Get Lost in Literature

' "Just trust me, Nina." "I wouldn't trust you to tie my shoes without stealing the laces, Kaz." ' This gritty fantasy opens with the introduction of six quirky characters. Kaz Brekker, only seventeen years old, is a hardened career criminal in a street gang known as the Dreggs. Jesper is an ex-farmboy turned sharpshooter with a gambling addiction. Inej, aka The Wraith, is indentured to the Dreggs but finds she has a talent for criminality; she's dangerous, fearless. She's the thief of secrets. Wylan was born to privilege and ran from it; he went from being a wealthy merchant's son, to being a demolitions expert for Kaz's gang. Matthias, Kaz's opposite; run by what he considers to be a moral high ground, is a soldier trained to hunt down witches and was convicted on false charges. And then there's Nina, a witch, or Grisha, who put Matthias in prison and is desperate to correct that wrong. These six teenagers hardened by their own ...

Happy Sunday! I hope you are all having a great weekend! The Sunday Post is a weekly news meme hosted by The Caffeinated Reviewer. I'll be posting on the first Sunday of each month and I hope you'll join me. We had thirteen rainy weekends in a row, but the weather gods must have been looking out for me because it all cleared up in time for my vacation. We had a perfect weekend followed by a heatwave, which was fine with me because we were at a scenic coastal town, enjoying the breeze off the ocean. (This last photo isn't just a pretty view, it's an accurate depiction of the whale watch I went on.) I'm not usually much for heatwaves, but I can't say I hated my lazy days at the beach; reading and swimming and reading some more. And even though there were no whales on my whale watch, it was a pretty nice boat ride. And what was I reading? Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo . It will be my first review of July, so be sure to drop by tomorrow if you want to know more ab...

Book Beginnings on Fridays by Rose City Reader - Share the opening sentence (or so) of the book you are reading this week. You can also share from a book that caught your fancy, even if you are not reading it right now. "The only impartial witness was the sun." The Wager by David Grann It's summer and the mere mention of the word 'sun' sent me overboard (pun intended). I could picture clearly in my eye, the sun shining in a flawless sky. Now the sky in this book is rarely flawless but I didn't know that at the time I read the first sentence...and so I kept on reading. Book Blogger Hop Q:   Has your perspective on reading changed as you've grown older? If so, has it affected how you write your reviews?  ( submitted by Billy @  Coffee Addicted Writer ) Yes, my perspective has changed a little. I have always read for fun and will continue to do so, so don't get me wrong, but when I was in college, I took a ton of literature courses,...

Today's Top Ten Tuesday  (hosted by ThatArtsyReaderGirl ) was listed as Top Ten Freebie/Throwback , where you get to pick your own subject. Today I'm covering the Top Ten Author's I've Read: First Book, Last Book, and Favorite Book. This is a prompt I saw on (and stole with permission) Louise @ Foxes and Fairytales blog, who borrowed it from A Book Fiend Named Mel who was inspired by ChelseaZhao . The concept of this list is to pick authors you've read multiple books by, and say what was the first book you read, the last one you read, and your favorite by that author. 1. John Ajivde Lindqvist      First: Let the Right One In      Last: I Am Behind You      Favorite: Let the Right One In 2. JK Rowling      First: Harry Potter and The Sorcerer's Stone      Last: The Running Grave      Favorite: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince 3. Edgar Allan Poe      First: The Cask of Am...

I won't be posting anything, or responding to comments, the 22nd-29th. I will be on vacation and hope to be lounging on a beach. I hope you all have a great week and I'll see you soon. glitter-graphics.com

  Today's Top Ten Tuesday, hosted by ThatArtsyReaderGirl , is Books On My Summer 2025 To-Read List. I didn't have to work hard this week to find titles, I conveniently keep a list of my reading materials on my 'Upcoming Reviews' tab. Pay no attention to my 'Currently Reading' tab... It's not that accurate. Justify: 111 Days to Triple Crown Glory by Lenny Shulman Iron Flame Rebecca Yarros The Midnight Library by Matt Haig 1984 by George Orwell Farenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury One Dark Window by Rachel Gillig Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo Book of Night by Holly Black The Brides of Maracoor by Gregory Maguire Kiss the Girls by James Patterson I promised myself not to acquire any more books, new or library, until these are read. Have you heard of or read any of these? What did you think of them?

  The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny, and Murder by David Grann "Storms continued to batter the ships day and night. John Byron stared in awe at the waves that broke over the Wager , bandying the 123-foot vessel about as if it were no more than a pitiful rowboat." Today's review is going to be a short one about The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder by David Grann . I feel like the book really needs no long-winded synopsis written from me as the author so painstakingly put it in the title with just three words. But in case you need more information, here goes: In 1740, a small fleet of English ships set sail for a secret mission meant to foil the war plans of the Spanish. This mission takes them around the treacherous Cape Horn where disaster strikes one of the ships, the Wager . Eventually stranded on a foreign shore, Captain Cheap is desperate to fulfill his orders and rejoin the fight; his crew, focused on survival, want to turn back. I don't read a ...

"The dream itself had faded a little now, but it had been a memory as much as a nightmare. Me as a child, walking toward the doorway to the small kitchen of the house I had grown up in." After the death of his wife, Tom Kennedy and his son Jake move to the small town of Featherbank. They're looking for a fresh start, but it soon becomes clear they won't find it. The locals call their new home "the scary house" and Jake's imaginary friends are becoming increasingly disturbing. A child goes missing, and as police race to find the boy they discover the clues point to someone who is already in prison. The first thing that stood out to me was that we're given a collection of imperfect characters all trying to overcome some sort of loss. There's Tom who's coping with his grief by writing about his wife, and as much as he loved her, some of what he writes isn't always pleasant. His son Jake is inventing imaginary friends and getting in trouble a...

Happy Sunday! I hope you're all having a great weekend! The Sunday Post is a weekly news meme hosted by The Caffeinated Reviewer . I'll be posting on the first Sunday of each month and I hope you'll join me. I swear it has rained every weekend since my last Sunday Post. I couldn't hold off working on my garden any longer, so I worked outside in the wet and dreary weather when I usually spend those days in my rocking chair with a book. But it's the first day in June and June is a very busy month (and usually beautiful, so here's hoping). Father's Day is headed our way, as is mine and my brother's birthdays, and the annual family vacation. Hopefully the vacation is rain free because I don't want to be trapped in a hotel room for the better part of a week. It does look like I'm reducing my reading time to one book a month right now, having taken most of May to finish Circe by Madeline Miller , which wasn't that big a book. I've stopped work...

Book Beginnings on Fridays by Rose City Reader -  Share the opening sentence (or so) of the book you are reading this week. You can also share from a book that caught your fancy, even if you are not reading it right now. "Jake. There is so much I want to tell you, but we've always found it hard to talk to each other, haven't we?" - The Whisper Man by Alex North This is a thriller that starts with a lot of intrigue... First, a letter from a father to his son and the reader is immediately left wondering what inspired the letter. Soon after, a child goes missing and the feeling of dread creeps in because you just know something bad is about to happen.   Book Blogger Hop Q: Have you ever wondered why a passionate book blogger might suddenly stop posting or delete their blog without notice? (submitted by Billy @ Coffee Addicted Writer) A: Yes, and then no. I imagine there are a lot of reasons why that happens, the first thing that comes to mind i...

Today's Top Ten Tuesday theme was listed as Animal Companions (These animals can be real or fantasy!) (submitted by P.S. I Love Books) . Back in August 2024 I did a Top Ten Literary Animal Friends list, which is basically the same, and I didn't think my list had changed since then. So instead of doing a repeat list, I'm doing the Top Ten Books with Horses. The horses will be both real and fictional. 1. American Pharoah: The Untold Story of the Triple Crown Champion's Legendary Rise by Joe Drape - The true story about the life of the first Triple Crown winner after a 37 year drought. 2. Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin - A fantasy about a thief named Peter Lake, seemingly immortal, who is watched over by his guardian, a pure white horse depicted as a deity, Athansor. 3. Battleship: A Daring Heiress, a Teenage Jockey, and America's Horse by Dorothy Ours - A nonfiction about Battleship, the undersized son of Man O'War, who despite his failings at flat racin...

  "The hairs stood on the back of my neck. All who were wise feared the god Apollo's wrath, silent as sunlight, deadly as plague." Circe is born to the sun god Helios and the nymph Perse. As far as goddesses go, she is unremarkable in every way; no beauty, no powers, and the insufferable voice of a mortal. She is the shame of her family and seems destined to remain so... Until the day comes when she realizes she can use herbs to bend life to her will. Circe isn't just a goddess, she's a witch and like most witches she must be punished for it and is sentenced to exile by Zeus and her own father. In college I had The Odyssey and The Iliad as required reading for a literature class that I had thought I'd enjoy taking at the time I enrolled in it... Spoiler alert, I finished neither the story nor the class. Thankfully Madeline Miller managed to write a Greek epic that was told in relative time lapse, meaning just because a story spans a thousand years doesn'...

Book Beginnings on Fridays by Rose City Reader -  Share the opening sentence (or so) of the book you are reading this week. You can also share from a book that caught your fancy, even if you are not reading it right now. "When I was born, the name for what I was did not exist." Circe by Madeline Miller I'm currently reading Circe and it's delightful. It's a retelling of a Greek myth about a witch-goddess but I can't tell you much more about it because I've never actually heard of Circe before... I resisted googling the story behind the story because I want to keep the ending a surprise. Seeing that The Song of Achilles was a tragedy, I'm assuming that this one is too, but I don't know yet. Book Blogger Hop Q: What are some of your favorite books to re-read? (submitted by Nicole @ The Christian Fiction Girl) A: Call of the Wild is at the top of the list, I think I have it memorized. There's Let the Right One In and The Fall of ...

I'm late to the party with my Reflections  this year; to be honest, I totally forgot about it. Last year, I had expressed a bit of dissatisfaction with my A-Z experience. While I had found some great blogs to follow, the traffic to my own blog hadn't really increased to make the effort worth my time. I wasn't sure I was even going to bother this year. But this year I did participate in the blogging challenge and was surprised to find that I did have an increase in traffic (woohoo). I'm not blind, I can see I'm a small fish in a big pond, but sometimes it's nice to meet new people. For some reason, I'm not quite sure why, I recommended a lot of dark or scary books even though I'm not predominantly a horror reader. I went through my GoodReads list and randomly picked books in alphabetical order, and coincidentally I had a few that shared vibes. I also posted nonfiction, sci-fi, and fantasy, and one book that somehow straddled the line between true-crime a...

As titled this is the list of books I reviewed for the 2025 A-Z Challenge in the order that I posted them (alphabetically). The Abominable by Dan Simmons Black Woods, Blue Sky by Eowyn Ivey Carving Shadows into Gold by Brigid Kemmerer The Desolations of Devil's Acre by Ransom Riggs Elphie by Gregory Maguire Flyboy by Kasey LeBlanc Gone South by Robert McCammon Handling the Undead by John Ajvide Lindqvist I Am Behind You by John Ajvide Lindqvist Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton A Killing Cold by Kate Alice Marshall Leech by Hiron Ennes Midnight Sun by Stephenie Meyer Native Dancer by John Eisenberg The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones Pines by Blake Crouch Quiet Dell by Jayne Anne Phillips Rakkety Tam by Brian Jacques Spare by Prince Harry Training Strategies for Dressage Riders by Charles de Kunffy The Unidentified by Colin Dickey The Vanished Birds by Simon Jimenez What Feasts at Night by T. Kingfisher X = Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer Yea...

  "This is how we sometimes lose people: not all at once, but little by little, like the wind blowing specks of pollen from a flower." The Land of Lost Things is the long-awaited sequel to The Book of Lost Things. The Book of Lost Things is one of my favorite books and is located on my Top Ten Books to Get Lost on a Deserted Island With list. Having never reviewed The Book of Lost Things , I feel compelled to tell you a little about it first. The Book of Lost Things is about a boy named David; his mother dies and his father remarries. Increasingly unhappy with his homelife, that now includes an infant half-brother, he falls deeper into the stories that bring him comfort... Until he accidentally opens the door to Elsewhere. In a world beyond his own, he finds fairytales and monsters reminiscent of The Brothers Grimm . I know certain adults have the compulsion for lumping all fantasy novels in with YA, but this book was not aimed at young adults. This book is a coming-of-age...

Happy Sunday! I hope you are all having a great weekend! The Sunday Post is a weekly news meme created by the Caffeinated Reviewer. I'll be posting on the first Sunday of each month and I'll hope you'll join me. Spring is going to bleed seamlessly into Summer in my neck of the woods, jumping in temps from 40 degrees to 80... and I sense the summer is going to be a hot one (that's climate change for you) so I'll take extra enjoyment in cool summer nights out by the firepit. Yesterday I went for my once-a-year gambling excursion. Every year I try my luck, betting the Kentucky Derby. The secret is I have no luck. Whatever horse I pick usually comes in last. This year I picked up two Win, Place or Show tickets... One for Sandman and the other for Luxor Cafe. I'm the curse they never saw coming. Sandman wound up in 7th, Luxor Cafe 12th. In the month of April, I competed in the A-Z Challenge and completed it. Yay me! If you are interested in what books I posted about...

Book Beginnings on Fridays  by  Rose City Reader  -  Share the opening sentence (or so) of the book you are reading this week. You can also share from a book that caught your fancy, even if you are not reading it right now. "Twice upon a time - for that is how some stories should continue - there was a mother whose daughter was stolen from her. Oh, she could still see the girl... But the child was silent, and her eyes remained closed." The Land of Lost Things by John Connolly I absolutely loved John Connolly's book The Book of Lost Things so when the sequel came out, The Land of Lost Things , I rushed out to get it. If you liked the stories of the brothers Grimm, you'll like these books too (most likely). They're about people who get swept away into the darkest of fairytales. Book Blogger Hop Q:   What's your typical process for writing a book review, from reading the book to publishing the review on your blog? (submitted by Page @ Pa...

"Last March Zodiac had been writing industriously, casting his net wide; spreading his word southward." Zodiac Unmasked was the first book I read in 2025, I've managed to hold off posting the review for this specific day. Woohoo! I made it. It's also a first for me, the first true crime novel I've ever read. I originally wanted to get Zodiac by Robert Graysmith , you know the one with the infamous yellow cover. But it appears that wasn't available by e-book and I was too lazy to go to the store or library to look for a hardcopy. Zodiac Unmasked  is dedicated to exploring the theory that Arthur Leigh Allen was the Zodiac Killer, based on witness testimony and circumstantial and coincidental evidence. It also explores additional murders, assaults, and abductions during that time period that may have been perpetrated by the Zodiac. I found this book to be very well written and well researched, taking us through the crimes and how they relate to the timeline of ...

“And even if I turned out to be entirely sane—well then, great, it meant that an alien advance party was suddenly nosing around my planet. Worse, they were lawyering up.” ― Rob Reid, Year Zero 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...

"Everything that's born has to die, which means our lives are like skyscrapers. The smoke rises at different speeds, but they're all on fire, and we're all trapped." This is the second year in a row that I have cheated with letter X and gone with 'Ex', but I bet I'm not the only one who has so maybe that's okay. Even 'Ex' was hard to find a book that suited my reading tastes. I considered Douglas Preston's  Extinction  but found the main character unlikable after the first few chapters, and there was Excavation  by James Rollins which I just wasn't in the mood for. Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer, chronicles Oskar Schell's search for answers. His father dies on 9/11 and Oskar is the last one to hear his father's voice leaving him feeling both guilty and grief stricken. He plays tambourine and keeps a scrapbook, makes up inventions and bruises himself when he feels bad. But when he finds a key hi...

 "I edged Hobb away from the side of the road, where a tangle of vines draped over a bare tree like spilled entrails." What Feast at Night by T.Kingfisher We're back for another story of Alex Easton, who is headed to her family lodge and is in for a surprise. Upon arrival she and Angus find the caretaker Codrin has died in their absence and the town talks of a demon of nightmares that stalks the grounds. T. Kingfisher was inspired by Edgar Allen Poe. Now some people like Austin or Dickens, but I hold Poe to be one of the best classic writers of time. It all comes down to atmosphere. A good Gothic Horror should have a setting as ghostly as its monster and as much a character as its hero, and Kingfisher delivers. In the opening pages, it's implied that Alex is a she, which surprised me. (I'd been calling her he, up until she announced that her father had no sons.) She is an interesting character, war heroine, naive skeptic, and altogether force to be reckoned with w...

“Some roads go on and on,” the Kind One said. “And some roads end before their route. But no road goes on forever.” ― Simon Jimenez, The Vanished Birds This is perhaps one of my shortest reviews ever, written during a reviewing slump, but I read very few titles that start with V and this was the best book of the bunch. An intergalactically famous inventor charges a ship's captain with protecting a boy. The captain's crew become a family, but her story turns to tragedy. Despite the sadness, the story ends pleasantly with hope. This book was not what I expected. It was science-light science fiction. No long-winded explanations of tech and very little tech at all. There were no wildly fantastic space battles, just the practicality of life among the stars. The narrative was not quick, but a slow burn as the characters drove the story from past to present and across the universe.

The Unidentified: Mythical Monsters, Alien Encounters, and Our Obsession with the Unexplained by Colin Dickey "...if you could spin a wild tale with just the right mix of fact and fiction, it would burn itself indelibly in the public's minds..." Colin Dickey, The Unidentified Let me just start by saying I don't believe in Bigfoot. I'm not a Flat-Earther. I don't believe in alien abductions, although I do believe with a universe so vast as the one we have, we probably aren't the only ones living in it. And Area 51? Ok, I admit I can't imagine what they might be doing in there, so hiding a ufo is probably as good a guess as any other, even though I don't think we've ever been visited... But how would I know? I'm on this side of the security fence. As you may have guessed The Unidentified is about monsters, alien encounters, and conspiracy theories, and why we feel like we have to believe in them despite there being no scientific evidence to ...

"...the horse is a living organism and a unique individual that can develop only at his own rate. The horse is the clock, and he provides the calendar of progress." Training Strategies for Dressage Riders by Charles de Kunffy I don't know if this book is still in print, but if it is and you are a dressage enthusiast, or even just looking to improve upon your horsemanship skills, this is the book for you. Like many books written by experts in their field, there are some braggy bits in the beginning, but I am awed by how much the author emphasizes having empathy and consideration for the horse. Too many professionals today are viewing the horse as a means to an end, and we need do better by our animals, be better both as riders and as human beings. Some of the information is repetitive, but the best way to learn sometimes is through repetition. Book includes descriptions of basic, but sometimes confused, equestrian terminology like the much sought after "collection....

"Pa and William could never be on the same flight together, because there must be no chance of the first and second in line to the throne being wiped out. But no one gave a damn whom I traveled with; the Spare could always be spared.”― Prince Harry, Spare I'm not sure how to review a memoir, I don't read many of them. With fiction I can usually pick apart the points be they good or bad, or criticize the shortcomings if they exist, but how do you review the pieces of someone's life? I really liked this book, but is it because I have a curiosity about royalty or because it was a book of substance? Spare opens with Harry's childhood and his mom's early death. First let me just say, I can't imagine growing up with people referring to me as a "spare" like, "Hey, you, you're extra, and probably a little unnecessary." What a toxic way to raise a child, no wonder he needed to get away. His mom's death shatters his world; he makes himsel...

"All the best plans are a bit risky..." Gulo the Savage, ruler of his homeland in the hard and cold North, is searching for a relic known as the Walking Stone, which has been stolen by his brother Askor. The titular character Rakkety Tam and his best friend Wild Doogy Plum are given the task of bringing the stolen royal banner home to the King and Queen in exchange for their freedom. Meanwhile in Redwall Abbey, Sister Armel has had a vision of long dead Martin the Warrior, who tells her to take his sword and deliver it to Tam, who in turn vows to protect the Abbey from those who would threaten it. When I was young, I thought the Novels of Redwall were some of the best advanced-reader children's novels on the market. They have all the hallmarks of a good children's novel. Always including poetry, songs and riddles, Brian Jacques was the master of rhyme. The characters are all talking animals, stereotypically cast again and again in predictable roles: we know mice, squi...

  "It was unseasonably warm for June. The table was set as though for a banquet: Cornelius must know of her taste and refinement, that she honored him and would provide a gracious home." Asta Eicher is mother to three wonderful children: Annabelle precocious and imaginative, simple but sweet Grethe, and protective Hart. She takes care of her sick mother-in-law Lavinia, and is loved deeply by her on/off again boarder Charles. But Asta is a widowed artist who finds herself in debt, on the edge of losing everything she and her husband had worked so hard for... So she must find a new husband, one of means, and with room in his heart for her whole family.  Then the family goes missing. Our main characters disappear and are replaced with new ones, Emily Thornhill and William Malone. Emily is an investigative journalist charged with finding out the truth about what happened to the family. William Malone, a banker, is driven by guilt; he knew something was wrong and couldn't stop...

 "His first instinct was to leave without being seen, and this puzzled him. He was a federal agent with the full authority of the United States government. This meant people had to do what he said. Even nurses and doctors. They didn’t want him to leave? Tough shit." Special Agent Ethan Burke of the US Secret Service, wakes up in the woods outside of a quiet little town called Wayward Pines. He's been in an accident and he's having trouble with his memory. He knows he needs a hospital and somewhere to stay, but he can't find his wallet... or a working telephone. The longer Ethan stays in Wayward Pines, the more he realizes the town's got a secret, and the residents will kill to protect it. I know this book was big when it came out. I downloaded a sample from Amazon and passed judgement the same day; the writing was simple, and quick to the point. This was light reading dressed up as horror. There's nothing wrong with that, but at the time I'd wanted som...

  "This is all you need, isn't it? Just one good friend. Somebody you can be stupid with. Somebody who'll peel you off the ground, prop you against the wall." Ricky, Lewis, Cass, and Gabe have been friends for a long time, but the ten-year anniversary of a hunting trip gone wrong is upon them and no one wants to talk about it. And now an entity is stalking them, like a shotgun blast from the past. This book was okay, but I wasn't wowed. I liked the characters; they were all a little rough around the edges and it gave them an air of realness because they weren't perfect angels. Sometimes it's the imperfections that matter most. The book blurb on GoodReads states, "...a novel that is equal parts psychological horror and cutting social commentary on identity politics and the American Indian experience."  And I know when it came out it was one of the best horror novels of 2020. That's how it got added to my TBR list. Now it's officially been ...

"Standing in the winner's enclosure, in the shadow of the grandstand, the Dancer was a portrait of power and glory... His moment to make history was at hand." As you may have guessed from the title, this is the story of racing legend Native Dancer, whose name belongs right up with well known thoroughbreds like Secretariat, War Admiral, and Citation. Native Dancer whose DNA courses through the blood of many modern day Kentucky Derby winners. A touch of irony; though Native Dancer won 21 of 22 starts, he's rarely remembered because he never claimed the Triple Crown. The fan favorite lost by a head at Churchill Downs even though he went on to claim the Preakness and the Belmont. Born to Alfred Vanderbilt Jr, Sagamore Farm in 1950, Native Dancer arrived during an era of change accompanied by his favorite groom Les Murray, ridden by jockey Eric Guerin, and trained by Bill Winfrey. The Depression and the war were over, and America's love affair with the television (and ...