Below are the reviews of the books that I've read as part of my 50 book challenge from 08-09 and of the book's I'm currently reading as part of the 09-10 challenge.
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Wednesday 29 July 2009

Book 23 - The Last Patriot

Book number 23 is, The last Patriot by Brad Thor which is published by Simon and Schuster UK and is available from both Play.com and Amazon.co.uk.

Now, I've got to say I hadn’t heard of either Brad Thor or his book The Last Patriot, its only after I’d read it and I went on amazon.co.uk to see if there was anything else of his I could read, did I find out he's rather sucessful lol. Needless to say I found 6 books in the Scot Harvath series. Now I didn’t know the book I was reading was part of a series and while there was the odd reference to something that had gone on before it wasn’t like I was missing out, I’m currently toying with buying the rest. Let's put it this way any book that has its own trailor you know is going to be good



In this book you go from 632 A.D right up to the current time, very much the same way that Kate Mosse did with labyrinth. In fact to me this story felt like it was the best bits of Daniel Silva, Sam Bourne, Scott Marianni, and Kate Mosse all in one book.

I can’t in all honesty say I was hooked from page one, as I wasn’t. Now that’s not the authors fault or a fault with the book. It was because when I started reading it I was already in the juicy bit of Blindsighted by Karin Slaughter. So I started it and then put it down until I’d finished finding out what happened to Sara and Jeffery. Once I’d finished that though I got really into it. There are loads of thrillers out there so to stand out takes an awful lot and this manages it.

As I said further up this page, it reminds me of books by of Daniel Silva, Sam Bourne, Scott Marianni, and Kate Mosse. That’s a good thing though there are loads of books out there trying to be the next Da Vinci code. This is where Brad Thor has worked his magic, the last patriot is fast paced and keeps you reading long after you planned on putting it down. But Brad Thor hasn’t gone down the traditional baddies route like the Nazi’s or some secret religious sect. No he’s managed to tap into the current political climate and come out with something new, and at the moment this is something that’s both rare and enjoyable.

The only part I thought was a bit of a stretch was the ending; I felt it was a little weak in comparison with the rest of the book. Although saying that, I don’t think I could have come up with a better ending, It most likely is me expecting too much, as sometimes happens when I get a little too caught up in what I happen to be reading and don't like the fact it's come to an end, I can certainly see why this book was a New York Times No1 Bestseller.

Simon and Schuster UK understand that its difficult to make a judgement on a book without holding it in your hands and reading a bit of it. It's not like buying soup when you buy a book. Whenever I'm deciding on buying a book by an author I don't already know I like. I flip it open and read a few pages. But when you read a review or buy a book online its more like buying soup. There's no try before you buy, You would'nt have a jalapeno pepper and roast beef soup without trying it. (and yes it does sound pretty good to me too) Well Simon and Schuster think you shouldn't buy a book like you buy soup,

if you follow the links below they will take you to simon and Schuster's own site where you can read the first 4 chapters, which is more than enough to get you hooked and wanting more. Maybe not so much with the jalapeno peppers and roast beef though, id google for recipe on that.

Chapter one

Chapter two

Chapter three

Chapter four