Friday, March 11, 2011

Bizarre Bunch

Strange Little Band by Nancy Brauer and Vanessa Brooks

* I received this book for review from the author, Nancy Brauer.

This book gets a ferocious 4 gnomes out of 5 gnomes for being about two truly weird individuals who are rather despicable at first but grow on you and each other as the story progresses.  

The entire story centers around this giant corporation called Triptych.  Triptych is a mega corporation that has a far reaching impact on the world and those that work for it.  Once you start working for this organization, leaving is not an option.  This place controls every aspect of it's employees lives.  Since everyone lives and works in one place there is quite the fish bowl effect, and everyone is constantly under surveillance.   

Addison is a woman that is very sure of herself and knows how to get what she wants.  She is an extremely powerful psychic and can manipulate people's minds.  She is a scientist but is also used by the corporation that she works for to do their dirty work.  She is even ordered to have a child because the company wants to continue hers and the father's genetic traits.  

Shane is an intriguing character because he's very smart and also part alien.  He does not make connections easily and escapes to his alien side a lot so he doesn't have to deal with emotions or people.  He does some pretty despicable things to the people around him but just like everyone around him, Triptych controls everything that he works for.  

These two villainous people are forced to come together when Triptych decides that Addison should have a baby with Shane as the donor.  This child draws them together in ways that may have never happened otherwise.  With the environment they are in though trust is not an easy thing to gain or earn.  Their interactions tend to be explosive and fun to read.  Their hatred of each other and the world around them leads to some destructive behavior.  

The bad guys in this story are everywhere and surprising.  You'll find yourself not knowing where the next threat will come from.

The story is jarring at times especially with the time jumps later on.  The more I read though the more the jumps made sense to the story.  Even characters that were annoying at first had more depth added to their stories.  Ashlynn's character especially grew on me/got better with age.  Seeing the characters grow in age and progress forward helps the reader understand their motivations even more.

This book is full of mystery and one heck of a relationship.  The story will draw you in and leave you wondering how on earth these characters will be able to win against such a powerful corporation.  

4 comments:

  1. I have a copy of this that I really need to make the time to read - especially after this review! Yay for villainous heroes!

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  2. @Kate, Thanks, yeah these two characters are really hard to like at first and then they start to grow on you and you see their journey towards change and beginning to trust someone other than themselves.

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  3. Thanks for the review, Becky! I'm glad the psychic horndogs grew on you. SLB was a blast to write.

    Kate, I look forward to your thoughts on SLB, especially since you're an editor. Bring on the constructive criticism!

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  4. @Nancy, glad you like the review :) The characters did indeed grow on me. I loved the ending.

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