Melissa GoodRecensioni

Very good. The first of a series and the entire thing is good. The author is still working on the current story and you can read it as she posts it on her website.

We also discussed it on the Cocktail Hour podcast: http://cocktailhour.us/archives/179

A classic Xena Uber. You can read my review here: http://reviews.c-spot.net/archives/1899

Oh, so, so much uber was just shining through this one (well, for me), I mean, for sure, at this point, the characters of Dar and Kerry are their own characters, but, the stuff in this just made me smile with how this whole series sorta started so many years ago. Well, I smiled when other parts of the book didn't make me wince.

Dar and Kerry are going on a rafting trip in the Grand Canyon. It starts off pretty great on the river, everyone having a good time, and then the worm turns and suddenly there's rain, flooding, injuries, and so so much more.

It's a sorta nature thriller. The characters vs. nature (we think). And it seems like every challenge is bigger.

It was a heckuva ride and sorta made me want to go rafting in the Grand Canyon, but, also sorta made me really, really never go rafting in the Grand Canyon. Heh.

Everything is still all a mess in this story, even though now Dar and Kerry's new business is up and running, ILS is still trying to pull them back in, screw them over, or both.

While all that's going on, they're getting more accounts, and they also take an interesting trip to New Orleans that had some deep and interesting questions posed.

Then they're up to Washington where everything comes to a head, and hopefully doesn't crush both of their heads.

The stuff with Bush was weird I have to say, not bad, just weird. And there was a ton of back and forth in the Government stuff.

But, the New Orleans subplot/vacation was definitely the highlight of this book.

So, Dar and Kerry have handed in their resignations and give ILS 6 months notice. Everything is weird at work for both of them. But, they're ready for something new and sick of a lot of the ILS stuff.

So, she winds up going to DC and seeing Gerry Easton as well as a guy that makes spooks look regular and normal.

There was a lot going on in this novel. More cute Labs, not enough Ceci and Andy, and I love where Maria and her family's story went too. Always want more of her and Mayte!!

It was another fun story and novel, and I'm a little bummed that I'm only two books away from the end (so far) of the current published Dar and Kerry adventures.

This picks up right after Book 1 ends (actually, has some of the same scene as the end of the first book). Dar and Kerry are on their way to New York City to try and save the financial world. First they have to get an emergency center set up for the Governor of New York in a place where, really, it shouldn't be data/networking wise.

And then it's on to the stock exchange with the problems there all piling on top of one another until it seems pretty insurmountable.

It was a helluva ride. And while I know that it wasn't dripping with verisimilitude like the first one (or maybe it was and we, the rest of the country, just don't know it). The characters were awesome, and I know that I very much enjoyed the story (it's fiction, for anyone who doesn't like superhero Dar and Kerry, have we all forgotten that fiction is supposed to be an interesting romp through life but doesn't have to be 100% real and perfectly life like?)

I will say, though, that I'm not crazy about the portrayal of menstruation/periods in this series. 4-6 hours? Maybe a day of pain? I would kill for only double, hell, triple that a month. But, as I said, that's not just in this book, but in the whole series, and thankfully in most of the other books it's maybe a line or too, it just seemed to be really emphasized here for whatever reason.

Other than that I loved the book though, and, it was a good ending to the emotional roller coaster of the first one.

My thought before reading this was that I was not sure I was ready for this one. I do believe that when I first read it online there was quite a lot of skimming going on, and so, I really had to prevent myself fro doing that this time.

And, I was right, this one took me a lot longer than it should have to read. Especially when I got to Chapter Seven or so. After that it was a bit easier to read, because it was more about rebuilding than about destruction, but, those first chapters. First anticipating what was going to happen on the date of 9/11/2001, and then reading what happened. Can 17 years still be too soon?

But, all that has to do with what I was feeling while reading it, not with the actual book. The actual book is just as good as all her others in this series, if not better in some ways.

Dar and Kerry and everyone are trying to rebuild in the direct aftermath of 9/11. Trying to keep ILS's systems up, while also rebuilding a network in one of the most important cities on the East Coast, oh, and trying to get the Pentagon back up and running too. Not to mention, through all this, sparring with the government over and over. Oh, and Dar and Kerry are trying to get to one another as well.

As I implied above, it was an intense and emotional book. And while I know there are some readers who don't like the amount of techy stuff that happened during this book. But, I thought that all the stuff they were talking about on their Central Board/IM thingie was super interesting, and I'm not going to pretend that I understood all or most of it, but, the stuff I did was fun to read (yes, in fact, I do play a nerd in my life). I thought it gave the novel a depth and verisimilitude.

Oh, and I want to end the review with a quote that I felt was just perfect when it came to how I personally felt while living thorugh 9/11. A minor character, a Chief in the Military says, "Have you ever wanted to hit someone, but you ain't got a target, young lady? I just want to find the people who thought this was a great and noble thing to do and keep hitting them until their guts come out on the floor."

Whew. The twists. The turns. Crazy.

Dar and Kerry and everyone is working their butts off as more and more crap gets thrown at them while they're trying to fix up their ship with all the tech and stuff.

Add to that quite a bit of Ceci and Andrew in it, and whew, it was most definitely tiring to read (in the best possible way).

There was also much more Sheri and Michelle, more with other competitors in the cruise ship competition, and even some really good Chino stuff going on.

It was another fun read in the series, and even just a tick shorter than some of the other books which was not a bad thing.

Ooh, getting into the good stuff. Most of this novel is all about Dar and Kerry trying to win the Cruise Ship contract (for many reasons). At the same time Dar is trying to catch a hacker who is probing their network. Not to mention Sharia and Michelle are still up to no good.

There is so much goodness in this book. From the cabin time to the awesome stuff with Dar and her programming, and even the totally amazing Andrew Roberts stuff.

It was even better than what I remember reading on the Merwolf group and the most intense ride to date in this series.

Whew. Reading a Melissa Good novel is almost always (to me) quite a marathon, but, only in the best possible way. There's always a log going on and so, so much emotion pulsing through the narrative.

It's more with Dar and Kerry and the gang. With lots going on as usual. They get to go back to Disney World, which was a cool call back to their beginning. But, there's also a tech convention and Sheri (ugh) and Michelle (slightly less ugh) are both there as well with a new company that they've started up.

There's also the introduction of Peter Quest, and a cruise ship plot which is quite a doozy. There's even a trip to New York City and Hans, love Hans.

I know that Melissa Good's novels aren't for everyone, but, I've been reading her stuff since I was in college, and diving back into the lives of Dar/Kerry and friends is always so much fun and refreshing.

Not a short novel, but, for me, it was a fast and fun read anyway.

The sixth entry in the Dar and Kerry saga and in this one it definitely turns into a saga.

Dar and Kerry take some time off around Christmas and New Years, the holidays. Or, they try to. Their plan is to take their boat down to the American Virgin Islands, do a lot of diving and even more relaxing, a leisurely vacation. Of course, a relaxing vacation is not likely to happen for Dar and Kim in Good's world because that would make quite a short and boring book, and this novel is definitely not boring.

So, when they get down to the Virgin Islands they stop by Bud and Charlie's restaurant (they also have a kid named Rufus). They're old friends of Andy's from the Navy (and I thought that they and Andy's backstory was intriguing) as well as being partners (in the gay way, not business way). They're one of the couple of subplots, but they're just the start of the story. The main plot is about pirates, and PIs, and quite the family drama that thankfully doesn't have anything to do with either the Roberts or Stuart family.

It has a lot of physical thriller (instead of the usual corporate thriller) and a bit of a mystery too. Are people who they say they are, who's on which side, etc. And on occasion it does almost stretch to the believable, but never breaks it.

I do have to say that it took me a bit longer than usual to get into the story, into its flow because it was a different sort of story topic than Good has done before.

Still it was a great novel, exciting, most definitely kept me on the edge of my seat.

The fifth in the Dar and Kerry series this one is a bit shorter and so has just a little less going on throughout (although not by much).

It picks up right where Red Sky at Morning stops (mostly because both it and Red Sky were originally in the same bigger story I believe). All the Navy stuff is still coming a bit too near the air moving rotary instruments. Still that story is a very, very subplot. Another subplot is about a teen girl who's having some trouble with her parents. But it's also a very small subplot too

In this book there's really just one main plot, and that's Kerry's father Roger Stuart. He's not doing so well. He gets sick and so Kerry has to go up to Michigan to be with her family. It's not surprising that Dar winds up there as well.

There's the usual tension that surrounds Kerry's family. What was cool about this book was that the Kerry vs. family relationship was so much more complex in a really, real way.

This book seemed more of a bridge book, it wrapped up a lot of the stories from the previous books and got the reader ready for Terrors. Because Good's books are so serial in nature (more than any other series I've read) this sorta book seems to be essential. Like it was the end of the first part of the series and Terros would start the next part of the series.

The fourth in the Dar and Kerry series. It's another non-stop exciting ride too.

This time Dar starts with the Annual Stockholder's meeting in New York while Kerry tries to get to Chicago to fix a screw up that her people had done. She doesn't quite get there though.

Then the book gets to the main plot of the story. ILS gets hired by General Gerry and the Federal government to analyze a Navy base's (or more than one, it was unclear) systems and procedures. Both the technical ones as well as the personnel ones too.

That causes some friction because the Navy officers and Enlisted higher ups see her as an outsider who's trampling all over everything they do. I really liked all the scenes at and about the Navy base. They were all brimming with emotion and underlying meanings.

There were subplots that were interesting too. Mostly personnel stuff with in the walls of ILS. Nothing wicked surprising, but definitely interesting.

This was a cool book. And not only did it have the usual corporate thriller stuff in it like the rest of the series, but his novel there was quite a bit of action thriller in it too. And I also liked the unknown stuff happening between Kerry and Dar, not as subtle as usual, but still fun to read.

Stuff has finally calmed down for Dar and Kerry in this third installment of the Dar and Kerry series, which of course means (since these are works of fiction) that something's going to happen and boy is this an explosive book in so many ways.

It starts with a new board member, David Ankow, who has some agenda although no one not the reader or characters are exactly sure what that agenda is. But to get his agenda through he wants to get Alastair out of the CEO chair and eventually (because of her always sunny disposition... He...) that plan involves getting rid of Dar from ILS too.

So, Dar spends some times in Houston in this book. And Kerry gets some frequent flyer miles too. There's an internal consolidation in Vermont where nothing is what it seems, and then she has to go testify in her father's trial/hearing thing (they even name her as a hostile witness).

And then at the climax of the book there's a bit of physical thriller thrown in there (as opposed to the rest of the book that's more of a corporate thriller) as well as a banking thing.

But, of course my favorite of all the subplots involved Dar's Mom, Ceci and Dad Andy. They're both such unique characters that jump off the page. And Good did a great job bringing the subplot along at a slow but steady pace and not rushing it.

My only small problem with this book was that to me the time in the hospital as I read it didn't seem like twelve hours, but much shorter.

Still, an enjoyable book. She takes what could be totally insane plots and makes them almost seem as though they could happen in real life.

The second book in the Dar and Kerry series and just like the first one, chock full of plot. When you read a Melissa Good novel, you get a ton of plot for your money. Sure there are interesting descriptions and metaphors and such in there, but these books are all about what's happening and such not foofy pontificating.

To start off an old adversary of Dar's gets hired at the company. He wants to take Dar down and seems to want to do it by any means necessary. Then the adversary as well as all the other big VPs in the Miami office go on a 'team building' retreat not in the boonies, but wayy beyond the boonies and that's quite an eventful trip.

Another of the plots, and my favorite of them in this book was Dar and Kerry having to sort of import a network center that goes down (and down hard) in North Carolina. I only knew about half of the stuff that they were talking about, but Good wrote it so that the thrust of the action was easily understandable whether or not you know anything about router tables and Ethernet hubs.

And even when Dar and Kerry takes time off in North Carolina it's exciting.

Finally there's the last scene on an island off of Florida. It's an amazing scene and it's not just one of my favorite scenes in Hurricane Watch, but in the entire series.

I also love all the little super subtle Uber Xena allusions and easter eggs that Good has scattered throughout the narrative. The reader doesn't have to know anything about the Xena fics that Good wrote, and the whole novel more than stands on its own, but, if you do get the references it makes the book an even cooler one.

Ah, so I have read the web version of this book so many times since it was put up way back when I'd lost count. But, this was my first reading of the published book. They are definitely different, although not as drastically different as I thought it might be.

The novel is crammed full of story, and so here and there it comes across as a bit wordy, but, I'd much rather have too much story than no story.

It centers around two women. Dar, a Corporate VP, and Kerry, the director of a small company that just got swallowed by said Corp. It's not a surprising romance plot. The same sort has been done forever. A character who's in charge, but too much in charge, and then a second character stands up tot he first. And the first falls in love with the second and vice versa. In this case, Dar and Kerry are the two women who fall in love.

How they fall in love felt almost real. It's not like some books where first the two main characters get together and then the problems and twists happen. In this book, they slowly get to know each other as their relationship progresses.

There are various corporate disasters that they get to deal with as well as a couple of personal ones too.

I really liked the dreams that both Dar and Kerry have at different points in the story. They're cool like Easter Eggs that work in the story on multiple levels. I also liked that there were parts here and there in the novel that got a bit thriller-ish, and the inner monologues of most of the characters were some of the best I've ever read.

It's a great read. Some of the tech stuff is a teeny tiny bit out of date-ish, but the story resonates across the years.

I've heard nothing but good things about this book, and since it fit one of the squares for a challenge I'm currently doing, I decided to take the plunge. And I have to say, I didn't really like this book.

It's Xena uber fiction (for those who don't know what that is, it's fan fiction taking the characters of Xena and Gabrielle and placing them in different time periods). So Dar is Xena and Kerry is Gabrielle. And the author takes great pains in letting us know this at every opportunity. Look, I've read a lot of fan fiction in my day, and I liked it to a degree, but I never got into Xena (I know, I know, bad queer girl!) and it felt like every page the reader is being reminded just who these characters "really" are. So that took down the enjoyment factor for me.

I also don't think that the book has honestly held up all that well; technology changes quickly, and it's painfully obvious that this book is not exactly recent, shall we say.

Also, what is up with all of the "the taller woman," "the younger woman," etc? Change it up a little. It got annoying after a while.

I do like that the romance is a slow build; no one can really accuse this story of being in the instalove category.

I also appreciate that this is a "classic" in lesbian fiction. But I just didn't like it.

My favorite in the series.

I love the characters in this series. This first one is also about the beginning of the relationship between Dar and Kerry, which is fun to read and to revisit. I love Dar's attitude and her IT knowledge.

Teil 1, Firmen-Aufkäuferin und -Saniererin trifft auf Arbeitsplätze-Erhalterin

Jess, a maverick agent of a special forces group defending what remains of America after a nuclear winter, would rather work solo after a terrible betrayal by her partner of many years. But Interforce, the organization she works for, insists on foisting a lab-grown techie on her. These are genetically engineered "humans" called bio-alts (bio-alternatives) especially grown for specific functions from piloting aircraft to sweeping floors, equipped with as much or as little brainpower as required for their assigned role.

The head of Interforce suspects the organization still has a mole and requests that Jess be partnered anew with an experimental 'learning' bio-alt (think Terminator, but cuter) to suss out that mole. Jess vehemently objects at first, but eventually the bio-alt wins her over, not, as you might expect, with her cuteness, but with all her other talents. :) Of course, this being lesfic, the cuteness wasn't wasted either.

The first half of the book is quite the page-turner, as the book sets up the post-nuclear setting using Jess' past experiences. There is politicking, killings, attempted assassinations and whatnot. However, once Jess and Dev (the name of her bio-alt partner) are sent down to earth on a mission, things simmer down quite a bit. The alone-time is a perfect setup for the budding attraction. The author takes her time with this, as it should be. People who like their sci-fi detailed and their romances slow-burning will appreciate the pace at this point. I was mostly bored. I was expecting the author to explore the issue of 'slavery' of bio-alts more but it was just mentioned mostly in passing, as observations by Dev, who, despite being a bio-alt herself, doesn't seem to find anything wrong with the whole system. And neither does Jess. I'd like to think it's not because they didn't care but because they're just too busy exploring their surroundings (and each other, lol). Hopefully, this will be dealt with more in-depth in Book 2.

If you like your sci-fi more fast-paced and action oriented, I highly recommend instead [b:The Girls From Alcyone|13120464|The Girls From Alcyone (The Girls from Alcyone #1)|Cary Caffrey|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1327155584s/13120464.jpg|18295574]--Lots of action set pieces plus a sweet romance.

Teil 6, Der Überwachungsbeauftragte will Dar und Kerry aus der Firma drängen, Dars Mutter soll den verlorenen Ehemann wiederfinden.

Teil 5, Kaum hat sich der Sturm verzogen, tauchen Widrigkeiten des Alltags auf

Teil 4, Dar und Kerry haben sich gefunden, aber Stürme im Paradies gibt es immer wieder

Teil 3,5, Die Lücke, Alle Geschichten die zwischen dem 3 und 4 Teil liegen in einem Band