Quick book recommendations...

 

Blind Descent by Nevada Barr

Warning: Must love reading about caves and caving.

To help rescue a friend, Anna Pigeon must descend into the challenging Lechuguilla cave system located near Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico. Even though she's clautrophobic. And not a caver. But she has confidence in the group of experienced cavers she's with...until one of them dies. And Anna starts to suspect that it wasn't an accident, but murder. I have to admit, it was the cave setting that made me want to read this one, and I was not disappointed. Barr immerses the reader in the labrythine darkness of Lechuguilla Cave. And I loved it!

Blind Descent: The Quest to Discover the Deepest Place on Earth by James M. Tabor is an engrossing nonfiction story of caves and cave exploration that I also loved and recommend. 

Uncharted by Adriana Anders

Action. Wilderness survival. Suspense. Sizzling romance.

Leo heads into the Alaskan wilderness to evacuate a man she believes to be Campbell Turner; instead, her plane gets shot down and Elias Thorne ends up rescuing her. Now they're on the run. If they want to survive, they'll have to learn to trust each other. I always love a book with a remote wilderness setting. And I loved Elias, too. He's a man keeping a dangerous secret who's lived on his own for over a decade; his struggle to open up to Leo tugged at my heart. I loved his dog, Bo, too. And Leo's a great heroine--smart, tough and resourceful.   4.5/5 stars.

Happy Reading!

To the Center of the Earth

In 1485, Arkady Saknussov, a Russian alchemist and explorer, supposedly found his way down to the hollow center of the earth. In 1972, a group of Russian cavers decided to follow in his footsteps, venturing into Krubera Cave, one of the deepest caves on earth. Only one, Katya, made it back out alive. After spending almost a year underground. And her talk of a strange world with a red sky and a multitude of monstrous creatures landed her in a mental asylum.

But Mike Monroe believes her story. Of course, he's always believed in the possibility of a hollow center deep inside the earth. And now he's got Katya's own diary as his guide. He and his friend Jane Baxter along with four other cavers head into Krubera Cave on an expedition reminiscent of Jules Verne. Only what they encounter living in Krubera's depths just might kill them. Especially when their way out gets caved in. 

Greig Beck's To the Center of the Earth is a fast-paced, entertaining ride. There's suspense, adventure, large carnivorous plants, and gigantic insectoid monsters. I've always loved expedition stories that take place in deep, unexplored caverns and caves. That cave environment is so foreign and primordial, and the world Beck creates deep beneath Krubera Cave is evolutionarily freakish and inventive. And also very deadly. Though there were things that happened to some of the characters that made me cringe and want to close my eyes, I really enjoyed this one. Beck's books are always a lot of fun. I can't wait to check out the sequel. 

Happy Reading!

Similar reads:

Beneath the Dark Ice by Greig Beck

The Anomaly by Michael Rutger

Blind Descent and Beyond the Deep (Two awesome nonfiction reads.)

Next up:

More from my TBR shelf...

Title & Author:  Beneath the Dark Ice by Greig Beck

Why I bought it:  I was throwing books into my Amazon cart last year and this was one of them. It's set in a series of caves under the ice in Antarctica--two settings I love--and I thought it looked like fun. So I bought it.

The plot in brief: When a plane crashes over Antarctica, it reveals a vast underground system of caves. The first team sent in to explore them disappears without a trace. Capt. Alex Hunter leads the second team, along with five other trained commandos, several scientists, and a fierce and fiesty petrobiologist named Aimee Weir. Alex has some very special skills that make him perfect for this kind of expedition, and he's going to need every single one of them. Because that plane that crashed? It awakened something living in the waters deep within the caves. Something ancient, and murderous, and hungry. And it's not the only thing hiding in the dark.

My thoughts:  This action-packed thriller requires a willing suspension of disbelief in order to fully enjoy it because aspects of it are a little far-fetched, but it's also a fast-paced, well-written and entertaining thrill ride. And it held my interest in these crazy coronavirus days. Plus, I really liked the main characters. (Super soldiers are kind of awesome.)  And those ancient creatures lurking in the black depths of those caves beneath the Antarctic ice? Pretty creepy and terrifying. Beck has written several other Alex Hunter novels, and I wouldn't mind reading another one, or two. Maybe the next time I'm filling  my cart with books, I'll throw another one in. Because this was a fun read. Not literary, or deep, but definitely fun.

My rating:  4/5 stars.

Happy Reading!

The Anomaly by Michael Rutger

       "You're that guy ... The You Tuber. That archeologist guy. Unsolved mysteries and stuff."

       This, I should note, seldom happens. My grin in response was charming, and the accompanying shrug could have been used as a Wikipedia illustration of self-deprecation.

       "Guilty as charged," I said. "I am indeed Nolan Moore."

Nolan Moore is a failed screenwriter who is now the face of The Anomaly Files, a small-time YouTube show that seeks to uncover unexplained phenomena and other strange mysteries. This time he and his crew--his producer, Ken, assistant producer, Molly, and cameraman, Pierre, as well as a journalist and one of their new backers--are on the trail of a 1909 explorer who claims to have found a mysterious cavern hidden somewhere high up in the Grand Canyon reportedly full of wonderful things. This time their expedition is backed by the Palinhelm Foundation, and they have a shot at making the move to cable TV if they can actually find this cavern. Despite his immense amount of research on this project, Nolan doesn't really believe it'll be there, so when they do find a cave where he predicted it would be, he's as surprised as everyone else. Eager to enter and explore, none of them stop to question if what's hidden deep inside this lost cavern should be shown to the world...or if there's a reason what's inside should stay hidden forever.

It felt strange to be standing in a place where at some point -- hundreds or thousands of years ago -- there had been an intense fire and great heat. That was gone now, along with any hope of understanding what had caused it. All that remained was an unpleasant olfactory echo. And us, stuck, with no way out.

 The suspense mounts slowly in this one, but I thought it was a fun escapist adventure. But then, I've always liked survival stories that take place in mysterious caves. And you'll never guess what's in this one! Nolan is a fun character who doesn't take himself too seriously but is a surprisingly good person to have around in an emergency. I liked him and his crew (even though I thought Ken used the f-word a little too much.) There are some good twists along the way as they explore the cave, and some tense and suspenseful moments as they try to find a way back out. I liked Rutger's writing, though I did think the ending was a bit fantastic and out-there. Still, The Anomaly is a pretty entertaining read. (And it'd make a great Syfy movie.)

Happy Reading!

Two TBRs...

1.  Cavern of the Damned by Russell James

Why I wanted to read this one:  I read (and enjoyed!) James' second novel with Dr. Grant Coleman, Monsters in the Clouds, last summer, which then made me want to go back and read this first one.

The premise:  A park ranger, a paleontologist, an untrustworthy spelunker, an actress, a film director and his two-man crew enter a cavern that's been sealed up for over 13,000 years. When the entrance of the cave collapses, they're trapped inside with a slew of monstrous prehistoric creatures. (And not everyone is going to make it out alive.)

The upshot:  This one's a short, fast-paced, fun adventure. It's humorous, too. And while there's not enough time for a lot of character development, I did really like the three main protagonists. And the creatures in the cave were kind of awesome. All in all, Cavern of the Damned, was a very entertaining read.

My rating:  4/5 stars.

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2. Island in the Mist by C. G. Mosley

Why I bought this one:  The awesome cover! (I'm a bit of a sucker when it comes to dinosaurs.)

The premise:  Angus Wedgeworth is a self-made millionaire; he's arrogant, selfish ... and aging. When he hears a rumor of an island in the middle of the Bermuda Triangle with its own fountain of youth, he hires a crew to help him find it. There's just one problem. The island is full of dinosaurs. And they're not exactly friendly.

The upshot:  I hated Angus and his bodyguards; liked several of the other characters, especially Silas, the big game hunter, and the two paleontologists; and loved all the dinosaurs. The dialogue feels stilted and artificial at times, but the action scenes are fun. And it's another book off my TBR shelf. One that counts for the 2019 Backlist Reader Challenge. 

My rating:  3/5 stars.

Happy Reading!

Going deep...

James M. Tabor defines "supercaves" as vast geologic monsters that are miles long and many thousands of feet deep; they are rare and as difficult to conquer as Mt. Everest. Their hazards include darkness, vertical drops, fatal falls, hypothermia, fissures, rock slides, hurricane-force winds, dangerous microbes, asphyxiation and poisonous gases. They also have turquoise pools, cascading waterfalls, beautiful water-carved limestone formations, and caverns immense enough to hold several Greyhound buses. I find them alluring and completely fascinating, but the thought of actually exploring one scares me to death. So I read about them instead.

In Blind Descent, James M. Tabor chronicles the stories of two men--American Bill Stone and Ukranian Alexander Klimchouk--two caves, and two quests to find the deepest place on earth. It's Cheve Cave in southern Mexico vs. Krubera Cave in the Republic of Georgia. Both are incredible supercaves, and both pose great risks to anyone who enters them. And Tabor does a masterful job of taking the reader on an incredible journey deep into the center of the earth. It's a memorable and well-written true life adventure story.

But my favorite caving adventure is told in William Stone's and Barbara am Ende's Beyond the Deep: The Deadly Descent Into the World's Most Treacherous Cave. This firsthand account of Stone's 1994 expedition into Huatla Cave in Mexico is 'unputdownable'. What the cavers experience is scary, and sometimes deadly, and very hard to forget. Talk about going where no one has gone before! Both of these bookish descents into darkness are compelling reads that I absolutely loved!

Happy Reading!