Bev's bookshelf: all

Bev's bookshelf: all en-US Tue, 06 May 2025 09:28:37 -0700 60 Bev's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg King Sorrow 223420465
Trapped and desperate, Arthur turns to his closest friends for comfort and help. Together they dream up a wild, fantastical scheme to free Arthur from the cruel trap in which he finds himself. Wealthy, irrepressible Colin Wren suggests using the unnerving Crane journal (bound in the skin of its author) to summon a dragon to do their bidding. The others—brave, beautiful Alison Shiner; the battling twins Donna and Donovan McBride; and brainy, bold Gwen—don’t hesitate to join Colin in an effort to smash reality and bring a creature of the impossible into our world.

But there’s nothing simple about dealing with dragons, and their pact to save Arthur becomes a terrifying bargain in which the six must choose a new sacrifice for King Sorrow every year—or become his next meal.]]> 896 Joe Hill 0062200607 Bev 0 to-read 4.42 2025

author: Joe Hill
name: Bev
average rating: 4.42
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Long Island (Eilis Lacey, #2) 199896995
Eilis Lacey is Irish, married to Tony Fiorello, a plumber and one of four Italian American brothers, all of whom live in neighboring houses on a cul-de-sac in Lindenhurst, Long Island, with their wives and children and Tony’s parents, a huge extended family that lives and works, eats and plays together. It is the spring of 1976 and Eilis, now in her forties with two teenage children, has no one to rely on in this still-new country. Though her ties to Ireland remain stronger than those that hold her to her new land and home, she has not returned in decades.

One day, when Tony is at his job and Eilis is in her home office doing her accounting, an Irishman comes to the door asking for her by name. He tells her that his wife is pregnant with Tony’s child and that when the baby is born, he will not raise it but instead deposit it on Eilis’s doorstep. It is what Eilis does—and what she refuses to do—in response to this stunning news that makes Tóibín’s novel so riveting.

Long Island is about longings unfulfilled, even unrecognized. The silences in Eilis’ life are thunderous and dangerous, and there’s no one more deft than Tóibín at giving them language. This is a gorgeous story of a woman alone in a marriage and the deepest bonds she rekindles on her return to the place and people she left behind, to ways of living and loving she thought she’d lost.]]> 300 Colm Tóibín 1476785139 Bev 0 to-read 3.77 2024 Long Island (Eilis Lacey, #2)

author: Colm Tóibín
name: Bev
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Moonbound 195790867 Robin Sloan expands the Penumbraverse to new reaches of time and space in a rollicking far-future adventure.

In Moonbound, Robin Sloan has written a novel with the full scope and ambitious imagination of the very books that lit the engines of Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore: an epic quest as only Sloan could conceive it, mixing science fiction, fantasy, good old-fashioned literary storytelling, and unrivaled enthusiasm for what’s next.

It is thirteen thousand years from now . . . A lot has happened, and yet a lot is still very familiar. Ariel is a boy in a small town under a wizard’s rule. Like many adventurers before him, Ariel is called to explore a world full of unimaginable glories and unknown enemies, a mission to save the world, a girl. Here, as they say, be dragons. But none of this happens before Ariel comes across an artifact from an earlier civilization, a sentient, record-keeping artificial intelligence that carries with it the perspective of the whole of human history―and becomes both Ariel’s greatest ally and the narrator of our story.

Moonbound is an adventure into the richest depths of Story itself. It is a deeply satisfying epic of ancient scale, blasted through the imaginative prism one of our most forward-thinking writers. And this is only the beginning.]]> 432 Robin Sloan 0374610606 Bev 0 3.97 2024 Moonbound

author: Robin Sloan
name: Bev
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/10
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[First Frost (Walt Longmire, #20)]]> 199558474
It’s the summer of 1964, and recent college graduates Walt Longmire and Henry Standing Bear read the writing on the wall and enlist to serve in the Vietnam War. As they catch a few final waves in California before reporting for duty, a sudden storm assaults the shores and capsizes a nearby cargo boat. Walt and Henry jump to action, but it’s soon revealed by the police who greet them ashore that the sunken boat carried valuable contraband from underground sources.

The boys, in their early twenties and in the peak of their physical prowess from playing college football for the last four years, head out on Route 66. The question, of course, is how far they will get before the consequences of their actions catch up to them—the answer being, not very.

Back in the present day, Walt is forced to speak before a Judge following the fatal events of The Longmire Defense. With powerful enemies lurking behind the scenes, the sheriff of Absaroka County must consider his options if he wishes to finish the fight he started.

Going back and forth between 1964 and the present day, Craig Johnson brings us a propulsive dual timeline as Walt Longmire stands between the crossfire of good and evil, law and anarchy, and compassion and cruelty at two pivotal stages in his life.]]> 333 Craig Johnson 0593830687 Bev 0 to-read 4.34 2024 First Frost (Walt Longmire, #20)

author: Craig Johnson
name: Bev
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/05/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Bang-Bang Sisters 199793409
Blood. Bullets. Rock and roll.

Meet the Bang-Bang Sisters: Brea, Jessie, and Flo. Together, they’re a kick-ass rock band with an unbreakable bond.

But that’s only half the story. Offstage, they’re highly skilled vigilantes, traveling the country in their beaten-up tour van to exact justice on criminals who have slipped through the system. Part rock stars, part assassins, they’re a force to be reckoned with.

Drawn by a tantalizing lead, the sisters head to Reedsville, Alabama—a city crawling with destitution and corruption—where they close in on a notorious serial killer known as “the wren.” But they soon discover that they have walked straight into a trap set by Chance Kotter, a ruthless mobster with a personal vendetta.

Bruised and beaten, the sisters find themselves at the mercy of Chance and a sadistic game of survival that will pit them against each other: Forty-eight hours. One city. Three sisters. Only one of them can survive.

Full of gripping action and shocking twists that come at a breakneck pace, The Bang-Bang Sisters is a relentless, edge-of-your-seat thrill ride that will leave you breathless.]]> 400 Rio Youers 0063311801 Bev 0 to-read 3.72 2024

author: Rio Youers
name: Bev
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store]]> 85148114
As these characters’ stories overlap and deepen, it becomes clear how much the people who live on the margins of white, Christian America struggle and what they must do to survive. When the truth is finally revealed about what happened on Chicken Hill and the part the town’s white establishment played in it, McBride shows us that even in dark times, it is love and community—heaven and earth—that sustain us.]]> 400 James McBride 0593422961 Bev 5 4.25 2023 The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store

author: James McBride
name: Bev
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2024/03/10
date added: 2024/03/10
shelves:
review:

]]> Take Your Breath Away 58722232 A missing woman. A husband suspected. The truth will . . .

TAKE YOUR BREATH AWAY

From the New York Times bestselling author of Find You First and Elevator Pitch comes a gripping psychological thriller about a formerly missing woman who has suddenly returned under mysterious circumstances.

One weekend, while Andrew Mason was on a fishing trip, his wife, Brie, vanished without a trace. Most everyone assumed Andy had got away with murder--it's always the husband, isn't it?--but the police could never build a strong case against him. For a while, Andy hit rock bottom--he drank too much to numb the pain, was abandoned by all his friends save one, nearly lost his business, and became a pariah in the place he once called home.

Now, six years later, Andy has finally put his life back together. He sold the house he once shared with Brie and moved away. To tell the truth, he wasn't sad to hear that the old place was razed and a new house built on the site. He's settled down with a new partner, Jayne, and life is good.

But Andy's peaceful world is about to shatter. One day, a woman shows up at his old address, screaming, "Where's my house? What's happened to my house?" And then, just as suddenly as she appeared, the woman--who bears a striking resemblance to Brie--is gone. The police are notified and old questions--and dark suspicions--resurface.

Could Brie really be alive after all these years? If so, where has she been? It soon becomes clear that Andy's future and the lives of those closest to him depend on discovering what the hell is going on. The trick will be whether he can stay alive long enough to unearth the answers.]]> 368 Linwood Barclay 0063035162 Bev 0 to-read 4.18 2022 Take Your Breath Away

author: Linwood Barclay
name: Bev
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Long Island (Eilis Lacey, #2) 199798868 New York Times bestselling author comes a spectacularly moving and intense novel of secrecy, misunderstanding, and love, the story of Eilis Lacey, the complex and enigmatic heroine of Brooklyn, Tóibín’s most popular work, twenty years later.

Eilis Lacey is Irish, married to Tony Fiorello, a plumber and one of four Italian American brothers, all of whom live in neighboring houses on a cul-de-sac in Lindenhurst, Long Island, with their wives and children and Tony’s parents, a huge extended family that lives and works, eats and plays together. It is the spring of 1976 and Eilis, now in her forties with two teenage children, has no one to rely on in this still-new country. Though her ties to Ireland remain stronger than those that hold her to her new land and home, she has not returned in decades.

One day, when Tony is at his job and Eilis is in her home office doing her accounting, an Irishman comes to the door asking for her by name. He tells her that his wife is pregnant with Tony’s child and that when the baby is born, he will not raise it but instead deposit it on Eilis’s doorstep. It is what Eilis does—and what she refuses to do—in response to this stunning news that makes Tóibín’s novel so riveting.

Long Island is about longings unfulfilled, even unrecognized. The silences in Eilis’ life are thunderous and dangerous, and there’s no one more deft than Tóibín at giving them language. This is a gorgeous story of a woman alone in a marriage and the deepest bonds she rekindles on her return to the place and people she left behind, to ways of living and loving she thought she’d lost.]]> 294 Colm Tóibín 1476785112 Bev 0 to-read 3.67 2024 Long Island (Eilis Lacey, #2)

author: Colm Tóibín
name: Bev
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/11/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Holly 65916344 Holly Gibney, one of Stephen King’s most compelling and ingeniously resourceful characters, returns in this thrilling novel to solve the gruesome truth behind multiple disappearances in a midwestern town.

“Sometimes the universe throws you a rope.” — BILL HODGES

Stephen King’s Holly marks the triumphant return of beloved King character Holly Gibney. Readers have witnessed Holly’s gradual transformation from a shy (but also brave and ethical) recluse in Mr. Mercedes to Bill Hodges’s partner in Finders Keepers to a full-fledged, smart, and occasionally tough private detective in The Outsider. In King’s new novel, Holly is on her own, and up against a pair of unimaginably depraved and brilliantly disguised adversaries.

When Penny Dahl calls the Finders Keepers detective agency hoping for help locating her missing daughter, Holly is reluctant to accept the case. Her partner, Pete, has Covid. Her (very complicated) mother has just died. And Holly is meant to be on leave. But something in Penny Dahl’s desperate voice makes it impossible for Holly to turn her down.

Mere blocks from where Bonnie Dahl disappeared live Professors Rodney and Emily Harris. They are the picture of bourgeois respectability: married octogenarians, devoted to each other, and semi-retired lifelong academics. But they are harboring an unholy secret in the basement of their well-kept, book-lined home, one that may be related to Bonnie’s disappearance. And it will prove nearly impossible to discover what they are up to: they are savvy, they are patient, and they are ruthless.

Holly must summon all her formidable talents to outthink and outmaneuver the shockingly twisted professors in this chilling new masterwork from Stephen King.]]> 449 Stephen King 1668016133 Bev 0 to-read 4.01 2023 Holly

author: Stephen King
name: Bev
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/08/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Looking Up 101139645
Living alone with her mother in a poorer part of town, Saint—a girl drawn to medieval knights, lost causes, and the protection of birthday piñatas—sees the neighborhood she has always known and loved disappearing around old homes being torn down and replaced by fancy condos and coffee shops. But when her favorite creaky old toy store is demolished, she knows she must act.

Enlisting the help of Daniel “Chance” McGibbons, a quiet, round-faced boy who lives across the street (and whose house also faces the wrecking ball), Saint hatches a plan to save what is left of her beloved hometown.]]> 240 Stephan Pastis 1665929626 Bev 0 to-read 3.96 Looking Up

author: Stephan Pastis
name: Bev
average rating: 3.96
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/08/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Autobiography of Matthew Scudder]]> 123263146
"Fare thee well, Matt Scudder. You picked a hell of a novelist to chronicle your most sensational cases, and you’ve done him proud in telling the story of the rest of your life. And happy birthday, LB. Thanks for sharing your present with us." ~Frank Sennett, Chicago Culture Authority

"I finished the autobiography and loved it! At one point I had to stop and ask myself, "Wait, Scudder is Larry's invention, right?" I was so into his narrative and life. Makes me want to go back and reread all the Scudder books." ~Jonathan Santlofer

" It’s evident from his handling of this meta approach that Block hasn’t lost much speed off his fastball. But for devoted readers (like me), there’s an element of pure wish fulfillment at play. The book is essentially a chance to tug the sleeve of a character we’ve gotten to know quite well and offer to buy him another cup of coffee before he heads out, to hear an additional story or two and ask questions long wondered about. It’s an impressive trick that requires decades of work on the part of both writer and reader to carry off. You need to know Matt Scudder in order to appreciate this book, and if you know Matt Scudder you’ve already ordered it." ~Vince Keenan

"O ne of the all-time great fictional detectives from one of my very favourite writers." ~Ian Rankin

Since the 1970s, Lawrence Block has been writing award-winning novels and short fiction featuring Matthew Scudder. Now, with both himself and his detective half a century older, the author found himself charged with writing a book about his protagonist.

And he decided he wasn’t the right person for the job.

“What was Matt’s family like? How did he spend his childhood? What steered him toward the NYPD, and how did he get all the way from the Police Academy to a detective’s gold shield? Who were the influences and what were the experiences that made him the man we’ve come to know? These were important questions. There were certainly stories to be told, but that didn’t mean I was the person to tell them. If Matt Scudder was to have a memoir, he ought to write it himself.”

So Block passed on the assignment to his most enduring fictional character, and the result— The Autobiography of Matthew Scudder— is a remarkable document, at once a convincing Bildungsroman and the indispensable capstone of an outstanding series.

Since his 1976 debut in The Sins of the Fathers, Matthew Scudder has aged in real time; so too, remarkably enough, has his creator. Lawrence Block turned 84 on June 24, 2022, while Mr. Scudder reached that same milestone on September 7. The Autobiography of Matthew Scudder demonstrates clearly—and irresistibly—that neither one of them has lost a step.

Lawrence Block, named a Grand Master by Mystery Writers of America, is a multiple winner of the Edgar Allan Poe and Shamus awards; recognition for his lifetime achievement includes the UK Crime Writers Association’s Diamond Dagger. "This is Scudder's back story; where he was born, what his family was like, how he became a cop, a detective, and an alcoholic. To this reviewer the most fascinating bits revolved around how Scudder became a police officer. We meet his partner, an older cop who demonstrates how he thinks policing should work, the occasional bribe notwithstanding. And we get to see how Scudder washed out of the force to become the private investigator Block has been writing about for half a century. Devotees of the Scudder books will not want to miss this one. If you have never experienced any of the stories in this series I think after you read this autobiography you'll be intrigued to comprehend there are another 19 Scudder books already out there just waiting for you to devour them." ~Vick Mickunas, Dayton Daily News]]> 242 Lawrence Block Bev 5
Lawrence Block has been writing about Matthew “Matt” Scudder for nearly half a century, starting with The Sins of the Fathers in 1976, through seventeen novels and a number of shorter works. His fictional story in the novels begins shortly after he quit his job as a NYPD detective. His marriage has failed, he’s a more-or-less functional alcoholic, he lives in a hotel and makes money as an unlicensed investigator. Over the course of the series, he evolves and ages. He gets sober, and his attendance at AA meetings while he continues to “help out friends” becomes a running subplot. He also occasionally reflects on incidents from his past life as a cop, but much about his early days remained unknown, until now.

Scudder knows about the novels that have been written about his cases, but he also knows they’re fictionalized. Fiction requires a certain structure and symmetry that real life rarely possesses. He’s also aware of some inconsistencies in his story from book to book—his birthday, for example, or whether a certain life-altering bullet was fired uphill or downhill. This book isn’t really meant to set the record straight. Although he establishes his real date of birth once and for all, he admits there are many things he doesn’t remember clearly. Time, alcohol and age have a way of blurring memories. The existing novels, though, speak for themselves for the most part, and he wastes little time revisiting those cases, except for a few momentous incidents.

Scudder is a self-aware writer. He knows he can write (he attributes his advancement with the NYPD in large part to his ability to write incident reports that record what happened in a way that makes readers feel present), but he’s not entirely sure why he’s writing this account and he questions whether anyone is going to want to read it. It feels like he has begrudgingly agreed to a classroom assignment; however, once he begins, he finds himself remembering or rediscovering things about his early days. He had an older brother, for example, who only lived briefly. Scudder never met him, but he knows that the loss of a child profoundly affected his parents. What comes as a revelation is how that loss also affected him, in ways he’s never before considered. His wife Elaine, who is reading what he writes, is astonished to find out about his brother. The fact he’s never mentioned him is revealing, she believes.

Authors sometimes create brief or detailed biographies of their characters before they begin to write about them, but this is no five-page summary of a life. Over the course of this 200+ page book, Block—via Scudder—dives deep into a character he probably knows better than any of his other fictional creations. It reveals much about Scudder’s relationship with his parents, how he ended up on the police force, how his career advanced and why he ultimately decided to give up his gold badge. He is open about how he fell in love with his first wife and how that marriage ultimately fell apart.

According to Block, the autobiography began after he received a request to write 4000 words about Scudder’s life. Once he started writing, the assignment grew and grew into this 65,000-word book, longer than any of the first three books in the series.

As to Scudder’s question about whether anyone will be interested in reading his account of the first 35 years of his life, the answer from this reader is a resounding yes!]]> 4.30 2023 The Autobiography of Matthew Scudder

author: Lawrence Block
name: Bev
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2023/07/01
date added: 2023/07/16
shelves:
review:
There have been biographies written about fictional characters. In some instances, the biography is a novel that purports to recount the life of the subject, but in other cases, writers assemble the “known” facts about a fictional character and recast them into a pseduo-biography. Much rarer are autobiographies purportedly written by long-running series characters themselves.

Lawrence Block has been writing about Matthew “Matt” Scudder for nearly half a century, starting with The Sins of the Fathers in 1976, through seventeen novels and a number of shorter works. His fictional story in the novels begins shortly after he quit his job as a NYPD detective. His marriage has failed, he’s a more-or-less functional alcoholic, he lives in a hotel and makes money as an unlicensed investigator. Over the course of the series, he evolves and ages. He gets sober, and his attendance at AA meetings while he continues to “help out friends” becomes a running subplot. He also occasionally reflects on incidents from his past life as a cop, but much about his early days remained unknown, until now.

Scudder knows about the novels that have been written about his cases, but he also knows they’re fictionalized. Fiction requires a certain structure and symmetry that real life rarely possesses. He’s also aware of some inconsistencies in his story from book to book—his birthday, for example, or whether a certain life-altering bullet was fired uphill or downhill. This book isn’t really meant to set the record straight. Although he establishes his real date of birth once and for all, he admits there are many things he doesn’t remember clearly. Time, alcohol and age have a way of blurring memories. The existing novels, though, speak for themselves for the most part, and he wastes little time revisiting those cases, except for a few momentous incidents.

Scudder is a self-aware writer. He knows he can write (he attributes his advancement with the NYPD in large part to his ability to write incident reports that record what happened in a way that makes readers feel present), but he’s not entirely sure why he’s writing this account and he questions whether anyone is going to want to read it. It feels like he has begrudgingly agreed to a classroom assignment; however, once he begins, he finds himself remembering or rediscovering things about his early days. He had an older brother, for example, who only lived briefly. Scudder never met him, but he knows that the loss of a child profoundly affected his parents. What comes as a revelation is how that loss also affected him, in ways he’s never before considered. His wife Elaine, who is reading what he writes, is astonished to find out about his brother. The fact he’s never mentioned him is revealing, she believes.

Authors sometimes create brief or detailed biographies of their characters before they begin to write about them, but this is no five-page summary of a life. Over the course of this 200+ page book, Block—via Scudder—dives deep into a character he probably knows better than any of his other fictional creations. It reveals much about Scudder’s relationship with his parents, how he ended up on the police force, how his career advanced and why he ultimately decided to give up his gold badge. He is open about how he fell in love with his first wife and how that marriage ultimately fell apart.

According to Block, the autobiography began after he received a request to write 4000 words about Scudder’s life. Once he started writing, the assignment grew and grew into this 65,000-word book, longer than any of the first three books in the series.

As to Scudder’s question about whether anyone will be interested in reading his account of the first 35 years of his life, the answer from this reader is a resounding yes!
]]> Becoming the Boogeyman 101144676 411 Richard Chizmar 1668009161 Bev 0 4.06 2023

author: Richard Chizmar
name: Bev
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/06/07
shelves:
review:

]]> The Beast You Are: Stories 62966507 352 Paul Tremblay 0063069962 Bev 0 to-read 3.32 2023

author: Paul Tremblay
name: Bev
average rating: 3.32
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/04/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Berlin Exchange 61273727 From “the most accomplished spy novelist working today” (The Sunday Times, London), a “heart-poundingly suspenseful” (The Washington Post) espionage thriller set at the height of the Cold War, when a captured American who has spied for the KGB is returned to East Berlin, needing to know who arranged for his release and what they now want from him.

Berlin, 1963. An early morning spy swap, not at the familiar setting for such exchanges, nor at Checkpoint Charlie, where international visitors cross into the East, but at a more discreet border crossing, usually reserved for East German VIPs. The Communists are trading two American students caught helping people to escape over the wall and an aging MI6 operative. On the other side of the trade: Martin Keller, a physicist who once made headlines, but who then disappeared into the English prison system. Keller’s most critical possession: his American passport. Keller’s most ardent desire: to see his ex-wife Sabine and their young son.

The exchange is made with the formality characteristic of these swaps. But Martin has other questions: Who asked for him? Who negotiated the deal? The KGB? He knows that nothing happens by chance. They want him for something. Not physics—his expertise is out of date. Something else, which he cannot learn until he arrives in East Berlin, when suddenly the game is afoot.

Intriguing and atmospheric, with action rising to a dangerous climax, The Berlin Exchange “expertly describes what happens when a disillusioned former agent tries to come in from the cold” (The New York Times Book Review), confirming Kanon as “the greatest writer ever of historical espionage fiction” (Spybrary).]]> 320 Joseph Kanon 1982158662 Bev 0 to-read 3.67 2022 The Berlin Exchange

author: Joseph Kanon
name: Bev
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/03/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Berlin Exchange 57481754
From “the most accomplished spy novelist working today” ( The Sunday Times , London), a “heart-poundingly suspenseful” ( The Washington Post ) espionage thriller set at the height of the Cold War, when a captured American who has spied for the KGB is returned to East Berlin, needing to know who arranged for his release and what they now want from him.

Berlin, 1963. An early morning spy swap, not at the familiar setting for such exchanges, nor at Checkpoint Charlie, where international visitors cross into the East, but at a more discreet border crossing, usually reserved for East German VIPs. The Communists are trading two American students caught helping people to escape over the wall and an aging MI6 operative. On the other side of the trade: Martin Keller, a physicist who once made headlines, but who then disappeared into the English prison system. Keller’s most critical possession: his American passport. Keller’s most ardent desire: to see his ex-wife Sabine and their young son.

The exchange is made with the formality characteristic of these swaps. But Martin has other questions: Who asked for him? Who negotiated the deal? The KGB? He knows that nothing happens by chance. They want him for something. Not physics—his expertise is out of date. Something else, which he cannot learn until he arrives in East Berlin, when suddenly the game is afoot.

Intriguing and atmospheric, with action rising to a dangerous climax, The Berlin Exchange “expertly describes what happens when a disillusioned former agent tries to come in from the cold” ( The New York Times Book Review ), confirming Kanon as “the greatest writer ever of historical espionage fiction” ( Spybrary ).]]> 384 Joseph Kanon Bev 0 to-read 4.15 2022 The Berlin Exchange

author: Joseph Kanon
name: Bev
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/02/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Swamp Story 62919862
Jesse Braddock is trapped in a tiny cabin deep in the Everglades with her infant daughter and her ex-boyfriend, a wannabe reality TV star who turned out to be a lot prettier on the outside than on the inside. Broke and desperate for a way out, Jesse stumbles across a long-lost treasure, which could solve all her problems—if she can figure out how to keep it. The problem is some very bad men are also looking for the treasure, and they know Jesse has it.

Meanwhile, Ken Bortle of Bortle Brothers Bait and Beer has hatched a scheme to lure tourists to his failing store by making viral videos of the “Everglades Melon Monster.” The Monster is, in fact, an unemployed alcoholic newspaperman named Phil wearing a Dora the Explorer costume head. Incredibly, this plan actually works, inspiring a horde of TikTokers to swarm into the swamp in search of the Monster at the same time villains are on the hunt for Jesse’s treasure. Amid this mayhem, a presidential hopeful arrives in the Everglades to start his campaign. Needless to say, it does not go as planned. In fact, nothing in this story goes as planned. This is, after all, Florida.]]> 320 Dave Barry 1982191333 Bev 0 to-read 3.75 2023 Swamp Story

author: Dave Barry
name: Bev
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/11/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Gwendy Collection: Gwendy's Button Box / Gwendy's Magic Feather / Gwendy's Final Task]]> 60321051 New York Times bestselling trilogy from Stephen King and Richard Chizmar!

In Gwendy's Button Box, twelve-year-old Gwendy Peterson's life is forever changed when she is given a mysterious wooden box by a stranger for safekeeping. It offers enticing treats and vintage coins, but he warns her that if she presses any of the box's beautifully colored buttons, death and destruction will follow.

Years later, in Gwendy's Magic Feather, she's a successful novelist with a promising future in politics. But when the button box suddenly reappears in her life, she must decide if she is willing to risk everything for its temptations.

And in the thrilling conclusion Gwendy's Final Task, evil forces seek to possess the button box and it is up to Senator Gwendy Peterson to keep it from them at all costs. But where can one hide something so destructive from such powerful entities?]]> 688 Stephen King 1668003724 Bev 0 to-read 4.18 2022 The Gwendy Collection: Gwendy's Button Box / Gwendy's Magic Feather / Gwendy's Final Task

The Gwendy Collection: Gwendy's Button Box / Gwendy's Magic Feather / Gwendy's Final Task

author: Stephen King
name: Bev
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/10/10
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]]> <![CDATA[A Heart Full of Headstones (Inspector Rebus, #24)]]> 60382750 The brand-new John Rebus thriller from the #1 international bestseller Ian Rankin.

John Rebus stands accused: on trial for a crime that could put him behind bars for the rest of his life. It’s not the first time the legendary detective has taken the law into his own hands, though it might be the last.

But what drove a good man to cross the line?

Detective Inspector Siobhan Clarke may well find out. Clarke is tasked with the city’s most explosive case in years, an infamous cop, at the center of decades of misconduct, has gone missing. Finding him will expose not only her superiors, but her mentor John Rebus. And Rebus himself may not have her own interests at heart, as the repayment of a past debt places him in the crosshairs of both crime lords and his police brethren.

One way or another, a reckoning is coming – and John Rebus may be hearing the call for last orders…]]> 352 Ian Rankin 0316473634 Bev 0 to-read 4.01 2022 A Heart Full of Headstones (Inspector Rebus, #24)

A Heart Full of Headstones (Inspector Rebus, #24)

author: Ian Rankin
name: Bev
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Hell and Back (Walt Longmire, #18)]]> 59937682 336 Craig Johnson 0593297296 Bev 0 to-read 3.96 2022

author: Craig Johnson
name: Bev
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Wayward (Wanderers, #2) 59575941
Their secret destination: Ouray, a small town in Colorado that would become one of the last outposts of civilization. Because the sleepwalking epidemic was only the first in a chain of events that led to the end of the world--and the birth of a new one.

The survivors, sleepwalkers and shepherds alike, have a dream of rebuilding human society. Among them are Benji, the scientist struggling through grief to lead the town; Marcy, the former police officer who wants only to look after the people she loves; and Shana, the teenage girl who became the first shepherd--and an unlikely hero whose courage will be needed again.

Because the people of Ouray are not the only survivors, and the world they are building is fragile. The forces of cruelty and brutality are amassing under the leadership of self-proclaimed president Ed Creel. And in the very heart of Ouray, the most powerful survivor of all is plotting its own vision for the new world: Black Swan, the A.I. who imagined the apocalypse.

Against these threats, Benji, Marcy, Shana, and the rest have only one hope: one another. Because the only way to survive the end of the world is together.]]> 816 Chuck Wendig 0593158776 Bev 0 to-read 4.17 2022 Wayward (Wanderers, #2)

author: Chuck Wendig
name: Bev
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Fairy Tale 60177373 Legendary storyteller Stephen King goes deep into the well of his imagination in this spellbinding novel about a seventeen-year-old boy who inherits the keys to a parallel world where good and evil are at war, and the stakes could not be higher—for their world or ours.

Charlie Reade looks like a regular high school kid, great at baseball and football, a decent student. But he carries a heavy load. His mom was killed in a hit-and-run accident when he was ten, and grief drove his dad to drink. Charlie learned how to take care of himself—and his dad. Then, when Charlie is seventeen, he meets Howard Bowditch, a recluse with a big dog in a big house at the top of a big hill. In the backyard is a locked shed from which strange sounds emerge, as if some creature is trying to escape. When Mr. Bowditch dies, he leaves Charlie the house, a massive amount of gold, a cassette tape telling a story that is impossible to believe, and a responsibility far too massive for a boy to shoulder.

Because within the shed is a portal to another world—one whose denizens are in peril and whose monstrous leaders may destroy their own world, and ours. In this parallel universe, where two moons race across the sky, and the grand towers of a sprawling palace pierce the clouds, there are exiled princesses and princes who suffer horrific punishments; there are dungeons; there are games in which men and women must fight each other to the death for the amusement of the “Fair One.” And there is a magic sundial that can turn back time.

A story as old as myth, and as startling and iconic as the rest of King’s work, Fairy Tale is about an ordinary guy forced into the hero’s role by circumstance, and it is both spectacularly suspenseful and satisfying.]]> 607 Stephen King 1668002175 Bev 0 to-read 4.05 2022

author: Stephen King
name: Bev
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/06
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]]> Klara and the Sun 54250259 A GOOD MORNING AMERICA Book Club Pick!

A magnificent new novel from the Nobel laureate Kazuo Ishiguro—author of Never Let Me Go and the Booker Prize-winning The Remains of the Day.

Klara and the Sun, the first novel by Kazuo Ishiguro since he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, tells the story of Klara, an Artificial Friend with outstanding observational qualities, who, from her place in the store, watches carefully the behavior of those who come in to browse, and of those who pass on the street outside. She remains hopeful that a customer will soon choose her.

Klara and the Sun is a thrilling book that offers a look at our changing world through the eyes of an unforgettable narrator, and one that explores the fundamental question: what does it mean to love?]]> 418 Kazuo Ishiguro Bev 0 3.99 2021 Klara and the Sun

author: Kazuo Ishiguro
name: Bev
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at: 2022/04/01
date added: 2022/04/01
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]]> Take Your Breath Away 58735545 From the New York Times bestselling author of Find You First and Elevator Pitch comes a gripping psychological thriller about a formerly missing woman who has suddenly returned under mysterious circumstances.

One weekend, while Andrew Mason was on a fishing trip, his wife, Brie, vanished without a trace. Most everyone assumed Andy had got away with murder--it's always the husband, isn't it?--but the police could never build a strong case against him. For a while, Andy hit rock bottom--he drank too much to numb the pain, was abandoned by all his friends save one, nearly lost his business, and became a pariah in the place he once called home.

Now, six years later, Andy has finally put his life back together. He sold the house he once shared with Brie and moved away. Truth to tell, he wasn't sad to hear that the old place was razed and a new house built on the site. He's settled down with a new partner, Jayne, and life is good.

But Andy's peaceful world is about to shatter. One day, a woman shows up at his old address, screaming, "Where's my house? What's happened to my house?" And then, just as suddenly as she appeared, the woman--who bears a striking resemblance to Brie--is gone. The police are notified and old questions--and dark suspicions--resurface.

Could Brie really be alive after all these years? If so, where has she been? It soon becomes clear that Andy's future, and the lives of those closest to him, depends on discovering what the hell is going on. The trick will be whether he can stay alive long enough to unearth the answers.]]> 354 Linwood Barclay 0063035138 Bev 0 to-read 3.93 2022 Take Your Breath Away

author: Linwood Barclay
name: Bev
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/03/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Pallbearers Club 59314692 The Cabin at the End of the World and Survivor Song.

What if the coolest girl you've ever met decided to be your friend?

Art Barbara was so not cool. He was a seventeen-year-old high school loner in the late 1980s who listened to hair metal, had to wear a monstrous back-brace at night for his scoliosis, and started an extracurricular club for volunteer pallbearers at poorly attended funerals. But his new friend thought the Pallbearers Club was cool. And she brought along her Polaroid camera to take pictures of the corpses.

Okay, that part was a little weird.

So was her obsessive knowledge of a notorious bit of New England folklore that involved digging up the dead. And there were other strange things—terrifying things—that happened when she was around, usually at night. But she was his friend, so it was okay, right?

Decades later, Art tries to make sense of it all by writing The Pallbearers Club: A Memoir. But somehow this friend got her hands on the manuscript and, well, she has some issues with it. And now she's making cuts.

Seamlessly blurring the lines between fiction and memory, the supernatural and the mundane, The Pallbearers Club is an immersive, suspenseful portrait of an unusual and disconcerting relationship.]]> 278 Paul Tremblay 0063069911 Bev 0 to-read 3.08 2022

author: Paul Tremblay
name: Bev
average rating: 3.08
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/03/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> No Second Chances 58210337 From Rio Youers, the acclaimed author of Lola on Fire, comes a blistering high-octane thriller about desperate love, vengeance, and the precarious pursuit of fame.

“A rip-roaring Hollywood noir that smashes the pedal to the metal and keeps it there. The best villain since Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels . . . This one is hot.” —Stephen King

Luke Kingsley’s glory days are behind him. A star on the rise, his life and career imploded after his soul singer wife, Lisa Hayes, disappeared without a trace, silencing a very public and tumultuous marriage. Most people, especially an avenging PI, think Luke got away with murder. The last thing he expects is to be pulled back from the brink by a starstruck stranger.

Wannabe actress Kitty Rae has chased her dreams all the way from Kentucky to Hollywood. Saving a washed-up actor’s life wasn’t one of them, but she believes in Luke—as much as she believes her own career is just one lucky break away. For now, she works for Johan Fly, a charismatic, wealthy, and seriously unbalanced drug dealer to the rich and famous. When Johan discovers that Kitty has been skimming the product, he vows to make her pay.

As Luke steps up to help Kitty, he uncovers a web of violence and corruption, as well as a single, enticing clue about his wife's disappearance. Barreling across the Mojave Desert, Luke and Kitty set off to find the long-lost Lisa. But Johan, hungry for vengeance, is hot on their trail. There’s no limit to what he will do to find them. And in a world where fortune favors the ruthless, there’s also no limit to what Luke and Kitty will have to do to survive.]]> 389 Rio Youers 0063001055 Bev 0 to-read 4.00 2022 No Second Chances

author: Rio Youers
name: Bev
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/01/13
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]]> Seasonal Work: Stories 57924363 The award-winning master of psychological suspense is in top form in this collection of diverse and diabolically clever stories. In the never-before-published “Just One More,” a married couple—longing for that old romantic spark—creates a playful diversion that comes with unexpected consequences. Lippman’s beloved Baltimore PI Tess Monaghan keeps a watchful eye on a criminally resourceful single father in “Seasonal Work,” while her mother, Judith, realizes that the life of “The Everyday Housewife” is an excellent cover for all kinds of secrets. In “Slow Burner,” a husband’s secret cell phone proves to be a dicey temptation for a suspicious wife. A father’s hidden past piques the curiosity of a young snoop in “The Last of Sheila-Locke Holmes.” Plus seven other brilliantly crafted stories of deception, murder, dangerous games, and love gone wrong—irrefutable evidence that Laura Lippman’s riveting fiction will more than satisfy any crime reader.]]> 336 Laura Lippman 0063000032 Bev 0 to-read 3.71 2022 Seasonal Work: Stories

author: Laura Lippman
name: Bev
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/11/16
shelves: to-read
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]]> Anthem 57941459 An epic literary thriller set where America is right now, in which a band of unlikely heroes sets out on a quest to save one innocent life—and might end up saving us all.

Something is happening to teenagers across America, spreading through memes only they can parse.

At the Float Anxiety Abatement Center, in a suburb of Chicago, Simon Oliver is trying to recover from his sister’s tragic passing. He breaks out to join a woman named Louise and a man called The Prophet on a quest as urgent as it is enigmatic. Who lies at the end of the road? A man known as The Wizard, whose past encounter with Louise sparked her own collapse. Their quest becomes a rescue mission when they join up with a man whose sister is being held captive by the Wizard, impregnated and imprisoned in a tower.

Noah Hawley’s new novel is an adventure that finds unquenchable lights in dark corners. Unforgettably vivid characters and a plot as fast and bright as pop cinema blend in a Vonnegutian story that is as timeless as a Grimm’s fairy tale. It is a leap into the idiosyncratic pulse of the American heart, written with the bravado, literary power, and feverish foresight that have made Hawley one of our most essential writers.]]> 427 Noah Hawley 1538711516 Bev 0 to-read 3.43 2022 Anthem

author: Noah Hawley
name: Bev
average rating: 3.43
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/11/16
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]]> Road of Bones 57693175 A stunning supernatural thriller set in Siberia, where a film crew is covering an elusive ghost story about the Kolyma Highway, a road built on top of the bones of prisoners of Stalin's gulag.

Kolyma Highway, otherwise known as the Road of Bones, is a 1200 mile stretch of Siberian road where winter temperatures can drop as low as sixty degrees below zero. Under Stalin, at least eighty Soviet gulags were built along the route to supply the USSR with a readily available workforce, and over time hundreds of thousands of prisoners died in the midst of their labors. Their bodies were buried where they fell, plowed under the permafrost, underneath the road.

Felix Teigland, or "Teig," is a documentary producer, and when he learns about the Road of Bones, he realizes he's stumbled upon untapped potential. Accompanied by his camera operator, Teig hires a local Yakut guide to take them to Oymyakon, the coldest settlement on Earth. Teig is fascinated by the culture along the Road of Bones, and encounters strange characters on the way to the Oymyakon, but when the team arrives, they find the village mysteriously abandoned apart from a mysterious 9-year-old girl. Then, chaos ensues.

A malignant, animistic shaman and the forest spirits he commands pursues them as they flee the abandoned town and barrel across miles of deserted permafrost. As the chase continues along this road paved with the suffering of angry ghosts, what form will the echoes of their anguish take? Teig and the others will have to find the answers if they want to survive the Road of Bones.]]> 230 Christopher Golden 1250274303 Bev 0 to-read 3.36 2022

author: Christopher Golden
name: Bev
average rating: 3.36
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/11/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Daughter of the Morning Star (Walt Longmire, #17)]]> 57392708 336 Craig Johnson 0593297261 Bev 0 4.41 2021

Daughter of the Morning Star (Walt Longmire, #17)

author: Craig Johnson
name: Bev
average rating: 4.41
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at: 2021/10/29
date added: 2021/10/29
shelves:
review:

]]> The Berlin Exchange 56898211
Berlin, 1963. An early morning spy swap, not at the familiar setting for such exchanges, nor at Checkpoint Charlie, where international visitors cross into the East, but at a more discreet border crossing, usually reserved for East German VIPs. The Communists are trading two American students caught helping people to escape over the wall and an aging MI6 operative. On the other side of the Martin Keller, a physicist who once made headlines, but who then disappeared into the English prison system. Keller’s most critical his American passport. Keller’s most ardent to see his ex-wife Sabine and their young son.

The exchange is made with the formality characteristic of these swaps. But Martin has other Who asked for him? Who negotiated the deal? The KGB? He knows that nothing happens by chance. They want him for something. Not physics—his expertise is out of date. Something else, which he cannot learn until he arrives in East Berlin, when suddenly the game is afoot.

Intriguing and atmospheric, with action rising to a dangerous climax, The Berlin Exchange “expertly describes what happens when a disillusioned former agent tries to come in from the cold” ( The New York Times Book Review ), confirming Kanon as “the greatest writer ever of historical espionage fiction” ( Spybrary ).]]> 320 Joseph Kanon 1982158654 Bev 0 to-read 3.67 2022 The Berlin Exchange

author: Joseph Kanon
name: Bev
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/10/28
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]]> Insomnia 58587864
Emma Averell loves her life—her high-powered legal career, her two beautiful children, and her wonderful stay-at-home husband—but it wasn’t always so perfect. When she was just five years old, Emma and her older sister went into foster care because of a horrific incident with their mother. Her sister can remember a time when their mother was loving and “normal,” but Emma can only remember her as one thing—a monster. And that monster emerged right around their mother’s fortieth birthday, the same age Emma is approaching now.

Emma desperately wants to keep her successful life separate from her past, so she has always hidden her childhood trauma. But then she’s unable to sleep, and now losing time during the day, also one of the first symptoms her mother showed. Is the madness in her blood, just as her mother predicted? Could she end up hurting her family in her foggy, frenetic state? Or is she truly beginning to lose her mind?]]> 336 Sarah Pinborough Bev 0 to-read 3.65 2022 Insomnia

author: Sarah Pinborough
name: Bev
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/10/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Autumn Noir 59241949
The short stories and poems in Autumn Noir skew toward the gritty, the atmospheric, the strangely, dangerously beguiling. Some mysteries unfold as gently as a wisp of chimney smoke. Others bring the heart-thumping thrills of an end-of-summer storm. In all of them, you’ll find characters as vibrant as fall foliage and dialogue as crisp as autumn air.
Join the down (but maybe not quite out), the struggling, the wicked, the forlorn, and the broken-hearted as they stumble and sometimes fall all the way down.

To paraphrase Betty Davis, “Fasten your seatbelts. It’s going to be a bumpy read.”

Be prepared to recognize a few of your favorite authors and to discover some new ones. Includes tales by Bev Vincent, Bethany Maines, Teresa Trent, Brandon Barrows, Stephen D. Rogers, and many more from the crime, mystery, noir, suspense, and thriller genres.

Includes the following stories & poems:

‘A Slice for Stanley’ © 2021 Teresa Trent
‘Abscission’ © 2021 Dustin Engstrom
‘An Orchid to Die For’ © 2021 Wendy Harrison
‘Anathema’ © 2021 Robin Knabel
‘Autumn Heat’ © 2021 Oisin Breen
‘Death & Flying Saucers’ © 2021 Matthew Kresal
‘Escape Velocity’ © 2021 Bev Vincent
‘Every Single Funeral’ © 2021 Bethany Maines
‘Golden Silence’ © 2021 V.S. Kemanis
‘Hand Shadows’ © 2021 Rikki Santer
‘Hope Is an Opiate’ © 2021 Bob McNeil
‘Killer in a Diner’ © 2021 Nathan Squiers
‘Let It Go’ © 2021 Brandon Barrows
‘Misunderstood’ © 2021 Elif Offner
‘Nineteen Creaks’ © 2021 Peter DiChellis
‘Perdita’s Shoes’ © 2021 Kat Devitt
‘Poor Insect’ © 2021 D.P. Blanchard
‘Sensing the Fall’ © 2021 Stephen D. Rogers
‘Shadow Over the Hill’ © 2021 Matthew Chabin
‘The Block’ © 2021 H. Dair Brown
‘The Last Phone Booth’ © 2021 Lamont Turner
‘The Warbler’s Song’ © 2021 Vashelle Nino
‘The Weak Man’ © 2021 JM Connors
‘Those Forgotten Places’ © 2021 Mary Rajotte
‘To Bury Larry Little’ © 2021 W.E. Wertenberger

Also enjoy fantasy, horror, and sci-fi? Check out Unsettling Read's spring anthology, Hope Screams Eternal!

•�Ģ�Ģ�Ģ�Ģ�Ģ�Ģ�Ģ�Ģ�Ģ�Ģ�Ģ�Ģ�Ģ�Ģ�Ģ�Ģ�Ģ�Ģ�Ģ

Unsettling Reads, founded by fiction authors H. Dair Brown and Robin Knabel, offers spoiler-free reviews and recommendations on books from the Crime, Fantasy, Horror, Literary, Mystery, Sci-Fi, Suspense, and Thriller genres. And just to keep things spicy, they throw in the occasional author interview.

If you're contemplating picking up Autumn Noir, you probably enjoy books that make you shudder (and maybe even think) a little. Let Dair and Robin help you decide what to read the next time you're ready to sink down into the blankets and crack open a good book.

You can also find Unsettling Reads on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook (@unsettlingreads). That's where the truly unsettling stuff usually happens. ;)

UnsettlingReads.com]]> 359 H. Dair Brown Bev 0 to-read 4.38 2021 Autumn Noir

author: H. Dair Brown
name: Bev
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/10/10
shelves: to-read
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]]> The Broken Tower 57649345
But Judah isn’t free. Fiercely sought by those who believe she holds the key to unlocking the power trapped in the world, she must learn to navigate the dangers of an unfamiliar place. She knows that somewhere, Gavin is in peril. To save him, she not only must learn to use the new power she discovers inside herself, she must survive.]]> 480 Kelly Braffet 0778331792 Bev 0 to-read 4.00 The Broken Tower

author: Kelly Braffet
name: Bev
average rating: 4.00
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/10/05
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]]> <![CDATA[Arizona Dreams (The Arizona Series Book 1)]]> 58908123 Sharon Peterson is about to start the next chapter of her life, expecting to be doing it alone…but life is full of surprises.

Recently widowed Sharon Peterson is spending her first winter as a snowbird in Arizona. Determined to not let old habits repeat themselves, she immerses herself into her new locale, signs up for a class hoping to make new friends, and takes a spur-of-the-moment trip to Sedona.

Enter Hal Jackson. Drop dead handsome and charming. Exactly the kind of man Sharon would never have imagined herself with. And yet their chance meeting holds the promise of much more.

Upon arriving in Arizona, Sharon begins dreaming of a young Native American couple living in the long distant past. As their story unfolds of a love that has been forbidden, Sharon questions if these are just dreams or memories, while in the present her life is taking on complications of its own.

This is book one of The Arizona Series which currently has three books. They can be read as standalones although books one and two are more closely tied together. There are recurring characters so you will find familiar faces in each, the main characters all women navigating the challenges of later in life romance. Click on the Buy Now button to find out how they find their way!]]> 312 Marsha DeFilippo 1956240004 Bev 0 4.44 2021 Arizona Dreams (The Arizona Series Book 1)

Arizona Dreams (The Arizona Series Book 1)

author: Marsha DeFilippo
name: Bev
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at: 2021/10/02
date added: 2021/10/02
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Wonder Boy of Whistle Stop]]> 51545343 The beloved author returns to the small town at the heart of Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café with a heartwarming novel about secrets of youth rediscovered, hometown memories, and everyday magic.

Bud Threadgoode grew up in the bustling little railroad town of Whistle Stop, Alabama, with his mother Ruth, church going and proper, and his Aunt Idgie, the fun-loving hell-raiser. Together they ran the town's popular Whistle Stop Cafe, known far and wide for its friendly, fun, and famous "Fried Green Tomatoes." And as Bud often said to his daughter Ruthie, of his childhood, "How lucky can you get?"

But sadly, as the railroad yards shut down and the town became a ghost town, nothing was left but boarded-up buildings and memories of a happier time.

Then one day, Bud decides to take one last trip, just to see where his beloved Whistle Stop used to be. In so doing, he discovers new friends, new surprises about Idgie's life, and about Ninny Threadgoode, Evelyn Couch, other beloved Flagg characters, and also about the town itself. He also sets off a series of events, both touching and inspiring, which change his life and the lives of his daughter and many others. Could these events all be just coincidences? Or something else? And can you go home again?]]> 285 Fannie Flagg 0593133854 Bev 0 4.40 2020 The Wonder Boy of Whistle Stop

author: Fannie Flagg
name: Bev
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at: 2021/09/05
date added: 2021/09/05
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]]> <![CDATA[First Words: Earliest Writing from Favorite Contemporary Authors]]> 33229480
First Words is an inspiration to budding writers and enthusiastic teachers, and a revelation for readers everywhere.

This revised and condensed edition includes the following

Margaret Atwood

Roy Blount, Jr.

Paul Bowles

Pat Conroy

Michael Crichton

Rita Dove

Clyde Edgerton

Gail Godwin

Allan Gurganus

Charles Johnson

Stephen King

Maxine Hong Kingston

Ursula LeGuin

Madeleine L'Engle

Jill McCorkle

Norman Mailer

Joyce Carol Oates

William Styron

Amy Tan

John Updike

Gore Vidal

Tobias Wolff]]> 303 Paul Mandelbaum Bev 0 currently-reading 3.67 2000 First Words: Earliest Writing from Favorite Contemporary Authors

First Words: Earliest Writing from Favorite Contemporary Authors

author: Paul Mandelbaum
name: Bev
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2000
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/08/31
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Life and Loves of a He Devil]]> 23626414 'I defy anyone not to snort, howl and recoil' The Sunday Times'Full of wicked asides, tart observations and sharp remarks that could only have originated in Graham Norton's witty brain.' Terry WoganLooking around the room I saw what life really was. It was made up of my passions. I saw my life reflected back at me. People I liked, people I loved, people I had shared half a century with. All the stories of my life were together in that one room and it made me very happy. Who wouldn't want a friend like Graham Norton? A little bit naughty, full of frank advice, bursting with gossip about the world's biggest stars - but most of all with an emphatic love of life and all its joys, big and small. Join him - glass of wine in hand, faithful doggy friend by your side - and delve in as he shares the loves of his life.]]> 250 Graham Norton Bev 0 4.07 2014 The Life and Loves of a He Devil

author: Graham Norton
name: Bev
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at: 2021/08/07
date added: 2021/08/07
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]]> Home Stretch 56212637 In this “compelling, bighearted, emotionally precise page-turner” (Sunday Times), the New York Times bestselling writer and acclaimed television host explores the aftermath of a tragedy on a small-town to illuminate the shame and longing that can flow through generations—and how the secrets of the heart cannot stay be buried forever.

It is 1987 and a small Irish community is preparing for a wedding. The day before the ceremony, a group of young friends, including the bride and groom, are involved in an accident. Three survive. Three are killed.

The lives of the families are shattered and the rifts between them ripple throughout the small town. Connor survived, but living among the angry and the mourning is almost as hard as carrying the shame of having been the driver. He leaves the only place he knows for another life, taking his secrets with him. Travelling first to Liverpool, then London, he eventually makes a home—of sorts—for himself in New York, where he finds shelter and the possibility of forging a new life.

But the secrets—the unspoken longings and regrets that have come to haunt those left behind—will not be silenced. Before long, Connor will have to confront his past.

A powerful and timely novel of emigration and return, Home Stretch demonstrates Norton’s keen understanding of the power of stigma and secrecy—and their devastating effect on ordinary lives.]]> 319 Graham Norton 0063112116 Bev 0 4.18 2020

author: Graham Norton
name: Bev
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at: 2021/07/12
date added: 2021/07/12
shelves:
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]]> Survivor Song 55577597
Dr. Ramola "Rams" Sherman, a soft-spoken pediatrician in her mid-thirties, receives a frantic phone call from Natalie, a friend who is eight months pregnant. Natalie's husband has been killed—viciously attacked by an infected neighbor—and in a failed attempt to save him, Natalie, too, was bitten. Natalie's only chance of survival is to get to a hospital as quickly as possible to receive a rabies vaccine. The clock is ticking for her and for her unborn child.

Natalie’s fight for life becomes a desperate odyssey as she and Rams make their way through a hostile landscape filled with dangers beyond their worst nightmares—terrifying, strange, and sometimes deadly challenges that push them to the brink.

]]> 336 Paul Tremblay 0062679171 Bev 0 to-read 3.71 2020 Survivor Song

author: Paul Tremblay
name: Bev
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/07/12
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[How to Raise an Elephant (No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency #21)]]> 57891281 In this latest installment in the cherished No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series, Mma Ramotswe must balance family obligations with the growing needs of one of Charlie's pet projects.

Precious Ramotswe loves her dependable old van. Yes, it sometimes takes a bit longer to get going now, and it has developed some quirks over the years, but it has always gotten the job done. This time, though, the world--and Charlie--may be asking too much of it, for when he borrows the beloved vehicle, he returns it damaged. And, to make matters worse, the interior seems to have acquired an earthy smell that even Precious can't identify.

But the olfactory issue is not the only mystery that needs solving. Mma Ramotswe is confronted by a distant relative, Blessing, who asks for help with an ailing cousin. The help requested is of a distinctly pecuniary nature, which makes both Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni and Mma Makutsi suspicious. And there is no peace at home, either, as the new neighbors are airing their marital grievances rather loudly. Still, Mma Ramotswe is confident that the solutions to all of these difficulties are there to be discovered--as long as she is led by kindness, grace, and logic and can rely on the counsel of her friends and loved ones.]]> 244 Alexander McCall Smith Bev 0 4.49 2020 How to Raise an Elephant (No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency #21)

How to Raise an Elephant (No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency #21)

author: Alexander McCall Smith
name: Bev
average rating: 4.49
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at: 2021/06/07
date added: 2021/06/07
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]]> A Promised Land 55361205
In the stirring, highly anticipated first volume of his presidential memoirs, Barack Obama tells the story of his improbable odyssey from young man searching for his identity to leader of the free world, describing in strikingly personal detail both his political education and the landmark moments of the first term of his historic presidency—a time of dramatic transformation and turmoil.

Obama takes readers on a compelling journey from his earliest political aspirations to the pivotal Iowa caucus victory that demonstrated the power of grassroots activism to the watershed night of November 4, 2008, when he was elected 44th president of the United States, becoming the first African American to hold the nation’s highest office.

Reflecting on the presidency, he offers a unique and thoughtful exploration of both the awesome reach and the limits of presidential power, as well as singular insights into the dynamics of U.S. partisan politics and international diplomacy. Obama brings readers inside the Oval Office and the White House Situation Room, and to Moscow, Cairo, Beijing, and points beyond. We are privy to his thoughts as he assembles his cabinet, wrestles with a global financial crisis, takes the measure of Vladimir Putin, overcomes seemingly insurmountable odds to secure passage of the Affordable Care Act, clashes with generals about U.S. strategy in Afghanistan, tackles Wall Street reform, responds to the devastating Deepwater Horizon blowout, and authorizes Operation Neptune’s Spear, which leads to the death of Osama bin Laden.

A Promised Land is extraordinarily intimate and introspective—the story of one man’s bet with history, the faith of a community organizer tested on the world stage. Obama is candid about the balancing act of running for office as a Black American, bearing the expectations of a generation buoyed by messages of “hope and change,” and meeting the moral challenges of high-stakes decision-making. He is frank about the forces that opposed him at home and abroad, open about how living in the White House affected his wife and daughters, and unafraid to reveal self-doubt and disappointment. Yet he never wavers from his belief that inside the great, ongoing American experiment, progress is always possible.

This beautifully written and powerful book captures Barack Obama’s conviction that democracy is not a gift from on high but something founded on empathy and common understanding and built together, day by day.]]> 768 Barack Obama 1524763187 Bev 0 4.32 2020 A Promised Land

author: Barack Obama
name: Bev
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at: 2021/05/12
date added: 2021/05/12
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]]> <![CDATA[The Lord God Made Them All (All Creatures Great and Small, #4)]]> 36287608 all Creatures Great and Small.

It is just after World War II, and James has returned from the R.A.F. to do battle with the diseases and injuries that befall the farm animals and pets of Skeldale and the surrounding moors. Four-year-old Jimmy Herriot, Humphrey Cobb and his little beagle Myrtle, Norman the book-loving veterinary assistant, and many more new faces join old favorites among the green hills of Yorkshire, as James takes an unforgettable voyage to Russia on a freighter with 383 pedigreed sheep. Touching our hearts with laughter and wisdom, lifting our spirits with compassion and goodness, James Herriot never fails to delight.
]]> 388 James Herriot Bev 0 currently-reading 4.72 1981 The Lord God Made Them All (All Creatures Great and Small, #4)

The Lord God Made Them All (All Creatures Great and Small, #4)

author: James Herriot
name: Bev
average rating: 4.72
book published: 1981
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/12/20
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]]> <![CDATA[Every Living Thing (All Creatures Great and Small, #8)]]> 41015277
Every Living Thing shines with the storytelling magic that has made him a favourite the world over. It also reveals more of the real James Herriot than ever before.

Here is a book for all those who find laughter and joy in animals, and who know and understand the magic of wild places and beautiful countryside.]]> 355 James Herriot Bev 0 4.68 1992 Every Living Thing (All Creatures Great and Small, #8)

Every Living Thing (All Creatures Great and Small, #8)

author: James Herriot
name: Bev
average rating: 4.68
book published: 1992
rating: 0
read at: 2020/12/20
date added: 2020/12/20
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]]> <![CDATA[Next to Last Stand (Walt Longmire, #16)]]> 51213213 The new novel in the beloved New York Times bestselling Longmire series.

One of the most viewed paintings in American history, Custer's Last Fight, copied and distributed by Anheuser-Busch at a rate of over two million copies a year, was destroyed in a fire at the 7th Cavalry Headquarters in Fort Bliss, Texas, in 1946. Or was it? When Charley Lee Stillwater dies of an apparent heart attack at the Wyoming Home for Soldiers & Sailors, Walt Longmire is called in to try and make sense of a piece of a painting and a Florsheim shoebox containing a million dollars, sending the good sheriff on the trail of a dangerous art heist.]]> 336 Craig Johnson 0525522549 Bev 0 currently-reading 4.27 2020 Next to Last Stand (Walt Longmire, #16)

author: Craig Johnson
name: Bev
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/10/16
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]]> <![CDATA[All Creatures Great and Small (All Creatures Great and Small, #1)]]> 35394313 The classic multimillion copy bestseller

Delve into the magical, unforgettable world of James Herriot, the world's most beloved veterinarian, and his menagerie of heartwarming, funny, and tragic animal patients.

For over forty years, generations of readers have thrilled to Herriot's marvelous tales, deep love of life, and extraordinary storytelling abilities. For decades, Herriot roamed the remote, beautiful Yorkshire Dales, treating every patient that came his way from smallest to largest, and observing animals and humans alike with his keen, loving eye.

In All Creatures Great and Small, we meet the young Herriot as he takes up his calling and discovers that the realities of veterinary practice in rural Yorkshire are very different from the sterile setting of veterinary school. Some visits are heart-wrenchingly difficult, such as one to an old man in the village whose very ill dog is his only friend and companion, some are lighthearted and fun, such as Herriot's periodic visits to the overfed and pampered Pekinese Tricki Woo who throws parties and has his own stationery, and yet others are inspirational and enlightening, such as Herriot's recollections of poor farmers who will scrape their meager earnings together to be able to get proper care for their working animals. From seeing to his patients in the depths of winter on the remotest homesteads to dealing with uncooperative owners and critically ill animals, Herriot discovers the wondrous variety and never-ending challenges of veterinary practice as his humor, compassion, and love of the animal world shine forth.

James Herriot's memoirs have sold 80 million copies worldwide, and continue to delight and entertain readers of all ages.]]> 457 James Herriot Bev 0 4.65 1972 All Creatures Great and Small (All Creatures Great and Small, #1)

All Creatures Great and Small (All Creatures Great and Small, #1)

author: James Herriot
name: Bev
average rating: 4.65
book published: 1972
rating: 0
read at: 2020/10/16
date added: 2020/10/16
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]]> Lola on Fire 53441182 Arthur Ellis Award finalist Rio Youers combines vengeance and deceit, love and bullets, secrets, and twists in this high-octane action thriller with a vibrant emotional core.

Brody Ellis is short on luck and even shorter on cash to buy the medication his sister Molly needs.

Desperate, he robs a convenience store, but on the way out, he bumps into a young woman and loses his wallet. Just when he expects the cops to arrive, the phone rings. It’s Blair Mayo—the woman he bumped into—and she’s got the missing billfold.

Brody will get it back, but only if he does her a favor: steal her late mother’s diamonds from her wicked stepmom. But when he gets to the house, he finds a gruesome crime scene—and a security camera. Brody knows he’s been framed.

Back home, the terrified young man gets another call. The police won’t get the incriminating video footage, Blair says. Instead, her daddy, the notorious mobster Jimmy Latzo, will exact his own kind of revenge.

Brody and Molly realize that they’ve become pawns in a mysterious game—one that involves a notorious enforcer named Lola Bear who brutally crossed paths with Jimmy Latzo twenty-six years before. . . a ghost from the past who is intimately connected to their lives.]]> 400 Rio Youers 0063001004 Bev 0 to-read 3.96 2021 Lola on Fire

author: Rio Youers
name: Bev
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/10/07
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]]> Cry Baby (Tom Thorne #17) 53694909 Sleepyhead--which the Times voted "one of the 100 books that had shaped the decade"--this compelling novel highlights the case that shaped the career of one of British crime fiction's most iconic characters.]]> 447 Mark Billingham Bev 0 4.30 2020 Cry Baby (Tom Thorne #17)

author: Mark Billingham
name: Bev
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at: 2020/09/19
date added: 2020/09/19
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]]> <![CDATA[All Things Wise and Wonderful (All Creatures Great and Small, #3)]]> 13226919 Veterinarian James Herriot recalls life in England during World War II, when the great forces of the modern world came even to his sleepy Yorkshire hamlet

Only a couple of years after settling into his new home in northern England, James Herriot is called to war. In this series of poignant and humorous episodes, the great veterinarian shares his experiences training with the Royal Air Force, pining for a pregnant wife, and checking in on the people back home who made his practice so fascinating. As the young men of Yorkshire are sent into battle and farmers consider the broader world they’re a part of, Herriot reflects on the lives—human and animal alike—that make his home worth fighting for.��ձ�> 452 James Herriot 1453234500 Bev 0 4.71 1978 All Things Wise and Wonderful (All Creatures Great and Small, #3)

All Things Wise and Wonderful (All Creatures Great and Small, #3)

author: James Herriot
name: Bev
average rating: 4.71
book published: 1978
rating: 0
read at: 2020/08/27
date added: 2020/08/27
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]]> Survivor Song 52882664 A riveting novel of suspense and terror from the Bram Stoker award-winning author of The Cabin at the End of the World and A Head Full of Ghosts.

In a matter of weeks, Massachusetts has been overrun by an insidious rabies-like virus that is spread by saliva. But unlike rabies, the disease has a terrifyingly short incubation period of an hour or less. Those infected quickly lose their minds and are driven to bite and infect as many others as they can before they inevitably succumb. Hospitals are inundated with the sick and dying, and hysteria has taken hold. To try to limit its spread, the commonwealth is under quarantine and curfew. But society is breaking down and the government's emergency protocols are faltering.

Dr. Ramola "Rams" Sherman, a soft-spoken pediatrician in her mid-thirties, receives a frantic phone call from Natalie, a friend who is eight months pregnant. Natalie's husband has been killed—viciously attacked by an infected neighbor—and in a failed attempt to save him, Natalie, too, was bitten. Natalie's only chance of survival is to get to a hospital as quickly as possible to receive a rabies vaccine. The clock is ticking for her and for her unborn child.

Natalie’s fight for life becomes a desperate odyssey as she and Rams make their way through a hostile landscape filled with dangers beyond their worst nightmares—terrifying, strange, and sometimes deadly challenges that push them to the brink.

Paul Tremblay once again demonstrates his mastery in this chilling and all-too-plausible novel that will leave readers racing through the pages . . . and shake them to their core.

]]> 320 Paul Tremblay Bev 0 to-read 3.79 2020 Survivor Song

author: Paul Tremblay
name: Bev
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/06/16
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]]> Ask Again, Yes 42880325
Ask Again, Yes is a moving novel about two families, the bond between their children, a tragedy that reverberates over four decades, the daily intimacies of marriage, and the power of forgiveness.]]> 390 Mary Beth Keane 1982106999 Bev 0 to-read 3.88 2019 Ask Again, Yes

author: Mary Beth Keane
name: Bev
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/06/12
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]]> <![CDATA[All Things Bright and Beautiful (All Creatures Great and Small, #2)]]> 36686396 --Associated Press

The second volume in the multimillion copy bestselling series

Millions of readers have delighted in the wonderful storytelling and everyday miracles of James Herriot in the over thirty years since his delightful animal stories were first introduced to the world.

Now in a new edition for the first time in a decade, All Things Bright and Beautiful is the beloved sequel to Herriot's first collection, All Creatures Great and Small, and picks up as Herriot, now newly married, journeys among the remote hillside farms and valley towns of the Yorkshire Dales, caring for their inhabitants---both two- and four-legged. Throughout, Herriot's deep compassion, humor, and love of life shine out as we laugh, cry, and delight in his portraits of his many, varied animal patients and their equally varied owners.

"Humor, realism, sensitivity, earthiness; animals comic and tragic; and people droll, pathetic, courageous, eccentric---all of whom he views with the same gentle compassion and a lively sense of the sad, the ridiculous, and the admirable."
--Columbus Dispatch]]> 452 James Herriot Bev 0 currently-reading 4.73 1976 All Things Bright and Beautiful (All Creatures Great and Small, #2)

All Things Bright and Beautiful (All Creatures Great and Small, #2)

author: James Herriot
name: Bev
average rating: 4.73
book published: 1976
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/05/31
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]]> <![CDATA[Yes to Life: In Spite of Everything]]> 49276765 Find hope even in these dark times with this rediscovered masterpiece, a companion to his international bestseller Man’s Search for Meaning.

Eleven months after he was liberated from the Nazi concentration camps, Viktor E. Frankl held a series of public lectures in Vienna. The psychiatrist, who would soon become world famous, explained his central thoughts on meaning, resilience, and the importance of embracing life even in the face of great adversity.

Published here for the very first time in English, Frankl’s words resonate as strongly today—as the world faces a coronavirus pandemic, social isolation, and great economic uncertainty—as they did in 1946. He offers an insightful exploration of the maxim “Live as if you were living for the second time,” and he unfolds his basic conviction that every crisis contains opportunity. Despite the unspeakable horrors of the camps, Frankl learned from the strength of his fellow inmates that it is always possible to “say yes to life”—a profound and timeless lesson for us all.]]> 135 Viktor E. Frankl 0807005568 Bev 0 currently-reading 4.32 1946 Yes to Life: In Spite of Everything

author: Viktor E. Frankl
name: Bev
average rating: 4.32
book published: 1946
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/05/25
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]]> Ask Again, Yes 43666435
In Mary Beth Keane's extraordinary novel, a lifelong friendship and love blossoms between Kate Gleeson and Peter Stanhope, born six months apart. One shocking night their loyalties are divided, and their bond will be tested again and again over the next thirty years.

Heartbreaking and redemptive, Ask Again, Yes is a gorgeous and generous portrait of the daily intimacies of marriage and the power of forgiveness.]]> 399 Mary Beth Keane 1982107006 Bev 0 to-read 4.04 2019

author: Mary Beth Keane
name: Bev
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/05/16
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Camino Winds (Camino Island, #2)]]> 49123131
Just as Bruce Cable’s Bay Books is preparing for the return of bestselling author Mercer Mann, Hurricane Leo veers from its predicted course and heads straight for the island. Florida’s governor orders a mandatory evacuation, and most residents board up their houses and flee to the mainland, but Bruce decides to stay and ride out the storm.

The hurricane is devastating: homes and condos are leveled, hotels and storefronts ruined, streets flooded, and a dozen people lose their lives. One of the apparent victims is Nelson Kerr, a friend of Bruce’s and an author of thrillers. But the nature of Nelson’s injuries suggests that the storm wasn’t the cause of his death: He has suffered several suspicious blows to the head.

Who would want Nelson dead? The local police are overwhelmed in the aftermath of the storm and ill equipped to handle the case. Bruce begins to wonder if the shady characters in Nelson’s novels might be more real than fictional. And somewhere on Nelson’s computer is the manuscript of his new novel. Could the key to the case be right there—in black and white? As Bruce starts to investigate, what he discovers between the lines is more shocking than any of Nelson’s plot twists—and far more dangerous.]]> 304 John Grisham 0385545940 Bev 0 currently-reading 3.85 2020 Camino Winds (Camino Island, #2)

author: John Grisham
name: Bev
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/05/01
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]]> If It Bleeds 46015758 If it Bleeds is a collection of four new novellas —Mr. Harrigan’s Phone, The Life of Chuck, Rat, and the title story If It Bleeds— each pulling readers into intriguing and frightening places.

A collection of four uniquely wonderful long stories, including a stand-alone sequel to The Outsider.

News people have a saying: 'If it bleeds, it leads'. And a bomb at Albert Macready Middle School is guaranteed to lead any bulletin.

Holly Gibney of the Finders Keepers detective agency is working on the case of a missing dog - and on her own need to be more assertive - when she sees the footage on TV. But when she tunes in again, to the late-night report, she realizes there is something not quite right about the correspondent who was first on the scene. So begins 'If It Bleeds' , a stand-alone sequel to The Outsider featuring the incomparable Holly on her first solo case.

Dancing alongside are three more long stories - 'Mr Harrigan's Phone', 'The Life of Chuck' and 'Rat' .

The novella is a form King has returned to over and over again in the course of his amazing career, and many have been made into iconic films, If It Bleeds is a uniquely satisfying collection of longer short fiction by an incomparably gifted writer.]]> 438 Stephen King Bev 0 to-read 3.99 2020

author: Stephen King
name: Bev
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/04/29
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]]> The Only Good Indians 52180399 The creeping horror of Paul Tremblay meets Tommy Orange’s There There in a dark novel of revenge, cultural identity, and the cost of breaking from tradition in this latest novel from the Jordan Peele of horror literature, Stephen Graham Jones.

Seamlessly blending classic horror and a dramatic narrative with sharp social commentary, The Only Good Indians follows four American Indian men after a disturbing event from their youth puts them in a desperate struggle for their lives. Tracked by an entity bent on revenge, these childhood friends are helpless as the culture and traditions they left behind catch up to them in a violent, vengeful way.]]> 305 Stephen Graham Jones 1982136456 Bev 0 to-read 3.68 2020 The Only Good Indians

author: Stephen Graham Jones
name: Bev
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/03/07
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]]> <![CDATA[The Unwilling (The Barrier Lands #1)]]> 45422550
The Unwilling is the story of Judah, a foundling born with a special gift and raised inside Highfall castle along with Gavin, the son and heir to Lord Elban's vast empire. Judah and Gavin share an unnatural bond that is both the key to her survival... and possibly her undoing.

As Gavin is groomed for his future role, Judah comes to realize that she has no real position within the kingdom, in fact, no hope at all of ever traveling beyond its castle walls. Elban - a lord as mighty as he is cruel - has his own plans for her, for all of them. She is a mere pawn to him, and he will stop at nothing to get what he wants.

But outside the walls, in the starving, desperate city, a magus, a healer with his own secret power unlike anything Highfall has seen in years, is newly arrived from the provinces. He, too, has plans for the empire, and at the heart of those plans lies Judah... The girl who started life with no name and no history will soon uncover more to her story than she ever imagined.

An epic tale of greed and ambition, cruelty and love, this deeply immersive novel is about bowing to traditions and burning them down.]]> 576 Kelly Braffet 0778309401 Bev 0 to-read 3.36 2020 The Unwilling (The Barrier Lands #1)

author: Kelly Braffet
name: Bev
average rating: 3.36
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2019/11/26
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]]> Full Throttle 43801817 480 Joe Hill 0062200674 Bev 0 to-read 4.00 2019

author: Joe Hill
name: Bev
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2019/08/29
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]]> <![CDATA[Growing Things and Other Stories]]> 42118050 The Cabin at the End of the World and A Head Full of Ghosts..

In The Teacher, a Bram Stoker Award nominee for best short story, a student is forced to watch a disturbing video that will haunt and torment her and her classmates’ lives.

Four men rob a pawn shop at gunpoint only to vanish, one-by-one, as they speed away from the crime scene in The Getaway.

In Swim Wants to Know If It’s as Bad as Swim Thinks, a meth addict kidnaps her daughter from her estranged mother as their town is terrorized by a giant monster . . . or not.

Joining these haunting works are stories linked to Tremblay’s previous novels. The tour de force metafictional novella Notes from the Dog Walkers deconstructs horror and publishing, possibly bringing in a character from A Head Full of Ghosts, all while serving as a prequel to Disappearance at Devil’s Rock. “The Thirteenth Temple” follows another character from A Head Full of Ghosts—Merry, who has published a tell-all memoir written years after the events of the novel. And the title story, Growing Things, a shivery tale loosely shared between the sisters in A Head Full of Ghosts, is told here in full.

From global catastrophe to the demons inside our heads, Tremblay illuminates our primal fears and darkest dreams in startlingly original fiction that leaves us unmoored. As he lowers the sky and yanks the ground from beneath our feet, we are compelled to contemplate the darkness inside our own hearts and minds.

Growing things --
Swim wants to know if it's as bad as swim thinks --
Something about birds --
The getaway --
Nineteen snapshots of Dennisport --
Where we all will be --
The teacher --
Notes for "The Barn in the Wild" --
_______ --
Our town's monster --
A haunted house is a wheel upon which some are broken --
It won't go away --
Notes from the dog walkers --
Further questions for the somnambulist --
The ice tower --
The society of the monsterhood --
Her red right hand --
It's against the law to feed the ducks --
The thirteenth temple --
Notes --
Acknowledgments --
Credits]]> 352 Paul Tremblay 0062679139 Bev 0 to-read 3.50 2019 Growing Things and Other Stories

author: Paul Tremblay
name: Bev
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2019/06/26
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]]> <![CDATA[Flight or Fright: 17 Turbulent Tales]]> 39217966

Stephen King hates to fly. Now he and co-editor Bev Vincent would like to share this fear of flying with you.

Welcome to Flight or Fright, an anthology about all the things that can go horribly wrong when you're suspended six miles in the air, hurtling through space at more than 500 mph and sealed up in a metal tube (like—gulp!—a coffin) with hundreds of strangers. All the ways your trip into the friendly skies can turn into a nightmare, including some we'll bet you've never thought of before... but now you will the next time you walk down the jetway and place your fate in the hands of a total stranger.

Featuring brand new stories by Joe Hill and Stephen King, as well as fourteen classic tales and one poem from the likes of Richard Matheson, Ray Bradbury, Roald Dahl, Dan Simmons, and many others, Flight or Fright is, as King says, "ideal airplane reading, especially on stormy descents... Even if you are safe on the ground, you might want to buckle up nice and tight."]]> 332 Stephen King 1587676796 Bev 0 3.48 2018 Flight or Fright: 17 Turbulent Tales

author: Stephen King
name: Bev
average rating: 3.48
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2018/06/12
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]]> <![CDATA[The Outsider (Holly Gibney, #4)]]> 36000789
Horrified by the brutal killing, Detective Ralph Anderson, whose own son was once coached by Maitland, orders the suspect to be arrested in a public spectacle. But Maitland has an alibi. And further research confirms he was indeed out of town that day.

As Anderson and the District Attorney trace the clues, the investigation expands from Ohio to Texas. And as horrifying answers begin to emerge, so King's propulsive story of almost unbearable suspense kicks into high gear.

Terry Maitland seems like a nice guy but there is one rock-hard fact, as unassailable as gravity: a man cannot be in two places at the same time. Can he?

Librarian note: An alternative cover for this ISBN can be found here.]]> 477 Stephen King 1473676355 Bev 0 4.05 2018 The Outsider (Holly Gibney, #4)

author: Stephen King
name: Bev
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2018/05/22
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]]> <![CDATA[The Cabin at the End of the World]]> 36381091
One afternoon, as Wen catches grasshoppers in the front yard, a stranger unexpectedly appears in the driveway. Leonard is the largest man Wen has ever seen but he is young, friendly, and he wins her over almost instantly. Leonard and Wen talk and play until Leonard abruptly apologizes and tells Wen, "None of what’s going to happen is your fault". Three more strangers then arrive at the cabin carrying unidentifiable, menacing objects. As Wen sprints inside to warn her parents, Leonard calls out: "Your dads won’t want to let us in, Wen. But they have to. We need your help to save the world."]]> 272 Paul Tremblay 0062679104 Bev 0 to-read 3.31 2018 The Cabin at the End of the World

author: Paul Tremblay
name: Bev
average rating: 3.31
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2018/04/27
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]]> Behind Her Eyes 28965131 Why is everyone talking about the ending of Sarah Pinborough's Behind Her Eyes?

Louise is a single mom, a secretary, stuck in a modern-day rut. On a rare night out, she meets a man in a bar and sparks fly. Though he leaves after they kiss, she’s thrilled she finally connected with someone.

When Louise arrives at work on Monday, she meets her new boss, David. The man from the bar. The very married man from the bar…who says the kiss was a terrible mistake but who still can’t keep his eyes off Louise.

And then Louise bumps into Adele, who’s new to town and in need of a friend, but she also just happens to be married to David. David and Adele look like the picture-perfect husband and wife, but then why is David so controlling, and why is Adele so scared of him?

As Louise is drawn into David and Adele’s orbit, she uncovers more puzzling questions than answers. The only thing that is crystal clear is that something in this marriage is very, very wrong, but Louise can’t guess how wrong―and how far a person might go to protect their marriage’s secrets.]]> 307 Sarah Pinborough 125011117X Bev 5 3.79 2017 Behind Her Eyes

author: Sarah Pinborough
name: Bev
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2017
rating: 5
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date added: 2017/03/09
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]]> Intro to Alien Invasion 23492734
As space insects begin to burrow into students and staff, transforming them into slobbering, babbling monsters, a conglomeration of misfits must band together to prevent the infestation from spreading. Meanwhile, Stacey's long-stifled romantic feelings for her friend Charlotte begin to surface, while the professor she had admired and respected becomes the students's worst enemy.]]> 224 Owen King 1476763402 Bev 0 3.27 2015 Intro to Alien Invasion

author: Owen King
name: Bev
average rating: 3.27
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2017/03/09
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]]> Ararat (Ben Walker, #1) 29939052 305 Christopher Golden 1250117054 Bev 4
The protagonists are an unlikely couple: Adam Holzer is Jewish, though non-practicing, and his girlfriend, Meryam Karga, is Muslim. Meryam is impetuous and volatile, whereas Adam can generally be called upon to keep calm during a crisis. They are adventure-seekers who have written about their exploits in some of the world's most dangerous venues.

They were in the midst of working on their third book (and trying to make wedding plans) when Meryam received a call from the man who helped them climb Ararat once before, relating the rumor that the Ark had been uncovered. It makes no sense that the supposedly apocryphal vessel would come to rest four thousand meters above sea level, Biblical stories notwithstanding, but they identify another grand adventure and put aside their wedding plans to assemble a team to investigate.

They have to race against other Arkologists, determined to be the first to the site, thereby laying claim to it. They record everything that happens for a documentary. Their team includes archaeologists, representatives of the Turkish government, linguistics experts, a United Nations observer, and Ben Walker, an American who is supposedly from the National Science Foundation but is actually an employee of DARPA enlisted to determine if anything at the site can be weaponized for or against America.

There's something else in the cavern that is formed from the decaying beams of this ancient vessel, in addition to the mummified remains of numerous individuals: a small coffin covered in ancient scripts and encased in bitumen that contains a malformed and sinister corpse that starts people whispering about demons. From the moment of its discovery, people are unsettled, physically and emotionally. They start behaving oddly—more than can be explained by altitude sickness. Some become violently aggressive. A Biblical scholar recommends blowing up the face of the mountain and burying the cave for another few thousand years. Some things are better left buried, he argues.

The strange corpse in the black coffin makes people of all faiths (and even those with no faith) nervous. Adam remembers his grandmother, whose belief in dybbuks was powerful enough to be contagious. While there is a fair amount of theological discourse in the book, it is mostly civil and only a little of the conflict arises from the fact that the group is composed of a religiously diverse group. There are strict rules in place forbidding any action that might be seen as an attempt to establish primacy among one of the several religions represented. Though one team member is a Catholic priest, his presence is for his linguistics expertise and not his religion.

Golden explores the difficulties women face in leadership roles. Although Adam and Meryam are equal partners, Meryam is the project leader, and it infuriates her when people bring issues to Adam to avoid dealing with her. A Turkish mountain guide won't even address her directly, but that's only the most overt form of misogyny that she confronts. There are other scenes where women take men to task for arrogance and the presumption of superiority in situations where both parties were equally culpable.

Walker is one of the most fascinating characters. He's had many encounters with the unexplained in the past and is currently on a quest for something in which to have faith. He's the book's Indiana Jones—he doesn't necessarily believe in anything supernatural, but he knows first-hand that there are things that science can't account for yet. Still, he isn't the protagonist, and even though he has plenty of experience with unnatural entities, the answers he comes up with pertaining to the problems the Ark expedition faces are as likely to be wrong as anyone else's. Golden suffuses him with sufficient backstory to bring him to life in ways that give him additional depth.

Conflict arises from professional rivalries and bruised egos involving people whose responsibilities overlap. Relationships break down, misunderstandings and missteps abound, and the mission begins to spin out of control. The frigid, stormy weather traps them in the cavern, adding to the claustrophobia and paranoia that is spreading among the team. At times, the sense of dread and malice is almost physical. Audible. Tangible. Then people being to act irrationally, as if they're possessed. Some disappear or die. The crisis becomes a struggle between surviving, destroying the evil that has been unleashed and preventing it from escaping into the larger world.

Ararat will, no doubt, draw comparisons to The Abominable by Dan Simmons, both of which involve mountain climbing during bleak, frozen conditions. Although Ararat begins with a mountainside scene during a tremor and subsequent avalanche, and another section that entails a spirited race up the dangerous mountain, the book isn't as concerned with the mechanics of high-altitude climbs as Simmons' novel was. The novel has more in common with the movie The Thing.

Once the story admits the supernatural element, it becomes a question of whether regular humans have the power to overcome it. Those who were on the ark originally seemed to have come up with a way to contain it—but are the members of this team capable of solving the riddle as their numbers dwindle? Golden pulls no punches and any member of his large cast is vulnerable to the threat and to the reactions and overreactions of ordinary people confronting something extraordinary.]]> 3.39 2017 Ararat (Ben Walker, #1)

author: Christopher Golden
name: Bev
average rating: 3.39
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2017/03/09
shelves:
review:
Noah's Ark is an unlikely McGuffin for a novel, but the fact that the Biblical relic might have been discovered after an earthquake on the side of Mount Ararat in Turkey isn't the most important aspect of Ararat. The discovery brings a diverse group of people to the archaeological site, and most of them are truly interested in the artifact and its greater significance, but this isn't a Da Vinci Code-esque book where the main drive is to divine the importance of an earth-shattering religious icon.

The protagonists are an unlikely couple: Adam Holzer is Jewish, though non-practicing, and his girlfriend, Meryam Karga, is Muslim. Meryam is impetuous and volatile, whereas Adam can generally be called upon to keep calm during a crisis. They are adventure-seekers who have written about their exploits in some of the world's most dangerous venues.

They were in the midst of working on their third book (and trying to make wedding plans) when Meryam received a call from the man who helped them climb Ararat once before, relating the rumor that the Ark had been uncovered. It makes no sense that the supposedly apocryphal vessel would come to rest four thousand meters above sea level, Biblical stories notwithstanding, but they identify another grand adventure and put aside their wedding plans to assemble a team to investigate.

They have to race against other Arkologists, determined to be the first to the site, thereby laying claim to it. They record everything that happens for a documentary. Their team includes archaeologists, representatives of the Turkish government, linguistics experts, a United Nations observer, and Ben Walker, an American who is supposedly from the National Science Foundation but is actually an employee of DARPA enlisted to determine if anything at the site can be weaponized for or against America.

There's something else in the cavern that is formed from the decaying beams of this ancient vessel, in addition to the mummified remains of numerous individuals: a small coffin covered in ancient scripts and encased in bitumen that contains a malformed and sinister corpse that starts people whispering about demons. From the moment of its discovery, people are unsettled, physically and emotionally. They start behaving oddly—more than can be explained by altitude sickness. Some become violently aggressive. A Biblical scholar recommends blowing up the face of the mountain and burying the cave for another few thousand years. Some things are better left buried, he argues.

The strange corpse in the black coffin makes people of all faiths (and even those with no faith) nervous. Adam remembers his grandmother, whose belief in dybbuks was powerful enough to be contagious. While there is a fair amount of theological discourse in the book, it is mostly civil and only a little of the conflict arises from the fact that the group is composed of a religiously diverse group. There are strict rules in place forbidding any action that might be seen as an attempt to establish primacy among one of the several religions represented. Though one team member is a Catholic priest, his presence is for his linguistics expertise and not his religion.

Golden explores the difficulties women face in leadership roles. Although Adam and Meryam are equal partners, Meryam is the project leader, and it infuriates her when people bring issues to Adam to avoid dealing with her. A Turkish mountain guide won't even address her directly, but that's only the most overt form of misogyny that she confronts. There are other scenes where women take men to task for arrogance and the presumption of superiority in situations where both parties were equally culpable.

Walker is one of the most fascinating characters. He's had many encounters with the unexplained in the past and is currently on a quest for something in which to have faith. He's the book's Indiana Jones—he doesn't necessarily believe in anything supernatural, but he knows first-hand that there are things that science can't account for yet. Still, he isn't the protagonist, and even though he has plenty of experience with unnatural entities, the answers he comes up with pertaining to the problems the Ark expedition faces are as likely to be wrong as anyone else's. Golden suffuses him with sufficient backstory to bring him to life in ways that give him additional depth.

Conflict arises from professional rivalries and bruised egos involving people whose responsibilities overlap. Relationships break down, misunderstandings and missteps abound, and the mission begins to spin out of control. The frigid, stormy weather traps them in the cavern, adding to the claustrophobia and paranoia that is spreading among the team. At times, the sense of dread and malice is almost physical. Audible. Tangible. Then people being to act irrationally, as if they're possessed. Some disappear or die. The crisis becomes a struggle between surviving, destroying the evil that has been unleashed and preventing it from escaping into the larger world.

Ararat will, no doubt, draw comparisons to The Abominable by Dan Simmons, both of which involve mountain climbing during bleak, frozen conditions. Although Ararat begins with a mountainside scene during a tremor and subsequent avalanche, and another section that entails a spirited race up the dangerous mountain, the book isn't as concerned with the mechanics of high-altitude climbs as Simmons' novel was. The novel has more in common with the movie The Thing.

Once the story admits the supernatural element, it becomes a question of whether regular humans have the power to overcome it. Those who were on the ark originally seemed to have come up with a way to contain it—but are the members of this team capable of solving the riddle as their numbers dwindle? Golden pulls no punches and any member of his large cast is vulnerable to the threat and to the reactions and overreactions of ordinary people confronting something extraordinary.
]]> Ill Will 30687788 Two sensational unsolved crimes—one in the past, another in the present—are linked by one man’s memory and self-deception in this chilling novel of literary suspense from National Book Award finalist Dan Chaon.

“We are always telling a story to ourselves, about ourselves,” Dustin Tillman likes to say. It’s one of the little mantras he shares with his patients, and it’s meant to be reassuring. But what if that story is a lie?

A psychologist in suburban Cleveland, Dustin is drifting through his forties when he hears the news: His adopted brother, Rusty, is being released from prison. Thirty years ago, Rusty received a life sentence for the massacre of Dustin’s parents, aunt, and uncle. The trial came to symbolize the 1980s hysteria over Satanic cults; despite the lack of physical evidence, the jury believed the outlandish accusations Dustin and his cousin made against Rusty. Now, after DNA analysis has overturned the conviction, Dustin braces for a reckoning.

Meanwhile, one of Dustin’s patients gets him deeply engaged in a string of drowning deaths involving drunk college boys. At first Dustin dismisses talk of a serial killer as paranoid thinking, but as he gets wrapped up in their amateur investigation, Dustin starts to believe that there’s more to the deaths than coincidence. Soon he becomes obsessed, crossing all professional boundaries—and putting his own family in harm’s way.

From one of today’s most renowned practitioners of literary suspense, Ill Will is an intimate thriller about the failures of memory and the perils of self-deception. In Dan Chaon’s nimble, chilling prose, the past looms over the present, turning each into a haunted place.]]> 496 Dan Chaon 0345476042 Bev 4
The Satanic Ritual Abuse (SRA) mania was going strong when 13-year-old Dustin Tillman's parents, his aunt and his uncle were murdered the night before the the two families were about to embark on vacation. Dustin and his two 17-year-old twin cousins, Kate and Wave, spent the night in the camper in the driveway. A news photographer won a Pulitzer for photos of the three teens the next day shortly after they discovered the murders that had happened inside the house while they slept.

Absent that night was nineteen-year-old Russell, Dustin's adopted older brother. When Dustin's father received a large settlement after a worksite accident that left him with a hook in place of one hand, he decided to foster a child as a way of keeping one boy from suffering the kinds of indignities he had as a child.

Dustin was a particularly gullible child. Kate and Wave used to have fun implanting false memories to see what they could get him to believe. After the murders, Kate and Dustin become convinced that Russell (Rusty) was the murderer, and they compare notes to come up with a credible story that involves Rusty's bullying behavior, his fascination with Satanism, the fact that he liked to torture and kill animals, and the suspicion that he had been responsible for his birth parents' death in a house fire. One of the book's main questions is whether Dustin's testimony was true or if it relied on more false memories. Either way, Rusty was convicted and sent to prison. Dustin has not spoken with him since.

Nearly thirty years later, Dustin receives word from Kate that Rusty has been exonerated by Project Innocence. No one else is implicated, but this news disturbs Dustin. He is now 41, a therapist, married with two teen sons, the younger of whom is a drug addict, unbeknownst to Dustin. His wife is dying of cancer. He is a vague, diffident man, prone to leaving sentences unfinished or groping for words. He recently quit smoking and is suffering an existential dread that the world is emanating ill will toward him.

The murders are, understandably, a seminal event in his life. His doctoral thesis explored the SRA phenomenon. His wife's illness and subsequent death unpin him, and the news about Rusty sends him into a spin. He is certain Rusty will come after him, seeking vengeance for all those lost years. He doesn't know that Rusty is already in touch with his vulnerable 18-year-old son, Aaron.

Dustin specializes in hypnotherapy, which he uses primarily as a quit-smoking treatment or to alleviate idiopathic pain. His newest client, Aqil Ozorowski, a cop on medical leave for reasons he won't divulge, is convinced that a serial killer has been preying on young men thought to have drowned after binge drinking. He lays out his evidence, identifying numerological details that seem to tie these deaths together. Eventually, he proposes that Satanists are involved, which naturally piques Dustin's interest and helps to penetrate his skepticism. Aqil is intense, and his demands on Dustin push the limits of the patient-client relationship.

The novel leaps around in time, gradually divulging more about what happened between Dustin and Rusty in the late 1970s. It also follows several characters, including Aaron's misadventures in some of Cleveland's seedier neighborhoods with his friend Rabbit, who may be another victim of Aqil's putative serial killer. At times, the narrative is split into multiple parallel threads, streaming beside each other down the page like adjacent stories in a newspaper. This is mildly distracting but occasionally effective, especially when different perspectives on the same event are shown side-by-side.

What is the truth about those long-ago murders? Dustin's cousin Wave, who has gone off the grid and is no longer in touch with the family, might know. Is it within Dustin to dig past a cloud of possibly false memories and get to the bottom of what actually happened nearly thirty years ago? The epigraph Chaon selects to precede one of the book's chapters advises: "In the end it is the mystery that lasts and not the explanation." There are no easy answers to the conundrum of memory.]]> 3.35 2017 Ill Will

author: Dan Chaon
name: Bev
average rating: 3.35
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2017/02/25
date added: 2017/03/09
shelves:
review:
When Dan Chaon (pronounced "shawn") wrote about how willing people were to believe a conspiracy theory in the 1980s in which throngs of highly organized and interconnected Satanic cults across America and around the world were suspected of committing ritual abuse, it might have seemed easy to poke fun at gullible, poorly informed people living in a simpler time. Evening news programs took these rumors seriously, running special segments with titles like Exposing Satan's Underground, theorizing about a link to heavy metal music. Police departments formed cult task forces. Events in the short time since Chaon penned those passages make it easier to understand how people can be swayed by conspiracy theories.

The Satanic Ritual Abuse (SRA) mania was going strong when 13-year-old Dustin Tillman's parents, his aunt and his uncle were murdered the night before the the two families were about to embark on vacation. Dustin and his two 17-year-old twin cousins, Kate and Wave, spent the night in the camper in the driveway. A news photographer won a Pulitzer for photos of the three teens the next day shortly after they discovered the murders that had happened inside the house while they slept.

Absent that night was nineteen-year-old Russell, Dustin's adopted older brother. When Dustin's father received a large settlement after a worksite accident that left him with a hook in place of one hand, he decided to foster a child as a way of keeping one boy from suffering the kinds of indignities he had as a child.

Dustin was a particularly gullible child. Kate and Wave used to have fun implanting false memories to see what they could get him to believe. After the murders, Kate and Dustin become convinced that Russell (Rusty) was the murderer, and they compare notes to come up with a credible story that involves Rusty's bullying behavior, his fascination with Satanism, the fact that he liked to torture and kill animals, and the suspicion that he had been responsible for his birth parents' death in a house fire. One of the book's main questions is whether Dustin's testimony was true or if it relied on more false memories. Either way, Rusty was convicted and sent to prison. Dustin has not spoken with him since.

Nearly thirty years later, Dustin receives word from Kate that Rusty has been exonerated by Project Innocence. No one else is implicated, but this news disturbs Dustin. He is now 41, a therapist, married with two teen sons, the younger of whom is a drug addict, unbeknownst to Dustin. His wife is dying of cancer. He is a vague, diffident man, prone to leaving sentences unfinished or groping for words. He recently quit smoking and is suffering an existential dread that the world is emanating ill will toward him.

The murders are, understandably, a seminal event in his life. His doctoral thesis explored the SRA phenomenon. His wife's illness and subsequent death unpin him, and the news about Rusty sends him into a spin. He is certain Rusty will come after him, seeking vengeance for all those lost years. He doesn't know that Rusty is already in touch with his vulnerable 18-year-old son, Aaron.

Dustin specializes in hypnotherapy, which he uses primarily as a quit-smoking treatment or to alleviate idiopathic pain. His newest client, Aqil Ozorowski, a cop on medical leave for reasons he won't divulge, is convinced that a serial killer has been preying on young men thought to have drowned after binge drinking. He lays out his evidence, identifying numerological details that seem to tie these deaths together. Eventually, he proposes that Satanists are involved, which naturally piques Dustin's interest and helps to penetrate his skepticism. Aqil is intense, and his demands on Dustin push the limits of the patient-client relationship.

The novel leaps around in time, gradually divulging more about what happened between Dustin and Rusty in the late 1970s. It also follows several characters, including Aaron's misadventures in some of Cleveland's seedier neighborhoods with his friend Rabbit, who may be another victim of Aqil's putative serial killer. At times, the narrative is split into multiple parallel threads, streaming beside each other down the page like adjacent stories in a newspaper. This is mildly distracting but occasionally effective, especially when different perspectives on the same event are shown side-by-side.

What is the truth about those long-ago murders? Dustin's cousin Wave, who has gone off the grid and is no longer in touch with the family, might know. Is it within Dustin to dig past a cloud of possibly false memories and get to the bottom of what actually happened nearly thirty years ago? The epigraph Chaon selects to precede one of the book's chapters advises: "In the end it is the mystery that lasts and not the explanation." There are no easy answers to the conundrum of memory.
]]> Stranded 28220842
Badly battered by an apocalyptic storm, the crew of the Arctic Promise find themselves in increasingly dire circumstances as they sail blindly into unfamiliar waters and an ominously thickening fog. Without functioning navigation or communication equipment, they are lost and completely alone. One by one, the men fall prey to a mysterious illness. Deckhand Noah Cabot is the only person unaffected by the strange force plaguing the ship and her crew, which does little to ease their growing distrust of him.

Dismissing Noah's warnings of worsening conditions, the captain of the ship presses on until the sea freezes into ice and they can go no farther. When the men are ordered overboard in an attempt to break the ship free by hand, the fog clears, revealing a faint shape in the distance that may or may not be their destination. Noah leads the last of the able-bodied crew on a journey across the ice and into an uncertain future where they must fight for their lives against the elements, the ghosts of the past and, ultimately, themselves.]]> 304 Bracken MacLeod 0765382431 Bev 0 to-read 3.45 2016 Stranded

author: Bracken MacLeod
name: Bev
average rating: 3.45
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/08/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Rogue Lawyer (Rogue Lawyer, #1)]]> 30152023
On the right side of the law—sort of—Sebastian Rudd is not your typical street lawyer. His office is a customized bulletproof van, complete with Wi-Fi, a bar, a small fridge, and fine leather chairs. He has no firm, no partners, and only one his heavily armed driver, who also so happens to be his bodyguard, law clerk, confidant, and golf caddie. Sebastian drinks small-batch bourbon and carries a gun. He defends people other lawyers won’t go a drug-addled, tattooed kid rumored to be in a satanic cult; a vicious crime lord on death row; a homeowner arrested for shooting at a SWAT team that mistakenly invaded his house. Why these clients? Because Sebastian believes everyone is entitled to a fair trial—even if he has to bend the law to secure one.

Don’t miss John Grisham’s new book, THE AFTER THE FIRM, coming soon!]]> 400 John Grisham 0553393480 Bev 0 to-read 3.76 2015 Rogue Lawyer (Rogue Lawyer, #1)

author: John Grisham
name: Bev
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/08/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Razor Girl (Andrew Yancy, #2) 28185972 The new full-tilt, razor-sharp, unstoppably hilarious and entertaining novel from the best-selling author of Bad Monkey, Star Island, Nature Girl, et al.

When Lane Coolman's car is bashed from behind on the road to the Florida Keys, what appears to be an ordinary accident is anything but (this is Hiaasen!). Behind the wheel of the other car is Merry Mansfield--the eponymous Razor Girl--and the crash scam is only the beginning of events that spiral crazily out of control while unleashing some of the wildest characters Hiaasen has ever set loose on the page. There's Trebeaux, the owner of Sedimental Journeys--a company that steals sand from one beach to restore erosion on another . . . Dominick "Big Noogie" Aeola, a NYC mafia capo with a taste for tropic-wear . . . Buck Nance, a Wisconsin accordionist who has rebranded himself as the star of a redneck reality show called Bayou Brethren . . . a street psycho known as Blister who's more Buck Nance than Buck could ever be . . . Brock Richardson, a Miami product-liability lawyer who's getting dangerously--and deformingly--hooked on the very E.D. product he's litigating against . . . and Andrew Yancy--formerly Detective Yancy, busted down to the Key West roach patrol after accosting his then-lover's husband with a Dust Buster. Yancy believes that if he can singlehandedly solve a high-profile murder, he'll get his detective badge back. That the Razor Girl may be the key to Yancy's future will be as surprising as anything else he encounters along the way--including the giant Gambian rats that are livening up his restaurant inspections.]]> 335 Carl Hiaasen 0385349742 Bev 0 to-read 3.74 2016 Razor Girl (Andrew Yancy, #2)

author: Carl Hiaasen
name: Bev
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/08/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Purity 27840865
Young Pip Tyler doesn't know who she is. She knows that her real name is Purity, that she's saddled with $130,000 in student debt, that she's squatting with anarchists in Oakland, and that her relationship with her mother – her only family – is hazardous. But she doesn't have a clue who her father is, why her mother has always concealed her own real name, or how she can ever have a normal life.

Enter the Germans. A glancing encounter with a German peace activist leads Pip to an internship in South America with The Sunlight Project, an organisation that traffics in all the secrets of the world – including, Pip hopes, the secret of her origins. TSP is the brainchild of Andreas Wolf, a charismatic provocateur who rose to fame in the chaos following the fall of the Berlin Wall. Now on the lam in Bolivia, Andreas is drawn to Pip for reasons she doesn't understand, and the intensity of her response to him upends her conventional ideas of right and wrong.

Purity is a dark-hued comedy of youthful idealism, extreme fidelity, and murder. The author of THE CORRECTIONS and FREEDOM has created yet another cast of vividly original characters, Californians and East Germans, good parents and bad parents, journalists and leakers, and he follows their intertwining paths through landscapes as contemporary as the omnipresent Internet and as ancient as the war between the sexes. Jonathan Franzen is a major author of our time, and PURITY is his edgiest and most searching book yet.]]> 608 Jonathan Franzen 125009710X Bev 0 to-read 3.74 2015 Purity

author: Jonathan Franzen
name: Bev
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/08/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (George Smiley, #3)]]> 17707596 The 50th-anniversary edition of the bestselling novel that launched John le Carré’s career worldwide

In the shadow of the newly erected Berlin Wall, Alec Leamas watches as his last agent is shot dead by East German sentries. For Leamas, the head of Berlin Station, the Cold War is over. As he faces the prospect of retirement or worse—a desk job—Control offers him a unique opportunity for revenge. Assuming the guise of an embittered and dissolute ex-agent, Leamas is set up to trap Mundt, the deputy director of the East German Intelligence Service—with himself as the bait. In the background is George Smiley, ready to make the game play out just as Control wants.

Setting a standard that has never been surpassed, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold is a devastating tale of duplicity and espionage.]]> 282 John Le Carré 0143124757 Bev 0 to-read 4.12 1963

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (George Smiley, #3)

author: John Le Carré
name: Bev
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1963
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/08/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Police (Harry Hole, #10) 18142329
At the same time, a severely wounded man is in a coma and kept alive at a hospital in Oslo. The police guard the room and the identity of the patient is kept secret.

Once again Jo Nesbø delivers a devilishly clever story about the scope of human evil; a cat-and-mouse game that involves not only the victims and the police, but also the reader.]]> 436 Jo Nesbø 0307960498 Bev 0 4.21 2013 Police (Harry Hole, #10)

author: Jo Nesbø
name: Bev
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/08/10
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Murder in the Ball Park (Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe Mysteries #9)]]> 18281810

Archie Goodwin and Saul Panzer have ventured into the wilds of northern Manhattan to watch the Giants take on the Dodgers at the Polo Grounds. The national anthem is just winding down when Panzer spies a notable in the box state senator Orson Milbank, a silver-haired scoundrel with enemies in every corner of upstate New York. In the fourth inning, a monstrous line drive brings every fan in the grandstand to his feet—every fan save for one silver-haired senator, who has been shot dead by a sniper in the upper deck.

Archie’s employer—the rotund genius Nero Wolfe—has no interest in investigating the stadium slaying, but Archie is swayed by the senator’s suspiciously lovely widow. Her husband was mired hip-deep in corruption, and sorting out who killed him will be a task far less pleasant than an afternoon at the ball park.

��ձ�> 228 Robert Goldsborough 1480445657 Bev 0 3.66 2014 Murder in the Ball Park (Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe Mysteries #9)

Murder in the Ball Park (Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe Mysteries #9)

author: Robert Goldsborough
name: Bev
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/08/10
shelves:
review:

]]> Disappearance at Devil's Rock 27064358 A family is shaken to its core after the mysterious disappearance of a teenage boy in this eerie tale, a blend of literary fiction, psychological suspense, and supernatural horror from the author of A Head Full of Ghosts.

Late one summer night, Elizabeth Sanderson receives the devastating news that every mother fears: her fourteen-year-old son, Tommy, has vanished without a trace in the woods of a local park.

The search isn’t yielding any answers, and Elizabeth and her young daughter, Kate, struggle to comprehend his disappearance. Feeling helpless and alone, their sorrow is compounded by anger and frustration. The local and state police haven’t uncovered any leads. Josh and Luis, the friends who were with Tommy last, may not be telling the whole truth about that night in Borderland State Park, when they were supposedly hanging out at a landmark the local teens have renamed Devil’s Rock— rumored to be cursed.

Living in an all-too-real nightmare, riddled with worry, pain, and guilt, Elizabeth is wholly unprepared for the strange series of events that follow. She believes a ghostly shadow of Tommy materializes in her bedroom, while Kate and other local residents claim to see a shadow peering through their own windows in the dead of night. Then, random pages torn from Tommy’s journal begin to mysteriously appear—entries that reveal an introverted teenager obsessed with the phantasmagoric; the loss of his father, killed in a drunk-driving accident a decade earlier; a folktale involving the devil and the woods of Borderland; and a horrific incident that Tommy believed connected them all and changes everything.

As the search grows more desperate, and the implications of what happened becomes more haunting and sinister, no one is prepared for the shocking truth about that night and Tommy’s disappearance at Devil’s Rock.]]> 327 Paul Tremblay 0062363263 Bev 0 3.56 2016 Disappearance at Devil's Rock

author: Paul Tremblay
name: Bev
average rating: 3.56
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/08/10
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Crossing (Harry Bosch, #18; Harry Bosch Universe, #28)]]> 25010281
Bosch doesn't want anything to do with crossing the aisle to work for the defense. He feels it will undo all the good he's done in his thirty years as a homicide cop. But Mickey promises to let the chips fall where they may. If Harry proves that his client did it, under the rules of discovery, they are obliged to turn over the evidence to the prosecution.

Though it goes against all his instincts, Bosch reluctantly takes the case. The prosecution's file just has too many holes and he has to find out for himself: if Haller's client didn't do it, then who did? With the secret help of his former LAPD partner Lucy Soto, Harry starts digging. Soon his investigation leads him inside the police department, where he realizes that the killer he's been tracking has also been tracking him.]]> 388 Michael Connelly 0316225886 Bev 0 4.20 2015 The Crossing (Harry Bosch, #18; Harry Bosch Universe, #28)

The Crossing (Harry Bosch, #18; Harry Bosch Universe, #28)

author: Michael Connelly
name: Bev
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/08/10
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Burning Room (Harry Bosch, #17; Harry Bosch Universe, #27)]]> 20881071 Now Bosch and his new partner, rookie Detective Lucia Soto, are tasked with solving what turns out to be a highly charged, politically sensitive case. Starting with the bullet that's been lodged for years in the victim's spine, they must pull new leads from years-old information, which soon reveals that this shooting may have been anything but random.

]]> 388 Michael Connelly 0316225932 Bev 0 4.03 2014 The Burning Room (Harry Bosch, #17; Harry Bosch Universe, #27)

author: Michael Connelly
name: Bev
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/08/10
shelves:
review:

]]> The Fever 18656036
Deenie Nash is a diligent student with a close-knit family; her brother Eli is a hockey star, and her father is a popular teacher. But when Deenie's best friend is struck by a terrifying, unexplained seizure in class, the Nashes' seeming stability dissolves into chaos. As rumors of a hazardous outbreak spread through school, and hysteria and contagion swell, a series of tightly held secrets emerges, threatening to unravel friendships, families, and the town's fragile sense of security.

The Fever is a chilling story about guilt, lies, and the lethal power of desire.]]> 307 Megan Abbott 0316231053 Bev 0 3.09 2014

author: Megan Abbott
name: Bev
average rating: 3.09
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/08/10
shelves:
review:

]]> I am Providence 25898713
Colleen’s trip spirals into a nightmare when her roommate for the weekend, an obnoxious novelist known as Panossian, turns up dead, his face neatly removed. What’s more unsettling is that, in the aftermath of the murder, there is little concern among the convention goers. The Summer Tentacular continues uninterrupted, except by a few bumbling police.

Everyone at the convention is a possible suspect, but only Colleen seems to show any interest in solving the murder. So she delves deep into the darkness, where occult truths have been lurking since the beginning of time. A darkness where Panossian is waiting, spending a lot of time thinking about Colleen, narrating a new Lovecraftian tale that could very well spell her doom.
]]> 256 Nick Mamatas 1597808350 Bev 4
Naturally, he's surprised to discover that he still has a consciousness post-mortem. He can hear things going on around him but he has no supernatural insight into the goings-on that ensue. He can no longer see, he speculates, because his murderer stripped the skin from his face—including his eyelids—and his brain has shut down visual input due to the overload.

His world in the afterlife, such as it is, is limited to the morgue where his mutilated body rests and gradually decays, except when it's being dragged out of the drawer so that yet another suspect in his murder can be confronted with it. Panossian gleans a few details about what's going on, but the heavy lifting is done by his former roommate, Colleen Danzig.

The two are in Providence for the Summer Tentacular, an annual convention where all things H. P. Lovecraft are discussed, dissected, belabored and analyzed to death. Many of the attendees are writers—or wannabe writers—or other artists who have been strongly influenced by Lovecraft's weird works. Panossian was a regular attendee, but this is Colleen's first experience with the Tentacular, so she becomes the fresh eyes through which this event is described.

She's an engaging, colorful (she dyed her hair green for the weekend) and energetic avatar. Though she barely knew Panossian and their relationship was strictly platonic, she feels compelled to investigate his murder, especially when it seems that her fellow convention attendees aren't terribly bothered by his death and the police aren't taking certain facts seriously. The main thing that Colleen knows is that Ponossian was in possession of a book called Arkham that was bound in human flesh, which he was attempting to sell so that he could pay his bills. That book is missing after his murder, and Colleen knows that there are any number of avid collectors at the convention who would covet such a volume.

I Am Providence gives Mamatas the opportunity to explore Lovecraft from every angle. Everyone at the Tentacular has an opinion or a pet theory about the author and his work, some of them sound and some beyond the fringe, and they all find a voice here. No conclusions are drawn, but the reader is left with plenty to consider about the man's troubled legacy.

There's a strong temptation to regard the novel as a roman à clef. Mamatas knows his way around genre conventions and his depiction of Panossian's more confrontational behaviors might be interpreted as autobiographical. Who, then, are all these other characters meant to represent? Does it really matter? Anyone who has ever attended a convention of this sort will recognize certain types of people and behavior, even if it isn't possible to attach specific names to all the characters. An insider in that world might make some astute guesses, but the book's success doesn't rely on that aspect. It might have been nice to see a few more sympathetic and likeable characters in the mix, but Panossian's quirky obnoxiousness tends to bring out the worst in people.

Of particular note, Mamatas—via Colleen—shines a spotlight on some of the less attractive aspects of conventions; in particular, the way women are treated. Men with minimal social skills make her feel uncomfortable or violated in the close quarters of party suites, taking huge liberties, and she (and other female attendees) often have to struggle to make their voices heard over the strident lecturing of the domineering men during panel discussions.

All of this insider detail aside, I Am Providence works well as a straight whodunit. This isn't Lovecraft pastiche: the only tentacles are those worn by the attendees or illustrating book covers and pages. Colleen plays Nancy Drew, digging around for clues, dragging details out of recalcitrant cops and potential witnesses, going boldly where no one else seems interested in going. It doesn't seem likely that the police would have the authority to hold an entire hotel's worth of people on the premises for a couple of days, but that's a minor procedural quibble.

A second death ups the stakes, but even then the police seem at a loss to figure out if the two crimes are connected and who might be behind them. Colleen gets her Agatha Christie moment when she theorizes about how things might have happened in front of a captive audience, but she's missing a couple of crucial facts. Mamatas plays fair with the clues, though, and an astute reader might pick up on a couple of things that Colleen doesn't learn until the very end—or at least recognize them in retrospect.]]> 3.12 2016 I am Providence

author: Nick Mamatas
name: Bev
average rating: 3.12
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2016/08/09
date added: 2016/08/10
shelves:
review:
After Susie Salmon is murdered, her ghost narrates The Lovely Bones from a heaven of her own creation, where she's able to see the effects of the crime on those she knew and loved. Author Panossian, a man of Armenian descent whose only published book is a mash-up between the works of H. P. Lovecraft and J. D. Salinger, is less fortunate after he is killed.

Naturally, he's surprised to discover that he still has a consciousness post-mortem. He can hear things going on around him but he has no supernatural insight into the goings-on that ensue. He can no longer see, he speculates, because his murderer stripped the skin from his face—including his eyelids—and his brain has shut down visual input due to the overload.

His world in the afterlife, such as it is, is limited to the morgue where his mutilated body rests and gradually decays, except when it's being dragged out of the drawer so that yet another suspect in his murder can be confronted with it. Panossian gleans a few details about what's going on, but the heavy lifting is done by his former roommate, Colleen Danzig.

The two are in Providence for the Summer Tentacular, an annual convention where all things H. P. Lovecraft are discussed, dissected, belabored and analyzed to death. Many of the attendees are writers—or wannabe writers—or other artists who have been strongly influenced by Lovecraft's weird works. Panossian was a regular attendee, but this is Colleen's first experience with the Tentacular, so she becomes the fresh eyes through which this event is described.

She's an engaging, colorful (she dyed her hair green for the weekend) and energetic avatar. Though she barely knew Panossian and their relationship was strictly platonic, she feels compelled to investigate his murder, especially when it seems that her fellow convention attendees aren't terribly bothered by his death and the police aren't taking certain facts seriously. The main thing that Colleen knows is that Ponossian was in possession of a book called Arkham that was bound in human flesh, which he was attempting to sell so that he could pay his bills. That book is missing after his murder, and Colleen knows that there are any number of avid collectors at the convention who would covet such a volume.

I Am Providence gives Mamatas the opportunity to explore Lovecraft from every angle. Everyone at the Tentacular has an opinion or a pet theory about the author and his work, some of them sound and some beyond the fringe, and they all find a voice here. No conclusions are drawn, but the reader is left with plenty to consider about the man's troubled legacy.

There's a strong temptation to regard the novel as a roman à clef. Mamatas knows his way around genre conventions and his depiction of Panossian's more confrontational behaviors might be interpreted as autobiographical. Who, then, are all these other characters meant to represent? Does it really matter? Anyone who has ever attended a convention of this sort will recognize certain types of people and behavior, even if it isn't possible to attach specific names to all the characters. An insider in that world might make some astute guesses, but the book's success doesn't rely on that aspect. It might have been nice to see a few more sympathetic and likeable characters in the mix, but Panossian's quirky obnoxiousness tends to bring out the worst in people.

Of particular note, Mamatas—via Colleen—shines a spotlight on some of the less attractive aspects of conventions; in particular, the way women are treated. Men with minimal social skills make her feel uncomfortable or violated in the close quarters of party suites, taking huge liberties, and she (and other female attendees) often have to struggle to make their voices heard over the strident lecturing of the domineering men during panel discussions.

All of this insider detail aside, I Am Providence works well as a straight whodunit. This isn't Lovecraft pastiche: the only tentacles are those worn by the attendees or illustrating book covers and pages. Colleen plays Nancy Drew, digging around for clues, dragging details out of recalcitrant cops and potential witnesses, going boldly where no one else seems interested in going. It doesn't seem likely that the police would have the authority to hold an entire hotel's worth of people on the premises for a couple of days, but that's a minor procedural quibble.

A second death ups the stakes, but even then the police seem at a loss to figure out if the two crimes are connected and who might be behind them. Colleen gets her Agatha Christie moment when she theorizes about how things might have happened in front of a captive audience, but she's missing a couple of crucial facts. Mamatas plays fair with the clues, though, and an astute reader might pick up on a couple of things that Colleen doesn't learn until the very end—or at least recognize them in retrospect.
]]> <![CDATA[An Obvious Fact (Walt Longmire, #12)]]> 27774703 In the latest installment of the New York Times bestselling Longmire series—the basis for the hit drama Longmire, now on Netflix—Walt, Henry, and Vic discover much more than they bargained for when they are called in to investigate a hit-and-run accident near Devils Tower

In the midst of the largest motorcycle rally in the world, a young biker is run off the road and ends up in critical condition. When Sheriff Walt Longmire and his good friend Henry Standing Bear are called to Hulett, Wyoming—the nearest town to America's first national monument, Devils Tower—to investigate, things start getting complicated. As competing biker gangs; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms; a military-grade vehicle donated to the tiny local police force by a
wealthy entrepreneur; and Lola, the real-life femme fatale and namesake for Henry's '59 Thunderbird (and, by extension, Walt's granddaughter) come into play, it rapidly becomes clear that there is more to get to the bottom of at this year's Sturgis Motorcycle Rally than a bike accident. After all, in the words of Arthur Conan Doyle, whose Adventures of Sherlock Holmes the Bear won't stop quoting, "There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact."]]> 317 Craig Johnson 0525426949 Bev 0 to-read 4.13 2016 An Obvious Fact (Walt Longmire, #12)

author: Craig Johnson
name: Bev
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/07/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Fireman 20927079
The fireman is coming. Stay cool.

No one knows exactly when it began or where it originated. A terrifying new plague is spreading like wildfire across the country, striking cities one by Boston, Detroit, Seattle. The doctors call it Draco Incendia Trychophyton. To everyone else it’s Dragonscale, a highly contagious, deadly spore that marks its hosts with beautiful black and gold marks across their bodies—before causing them to burst into flames. Millions are infected; blazes erupt everywhere. There is no antidote. No one is safe.

Harper Grayson, a compassionate, dedicated nurse as pragmatic as Mary Poppins, treated hundreds of infected patients before her hospital burned to the ground. Now she’s discovered the telltale gold-flecked marks on her skin. When the outbreak first began, she and her husband, Jakob, had made a they would take matters into their own hands if they became infected. To Jakob’s dismay, Harper wants to live—at least until the fetus she is carrying comes to term. At the hospital, she witnessed infected mothers give birth to healthy babies and believes hers will be fine too. . . if she can live long enough to deliver the child.

Convinced that his do-gooding wife has made him sick, Jakob becomes unhinged, and eventually abandons her as their placid New England community collapses in terror. The chaos gives rise to ruthless Cremation Squads—armed, self-appointed posses roaming the streets and woods to exterminate those who they believe carry the spore. But Harper isn’t as alone as she a mysterious and compelling stranger she briefly met at the hospital, a man in a dirty yellow fire fighter’s jacket, carrying a hooked iron bar, straddles the abyss between insanity and death. Known as The Fireman, he strolls the ruins of New Hampshire, a madman afflicted with Dragonscale who has learned to control the fire within himself, using it as a shield to protect the hunted . . . and as a weapon to avenge the wronged.

In the desperate season to come, as the world burns out of control, Harper must learn the Fireman’s secrets before her life—and that of her unborn child—goes up in smoke.]]> 727 Joe Hill 0062200658 Bev 5 3.96 2016

author: Joe Hill
name: Bev
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2016
rating: 5
read at: 2016/02/02
date added: 2016/02/03
shelves:
review:
Hill's best book to date by far. Fans of THE STAND will love this one.
]]> <![CDATA[To Rise Again at a Decent Hour]]> 18453074 A big, brilliant, profoundly observed novel about the mysteries of modern life by National Book Award Finalist Joshua Ferris, one of the most exciting voices of his generation

Paul O'Rourke is a man made of contradictions: he loves the world, but doesn't know how to live in it. He's a Luddite addicted to his iPhone, a dentist with a nicotine habit, a rabid Red Sox fan devastated by their victories, and an atheist not quite willing to let go of God.

Then someone begins to impersonate Paul online, and he watches in horror as a website, a Facebook page, and a Twitter account are created in his name. What begins as an outrageous violation of his privacy soon becomes something more soul-frightening: the possibility that the online "Paul" might be a better version of the real thing. As Paul's quest to learn why his identity has been stolen deepens, he is forced to confront his troubled past and his uncertain future in a life disturbingly split between the real and the virtual.

At once laugh-out-loud funny about the absurdities of the modern world, and indelibly profound about the eternal questions of the meaning of life, love and truth, To Rise Again at a Decent Hour is a deeply moving and constantly surprising tour de force.]]> 352 Joshua Ferris 0316033979 Bev 4
Paul O'Rourke is the book's first person narrator. By all rights, he should be unlikable. He shuns technology—he still uses a VCR—but is obsessed with his smartphone, which he always calls his "me-machine." He's a successful Park Avenue dentist who is morose, self-absorbed, obsessive, lonely and depressed. He's the kind of guy who was a Red Sox fan so long as they maintained their decades-long record of failing to win the World Series. He sees their success as a betrayal of a mutual pact that required him to doggedly support the underdog (especially against the Yankees, who he reviles).

He's also the kind of guy who, when he falls in love with someone, also falls in love with her family—to the point of obsession. He'd probably be uncomfortable to be around, because he is so clumsy and fawning. His most recent girlfriend, Connie, his office manager, was Jewish, so he studied up on Judaism and started awkward conversations about the holocaust and the Reformation with her relatives. He desperately wants to belong to a family. That's understandable. His father was bipolar and ultimately committed suicide by shooting himself when Paul was nine. His mother did her best in the aftermath of this tragedy, but she's now suffering from dementia, so Paul has no one in his life.

Not even God, which is another of the book's focal points. When he was dating Connie, he was enamored of her faith without any interest or belief in its deity. Another of his employees, Mrs. Convoy, is a devout Christian who can't understand how Paul can refuse to believe in God, but he's adamant—strident, even—on this point. He willingly and aggressively attempts to tear apart other people's belief systems, even when his opinion isn't solicited. His conversations with Mrs. Convoy seem almost one-sided in the way they are depicted. Ferris indicates that Paul speaks without presenting his dialog, which readers must then extrapolate from her response. It's an interesting style, but perhaps a touch overused.

His life takes a strange turn when an odd patient tells him that he's an Ulm. Shortly thereafter, someone creates a website for Paul's dental practice, something his staff has been encouraging him to do. It looks good on the surface, but on Paul's biographical page there are long passages that recount the putative history of the Amalekites, a Biblical tribe that was destroyed by the Israelites. Then a Twitter account and a Facebook page are created in his name, all propagating the story of the Ulm, who were persecuted even worse than Jews were, according to the Cantaveticles, a pseudo-Biblical tract that may contain the first draft of the book of Job. Whoever has hijacked Paul's virtual identity knows a lot about him, including his middle initial, which he has never used. When legal avenues to have the false sites removed fail, Paul engages the perpetrator via email. Because the other person is using his name, at times it seems like Paul is debating himself—and maybe he is.

He has a hard time convincing his colleagues and acquaintances that the tweets and posts, many of them inflammatory and borderline anti-Semitic, aren't his. Nor can he convince his impersonator to leave him alone. And yet he is intrigued, because the basic tenant of the religion of the Ulm is doubt. Their God insists that his followers doubt his existence. Paul can relate to that. And he's not the only one—a rare book expert searches for a copy of the Cantaveticles and "Paul's" posts come to the attention of a self-made billionaire, who casually befriends Paul. The billionaire is another lost soul, trying on and discarding religions in an attempt to find his place in the world. None of this sounds even remotely funny on the surface (and, indeed, there are real tragedies in the novel), but Ferris's style and Paul's offbeat worldview make To Rise Again at a Decent Hour laugh-out-loud hilarious at times.

It all works quite well until Ferris has to wrap the story up. After certain revelations about the nature of the man who has injected himself into Paul's life are made (and why, again, did he choose Paul as the vehicle for his manifestos?) the book lurches to a halt. Ferris uses an epilog to explain Paul's future, but none of what happens there seems to arise organically from what came before. In the final analysis, Paul seems to be no better off after his experience. He's fundamentally unchanged.

A review copy of this showed up in my mailbox. I probably got it via goodreads, though I can't be sure!]]> 3.08 2014 To Rise Again at a Decent Hour

author: Joshua Ferris
name: Bev
average rating: 3.08
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at: 2014/02/22
date added: 2014/02/25
shelves:
review:
To Rise Again at a Decent Hour might best be described as a cross between the humorous writings of Dave Barry or Douglas Adams and the conspiracy-driven novels of Umberto Eco and Dan Brown. In Foucault's Pendulum, Eco had characters create a conspiracy theory on a whim, only to have it take on a life of its own. There's an element of that in Ferris's latest novel, which poses the question: If enough people make loose claims about their history, can these claims become accepted as fact? In the world of Wikipedia, where "truth" is determined by consensus, this seems more possible now than ever before.

Paul O'Rourke is the book's first person narrator. By all rights, he should be unlikable. He shuns technology—he still uses a VCR—but is obsessed with his smartphone, which he always calls his "me-machine." He's a successful Park Avenue dentist who is morose, self-absorbed, obsessive, lonely and depressed. He's the kind of guy who was a Red Sox fan so long as they maintained their decades-long record of failing to win the World Series. He sees their success as a betrayal of a mutual pact that required him to doggedly support the underdog (especially against the Yankees, who he reviles).

He's also the kind of guy who, when he falls in love with someone, also falls in love with her family—to the point of obsession. He'd probably be uncomfortable to be around, because he is so clumsy and fawning. His most recent girlfriend, Connie, his office manager, was Jewish, so he studied up on Judaism and started awkward conversations about the holocaust and the Reformation with her relatives. He desperately wants to belong to a family. That's understandable. His father was bipolar and ultimately committed suicide by shooting himself when Paul was nine. His mother did her best in the aftermath of this tragedy, but she's now suffering from dementia, so Paul has no one in his life.

Not even God, which is another of the book's focal points. When he was dating Connie, he was enamored of her faith without any interest or belief in its deity. Another of his employees, Mrs. Convoy, is a devout Christian who can't understand how Paul can refuse to believe in God, but he's adamant—strident, even—on this point. He willingly and aggressively attempts to tear apart other people's belief systems, even when his opinion isn't solicited. His conversations with Mrs. Convoy seem almost one-sided in the way they are depicted. Ferris indicates that Paul speaks without presenting his dialog, which readers must then extrapolate from her response. It's an interesting style, but perhaps a touch overused.

His life takes a strange turn when an odd patient tells him that he's an Ulm. Shortly thereafter, someone creates a website for Paul's dental practice, something his staff has been encouraging him to do. It looks good on the surface, but on Paul's biographical page there are long passages that recount the putative history of the Amalekites, a Biblical tribe that was destroyed by the Israelites. Then a Twitter account and a Facebook page are created in his name, all propagating the story of the Ulm, who were persecuted even worse than Jews were, according to the Cantaveticles, a pseudo-Biblical tract that may contain the first draft of the book of Job. Whoever has hijacked Paul's virtual identity knows a lot about him, including his middle initial, which he has never used. When legal avenues to have the false sites removed fail, Paul engages the perpetrator via email. Because the other person is using his name, at times it seems like Paul is debating himself—and maybe he is.

He has a hard time convincing his colleagues and acquaintances that the tweets and posts, many of them inflammatory and borderline anti-Semitic, aren't his. Nor can he convince his impersonator to leave him alone. And yet he is intrigued, because the basic tenant of the religion of the Ulm is doubt. Their God insists that his followers doubt his existence. Paul can relate to that. And he's not the only one—a rare book expert searches for a copy of the Cantaveticles and "Paul's" posts come to the attention of a self-made billionaire, who casually befriends Paul. The billionaire is another lost soul, trying on and discarding religions in an attempt to find his place in the world. None of this sounds even remotely funny on the surface (and, indeed, there are real tragedies in the novel), but Ferris's style and Paul's offbeat worldview make To Rise Again at a Decent Hour laugh-out-loud hilarious at times.

It all works quite well until Ferris has to wrap the story up. After certain revelations about the nature of the man who has injected himself into Paul's life are made (and why, again, did he choose Paul as the vehicle for his manifestos?) the book lurches to a halt. Ferris uses an epilog to explain Paul's future, but none of what happens there seems to arise organically from what came before. In the final analysis, Paul seems to be no better off after his experience. He's fundamentally unchanged.

A review copy of this showed up in my mailbox. I probably got it via goodreads, though I can't be sure!
]]> <![CDATA[Three Lives of Tomomi Ishikawa]]> 13165229
What writer Benjamin Constable needs is a real-life adventure wilder than his rampant imagination. And who better to shake up his comfortable Englishman-in-Paris routine than the enigmatic Tomomi “Butterfly” Ishikawa, who has just sent a cryptic suicide note?

She’s planted a slew of clues—in the pages of her journal, on the hard drive of her computer, tucked away in public places, under flowerpots, and behind statues. Heartbroken, confused, and accompanied by an imaginary cat, Ben embarks upon a scavenger hunt leading to charming and unexpected spaces, from the hidden alleys of Paris to the cobblestone streets of New York City.

But Butterfly’s posthumous messages are surprisingly well informed for the words of a dead person, and they’re full of confessions of a past darkened by insanity, betrayal, and murder. The treasures Ben is unearthing are installments of a gruesome memoir. Now he must draw a clear line between the real and surreal if he is to save himself, Butterfly, and what remains of their crazy and amazing friendship.]]> 337 Benjamin Constable 1451667264 Bev 0 to-read 3.67 2011 Three Lives of Tomomi Ishikawa

author: Benjamin Constable
name: Bev
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2013/05/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>