Giveaway: First Daughter & Last Snow

Surprise! (As if you hadn’t guessed already…)

I’m very pleased to announce my very first giveaway, made possible by the lovely people over at Tor/Forge. I’m giving away both of Eric Van Lustbader’s Jack McClure novels, First Daughter and Last Snow, to one winner! After the jump are descriptions of the books, as well as my thoughts, and, of course, the details on how to enter!

First Daughter by Eric Van Lustbader

Sometimes the weakness we fear most can become our greatest strength . . .

Jack McClure has had a troubled life.  His dyslexia always made him feel like an outsider.  He escaped from an abusive home as a teenager and lived by his wits on the streets of Washington D.C.  It wasn’t until he realized that dyslexia gave him the ability to see the world in unique ways that he found success, using this newfound strength to become a top ATF agent.

When a terrible accident takes the life of his only daughter, Emma, and his marriage falls apart, Jack blames himself, numbing the pain by submerging himself in work.  Then he receives a call from his old friend Edward Carson.  Carson is just weeks from taking the reins as President of the United States when his daughter, Alli, is kidnapped.  Because Emma McClure was once Alli’s best friend, Carson turns to Jack, the one man he can trust to go to any lengths to find his daughter and bring her home safely.

The search for Alli leads Jack on a road toward reconciliation . . . and into the path of a dangerous and calculating man.  Someone whose actions are as cold as they are brilliant.  Whose power and reach are seemingly infinite.

Faith, redemption, and political intrigue play off one another as McClure uses his unique abilities to journey into the twisted mind of a stone cold genius who is constantly one step ahead of him.  Jack will soon discover that this man has affected his life and his country in more ways than he could ever imagine.

via Amazon

Bottom line: Despite a wonderful opening, First Daughter is too slow and just too silly–dyslexia does not give you the superpowers Lustbader thinks it does and people do not act like that.

Last Snow by Eric Van Lustbader

Jack McClure, Special Advisor and closest friend to the new President of the United States, interprets the world very differently from the rest of us. It’s his greatest liability, and his greatest asset.

An American senator, supposedly on a political trip to the Ukraine, turns up dead on the island of Capri. When the President asks him to find out how and why, Jack sets out from Moscow across Eastern Europe, following a perilous trail of diplomats, criminals, and corrupt politicians. Thrust into the midst of a global jigsaw puzzle, Jack’s unique dyslexic mind allows him to put together the pieces that others can’t even see.

Still unreconciled to the recent death of his daughter and the dissolution of his marriage, Jack takes on a personal mission along with his official one: keeping safe from harm his two unlikely, unexpected, and incompatible companions—Annika Dementieva, a rogue Russian FSB agent, and Alli Carson, the President’s daughter. As he struggles to keep both young women safe and unearth the answers he seeks, hunted by everyone from the Russian mafia to the Ukrainian police to his own NSA, Jack learns just how far up the American and Russian political ladders corruption and treachery has reached.

In the vein of Eric Van Lustbader’s latest bestselling Jason Bourne novels, Lustbader takes us on an international adventure in this powerful page-turner that will keep you reading through the night.

via Amazon

Bottom line: While refreshingly free of some of the problems of First Daughter, the pacing is still being encroached upon by way too much backstory for everyone and Alli has turned into a wildly unsympathetic and spoiled character. It’s superior to First Daughter, but there’s better thrillers out there.

This giveaway is only available for residents of the US and Canada.

All you have to do to enter is comment! Well, you can also gain an extra entry by tweeting about this giveaway and linking your tweet in your comment for a total of two entries. But that’s it.

The giveaway will end on April 8, with winners announced on April 9. (Incidentally, that’s my birthday- I’m turning into a hobbit! Awesome.)

Good luck!