Ian Fox (3)

Only The Strongest Survive by Ian Fox
This book starts out with a kidnapping of the CEO of a huge company that is worth billions in the stock market.
Although I don't normally read thriller books this one held my interest because of the many aspects of it.
The book concentrates on those who now run the company and the decisions they make with Emeily gone-they are still not sure if it was a kidnapping or she just needed a week away from things.
Love the story line and learning about the stock market.
Her life is spared, brought back to life and must now live where she has no outside contact with others but has transferred 2 million dollars to John. She had taken over his familys company several years ago and now John wants what the company was really worth-10 million.
One brother, Ronald has no idea she is alive again, last he left her was in the ground in a coffin, buried.
I am caught up in the moment of reading this and I can't seem to read fast enough to find the answers I want.
John leaves many nights and from her basement room she can hear the alarm that sounds when one comes and goes into the complex.
The story goes back in time as to how she got the position she held at the company and then to the present: She does get to spend some time with John as she advises him what to buy and sell and they get to talk about the past. She gets to know him.
Love the explanations of how to buy and sell and why.
Journalism during war or earthquakes was a new one for me.
I am totally petrified for her and then he announces he will set her free.
There is some sex and at times it appears to be rather brutal and at other times it's just a passion for sex.… (plus d'informations)

I was asked to review this book by the author. The premise definitely sounded intriguing, so I agreed. I’ve been reading this one in small chunks here and there for nearly a month now, and I wish that I could say that it was a great book... but it just wasn’t.

I didn't care for this book, but I think that it had quite a bit of potential to be very good. The writing, the details, the stiffness of the story just didn’t get it anywhere close to where it should be. There was far too much erroneous side information given, far too many characters, and things just seemed to take far too long to actually get going in the story. The first 50 pages barely even nudge the door open on the story. We’re taken on rounds and visit quite a lot of patients, but the story wasn’t even close to starting at that point. We’ve met a couple characters, but it doesn’t really provide any useful information. I’m OK with side information… when it serves a purpose. It didn’t here. It was just unnecessary filler, and when it comes at the beginning of the story, I start worrying.

The dialogue throughout was stiff and unnatural, and the characters never felt like real people to me. When the main character’s wife is murdered, all I felt was a sort of relief that I wouldn’t have to listen to her nag anymore. She was greedy, selfish and immensely irritating. I know quite a few women who are just like that, but that doesn’t make it realistic or good. There was no depth, no personality, no life in the story. It was like cardboard cutout marionettes, with bad voiceover actors doing the dialogue. I feel harsh saying that, but it’s true. There’s the brilliant scientist on the verge of a breakthrough if only he wasn’t stuck in his tedious middle management neurosurgeon job. The fact that he actually, petulantly, threatened to let a patient die because his boss wouldn’t fund his science experiments made me seriously want to throw the book against the wall. The fact that he even thought it is a violation of what makes people go into medicine in the first place – the desire to help people. And further, the fact that his pet project is an anti-aging drug, I felt like it was both hypocritical and completely superficial at the same time. He wants to help people live longer, right? So he’s studying within his field to try to find a cure for illnesses of the brain, right? No. He’s making glorified botox.

I didn’t get it, and never really warmed to this book at all. This could have been a book much more worth reading if it was edited and trimmed down. This is over 400 pages long, and in my opinion, at least a quarter of that should have hit the cutting room floor. There’s just too much going on, and it became distracting. So, overall, this was not great, but some work could get it closer to it.… (plus d'informations)

Only the Strongest Survive was a very different type of mystery/thriller. Most mystery/thriller books/novels spend most of the time on the introduction of how it happened, the back story of the individual(s), possible suspects, and so on. Only the Strongest Survive dives right into the kidnapping of Emely Donnovan and very little time is spent on the back story, or even trying to actually find Emely for that matter. In some instances I felt things were a little off because no one was looking for Emely, but as I kept reading it didn't matter. The whole of the book [to me] was what happened between Emely and her captors after she was kidnapped, and most of the characters in the book were well developed and memorable; others, not so much.

I received this book free from the author and was asked to give my honest opinion. I did enjoy reading Only the Strongest Survive and would read other books by Ian Fox.… (plus d'informations)