Get Lost in Literature

Would it be cheesy to say I thought this mystery was spellbinding? What if I mean it literally? The book starts off with a heavy science fiction feel. The main character, Billy, is a curator at a museum, where he preserves dead creatures in formalin. Including, Archie aka The Kraken, a giant squid, unharmed by fishermen and death, perfectly preserved. Then the story tries to claim an air of satire, with characters that swear regardless of reason and talk in nonsense. I can see why so many people who reviewed the book negatively called it ridiculous, but they were paying too close attention. The more I accepted the nonsense-circular-dialogue, it became much easier to read in between the lines and understand what the characters weren't saying. Like an optical illusion, the less you look the more you see. The book quickly squashes the notion of science fiction, inviting strange cults, magicians, Gods, angels, and an assortment of other creature-thing-people-hybrids, into the hea...

  My picks for the Tuesday Top Ten, as invented by  The Broke and Bookish . Today's theme/s were Top Ten Worlds I'd Never Want To Live In OR (since some of you might not read stuff with different worlds) Top Ten Characters I'd NEVER Want To Trade Places With. I wouldn't want to be Harry Potter. or Frodo Baggins. I wouldn't want to live in the world depicted by Mira Grant's The Newsflesh Trilogy, Or during Justin Cronin's The Passage . I wouldn't want to be Evan Burl or Quentin Coldwater. I wouldn't want to live in Alagaësia although I'd love to meet a dragon there. I wouldn't want to be Pi Patel from Life of Pi or Duane from Summer of Night. I wouldn't want to live in the England depicted by SM Peter's Whitechapel Gods .

This week I'm reading a sci-fi story, The Biomass Revolution by Nicholas Sansbury Smith. This is a very curious story, a revolution has taken place, citizens are now monitored and restricted by use of Artificial Intelligence, and citizens are told there are no survivors outside the walls of Tisea. In this passage, the main character, Spurious, is wandering through a decrepit neighborhood to visit his childhood home... "The state of the buildings could not help but remind him of the refugee camp he visited less than a year ago. The camp was called Halo by the State, but was known by the locals as The Inferno. Its purpose was to house all immigrants captured and awaiting deportation. The conditions at Halo were atrocious, and the State purposely built the camp far away from Lunia, hiding the view from the State employees." Quotable Thursday  originally brought to you by  Bookshelf Fantasies .

I thought the story was beautifully told; the Gods of the Old World want to go to war with the Gods of the Modern World; Shadow is the errand boy for the Gods of Old. I love how emotionless Shadow is; it makes him feel like an outsider, an observer, even though he's cast as the protagonist. His impartiality makes it feel like the Gods and Goddesses are more important, more active characters even though I know less about them than I do about him. I loved the balance of past and present, I loved that the fantastic moments slid so easily into reality. This almost received five stars; it didn't because the ending wasn't as well thought out as the rest of the story. It was too abrupt. First, it surprised me that Shadow went from being an impartial third party to the hero in a matter of few pages. And the murder mystery aspect fell flat; I guessed what was happening to the children of Lakeside and who was behind it before it was actually revealed. So as much depth and mystery...

My picks for the Tuesday Top Ten, as invented by  The Broke and Bookish . Today's theme is:  Top Ten Things On My Reading Wish-list (if you could make authors write about these things you would. Could be a specific type of character, an issue tackled, a time period, a certain plot, etc.)  This has got to be one of the strangest lists yet, and I love it, because it allows me to list creatively. So what do I wish authors would write about? A sci/fi-fantasy story about discovering the lost city of Atlantis. A sci-fi/horror about an alien abduction victim. A contemporary fic- about someone who was friends with someone who grew up to be a school shooter. Because you have to wonder just a little how the loved one of such a person didn't see it coming and how they get over that they didn't see. I want a Dracula-esque vampire. No more falling for teenage girls or blood and sex mash-ups. I want a cold, calculating, emotionless, sinister creature of the night... And let...

Tim, Scott, and Luke plan on spending their summer in their new tree fort, playing sniper with air rifles when Molly Peterson, a friend of Tim's sister, goes missing from a drive-in. While out in the woods, the three boys are sure they see Molly being held at gunpoint by her abductor. Detective Van Endel, who is in charge of the investigation, knows someone is lying to him and dismisses the claims as a cruel hoax. Tim, Scott, and Luke set out to clear their names and save the girl, while Detective Van Endel tries to find out where Molly was when she went missing and who was the last person to see her alive... Unlike with the characters in this story, Aric Davis has no problem revealing the murderer/kidnapper to the reader early on. The moments with the killer were unsurprisingly the most disturbing; he's a rapist suffering from PTSD caused by his time in Vietnam. Molly's struggle for survival is heartbreaking and captor is terrifying. He is terrifying because he...

This book should come with a warning. It's absolutely wonderful for the person who  LOVES  words to the point of madness. It is not for the reader looking for something "light." I admit, I am not sure where to start my review (there was sooo much content), so I may ramble a bit. Bruno the chimpanzee always wanted to be human…Then Lydia Littlemore, a primatologist, adopts him from a zoo and teaches him how to speak English. The story starts dramatically, humorously, as Bruno’s animal nature clashes with human society and eventually the story spirals deeper into darker more serious material. Cognitive thought, philosophy, art, shame, love, and grief; what it means to be human and the sacrifices Bruno unknowingly makes to become one. Several times during the reading, I laughed, blushed, and cried… I forgot the story was actually written by a human hand and began to think this the story of Bruno, told by Bruno. And more than once I was surprised to find Bruno pointing o...

My picks for the Tuesday Top Ten, as invented by  The Broke and Bookish . I'm sorry to say, it's a list of two today. I've never been one for following books by release date, unless it's for a series I'm following (as is the case with Hollow City ) or a favorite author announces an upcoming release. Cursed be the Wicked  happens to be the book of an internet buddy of mine or I would never have heard of it. As  it is, none of the author's on my watchlist are making any exciting announcements. I don't even have a clue where to go to get a list of upcoming novels. I hear about books through the grapevine or find them while wandering around bookstores. I'm very aware that a lot of the blogs doing the TTT will have no problem making a full list and I'm curious: How do you do it? Where do you go to learn about Upcoming Releases?

This Monday morning, I am delighted to present the cover for upcoming paranormal romance, Cursed be the Wicked. Details:           Title: Cursed be the Wicked           Author: J.R.Richardson           Genre: Paranormal Mystery Romance           Release Date: March 5, 2014 Synopsis: Cooper Shaw lives his life under a pen name and enjoys the anonymity it provides during his journeys across the globe as a seasoned writer for a travel magazine. When his job lands him in his hometown of Salem, Massachusetts to cover the famous Festival of the Dead, he soon realizes that he can’t stay invisible forever as he faces ghosts from a past he’s been trying to forget ever since he left. The city holds nothing but bad memories for Coop until he meets a quirky young woman with an old soul and curious insights by the name of Finnley Pierce. While she acts as his tour guide throug...

"The little map Nan had drawn was in her bag, but she'd etched it on her memory. She turned away from the great stone walls, took the path toward the deep woods. Passed winter-quiet gardens, spreads of soaked green..." I'm not making a whole lot of progress with my reading this January. There's been a lot of distractions. I'm hoping to have some time to myself to read soon... And I've got news about an upcoming novel, to be shared on the 13th of January, so pop on by if paranormal mysteries are your cup of tea! Quotable Thursday originally brought to you by Bookshelf Fantasies .

Nick Carter--not that Nick Carter--has 48 hours to save the world. Aliens owe Earth all the money in the universe because they've been stealing our music...And rather than go universally broke on music pirating fines, they want to help us self-destruct. This book was funny, but you probably won't find the meaning to life inside of it, if that's what you're looking for. It does make a few cold jabs at the digital generation; media piracy is at an all time high because everybody's doing it, simply because everybody else is doing it. And if you like lots of science in your science fiction, this probably isn't the book for you either. There's plenty of gadgets, intergalactic travel, aliens, and fantastic alien planets, but very little logic as to how any of this is possible. This is the kind of science fiction you weren't meant to think about. The emphasis is on the humor and the adventure... both of which were enjoyable, but the adventure was more ...

This list/post was inspired by the Top Ten Tuesday list,  The Broke and Bookish  had scheduled for today. This week's theme was supposed to be:  Goals/Resolutions For 2014 (bookish, not bookish or a blend).  I've taken a few liberties with the list today. Facebook now has a feature that tries to display what it thinks the highlights of my year were...It always pisses me off when Facebook just assumes stuff on my behalf. I mean, who does it think it is? I can leave it any time, right? But it did make me think about the highlights of my year and what I thought they were. So here is a list of my most memorable moments of 2013!  In May I brought home 5 orphaned bunnies and kept three, Lady B, Sprout and Moon.  In June, I graduated from college and later I threw out my back.  Throwing out my back turned out to be a good thing, because it was shortly after in July, I started this blog! And I have 11 followers that I know of, 8 here on Blogg...

Today I'm starting Dark Witch by Nora Roberts.  This was a Christmas gift and even though Nora Roberts isn't an author I'd have picked for myself, I hear good things so I'm giving it a go. Today for Quotable Thursday, you're getting the opening lines... "Near the shadow of the castle, deep in the green woods, Sorcha led her children through the gloom toward home. The two youngest rode the sturdy pony, with Teagan, barely three, nodding with every plod." Quotable Thursday originally brought to you by Bookshelf Fantasies .

For the most part, this story was really well written with an ambitious plot. The story starts with alien Kai, waking up to a destroyed world and being sent off to warn other planets...Then the story transitions to characters Jack and Marcus, humans living in a futuristic Earth. Jack is an Emergency Rescue worker and Pacifist, while Marcus is an astronomer and astronaut searching the galaxy for a drifting alien vessel...  The characters were well thought out. The pacifist must become the war hero and the passive scientist must work to save the world from intergalactic invaders. The action sequences were exciting and devastating. The plot twists: who the invaders are and what they're after, were shocking and dripping with irony. The paths of the main characters, Jack and Marcus, ran beside one another but never crossed. The reason this story avoided the five star hit, was the ending. Don't get me wrong, I liked parts of the ending; I'm a sucker for happy endings.....