Tag: intense

Book Review | Detective Max Rupert series (Books 1-5) by Allen Eskens

Posted February 6, 2026 by Haze in Book Reviews / 3 Comments

Detective Max Rupert series (Books 1-5) by Allen Eskens

College student Joe Talbert has the modest goal of completing a writing assignment for an English class. His task is to interview a stranger and write a brief biography of the person. With deadlines looming, Joe heads to a nearby nursing home to find a willing subject. There he meets Carl Iverson, and soon nothing in Joe’s life is ever the same. Carl is a dying Vietnam veteran–and a convicted murderer. With only a few months to live, he has been medically paroled to a nursing home, after spending thirty years in prison for the crimes of rape and murder.

As Joe writes about Carl’s life, especially Carl’s valor in Vietnam, he cannot reconcile the heroism of the soldier with the despicable acts of the convict. Joe, along with his skeptical female neighbor, throws himself into uncovering the truth, but he is hamstrung in his efforts by having to deal with his dangerously dysfunctional mother, the guilt of leaving his autistic brother vulnerable, and a haunting childhood memory. Thread by thread, Joe unravels the tapestry of Carl’s conviction. But as he and Lila dig deeper into the circumstances of the crime, the stakes grow higher. Will Joe discover the truth before it’s too late to escape the fallout?

The Reason

I accidentally came across the first book as I was browsing Libby. I read it and loved it and wanted more, and the other books were available so I borrowed them all at once!

The Quotes

“No sin could be greater than a sin that cannot be rectified, the sin you never get to confess.”

“But we do have control of how much of our soul we leave behind in this mess. Don’t ever forget that. We do still have some choices.”

“What if, in all the eons of eternity, this was the one and only time that I would be alive. How would I live my life if that were the case?”

“But it also means that this is our heaven. We are surrounded every day by the wonders of life, wonders beyond comprehension that we simply take for granted.”

My Thoughts

All the books in the series are different enough that I feel like I should do an individual post for each one, but they’re also linked as a series, and I have something to say about the series as a whole, so I decided to do one post for them all. Plus, I’m lazy, so there.

These books are listed under the Detective Max Rupert series, but many of them feature characters in other series written by the author. The first book, The Life We Bury, is primarily listed under the Joe Talbert series, and features Joe Talbert as the protagonist. I intend to read that series as well because I love the Joe Talbert character, but I’ll be writing this post from the point of view of Detective Max Rupert as the overarching character.

Book 1 – The Life We Bury
Narrated by Zack Villa. I loved his portrayal of Joe Talbert. No notes.
For the reading challenge(s) – TBD

The first book features Joe Talbert as the main character; Detective Max Rupert plays an important but minimal role, and if I hadn’t been looking out for him (because he is the series’ titular character) I might not even have remembered his name. I loved Joe Talbert as a character though, and I loved this particular story. Joe is a student writing a story for a school project who stumbled upon a case and felt the need to get to the bottom of the story. I loved how the story played out, how thrilling it got, and how it feels different from other thriller stories. At the end of it, I felt a little disappointed that I was going to move on to the next book in Detective Max Rupert’s series rather than Joe Talbert’s series (one was available while the other was not), but I am definitely looking forward to reading more about Joe Talbert in the future.

Book 2 – The Guise of Another
Narrated by Jonathan Yen. My least favorite of the series’ narrators, but possibly because the MC is my least favorite character as well.
For the reading challenge(s):
2026 52 Book Club Reading Challenge (Prompt #8: A three-syllable word in the title)

This one features Detective Max Rupert’s brother, Alexander Rupert. I expected to see more of Max Rupert this time, and I did, but interestingly, Max was a side character to Alexander’s main. I was very much pulled into the story and got very invested in all the characters, regardless of their role in the story. I didn’t like Alexander as a person but his character was very interesting, and I loved that the story shocked and surprised me with the direction it took. It’s not your regular police procedural and I love that.

Book 3 – The Heavens May Fall
Narrated by R.C. Bray, David Colacci, Amy McFadden. They were great. I love the different voices for the different POVs.
For the reading challenge(s):
2026 52 Book Club Reading Challenge (Prompt #2: Kangaroo word on the cover [Heaven – haven])

The main character in this one is Boady Sanden, a lawyer and long-time friend of Max Rupert’s. Boady makes an appearance in The Life We Bury, but we see a lot more of him and his backstory in this book. Max Rupert plays a part in this story, but again, doesn’t take center stage. There is also a Boady Sanden series that doesn’t include this book that I will probably check out at some point. In this book, Boady and Max are at odds because Boady is defending a person that Max had arrested and believes is a criminal. Lila Nash, who is Joe Talbert’s love interest in The Life We Bury, also makes an appearance here and I love seeing her again.

Book 4 – The Deep Dark Descending
Narrated by R.C. Bray. It was perfect, especially for how intense this story was.
For the reading challenge(s) – TBD

We finally see Max Rupert as the main protagonist in this book. Very much front and center, very much raw and intense. There is such an interesting exploration of Max’s history and psyche, mixed in between the chaos happening in real time, that’s just incredible to see happening on the page. We also see more of Niki Vang, Max’s partner, who is definitely one of my favorite characters in this series. It’s hard to talk about this book without giving away key elements, but it’s almost like the intensity I feel with The Count of Monte Cristo, obviously on a much smaller scale because The Count of Monte Cristo is incomparable.

Book 5 – Forsaken Country
Narrated by Brian Troxell. I enjoyed his narration very much.
For the reading challenge(s) – TBD

Max is still a main character in this story although the primary storyline is about a colleague’s missing adult daughter and grandson. He’s asked to help with the personal investigation as the acting sheriff doesn’t believe the missing persons are actually missing or in trouble. The story itself is as thrilling as all the previous books, but we continue to get some more exploration of Max’s character arc and I love that too. I love where we landed on by the end of the book, but I’m definitely curious to see if there will be more books in the series and where they’ll go.

Overall
I’m not sure how the author planned these books because of how different each one of them are, and the fact that the titular character of the series don’t play main character roles in the initial books, but I loved how they turned out! And to be honest, I think what I loved most about these books is the fact that they’re all so different and not formulaic at all; the first book being from a journalistic POV, the second more like a police procedural, the third a legal thriller, and so on. It does feel like I’m reading completely different books, yet they are all immersive and interesting in their own ways. I’m loving this experience and I’m very interested in reading more from the author!

My Rating

⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.

Four stars overall, because while I love the stories and find them very interesting on an intellectual level, I’m missing just a tiny bit of the emotional connection to the characters.

Have you read this series? Would you read this series? Did you like it or do you think you would like it?

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Book Review | The God of the Woods by Liz Moore

Posted June 7, 2025 by Haze in Book Reviews / 0 Comments

The God of the Woods by Liz Moore

When a teenager vanishes from her Adirondack summer camp, two worlds collide

Early morning, August 1975: a camp counselor discovers an empty bunk. Its occupant, Barbara Van Laar, has gone missing. Barbara isn’t just any thirteen-year-old: she’s the daughter of the family that owns the summer camp and employs most of the region’s residents. And this isn’t the first time a Van Laar child has disappeared. Barbara’s older brother similarly vanished fourteen years ago, never to be found.

As a panicked search begins, a thrilling drama unfolds. Chasing down the layered secrets of the Van Laar family and the blue-collar community working in its shadow, Moore’s multi-threaded story invites readers into a rich and gripping dynasty of secrets and second chances. It is Liz Moore’s most ambitious and wide-reaching novel yet.

For the Reading Challenge(s):
2025 52 Book Club Reading Challenge (Prompt #7: Genre Two: Set in Summer)

The Reason

It came highly recommended and I was curious!

The Quotes

“Rich people, thought Judy—she thought this then, and she thinks it now—generally become most enraged when they sense they’re about to be held accountable for their wrongs.”

“How many times in her life has she said yes to a boy or a man just because it was the easiest thing to do? How many times has she let a man take what he wanted, instead of taking something for herself?”

“To panic, said T.J., was to make an enemy of the forest. To stay calm was to be its friend.”

“She wasn’t – frightened of him, exactly, though there had been one or two incidents that caused alarm. It was more that she had come to see herself nearly exclusively through his eyes, and therefore being in his good graces was the easiest way to achieve a sense of well-being.”

The Narrator(s)

Saskia Maarleveld. I enjoyed her narration very much.

My Thoughts

While I was reading this I was simultaneously annoyed with the fact that there were so many characters and so many jumps between them plus also jumping between different timelines, and yet also loving how interesting all the different characters were and the way the story was unveiled through the timeline jumps. I can’t make up my mind if I love that aspect of the book or hate it!

I think that overall I do love the story and the characters, but there was so much in so little space and it’s hard to know where or who to focus on. Another paradox was that it felt simultaneously deep and shallow. There were a lot of deep topics that were touched upon, but because of all the characters and side stories, they were spread too thin and shallowly explored.

There were a couple of characters I loved more than others and I would’ve loved to read more about; Judy in particular. I felt like if this one book was turned into a series instead, we could’ve explored each character’s story more in depth, and we could’ve tied the series together with Judy as the investigator. Still a great story with great character building.

My Rating

⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.

Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?

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Top Ten Tuesday | Books Featuring Mothers

Posted August 19, 2024 by Haze in Top Ten Tuesday, Weekly Book Memes / 25 Comments

Welcome to Top Ten Tuesday, a weekly bookish meme hosted by Jana @ That Artsy Reader Girl that features a different bookish topic every week.

Today’s topic is Relationship Freebie (Pick a relationship type and choose characters who fit that relationship as it relates to you. So, characters you’d like to date, be friends with, be enemies with, etc. Bookish families you’d like to be a part of, characters you’d want as your siblings, pets you’d like to take for yourself, etc.)

To be clear right off the bat, I don’t actually want a relationship with many of the mothers featured in these books (some are great but most are not!). I was having a hard time thinking of books with characters I’d like to be in some kind of relationship with, especially mother/daughter relationships, so I thought I’d just do books featuring mothers regardless of whether they’re good or bad.

Surprise! There are a lot of bad mothers in fiction… and nonfiction. Also surprise! There seems to be a lot of Asians with complicated relationships with their mothers.

Top Ten Books Featuring Mothers

  1. Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng – A couple of different but equally complicated mother/daughter relationships represented here. I watched the show but haven’t read the book. The show was really good, but so intense and heavy too, and it makes me a little scared to read the book, but I will eventually!
  2. Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn – Someone said about this quote from the book:
    “Even I, in public, was a beloved child. Once her period of mourning for Marian was over, she’d parade me into town, smiling and teasing me, tickling me as she spoke with people on the sidewalks. When we got home, she’d trail off to her room like an unfinished sentence, and I would sit outside with my face pressed against her door and replay the day in my head, searching for clues to what I’d done to displease her.”
    about how it made them realize that you can be a well-cared-for child, but still be unloved, and that alone made me read the book.
  3. On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong – This book is presented as a letter from a son to his mother who cannot read. It’s also presented as fiction but the feelings are so raw and real, it wouldn’t be hard for me to believe it was all true. I read this recently and I love how beautiful and lyrical it is.
  4. Please Look After Mom by Kyung-Sook Shin – I haven’t read this one but I am fascinated because it’s written in second person POV and I’ve heard a lot of praise for it. I’m a little averse to reading books about complicated relationships with Asian moms in general because it’s a little close to home for me, but maybe my curiosity will win out.
  5. The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan – Same deal as the above for why I haven’t read it, but sort of worse. I couldn’t even finish the movie because of all the feelings it dragged up.
  6. Room by Emma Donoghue – A mom and her child locked in a room for the first five years of his life. It was so powerful and painful to read. And I loved the movie too.
  7. From Cradle to Stage by Virginia Hanlon Grohl – I just found out about this book last week and have requested a hold from my library! It’s from the POV of mothers to famous rock stars and I’m excited to read it!
  8. I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy – Well, this one was painful, and I guess the other side of the coin of how mothers to famous people can be horrible too.
  9. Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus – Ooh, just realized that Brie Larson acts as the mother in this film adaptation as well as Room. This one is a little more lighthearted than Room, but still covers some sensitive topics.
  10. A Sorceress Comes to Call by T. Kingfisher – I just found out about this new book from T. Kingfisher and I’m excited to read it! All I know is that there’s a lot of reference to the protagonist’s mother in the description, so I’m just assuming that it fits the topic!

Have you read any of these books? What did you think of them? Would you read any of these books?

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