexpected help from a mystery man, but is he an illusion too?

I really enjoyed this story. I couldn’t stop reading it! The twists and turns in the plot kept me guessing to the end. Every time I thought I knew what was going to happen, something unexpected would happen instead. Even on the last page there was still one last mystery.

Gorilla Adventure by Willard Price

Synopsis from back cover: When those two famous teenage trappers Hal and Roger Hunt receive a cablegram from their father asking them if they will capture a giant gorilla for him, they say yes immediately, even though it means a dangerous expedition into the Congo jungle. It turns out to be one of their most thrilling and challenging assignments ever.

An erupting volcano, a fifteen-foot mamba, a killer gorilla and a gorilla killer are only a few of the terrors the boys have to face. Roger is nearly blinded by a spitting cobra, Hal has to wrestle with an angry black leopard, and they both find themselves with some very strange bedfellows. But, by the end of the adventure, the boys have collected a fine menagerie of rare and valuable animals, including a white python, a two-inch-long elephant shrew - the smallest of all the mammals - and a two-headed boomslang. As they find out on their journey home, they have landed themselves with a whole cargo of trouble!

With its wealth of fascinating facts about the creatures of Africa, and its exciting story; Gorilla Adventure will be greatly enjoyed both by followers of Hal and Roger’s exploits and by newcomers to this colourful series of adventure books.

My thoughts: I absolutely LOVED this book! I was a bit unsure when I first picked it up, because I didn’t like the idea of ‘animal collectors’, I thought they might be poachers or hunters. But I was pleasantly surprised.

Hal and Roger are the nicest boys. They both really love animals, and don’t believe in killing them, as their job is to catch them alive for zoos and circuses. In fact, they are so fond of animals that they end up sharing their bedroom with a python, an adult gorilla, two baby gorillas, and elephant shrew, a chimp, a colobus monkey and a bush-baby!

The boys are in the Congo jungle, and their mission is to catch a mountain gorilla. Unfortunately, a poaching gang gets to the gorillas first and kills most of them. One large adult male gorilla, Gog, mistakenly thinks that Roger and Hal are responsible for killing his family. So Gog begins to take revenge on the boys.

There are lots of funny moments in the book where I laughed out load. Some of the funniest moments involved Tieg, the Dutch guide, who is really a bit of an idiot. He is horrible to the animals, and they get their own back on him throughout the book.

I also loved that there were lots of animal facts scattered through the story. I learned a lot of new things from reading this book. I will definitely be looking out for more books in this series.

Swapping and Waiting

The other day I joined readitswapit.co.uk. You can view my swap profile here. It's a UK site for swapping books. The idea is that you list all the books that you have available for swap and then if anyone wants to swap with you, you can look at their available books and do a straight swap with them. It's great fun. I've swapped 6 books already and am hoping for more. Of course it's not very good for my TBR pile which just keeps getting bigger every day! But at least this way I'm also getting rid of some books that I'm unlikely to read again.

Now I just have to be patient until the postman brings my books. I'm waiting for:
Honeycote
Five Fall into Adventure
White Empress
Straight into Darkness
A Necessary Evil
Diary of a Hapless Househusband

Also I'm still waiting for Wickedoz, Tales of a Witch's Cat which I bought off ebay the other day. It was one of my favourite books as a child, and now I want to read it again.

Do you ever wish that mail arrived quicker? I think that's why I enjoy downloading ebooks. I like the instant-ness of them. But you can't beat the feeling of excitement when ripping open a new book parcel can you?

Birthday Girl by Diane J. Wright

Synopsis from back cover: Sixteen-year-old Tracey Burns has been confined to a single room for two years. One night, amid chaotic spring winds, she slips to freedom and inadvertently sets herself on a journey that takes her further away from the one thing she wants most: to find the mother who left her behind.

Determined but starkly naïve, Tracey plunges into a harsh and confusing world where she is no more than a headline, a case file, another ragged face on the side of the California highway asking for change. It's only when she stumbles upon an enclave of irrepressible epicureans tucked in the flatlands of the Mojave that she begins to uncover the truth of her world, of herself, and of her missing mother.

My thoughts: When we first meet sixteen-year-old Tracey she is running away from her father’s house, where she has been held captive for two years. She doesn’t really understand why she is running or where she’s going.

As the story goes on we learn more about how Tracey was held captive. Her mother, Adele, had left her at Roy’s house and told her to be good until she came back to pick her up. But Adele never came back. Even though Adele abandoned her, Tracey doesn’t want to believe that her mother has forgotten her. She believes that one day Adele will go back to Roy’s house looking for her, because of this belief, Tracey spends the rest of the story trying to find a way back to Roy’s house where she can wait for her mother.

Tracey is taken in by child services and is sent to a foster home. She seems to be fitting in nicely, but then one night there is a fire and the house gets destroyed. When Tracey is in hospital she meets her new case worker, Liam. Gradually Tracey starts to trust Liam, and believes that he is going to help her find her mother. Liam sends Tracey to another foster home, and tells her not to blow it because it’s her last chance before being sent to Camp Carillo, a lockdown for girls, in the middle of nowhere.

Tracey seems to start enjoying her life at Mrs Finn’s house; she even makes a friend, Frankie, who later sets of a chain of events that lead Tracey into even more trouble.

I really loved this story, from the very beginning I was sucked in. It’s one of those books that I couldn’t put down until I’d finished it. Tracey is a very loveable character, she starts of naïve and a bit simple, but she grows up and learns a lot as the story goes on. All the characters in the book are well-written and all have personalities that are very real. I also think the ending of the book was done very well.