Tag Archives: Hit the Ground Running

Review: Flow Like Water by Mark Burley

Flow Like Water by Mark BurleyFlow Like Water
Mark Burley
Blue Moon Publishers
Published on September 18, 2018

Amazon | Goodreads

About Flow Like Water
Eric Bakker’s search isn’t over. The conspiracy revealed by his parents’ research goes deeper than he could have imagined, into a place and an organisation with as much history—and secrecy—as any in the world. Getting in won’t be easy, and he’ll need help from his friends more than ever. But when one of them commits a personal sacrifice so Eric can escape from the killers known as the Vidi, the fallout threatens to split the group apart.

Tess has been there from the beginning, but with the addition of Angel, the daughter of another researcher, she begins to doubt her role. Soon after, new information about her father’s death puts her at a crossroads that will force her to choose between Eric’s search for answers and her own.

For Eric, overcoming physical and mental obstacles is built into his parkour training philosophy, but the farther he goes in his search, the bigger the obstacles become. What he eventually discovers no one was ever supposed to find. Ultimately, his path leads to a violent encounter in Sicily, this time with no plan and no idea what he’s up against. Eric knows that whatever he encounters, he will have to adapt and react. As the saying goes, he will have to be like water. And like water, he will flow or he will crash.

My Review
After reading the first book in this series, Hit the Ground Running, I was really looking forward to reading Flow Like Water. I love the idea of a main character who is a parkour expert. Eric’s abilities didn’t figure into this book as much as they did in the first one, though. The big show-stopper in Flow Like Water is the large-scale operation that Eric and his friends seek to uncover. Along with his brother, Eric travels with snarky twins named Seth and Lakey who have some pretty useful hacking skills. Their one-liners definitely add some pizazz to what would otherwise be more serious moments. I think they were my favorites.

The story has a lot of minor characters which is something I always struggle with in a large cast. It’s hard for me to keep characters straight when there are a lot of peripheral named characters. So that made it a little tricky, but mostly I felt like I kept up with at least the main plot arc of the story.

I feel like there’s a reveal coming about Eric’s brother Michael. Or at least, I feel like something’s weird with him. A few times things would happen and Eric would notice something was off—like his brother could do something he shouldn’t be able to. So Eric would notice and then kind of shrug it off because, you know, bad guys were chasing them, no time for that now! So I wonder if the next book will explore-slash-reveal some new twist about something Michael went through. I’m intrigued by that idea.

On the whole, Flow Like Water was an entertaining read—much more plot driven than character driven, but a fun, suspenseful mystery. I enjoyed it. It would be great for readers who liked I Do Not Trust You by Laura J. Burns and Melinda Metz.

Recommended for Ages 14 up.

Cultural Elements
Major characters are white or not physically described. One of the minor characters is in a wheelchair.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Strong profanity used very briefly.

Romance/Sexual Content
References to a kiss between a boy and girl. Some flirty or suggestive comments from other characters.

Spiritual Content
A group of people have unlocked the secret to immortality. Some scenes reference rituals which supposedly revive people from the dead. Eric and his team visit the Vatican and hear the Pope speak.

Violent Content
Situations of peril. Several people are held against their will. References to people being murdered or tortured. A fire kills and severely burns some people. Descriptions are very brief.

Drug Content
None.

Note: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Review: Hit the Ground Running by Mark Burley

Hit the Ground Running
Mark Burley
Blue Moon Publishing
Published April 25, 2017

Amazon | Goodreads

A terrifying video from his brother leads Eric to think something is terribly wrong. When he learns his parents are missing, and confirms his brother’s disappearance after the video seems to show him captured and possibly shot, Eric vows to help them. He can’t do much from his remote boarding school location, but with the help of the lovely and talented Tess, who agrees to play his girlfriend in an effort to throw off pursuers, and Tess’s friends who possess some pretty amazing online skills, Eric just might have a chance at cracking the mystery and bringing his family home safely.

What Eric finds as he reaches his parents’ lab in California changes the whole game. Secret artifacts point to a dangerous ritual, and deadly assassins close in on Eric’s trail. Eric must outwit those chasing him in time to locate his family and plan their rescue.

This book pretty much had me at parkour. Apparently I’m a total sucker for stories which feature characters with an unusual interest (see my review of Graffiti Moon or Everything, Everything, which happily features another parkour kid!) so this book had me really curious.

I feel like Blue Moon Publishers has been a little hit and miss with me in terms of books I like. Hit the Ground Running was a huge win. The sense of mystery and high stakes yanked me through page after page well past my bedtime. Eric’s concern for his family and his conflicting feelings about Tess won me over superfast. The story isn’t completely from Eric’s point-of-view. Several chapters are from Tess’s point-of-view, and we get a couple of other characters sneaking in from time to time to give us their input.

If you like action-packed stories with high stakes, you will want to have this one on your summer reading list.

Recommended for Ages 13 up.

Cultural Elements
Major characters appear to be white. One of Eric’s allies is wheelchair-bound. He and his twin sister still enjoy a lot of active sports like surfing.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Mild profanity used infrequently.

Romance/Sexual Content
A brief kiss.

Spiritual Content
Eric tells his allies about a strange situation his parents looked into, in which a dead person resurrected to exact revenge. He calls this person a Revenant. He learns his parents may have found an artifact which can be used in a ritual to grant something like resurrection, but without the gory grossness that comes from being Revenant and needing revenge, still decomposing.

Tess’s necklace shows a Makara, a mythical creature from Hindu mythology. There’s a brief description of some Hindu beliefs associated with the Makara and creation and such.

Violent Content
Eric sees video which shows a dark image of his brother getting shot. He discovers the body of a man whose throat has been cut. Bad guys chase him, he tries to escape. Some depictions of kidnapping (bound captive tossed into a trunk).

Brief reference to torture.

Drug Content
None.

Note: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.