The Triangle by Dan Koboldt, Mindy McGinnis, and Sylvia Spruck Wrigley

Planes and ships have historically gone missing in the area dubbed The Bermuda Triangle, but until now no explanation has ever been found.

When a Navy ship goes missing during a storm, it's the last straw. A team of experts is assembled and an investigation is launched. But the team itself is soon swept out to sea as well, landing on an island that shouldn't be there. What they discover is a secret that's been brewing for decades, one that could leave them stranded until their dying days unless they can unravel the secrets of The Triangle!

This was my first Serial Box experience and I have to tell you, I am sold!

Each week, a new episode is released and readers have the option of listening to the audio production (and it is a production, with sound effects and everything!) or reading the installment instead. The episodes are about an hour a piece, some longer, and each is written by one of the contributing authors. In this case, Dan Koboldt penned the first, Mindy McGinnis the second, Sylvia Spruck Wrigley the third, and so on.

The story comes together seamlessly, you'd never know that three very different authors had a hand in putting it together. And it is such a fabulously fun story.

Of course I've always been drawn to stories about The Bermuda Triangle. The fact that I have huge water phobias only adds to my curiosity about any kind of water based mystery or horrors and The Bermuda Triangle is undoubtedly the biggest of them all!

In The Triangle, a retired Naval officer, a computer analyst, a conspiracy theorist, and an NTSB investigator come together to solve the mystery of a missing ship. Two things conspire to put them out on the water itself: the discovery of a survivor of a plane that recently went missing the questionable area—the first survivor ever to be found, in fact; and coordinates that could lead straight to the missing Naval ship and officers. But before they make it, they're boarded by a dogged investigator who wants answers.

Soon enough, the team and the cop find out exactly what fate has befallen all the other missing ships and planes. Virtual strangers, they are forced to trust one another and work together not only to solve the growing mysteries of the island but to survive and hopefully make their way home again.

The Triangle is incredible fun and a perfect summer read! Maybe don't dive in while your airborne though that's exactly what I'd do if I had a vacation planned :)

Check out The Triangle now over at serialbox.com!

A Madness So Discreet by Mindy McGinnis

Happy book birthday to Mindy McGinnis today! Her latest, A Madness So Discreet, is one just about everyone seems to be talking about, and for good reason. McGinnis completely blew readers away with her debut, Not a Drop to Drink. And its follow up, In a Handful of Dust, was an equally powerful read. With the futuristic/dystopian/survivalist thing down pat, she now turns her eye to a mystery set in and around asylums (yes!!!) in the 1800s.

Grace Mae isn't like the other patients at Wayburne Lunatic Asylum of Boston. Her stay will last exactly nine months and once the embarrassment she's afflicted with has passed, she'll be released back to her upper crust family. But Grace doesn't want to go home. Not to the man who put her in Wayburne to begin with. And when an outburst lands her in the Wayburne basement she meets a man who can offer her an alternative. 

Thornhollow recognizes a cleverness in Grace that he knows can be used to his advantage. With a new post in Ohio and the chance to investigate criminals by the crimes they commit, he wants Grace by his side to help. And so he smuggles her out of Wayburne under the guise of having performed an accidental lobotomy - something both Grace and Thornhollow know the director would never want Grace's powerful father to discover. 

For the first time in her life, Grace experiences a freedom she never could have imagined. She has friends, she has a purpose, but she fears for the safety of her sister back home. What's more, Grace begins to feel a strong connection to the victims she and Thornhollow are investigating. Determined that they should be vindicated, she finds herself immersed in unmasking a criminal who pushes her to the very brink.

I did not actually read what A Madness So Discreet was about before diving in - at least nothing past the point of realizing it was set in an insane asylum. I don't know what it is that draws so many of us to this setting (and boarding schools?!) but it's one that lands pretty much anything based around it in my TBR no matter what. 

Course McGinnis would have been there anyway due to the fact that I thoroughly enjoyed both of her previous books.  

Anyway, my point is that I actually didn't know what to expect and found that it made A Madness So Discreet that much more fabulous. 

Grace and Thornhollow are great leads. Grace isn't afraid to defend herself, not after what's happened to her. That simple act, though, is what lands her in further hot water. Because everyone knows a good girl would be docile and just take whatever's given to her, right? To that end, it's easy to get behind her!

Thornhollow is supposed to be a bit odd - going out of his way to avoid society and marriage. I'm not sure if there's more there or not, he was the only thing I felt wasn't fully developed satisfactorily. And maybe that's because I'm looking at it from today's perspective. After all, what's wrong with a man who lives for work and doesn't want to settle down? My guess is that that was just as bad in the 1800s as a woman who spoke her mind or, as is the case with one of Grace's friends, simply gets in her husband's way. 

Beyond the injustices of mental health care in the nineteenth century (of which there is plenty in A Madness So Discreet), there is also a mystery aspect. One of the cases Thornhollow and Grace are investigating turns out to be much larger than originally suspected. Think a bit CSI Victorian style! But there's even more to the tale. Grace also must face down her personal demons. To say anything more would be to say too much, so I'll leave it at that. 

A Madness So Discreet is, quite frankly, fantastic. It hit all the perfect notes for a great read and I can't wait to see what she has up her sleeve next! (I would love to see Thornhollow and Grace investigate more crimes, too!)

Rating: 5/5

In a Handful of Dust by Mindy McGinnis

Holy crap, Vegas! Soylent Green is people!

If you've read Mindy McGinnis's latest you'll know what I mean (even if you don't get the seventies cultural reference there). This follow up/companion to Not a Drop to Drink was rough! Not bad rough, just hard to read at some points. But what would I expect after Not a Drop to Drink, right?

Lucy is sixteen and she, Lynn, and Stebbs are now part of a small but thriving community. Lucy even has a boyfriend of sorts in her friend's brother, Carter. But when a polio outbreak hits it seems the only traceable connection to the infected is Carter - and Lucy. Lucy's grandmother knows something about the virus but not enough to ensure that either of the teens is or isn't the cause or, if they are carriers, how long the virus will be active. 

Carter is exiled and Lynn decides it's time for her and Lucy to move on as well. They've heard rumors that desalination plants in California have made ocean water drinkable. The lure of limitless water and no more harsh winters sets the two women on a trek that could cost them their lives, but the promise of a future filled with such hope is too much to resist.

Readers, don't make the same mistake I did in reading this one concurrently with Edan Lepucki's California! I've been doing that one on audio so going back and forth between the two stories quickly became unmanageable. Fortunately for me In a Handful of Dust proved to be just as quick of a read as Not a Drop to Drink and I wrapped it up in one Saturday afternoon. 

It is a tough world to be so completely submerged in for that period of time! And I do mean submerged. There were times when I'd come out of the story almost gasping for breath. It was jarring turning the final page and easing back into real life. 

I blame this on the truly treacherous path that McGinnis places her characters on. Some of it is par for the course now in both post-apocalyptic settings and survival stories. Let's face it, two women on the road are going to likely come up against at least some of the same dangers (let's play Adam and Eve, y'all! Ick!). And yet McGinnis does add in some things I've not yet come across (what happens in Vegas...).

In a Handful of Dust is a sequel to Not A Drop to Drink - same world, same characters, further into the future than that story. But you don't have to have read that first installment to dive into this one. I would warn, however, that much of Lynn's character development is left to Not a Drop to Drink. Readers skipping out on that one likely won't feel they know her character very well based on just In a Handful of Dust.

Rating: 5/5

Not a Drop To Drink by Mindy McGinnis

Since the time of the Shortage water has been in scarce supply. Times like these, having your own water source is the difference between life and death. That's why Lynn and her mother will do anything to protect their pond. Lynn's earliest memories have everything to do with protecting their water and land. She was taught to shoot. She was taught to hunt. She was taught to kill. And she was taught that the only other person she could rely on was her mother. But then Lynn's mother dies and the teen is left alone to fend for herself. Winter is coming and there are strangers to the south as well as to the east. This time survival will mean more than just defending what's hers. This time Lynn will have to learn who she can trust.

Mindy McGinnis's debut has been gaining buzz for months but I wasn't able to tackle the book myself until this past weekend. Now I finally see what all the fuss has been about!

McGinnis's debut is part frontier survival and part post-apocalypse dystopian. We only get a bit of Lynn's world through the narrative, mainly because Lynn herself is so closed off and because her mother tells her little to nothing about the Shortage. What we do get, though, is enough to set the scene for a none too pleasant future in which potable water is sold at an extremely high price to those fortunate enough to live within a city's walls and isn't supplied at all to those outside.

Lynn and her mother live in the house her mother grew up in. Their nearest neighbor is seen through binoculars - he keeps to himself and Lynn and her mother keep to themselves. Lynn's mother's tactic for protecting their water is ensuring that no one beyond herself and her daughter comes anywhere close to it. (Lynn's mother is all about efficiency and practicality.) Turns out this is fine until Lynn is on her own.

Not a Drop to Drink is really everything you want in a great book. The characters are rich and real, the story is gripping, and McGinnis's writing is truly excellent. What's more, Not a Drop to Drink falls into the ever growing category of teen reads that's appealing to adults as well. I don't know what's in store next for McGinnis but she's made my must read list for sure!

Rating: 5/5