Review: The Grind by Nikki M. Pill

Wow! What a thriller. It starts off slow and the pace picks up fast and keeps going right up to the end. The Grind kept me up late. I can't wait until the next book.

Anna Zendel, the main character in the book, was a burlesque dancer and therapist in The Tease, the first book in The Darling Killer Trilogy. In book 2, she is waiting to see if she will be allowed to practice therapy again and is working as coordinator/leader for the burlesque troupe, but not performing herself. The Darling Killer takes exception to that and starts to kill again after the admonition, "Keep performing and they live."

And to amp up the suspense factor, "Anna’s stage training and psychological savvy arm her for another deadly dance, but a series of sinister accidents threaten the survival of everyone she loves while a killer watches her from the wings."

So, Anna is fighting evil on 2 fronts, and she does so marvelously. She is a very human protagonist. Suffering from PTSD as a result of an attack in book one, she still manages to pull it together when it really counts. Some of the other characters are well developed while others are shallow. The shallow ones serve a purpose as well. They're important because of their reactions to what's going on around them which helps further characterize the others and move the plot forward.

The suspense is well done right up to the end. Seriously I can't wait for the third book in this trilogy. I want to know what happens next. I don't want to detail what I want to know next because it would give away spoilers.

I give this book 5 out of 5 stars. It is well written and fulfills its description of a suspense/thriller title. It's a hard book to put down.

Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.

Teaser Tuesday: The Grind by Nikki M. Pill

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of  Should Be Reading.

Anyone can participate. just do the following.

Rules:

• Grab your current read

• Open to a random page

• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page

• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (Make sure that what you share doesn’t  give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)

• Share the title and author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers! 

The Grind by Nikki M. Pill is Book Two of the Darling  Killer Trilogy. It was released November 28, 2014. As book 2 opens, we find that Anna Zendel has been suspended from being a psychotherapist and she is guiding the burlesque troupe, but no longer performing herself. 

In this teaser, Anna is thinking about the killer who has possibly just threatened everyone she knows if she doesn't perform again. 

"I had to admit that it might have excited him that I was there. He sent flowers and his kill-trophies to me. He murdered one of my clients...

How do I keep my friends safe from being my friends?" 

So, what is your teaser from? Leave a link or the teaser in the comments so we can check it out. 

Review: The Tease by Nikki M, Pill

Anna Zendel is a therapist by day and burlesque dancer Velvet Crush by night. She struggles to keep the two worlds apart, but the Darling killer makes that impossible to maintain. He's called the Darling killer because he writes the word darling on his victims after he kills them.

Up until Anna, the victims seemed to be a one shot sort of deal. But with Anna, he seems obsessed. He sends flowers, jewelry, and starts killing people she knows. Who or what is next?

I couldn't put the book down. I read it quickly - in 3 days. I loved the detail especially about the burlesque side of things since that was less familiar.

Characters seemed well developed. The writing/plot was paced well. Kept me turning pages to find out what happened next. And I couldn't help but suspect each new male character that got close to her of being the killer.

It's not quite a stand alone novel because while the action for the moment is wrapped up, Nikki Pill leaves Anna in a place where she is vulnerable and quite possibly introduced to another suspect. I wish the second book was out already so I could see what happens next.

I gave this book 4 out of 5 stars.

Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book in exchange for my unbiased opinion.