Ah, the joy of finding a new and amazing thriller writer! What makes it even better is when it's someone like Karin Slaughter, who has a bunch of books already out (and in the same series, no less!) so that I don't have to wait a year for the next freakin' book.
When I picked up Broken, I was excited. It had been highly recommended, I was looking for a new thriller writer to read and I generally dig the female perspective on the thriller genre. I wasn't prepared for how much I was going to care about the small southern community of Grant County, Atlanta. I grew up in the south, and have a lot of relatives that live in the kind of backwater place she describes with vivid accuracy. I felt like I was actually there, in both the wonderful nostalgia and the oh-my-goodness-get-me-out-of-here small town mentality. The characters are real: messy, heart-wrenching and utterly believable. This book felt more like something out of the "literature" section than some of the hard-boiled pulp I've gotten used to over the years. And I mean that in a good way.
For those thriller readers who are now wrinkling up their noses after my unfortunate use of the word literature...despair not! I too, am a fan of all things tense and adrenaline-riddled. This book has plenty of it. Slaughter manages to elevate the genre (and let's face it... the genre can always use the extra height) without sacrificing what we thriller-lovers live for--heart pounding, blood pumping action. There's no sacrifice here. No "I'm bettering myself" sense of just having to get through the next chapter (Pilgrim's Progress, anyone?). You'll be flipping pages furiously before you consciously realize you've opened the cover. Oh, and when you get to the end and are sad to leave the County? Just remember there's more books in the series. You can find Broken here.
Also, we're moving into week 2 of the amazing Blog Tour de Force! Today's stop is Keta Diablo's Where the Rain Is Made, so go check it out here.
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