Brief Thoughts: Hanover House

Hanover House

by Brenda Novak
Prequel novella (#0.5) of The Evelyn Talbot Chronicles

~ Goodreads ~

Rating:  3.0 Stars

My TBR List -- June Winner!
See Other My TBR List Reviews @ Because Reading

Welcome to Hanover House...

Psychiatrist Evelyn Talbot has dedicated her life to solving the mysteries of the antisocial mind.  Why do psychopaths act as they do?  How do they come to be?  Why don’t they feel any remorse for the suffering they cause?  And are there better ways of spotting and stopping them?

After having been kidnapped, tortured and left for dead when she was just a teenager—by her high school boyfriend—she’s determined to understand how someone she trusted so much could turn on her.  So she’s established a revolutionary new medical health center in the remote town of Hilltop, Alaska, where she studies the worst of the worst.

But not everyone in Hilltop is excited to have Hanover House and its many serial killers in the area.  Alaskan State Trooper, Sergeant Amarok, is one of them.  And yet he can’t help feeling bad about what Evelyn has been through.  He’s even attracted to her.  Which is partly why he worries.

He knows what could happen if only one little thing goes wrong...

Hanover House is bite-sized--it's a novella after all.  But in some ways, it felt a little bit too bite-sized, if you know what I mean.  Actually, even I don't really know what I mean.  I guess what I'm trying to say is, while the novella was enjoyable, at the same time, the open-ended-ness of it felt a little too open-ended.  I get that it's a prequel, meant to jump start a whole new series with a bit of a bang, but there are ways of NOT making a prequel feel like it's still missing something.

Nonetheless, Hanover House encompasses the suspense and thrill of a typical Brenda Novak novel.  But I have to say, the writing style and pacing felt slightly different from what I remember of Brenda Novak.  I'm tempted to use the word awkward, but at the same time, the events of this novella flew by quite quickly, maybe too quickly for me to be able to really point out what about it didn't really work for me.  The progression just didn't feel as smooth or hooking as what I usually associate with Brenda Novak.

All things considered, Hanover House serves it's purpose as the starting point for Evelyn Talbot's journey into studying the evil of killers as well as trying to evade the monster who's been haunting her life for the past twenty years.  It's got a nice thrill of excitement, but not nearly to the point I'd been expecting.  And unfortunately, you don't really get to see enough of the characters (not even our resident evil killer, Jasper) to really get to know them--and thus, I've yet to really form an opinion of anyone in the book.  Not Evelyn and not Amarok, and especially not any of the side characters who have an air of potential significance, probably in books to come.

And I'm not entirely certain I understand what that ominous letter at the very end symbolized, but I have a feeling it was supposed to be significant somehow.

All in all, Hanover House was entertaining and enjoyable, even if not what I'd been expecting based on the summary and all the positive reviews.

Maybe I'm just too picky?


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2016 Reading Challenges:
• Goodreads Reading Challenge
• BookLikes Reading Challenge
• Reading Assignment Challenge
• Bookish Resolutions Challenge | My TBR List meme
• Mount TBR Challenge

My TBR List -- June 2016 Voting

My TBR List is a monthly meme hosted by Michelle @ Because Reading.

The basic gist of this activity is to have others help decide on which book out of three I'm selecting from my TBR pile I should read for the month via votes.  The posts will be published on the first two Saturdays (voting and winning book announcement, respectively), and the winning book review will be posted on the last Saturday of the month.

Click on the above links for more information.

Join This Month's My TBR List -- June 2016
(link coming soon)

This month's My TBR List will be the June 2016 Reading Assignment edition--the three books selected to be voted on below are all from my 2016 Reading Assignment book list.  I'm going to let go of my own reading schedule for the Reading Assignment this month and let everyone else choose one of my Reading Assignment books.

I had already decided on two of them, the winning My TBRL book will be the third, and then the fourth may or may not be one of these three books as well... or I could decide otherwise and choose yet another book.

We'll see where my reading mood takes me.

There is no rhyme or reason to why these three books were chosen... except maybe that two of them have the word "Hanover" in it.

Thanks to everyone for stopping by and voting!

Also, I will be out of town next weekend and might not be able to post the winning book announcement next Saturday.  The post will more than likely go up on Monday, unless I am able to pre-schedule it somehow.  Thanks!

The Books

The Hanover Square Affair by Ashley Gardner
-- Book 1 of Captain Lacey Mystery series

London, 1816
Cavalry captain Gabriel Lacey returns to Regency London from the Napoleonic wars, burned out, fighting melancholia, his career ended. His interest is perked when he learns of a missing girl, possibly kidnapped by a prominent member of Parliament. Lacey's search for the girl leads to the discovery of murder, corruption, and dealings with a leader of the underworld. He faces his own disorientation transitioning from a soldier's life to the civilian world at the same time, redefining his role with his former commanding officer and making new friends--from the top of society to the street girls of Covent Garden.

Icebound by Dean Koontz

The arctic night is endless. The fear is numbing. Screams freeze in the throat. Death arrives in shades of white. Cold-blooded murder seems right at home...

A secret Arctic experiment becomes a frozen nightmare, when a team of scientists are set adrift on an iceberg--with a murderer in their midst, and a massive explosive charge only hours away from detonation.

Hanover House by Brenda Novak
-- Prequel (Book # 0.5) of The Evelyn Talbot Chronicles

Welcome to Hanover House...

Psychiatrist Evelyn Talbot has dedicated her life to solving the mysteries of the antisocial mind. Why do psychopaths act as they do? How do they come to be? Why don’t they feel any remorse for the suffering they cause? And are there better ways of spotting and stopping them?

After having been kidnapped, tortured and left for dead when she was just a teenager—by her high school boyfriend—she’s determined to understand how someone she trusted so much could turn on her. So she’s established a revolutionary new medical health center in the remote town of Hilltop, Alaska, where she studies the worst of the worst.

But not everyone in Hilltop is excited to have Hanover House and its many serial killers in the area. Alaskan State Trooper, Sergeant Amarok, is one of them. And yet he can’t help feeling bad about what Evelyn has been through. He’s even attracted to her. Which is partly why he worries.

He knows what could happen if only one little thing goes wrong...

Let's Vote!

**For BookLikes members reading this in the BookLikes dashboard view:  Click here to generate the voting box on another page if you would like to vote.  I don't know why the voting box doesn't show, though it appears in blog view just fine.

**For everyone else voting via BookLikes blog view or at the Book Abyss's Blogspot home:  You may ignore the above tangent.  The voting box shows just fine.

Again, thank you for stopping by and voting!

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Previous My TBR List months at Ani's Book Abyss can be found at the Bookish Memes page.