Book Review: The Writer by James Patterson and J.D. Barker

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The Writer by James Patterson and J.D. Barker  was published on March 17, 2025. It opens with Detective Declan Shaw at a closed subway station trying to work up the nerve to commit suicide when he receives a call from his partner about a break in and homicide at the home of a true crime author. Shaw makes his way to the crime scene to work the case, and in a turn of events, Declan comes under scrutiny in another case loosely connected to this new case. I received an Advanced Readers Copy (ARC) of The Writer  from NetGalley and Little , Brown, and Company for free in exchange for my honest review. I'm appreciative that my request for this book was approved. With this story opening with the main character trying to commit suicide, I almost didn't go any further with the book. However, I am glad I stuck with it as it took me on a fantastic ride and had my emotions all over the place. There were so many twists and turns that just when I thought I had it all figured out, there was ...
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Book Review: The Hunter (The Forbidden Game, #1) by L.J. Smith

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When Jenny Thorns original plan for her boyfriend Tom's birthday party had to change, she has to scramble to come up with something that will interest every one in their small group. Coming across a store called "More Games", she's not sure she'll be able to find something that will please the entire group. When the store clerk Julian suggests a game in a white, unmarked box, Jenny decides to buy it, and the entire group is in for a huge surprise.
See you at nine . . .
Not sure she heard Julian correctly, Jenny has second thoughts about the game once she gets home. However, she's overruled by the group. Part Jumanji and part Nightmare on Elm Street, the friends are in for the ride of a lifetime. 

I stumbled across The Hunter (The Forbidden Game, #1) by L.J. Smith while I was in high school. Ecstatic that one of my favorite authors had another book out, I immediately bought this book. I loved this book as a teenager and read this book and the other two books in the series multiple times. I was obsessed with it. However, sometime in college, the trilogy was boxed up and put in storage. In my mid-twenties, I moved into my first apartment and had the urge to read the trilogy again, especially the first book in the series. Unfortunately, I forgot what had happened to the books, and I tracked down copies and bought them again. Several years later, my parents found the box of books in storage, and I was reunited with the original books.

L.J. Smith is such a talented reader, that at almost forty years old, I still enjoy reading her books, especially The Forbidden Game trilogy. I recently picked up The Hunter (The Forbidden Game, #1) to reread, and I was not disappointed in the least. In my opinion, I think that tweens and teens today would enjoy it just as much as I did at their age as it has stood the test of time.
What I loved about this book is that it has a lot of the creepy and supernatural factor. It has scenes that remind me of the television shows The X-Files and Grimm. The X-Files was out on television, I believe, when this book was published, but Grimm definitely was not on television at the time. The characters are great too. We have pet loving, mothering Jenny Thorn; artistic Zach, who is cousins with Jenny; athletic, brave Dee; military brat Audrey; lovable, teddy bear Michael; sweet, rich Summer; and arrogant jock Tom.  That's the main characters other than Julian, who I totally had a book crush on when I was a teenager.
The reason I loved the character descriptions was I could clearly picture the way each of them looked in my mind. An example of this was that I had always pictured Zach looking a bit like a young Isaac Hanson from the music group Hanson. Please keep in mind that I originally read this book before the music group Hanson was famous, so I had no idea what he looked like. (And, no, I didn't listen to their music, lol.)
The Hunter (The Forbidden Game, #1) was written in a different era and is much different than YA Books are today, but I definitely think tweens and teens would appreciate it. If you're reading this book as an adult, you definitely need to read all three of the books in the trilogy to appreciate it all. I gave this book five out of five stars.


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