Tag: Checquy Files

Blitz (Checquy Files #3) ★★☆☆☆

~ Bookstooge ~ 32 Comments

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: Blitz
Series: Checquy Files #3
Author: Daniel O’Malley
Rating: 2 of 5 Stars
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Pages: 622
Words: 250K

Long, bloated, two storylines that didn’t actually have any impact on each other and worst of all, boring. I was bored. The first storyline is dealing with London and World War II and the bombs being dropped on London. The second story involves a woman (who is married to a cop and has a daughter who is a toddler) who joins the Checquy because she can discharge electricity and it is in the present day.

I enjoyed the present day storyline. She was an engaging character with just the right amount of feistiness to keep me from rolling my eyes and she was SMART. She used her brains. Then I would just groan in spirit at the next chapter when we would go back to the stupid idiots who I was forced to read about during WWII. It was nothing more than a boring history info dump about the Checquy and I didn’t care two squats for it. Unfortunately, it seemed to play the bigger part and sucked the life from the entire book.

I actually feel rather generous giving this 2 stars. But it wasn’t bad, so I don’t feel like I can really go any lower. But I certainly won’t be reading any more in the Checquy Files if O’Malley writes any more. I hope he doesn’t because this was bad and I’m going to pretend The Rook and Stiletto are just a duology. Blitz has no business sullying the good literary name of the Checquy Files.

★★☆☆☆

Stiletto (Checquy Files #2)

~ Bookstooge ~ 3 Comments

df0f91f43ebce27b22fa378090e7e2beThis review is written with a GPL 3.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at Bookstooge.booklikes. blogspot.wordpress.com by  Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission.

Title: Stiletto

Series: Checquy Files

Author: Daniel O’Malley

Rating: 4.5 of 5 Stars

Genre: Urban Fantasy

Pages: 585

Format: Kindle digital edition

Synopsis:  Spoilers

The Grafters have set in motion events so that they can join the Checquy. A Checquy agent, Felicity is given the job of being the bodyguard to a Grafter, Odette. Both have grown up with horror stories about the other’s organization.

Unfortunately, a small group of young Grafter’s doesn’t WANT join the Checquy and they are willing to go to war, and kill millions of normals, to keep the merger from happening.

Now Felicity and Odette must work together to stop this group while their bosses must work together to make sure the merger happens. Magic and Bio-Technology working together.

My Thoughts:

When I finished this, I realized it had been 4 [!!!!] years since I had read the Rook. Definitely worth the wait though. I was expecting another Myfanwy Thomas story and it took me a while to realize that this book was NOT about her. Took me even longer to realize that Felicity and Odette were the main characters and not just the openers.

The humor was just the same as the Rook. The action however had much more to do with genetic thingies than ghosties and goblins, even though there was an incident that involved a dead Checquy agent gone bad. The twisty-turny plot raced ahead at Formula 1 speeds. It felt like a Thriller, whereas the Rook definitely had that Mystery vibe going on.

O’Malley can write! I laughed, I got frustrated and I was triumphant. I can’t ask for much more than that. Of course, I hope it isn’t another 4 years before we get the next Checquy book. I also added this to my Best Book of the Year List.

Oh, does anyone know what Checquy means? I’m too lazy to look it up 😀

The Rook

~ Bookstooge ~ 4 Comments

The RookThe Rook

The Checquy Files #1

Daniel O’Malley

4 of 5 Stars

 

The only reason this isn’t getting a 5star from me is because I’m not sure about its re-readability. If I ever re-read this, and like it as much as I did this time, I’ll be bumping it up to 5.

The writing was clean and tight. No spelling gaffs, or grammatical errors or awkward sentence structures to pull you out of the story. this was written well, then even better, EDITED well. With the influx of indies, good editing shows, sadly.

The story. Mysterious, engaging, cool, neat and wraps up well. Thankfully Mr. O’Malley doesn’t spend time on WHY the Rook has lost her memory, it is just an event that catapults the story forward.

The humor. I was grinning for a lot of this book. Not laughing out loud, or rolling on the floor, but grinning. Wise-ass humor was rife and I loved it.

“Oh thank God.”Not to worry, it’s not a weird monster. It’s just three rotting dead people. Page 290 ebook edition

How can you NOT love humor like that?

Characters. Good, bad, mean, nice, nasty, innocent, naive and disgusting. They were all there and nobody was a cookie cutter throwaway. Given, some characters had more facetime and were developed on a deeper level, but everyone felt like a real person, not just a name with some actions attached to them.