This review is based on an e-galley received from the publisher.

The Rosie Effect is the sequel to The Rosie Project, which I previously reviewed here. When the action picks up, it's about a year later, Don and Rosie are married and living in New York where he's working at Columbia and she's simultaneously working on her PhD and MD. Then Rosie announces she's pregnant.

This book was lots of fun, with Don's unique approach to research and problem solving resulting in the loss of both of their side jobs, an arrest as a suspected pedophile, and more. I also still love the way that Graeme Simsion conveys more to the reader than Don actually understands about the other characters. However, there were a couple of things that bothered me. First of all, I personally don't care for plots that hinge on one character thinking it's a better idea to assemble a massive conspiracy than to just tell somebody something, and it seems even more unlikely than usual when the person doing so is horrible at lying outright. That's probably as much of a personal pet peeve as anything but it did mean one plot thread annoyed me quite a bit.

Secondly, it seemed to me that Rosie was just as much at fault as Don for the difficulties between them in this book, but that the weight was put entirely on his proving himself as a potential father to her and she wasn't ever really called on her behavior. She seems to set him up to fail extremely early on, really just after telling him that she's pregnant when he was under the impression they weren't planning on doing that yet. (Even he figures out that her failure to take her pill was deliberate.) She goes straight to assuming that she will effectively be raising the baby by herself and doesn't want either to accept his help during the pregnancy or to give him the opportunity to learn parenting skills. She probably has a point that he shouldn't dictate her diet but she should at least accept the evidence that he's trying to help as a sign that he could be a good, supportive father. Furthermore, she actually interprets the fact that he does research and buys the best stroller he can find as his not being interested in the baby, only the stroller. And when he tries to tell her about things that he's doing to learn about babies (aside from the bits he can't mention to her because of plot reasons) she doesn't recognize his intentions at all and says she doesn't want to hear about it. He just can't catch a break.

Those flaws aside, the book as a whole was still a great ride.

Overall: B+

The Rosie Effect will be available December 30.

Zombie, Indiana is third in a series after Zombie, Ohio and Zombie, Illinois, but all three books take place simultaneously and follow different characters so they can be read in any order.

I don't read a lot of zombie stories, but I've followed this series because it's always doing something in addition to the zombie mayhem. In Zombie, Ohio, it followed a unique sentient zombie. Since then the focus has been on the humans instead; in fact, although the danger of the zombies is ever present, the bigger threat to civilization has been the humans.

When the outbreak first hits in Indiana, before people realize what's happening, a school group of teenagers goes missing in a cave. The Governor's daughter is in the class, so he sends the IMPD sergeant who handles special jobs for him. Sergeant Nolan finds one teenage girl alive in the cave, a scholarship student named Kesha. As the two of them continue to search for safety and any other survivors, back in Indianapolis, the Governor strives to make sure it's clear he has matters under control without federal assistance.

The zombies provide the catalyst, but the heart of this story is what happens when people see things only in terms of assets and opportunities. The Governor may (or may not) have caused the zombie outbreak by giving corporations free license to pollute the state, and during the outbreak his focus is on protecting and projecting his image as having responded single-handedly, treating the federal government as a bigger enemy than the zombies. There were moments that felt insufficiently justified. E.g., the governor's daughter's conviction that she needed to get to her father because he was going to do something terrible. Although the governor was more concerned about his daughter's safety than anybody else's, there was no sign that it was a motivating factor in any of the bad calls he made. For example, he wasn't diverting resources to locating her that could have been better used defending more of the population. Nor did her reappearance motivate him to do the right thing. Overall, however, this was an exciting story and a credible depiction of what happens when politicians put ideology above delivering what their constituents need.

Overall: B+

The Getaway God is the latest in the Sandman Slim series. As we rejoin Stark, the apocalypse appears to be imminent. In L.A., it's raining nonstop and people are fleeing the city en masse without quite knowing why. In hell, it's also raining nonstop but there it's blood. There's a serial killer on the loose who has been dubbed Saint Nick, and some people from the Vigil aren't entirely sure it's not Stark. A self-mummified monk is trying to figure out how to use the Qomrama Om Ya, a weapon that can kill gods. And something just isn't right with Candy.

This book remains everything that I love about this series. It's pure messy, violent, gritty fun capped with wise-ass dialogue. I attempted to sum it up once as Sin City with angels and demons running around, which doesn't quite cover it but comes close. For a while near the end I wondered if this was going to be the last book in the series, but then it became clear it was just being turned in a new direction. I'll always be looking forward to the next one.

Overall: A

Visions is the second in a series after Omens, reviewed here: 
http://unreachableshelf.weebly.com/on-the-shelf/omens-by-kelley-armstrong

Olivia Taylor-Jones discovered in the first book of the Cainsville series that not only was she adopted, but her birth parents are convicted serial killers. She cleared them of one of the murders of which they were accused, but before she can begin investigating any of the others, she sees a dead body dressed to resemble her. Then it vanishes before anybody else can see it.

Although this book was a fun ride, and the murder plot itself was nicely twisty, I felt like the book overall was a bit obvious. My guess from the first book of fairies being behind the weirdness of Cainsville and Olivia and Gabriel having fae blood has been confirmed. 

I have some further predictions:

Although Olivia begins a relationship with Ricky in this book: I officially predict that she's going to wind up with Gabriel by the end of the series and that Ricky will more likely than not die in some heroic way. Former fiance James is at this point too obviously either evil or being manipulated by evil supernatural powers to be taken seriously as a potential direction for Olivia to be pulled between the men in her life. On a non-romantic note, Olivia's parents will turn out to be exonerated of all the murders. I'd find it more interesting if they were guilty for various reasons related to their not being human but I feel like the first book set the tone as far as that's concerned.

At this point I'm reading for the ride and to see exactly how the fairies relate to the murders. And a little bit to see if I'm right.

Overall: B+