It’s Time To Tie Up Loose Ends

SPOILER ALERT
This review is for those who have read or are familiar with the previous books, Virals, Seizure, Code, and Exposure, or don't mind knowing major spoilers for them.
SPOILER ALERT

~Terminal~
Virals
Book 5
By Kathy & Brendan Reichs
Amazon ~ Powell's

The Virals are back—but they’re not the only pack in town anymore. Terminal finds Tory Brennan—grandniece of the famous forensic anthropologist (star of the hit show Bones)—and the rest of the Morris Island gang tracking a pack of rogue Virals who call themselves the Trinity. The new pack was infected by a strain of supervirus created by Tory’s nemesis and sometimes-crush, Chance Clayborne, who accidentally infected himself, too.

These red-eyed Virals have openly challenged Tory’s pack for domination of Charleston, bringing on the attention of a shadowy government organization intent on learning the secret to their powers. Surviving it all is going to test the limits of the gang’s abilities.


I couldn't have asked for a better ending to a great series.

Gamble Everything? Risk Exposure?

SPOILER ALERT
This review is for those who have read or are familiar with the previous books, Virals, Seizure, and Code, or don't mind knowing spoilers for them.
SPOILER ALERT

~Exposure~
Virals
Book 4
By Kathy & Brendan Reichs
Amazon ~ Powell's

Morris Island has barely had a chance to return to normality after the high profile trial of the Gamemaster, when two local students seem to vanish into thin air.

Tory Brennan and the Virals pack move quickly in their attempts to discover what has happened to their twin classmates. But the pack's canine powers are growing wilder, and it is becoming ever harder to conceal the secret which protects them.

When Tory and her friends find evidence of blood in the students' basement, they realize that the disappearance is no game.

But in order to save the twins, the Virals must risk the exposure of their powers, and in doing so put even their own lives in terrible danger.


I could not stop reading this book - it was sooo much better. The tug-of-war with boys wasn't nearly as bad! Tory wasn't a controlling/manipulative bitch! All other women were not considered stupid or shallow! Issues were finally talked through! I learned something!

We’d Opened a Puzzle Box and Cracked a Coded Message

SPOILER ALERT
This review is for those who have read or are familiar with the previous books, Virals & Seizure, or don't mind knowing spoilers for them.
SPOILER ALERT

~Code~
Virals
Book 3
By Kathy & Brendan Reichs
Amazon ~ Powell's

The Virals are put to the ultimate test when they find a geocache containing an ornate puzzle box. Shelton decodes the cipher inside, only to find more tantalizing clues left by "The Gamemaster." A second, greater geocache is within reach—if the Virals are up to the challenge.

But the hunt takes a dark turn when Tory locates the other box—a fake bomb, along with a sinister proposal from The Gamemaster. Now, the real game has begun: another bomb is out there—a real one—and the clock is ticking.


Maybe I'm getting too old for these, but I wasn't nearly as sympathetic to Tory in this book as I have been previously. I like Tory, and I get that she has a lot of drama and stress on her shoulders, but her relationships are getting awfully manipulative.

Seizing The Opportunity

SPOILER ALERT
This review is for those who have read or are familiar with the previous book, Virals, or don't mind knowing spoilers for it.
SPOILER ALERT

~Seizure~
Virals
Book 2
By Kathy & Brendan Reichs
Amazon ~ Powell's

Lost treasure. Perilous adventures. Deadly foes.

Tory and her friends are just starting to get a handle on their super-heightened wolf-like capabilities—contracted during a medical experiment gone horribly wrong—when they find out funding is being pulled from the institute where their parents work. The pack now faces its greatest fear—separation. So when Tory stumbles across ancient lore hinting at a lost pirate treasure, the Virals devise a risky plan that pits them against fiendish traps, headless corpses, and deep underground tunnels. But they're not the only ones looking, and the competition could be lethal. They'll need to work as one mystery-solving canine force if they to hope to uncover the lost fortune, save the institute, and stick together!


Goonies with mutants. Ok, definitely more complex than that, but you get the gist.

All Roads Lead to Chrysalis

~Chrysaliss~
Project Nemesis
Book 3
By Brendan Reichs
Amazon ~ Powell's

The 64 members of Fire Lake's sophomore class have managed to survive the first two phases of the Program--and each other. Now, they alone have emerged into the dawn of a new era on Earth, into a Fire Lake valley that's full of otherworldly dangers and challenges.

Although staying alive in this broken world should force Min, Noah, Tack, and the others to form new alliances, old feuds die hard, and the brutality of the earlier Program phases cannot be forgotten. But being a team isn't easy for the sophomores, and when they discover that they may not be alone on the planet after all, they'll have to decide if they're going to work together . . . or die together.


This book has so many twists and turns that it's very, VERY hard not to spoil anything. But I'll do my best...

Phase Two Has Begun

~Genesis~
Project Nemesis
Book 2
By Brendan Reichs
Amazon ~ Powell's

Noah Livingston knows he is destined to survive.

The 64 members of Fire Lake's sophomore class are trapped in a place where morals have no meaning, and zero rules apply. But Noah's deaths have trained him--hardened him--to lead the strongest into the future . . . whatever that may be. And at any cost.

Min Wilder knows that survival alone isn't enough.

Trapped in a violent world where brute force passes for leadership, it's tempting to lay back and let everyone else fight it out. But Min's instincts rebel against allowing others to decide who lives and who dies. She's ready to fight for what she believes in. And against whomever might stand in her way.


I'm still not completely on board with these books, for reasons I addressed in the last review. I'm just not one for war for war's sake, or kids being dicks to each other for the hey of it. Nevertheless, I felt compelled to continue, if only to see if there WAS an endgame or if it was just supposed to be one big video game.

You're My Nemesis

~Nemesis~
Project Nemesis
Book 1
By Brendan Reichs
Amazon ~ Powell's

Orphan Black meets Lord of the Flies in this riveting new thriller from the co-author of the Virals series.

It's been happening since Min was eight. Every two years, on her birthday, a strange man finds her and murders her in cold blood. But hours later, she wakes up in a clearing just outside her tiny Idaho hometown—alone, unhurt, and with all evidence of the horrifying crime erased.

Across the valley, Noah just wants to be like everyone else. But he’s not. Nightmares of murder and death plague him, though he does his best to hide the signs. But when the world around him begins to spiral toward panic and destruction, Noah discovers that people have been lying to him his whole life. Everything changes in an eye blink.

For the planet has a bigger problem. The Anvil, an enormous asteroid threatening all life on Earth, leaves little room for two troubled teens. Yet on her sixteenth birthday, as she cowers in her bedroom, hoping not to die for the fifth time, Min has had enough. She vows to discover what is happening in Fire Lake and uncovers a lifetime of lies: a vast conspiracy involving the sixty-four students of her sophomore class, one that may be even more sinister than the murders.


There's a reason I didn't enjoy reading Lord of the Flies way back in high school. I didn't need a book to tell me kids could be dicks.

Ten-Hut Virals! We Have Missions To Complete!

~Virals~
Virals
Book 1
By Kathy & Brendan Reichs
Amazon ~ Powell's

Tory Brennan is just your typical high school freshman. You know the type: so smart she skipped two grades; lives on an island with a father she just met; niece of a famous forensic anthropologist; spends most the time boating around with three older geeky guys. Yeah, sure. Typical.

And it's on a typical trip to the neighboring Loggerhead Island, home to a super high-tech biology research lab and off limits to outsiders, that she and her friends discover a clue to a 50-year-old mystery as well as evidence of cruel animal experimentation. Apparently not everything on Loggerhead is as official and clean-cut as it seems.

After rescuing the wolfdog puppy from the labs, Tory and the group start experiencing strange symptoms. But heightened senses, hunger for raw meat, and yellow eyes are the least of their worries when their investigation efforts start attracting the wrong sort of attention. The deadly kind. They'll have to work together if they want to stay alive and put this mystery to rest.

Fortunately, they are now more than friends.
They are a pack.
They are Virals.


This book was impossible to put down! I started reading this at midnight, thinking I'd spend an hour or two at the most before turning in. Four and a half hours (347 pages/57 chapters) later I finally found a place I felt I could comfortably leave them and go to sleep. I grant that the pacing isn't the best at times—I found it impossible to tease the book using the first 50 pages because nothing had happened yet—but the absence of action in the beginning was completely covered by the characters. And once the action started, it never let up—especially not at chapter breaks.