Get Lost in Literature

 Margaret and Steve Frawley return home from a party after a disturbing phone call from their babysitter to find their daughters Kelly and Kathy have become the victims of a kidnapping. The kidnapper, who calls himself the Pied Piper, and his two henchmen demand a ransom for the safe return of the girls. But the panicked parents can’t afford to pay the ransom on their own and so begins the descent into deceit. This is the first Mary Higgins Clark book I’ve read in a long time. The first book I ever read by her was about a woman who solves a crime, almost becomes the criminal’s next victim, and is saved by her love interest… I read two more books by her and was disappointed to find they followed the same formula. So imagine my surprise when I cracked this novel open and found a book that didn’t follow that formula. This is less of a mystery, the identities of the kidnappers are revealed pretty early on, and more of a thriller as the FBI attempts to track down the girls before someth...

Happy Sunday! I hope everyone’s having a good weekend! The Sunday Post is a news meme created by CaffeinatedReviewer . I'm also linking up with Sunday Salon at ReaderBuzz . I will be posting on the first Sunday of each month and I hope you'll join me. This month’s weather report on last month’s weather: We had a small heatwave the first week; that kind of heat that sucks the breath out of you like a vacuum when you go outside. But the rest of July was simply beautiful. Sunny days that were spent out at the barn with my best girl, and warm nights by the firepit. Occasional rain here or there; not enough to end the drought, sadly, but just enough to get me out of having to water the plants. The firepit hang out spot is getting dangerous though, lol. A pair of skunks have been passing through the yard habitually around 8pm, and one night they were even curious enough to walk up to us and have a look. We were still as statues and just as quiet, trying hard not to wet ourselves. N...

 I haven’t participated in Top Ten Tuesday in a while, I’m having trouble relating to some of the list topics being provided, but I wanted to do this one from June 2nd. The world is full of books and there are books not only do I want to read them, I should have already done so and I’m surprised at myself for not having done so. 1. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez . It’s classic literature and I’m told people either love it and find it moving, or they just don’t get it. With books that stir up so much passion (and sometimes confusion), I usually like to see what side of the divide I’m on. 2. Drood by Dan Simmons . This book is a horror/historical fiction about Charles Dickens’ life. Fact and fiction will blend seamlessly for me because I know nothing about Dickens outside of his books. I love when historical fiction crosses over into other genres. 3. A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula Le Guin . I’m a fantasy fan, and Ursula Le Guin is supposed to be right up th...

 “All a seed truly needs to sprout is time.” Anastasia Miller insists her whole life that she is an alien here to kickstart the invasion of Earth by an alien species of plant people. She advertises it to everyone she meets almost as soon as she meets them. Of course nobody believes her, it’s outrageous and crazy. Her roommates Mandy and Lucas accept her for who she is, extraterrestrial or not, and her boyfriend Graham loves her unconditionally. But nobody really understands until an astronomer intercepts an alien signal from outer space and things begin to change. The first thing that really pops out of my head on the subject of Overgrowth is how when people realize the aliens have been among them the whole time, they turn on each other. People begin accusing neighbors and friends who are “a little out there” of being aliens, even attacking them. They’re rioting in the streets and looting. I don’t think this behavior is outside the realm of possibility of what would happen in a re...

“The first rule of witchery is to acknowledge your deficits.” The third and final installment of the Another Day trilogy brings us Rain with her memory restored. Now that she remembers who she is, she can’t wait to return to Oz and figure out who she is meant to be. As with the Wicked Years and the first two installments of Another Day, I found the settings to be imaginative even though L. Frank Baum was there first. GM creates a world that makes you feel transported and strangely at home. Despite my appreciation of the setting, I found that this book lacked the charm of the first two books.  The beginning was a bit wishy-washy. It opens with Rain, Iskinaary, and Lucickles on a ship. Eventually there’s an explanation for how they got there but it didn’t come soon enough and it felt really random.  I didn’t find the subplot of Rain and Lucickles to be on par with their characters unless it’s to be considered a weird kind of character evolution…Which doesn’t make a whole lot of...

"All mankind is trapped within a waking dream of a world that doesn't exist." Sigur Johanson and Tina Lund are biologists working for the oil company to study worms that have mysteriously cropped up along the sea slopes. Leon Anawak is a cetologist and whale watch guide who’s taken by surprise when the normally peaceful animals begin attacking boats. Schools of fish turn murderous, seafood turns poisonous… The ocean is turning into a battle ground. But why and how? (And that’s just Part One) Let me start my review by saying I loved this book. There’s not a thing worth complaining about. Originally written in German, I read the English translation, and you know how people always say things get lost in translation? If something was lost, it was lost on me. I found this book to be highly suspenseful. The science bits were a bit slow, but there were plenty of action sequences to spice things up a bit. And the mystery of why this is happening kept me flipping the pages late in...

Happy Sunday! I hope everyone’s having a good weekend and if you are in the US, I hope you had a great 4th of July. The Sunday Post is a news meme created by CaffeinatedReviewer . I'm also linking up with Sunday Salon at ReaderBuzz . I will be posting on the first Sunday of each month and I hope you'll join me. I normally do a weather report for the past month, but June was perfectly normal weather-wise, and I’d rather state the obvious that the first few days of July were flippin’ hot. And not just in the Northeast, across the country. So I hope everyone is drinking plenty of fluids and respecting their local fire and water bans and regulations. My vacation was perfect, exactly what I wanted. I lounged on the beach in Maine with a book in my hand… I finished two actually. We had a couple of rainy days but it didn’t rain until after 3pm when we were wrapping things up at the beach anyways. I only posted one review in June: The Oracle of Maracoor by Gregory Maguire But I’ve got ...

 Leaving today to go read on a beach and pretend that adulting is not a thing I have to do. I'll be back in July with new reviews and recommendations. See you soon!

 Happy Sunday! I hope everyone’s having a good weekend! The Sunday Post is a news meme created by CaffeinatedReviewer . I'm also linking up with Sunday Salon at ReaderBuzz . I will be posting on the first Sunday of each month and I hope you'll join me. The weather in May was as weird as the weather in April. Hot then cold, dry then rainy. Sometimes all of the above on the same day. I couldn’t figure out if I should wear long sleeves or short. My butterfly/hummingbird garden has started to grow and I planted some annuals for filler; I think we’re well past the point of frost at the very least. It’s probably warm enough for me to store away my long-underwear too. I’m super excited that I’ve had so much time this year to read some great stories. Last year I struggled, but this year I’m finding little pockets of time here and there. My GoodReads Challenge was to read at least 15 and so far, I’ve read 8. I’m more than halfway through! My goal for the Speccy Fiction Challenge was to ...

  “A story,” said Rain, “is like a room. You enter it through a door like ‘Once upon a time’ or ‘Once there was a little girl’…” Rain, Cossy, and Iskinaary have escaped prison with the help of Flying Monkeys and are fleeing the city that’s come under naval attack. Lucickles has gone into hiding with his family at his mother-in-law’s farm, where they are besieged by refugees, eventually including the green-skinned teenager that ruined the world as he knew it. I love that this story (both books so far) wants to ask existential questions. The difference of life and death is a curiosity to be studied, more so by Cossy than Rain. They are both transfixed be the question of ‘who am I?’ as Rain tries to discover her lost memories and Cossy tries to discover herself with the loss of the brides and the only home she’s ever known. There’s also the subject of destiny… If you believe in that sort of thing, which Rain does not but some of the characters around her do. They believe it is her des...

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. “Sidestep the hangman’s noose, don’t show up for your own execution, and where has it got you?” The Oracle of Maracoor by Gregory Maguire For those of you new to my blog, I love love love Gregory Maguire. I'm maybe a little biased when I read his books because I am a fan. This trilogy follows Elphaba's granddaughter Rain and I'm two books in and am enjoying it so far. Book Blogger Hop Q: What do you think about rising prices for hardcovers, paperbacks, and eBooks? (submitted by Billy @ Coffee-Addicted Writer) A: Quite frankly, it pisses me off… and it makes me feel old. I remember when: When $5 could get me a paperback, the price of eBooks was $2, and hardbacks somewhere between $15-20. Now I’ve spent as much as $20 on paperbacks, ...

 What is the difference between a mystery and a thriller? Some of you may already know this, especially if you are mystery or thriller readers, but I only learned the difference recently. I always assumed a thriller was a mystery with a lot of action in it. After all, action is thrilling. I was always perplexed when a book classified as a thriller, had no action in it at all and read like a mystery. Apparently, there can be a bit of crossover between the two. A thriller can be mysterious and a mystery can be action packed, so maybe I’m not the only one who has been confused. The biggest defining characteristic of a mystery is that it should revolve around crimes that take place in the past . It’s usually intellectually driven, slow burn, and filled with clues that dribble out over time. The antagonist is kept a secret, usually not revealed until the end, or the climax at the earliest. The biggest defining characteristic of a thriller? The opposite of a mystery, it revolve...

“Shadows in the corridor loomed, only to scurry away. They seemed taller in the witching hour, dawn mere hours away.” In this sequel to One Dark Window , Nightmare has finally taken over Elspeth’s mind, leaving her imprisoned in the dark. Ravyn, who is desperate to save her and break the curse on Blunder, must find the last Providence card before time runs out. With Hauth on his deathbed, Elm finds himself becoming an unwilling heir to the throne. I loved the plot of this a little bit better than the first. I think maybe the first book was simply introducing the world… The second book is more of a quest as the future of Blunder hangs in the balance. There was no waffling about either, nothing extraneous included. RG knew where she wanted her characters to go and she sent them there. The romantasy elements were really fun. The story is passionate without being super smutty. Ravyn’s determined to save Elspeth even if it means allying himself with the monster that lives in her head, even ...

“He didn’t particularly like being himself, but he didn’t want to be anyone else either.” Julia Malmros is a successful mystery novelist with a whole career ahead of her. When she’s asked to ghostwrite for the Millennium series she reaches out to Kim Ribbing, a mysterious hacker, to help her prepare for the task. Olof Helander is throwing a Midsummer’s Eve party when armed assassins unleash a rain of bullets. Julia and Kim find themselves drawn into the violent murder when they discover the brutal aftermath. This author is on my auto-buy list. Doesn’t matter what it is, if he wrote it, I’ll give it a try. Up until now, I’ve only known him as a horror writer. I was deeply intrigued when I saw this newest translated novel was a mystery. The characters are interesting to say the least. Julia is a retired cop, turned crime-writer investigating the murder of a childhood friend. Kim, a hacker, lives his life under the oppressive weight of childhood trauma as revealed in flashbacks throughou...

For this year’s A-Z Challenge, I decided to focus my posts on bookish topics. I don’t think all of them were as bookish as I wanted them to be, but I took a shot at it. I’m proud to say this is the third year in a row I managed to blog from A-Z without missing any letters. If you want to take a look at some of my topics, I posted a list here . I am disappointed in myself though. The difference between this year and the previous two, is I didn’t have time to blog as thoroughly as I wanted. I usually visit ten new blogs a day, but my blogging this year was restricted to weekends. I tried to visit everyone who visited me, but some days that just wasn’t possible. So I apologize if you were kind enough to visit me and I couldn’t make it to your blog in return. Mostly when I look back at this challenge, I consider it a semi-success. I found some new blogs and rejuvenated my interest in some old ones. I managed to post from A-Z even if I didn’t have time to enjoy as many of your blogs as I ...

"When the world of man collapses in ruin, beauty will take over. " This is the sequel to Interview with the Vampire , where Lestat has returned to the limelight quite literally. Lestat has become a rock star, flaunting his vampireness to the world. He, having read Louis’s book, has decided to publish one of his own. His own memoir details his life as a human, his transformation into a vampire, and his quest for knowledge. I actually liked this book a little more than Interview with the Vampire but not by much. Lestat is super narcissistic which is on par with his character from IwtV .   But unlike Louis’s story, Lestat has been changed from a creepy pedo into a killer of killers which makes him a little more likable, but makes the story inconsistent. I like the question it presents though: Which vampire is telling the truth? As a human, he was a noble who felt trapped by his family. He longed to be an actor from a very young age and when he meets Nikki, a musician, that ...

  Happy Sunday! I hope you are all doing well and enjoying your weekend. The Sunday Post is a news meme created by CaffeinatedReviewer . I'm also linking up with Sunday Salon at ReaderBuzz . I will be posting on the first Sunday of each month and I hope you'll join me. The weather has been wild this month for this time of year. We got a heatwave of 80 degrees and then we dropped right down to a more normal 50-60 with rain. It is environmentally concerning, but at the same time, I’m so ready for the summer heat. This year I finished my A-Z Challenge . You can find a complete list of my topics here if you’re interested. I considered it a semi-success. I did manage to post for every letter of the alphabet, and I tried to visit all of those who visited me, but I didn’t have the time I wanted to visit every blog I wanted. When I did visit blogs, I stuck mostly to Blogspot/Blogger blogs because they load easier on my computer and I was a bit frustrated that some blogs I liked ...

My original idea for this year’s A-Z Blogging Challenge was to post posts on bookish topics. I don’t think all my topics were as bookish as they should have been, but I do think it came together quite nicely in the end. I succeeded in finishing the alphabet at any rate. I even did it without cheating on letter X with Ex like I usually do.  Here’s a complete list of my A-Z Topics: A = Adaptations B = Books C =  Contemplate D = Dystopia E = Encyclopedias F = Favorites G = Galactic H =  Horses I = Inclusive J = Just Reading K = Kaboodle L = Listening M =Myth N = Nonsense (banned books) O = Opinionated P = Podcast Q = Qualifications R = Retellings S = Short Stories T = Terror U = Unbuntu V = Vacationer W = World Building X = Xenophobia Y = Your Genres Z = Zeitgeist

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 darkness bled into itself- no beginning, no end." Two Twisted Crowns by Rachel Gilig So I've only just started this book but I love that first line of the story sets up for a gothic tone. Now I have to find out if that tone can be maintained. Book Blogger Hop Q : Is there a book you've been meaning to read forever but haven’t gotten to yet? (submitted by Billy @ Coffee-Addicted Writer) A : Justify: 111 Days to Triple Crown Glory by Lenny Shulman . I sometimes add books that I plan on reading right away to my Currently-Reading shelf on GoodReads... and I think I put it on that shelf two years ago which isn't quite forever, but long enough considering I own it. Am I currently reading it? No, I am not. And I can't j...

If you can't tell by reading it, 'zeitgeist' is a word that has origins in Germany. It's the idea that ideas of a specific time are influenced by the mood, cultural, and social beliefs of that time. Zeitgeist is why and how artists and writers do what they do. Edgar Allan Poe for example, was notorious for writing stories where people were buried alive. A popular fear at the time? Being buried alive. He didn't invent this fear and put it in the peoples' minds. It was something he took from people and implanted into his short stories to make them both more engaging and more horrifying.  Now me? I'm afraid of spiders so being buried alive isn't half as bad as the idea that I'll wake up in bed some night with a spider crawling up my leg or over my face or in my ear... That's probably enough about me. More obvious examples of a zeitgeist include George Orwell's 1984 and Animal Farm . George Orwell who saw the start and end of both world wars, wro...