Review - Fortress by Gabrielle Lord

Fortress by Gabrielle Lord
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Mass Market Paperback, 154 pages

Published March 12th 1982 by Ballantine Books (first published 1981)

Source: Own Copy
Challenges: Aussie Author Challenge, Mt TBR Challenge, A-Z Title Challenge

Synopsis:
'At school, the morning bell rang well enough. The children were cooperative and eager to help in preparation for the inspector.

Without warning, their peace was shattered by the appearance at the window of a grotesquely masked figure. It was the start of a forty-eight hour ordeal of terror for Sally Jones and her small band of pupils, kidnapped by a gang of sinister and sadistic men asking a cool million dollars ransom for their victims.

Sally's first concern was to protect and comfort the children but as their nightmare continued she became determined to escape and then, together with the children, to destroy...'

My Thoughts:
This book is a very fast read that I just hated to put down once I started it.
It centres around a young female teacher, Sally Jones, who is almost at the end of her rural posting in a remote town in NSW, Australia and her small batch of students and the frightening event of their kidnapping by some young men wanting to hold them for ransom.
What I loved about this story was that a seemingly weak group made up of a young woman and some children never have a moment where they give up hope or just await their fate in the hands of the kidnappers. They manage to overcome their fears and use all of their combined resources to do a complete about turn from innocent, unarmed victims, to savage and strong defenders of their lives.
I've seen a few other reviews that compare this book a little to Lord of the Flies and I think that is definitely a great comparison to make. This is one of those stories that makes you realise how we have the ability to become a product of our environment and that you have the choice of either accepting your fate without attempting to change it, or you can fight with everything you are made of and try to come out the victor.

Links:
Amazon - Fortress

Book Review - 'Baby Did A Bad Bad Thing' by Gabrielle Lord

Normally I'm a big fan of Gabrielle Lord books because it's nice to read about familiar places and things being that she is an Aussie but this book just didn't seem to do it for me.

Here's the general overview:
'Gemma Lincoln, the private eye whose tangled past was the subject of Feeding the Demons has never been busier. She's investigating the disappearance of millionaire Benjamin Glass; she's trying to discover who killed her old friend Shelly, a sex therapist, and she's also closing in on a killer who targets sex workers.
She's traded her old .38 for the new Glock. But a flash new weapon is no defence against the oldest betrayal of all. Is Gemma's beloved Steve two-timing her? And if he is, what can she do about it? And why is some unknown person determined to destry Gemma's business?
As the separate investigations hot up, the deadly connections between them all start to emerge. In a desperate race against time to save Steve's life and her own, Gemma must face the worst that the underworld can throw at her. But her latest error of judgement may prove fatal to them both'

When I read that I got excited thinking that this was going to be an action packed story. Well, I'm sorry to say, but it wasn't.

I feel the whole book was a little disjointed with stuff happening all over the place without really bringing anything together. There were a lot of connections going on but to me they just didn't seem to work all the time.

I can see that the author is trying to make Gemma out to be an independent and strong female who knows what she wants and goes and gets it but to me she just seemed a bit annoying due to the rash decisions she was always making at the drop of a hat and quite a lot of the time I was reading along and thinking 'as if'.

Her whole over-reaction with Steve was just plain annoying as well. She knew all too well the job he was doing yet always seemed to have a problem with every aspect of it. To me this was very frustrating.

Anyway, overall I thought this story really just lacked 'oomph' and it was a bit of a struggle for me to actually finish reading it. The pace finally started picking up towards the last 30 pages or so but until then it was a fairly weak plot.

Considering how much I have enjoyed all the other Gabrielle Lord books I have read I must say this one was kind of disppointing.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars.

Has anyone else ever read this book and have an opinion on it? What about any other Gabrielle Lord books?