Focus: Blur

I admit it: I'm a sucker for mysteries and thrillers. While we'd all like to be highbrow and spend our time reading classic literature, when it comes down to it, books that grip and force you to keep reading until you've reached the end are a success. And Steven James' new novel, Blur, is no exception.


http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41wYTNffArL._SY344_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

Summary:
Daniel Byers is a high school football star living in a small town in Wisconsin. The novel begins with the tragic death of a high school freshman, Emily Jackson. While at the funeral, Daniel sees what appears to be a ghost of Emily; and is prompted to find out more about her "accidental" death. As Daniel grapples with his sanity, he works to find out what happened to Emily - and if her death was, in fact, not an accident at all, but a murder.

Review:
The book was impossible to put down from start to finish. I was immediately grabbed by the first sentence and my attention was kept through every suspenseful moment. I became invested in the characters very quickly, and I tried to solve the riddle of Emily's death along with Daniel.

Though this is a teen suspense thriller and may be written off because of that, the novel actually explored some interesting concepts of sanity and the barrier between fiction and reality. Daniel believes that he is losing his mind, and throughout the novel he struggles to reconcile what he is seeing (namely, visions of a dead girl) with what is real and happening. Is he really seeing a ghost? Or is it all in his head, a tactic of his subconscious mind to get him to look into Emily's death?

I really enjoyed this book. The mystery was intriguing and the characters were easy to relate to. After reading this, I found another of Steven James' novels and purchased it, and it's turning out to be just as much of a thrilling, suspenseful page-turner as this one. Blur is actually the first novel in a trilogy, and I am very excited to see what happens in the next book when it comes out!