en-US Tue, 16 Nov 2021 00:45:37 -0800 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg 51160099
A dinner party is held in the penthouse of a multimillion-pound development. All the guests are strangers - even to their host, the billionaire owner of the building. None of them know why they were selected to receive his invitation. Whether privileged or deprived, besides a postcode, they share only one thing in common - they've all experienced a shocking disturbance within the building's walls.

By the end of the night, their host is dead, and none of the guests ever said what happened. His death remains one of the biggest unsolved mysteries - until now.

But are you ready for their stories?

Jonathan Sims' debut is a darkly twisted, genre-bending journey through one of the most innovative haunted houses you'll ever dare to enter.]]> 390 Jonathan Sims 1473228735 Mick 5 3.82 2020
author: Jonathan Sims
name: Mick
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2021/01/05
date added: 2021/11/16
shelves: horror-fiction, best-of-2020-fiction
review:

]]> 52962320 In this terrifying ghost story based on true events, the President’s late son haunts the White House, threatening all who live in it—and the divided America beyond its walls. From the bestselling author of The Homecoming.

The year is 1853. President-elect Franklin Pierce is traveling with his family to Washington, DC, when tragedy strikes. In an instant, their train runs off the rails, violently flinging passengers about the cabin. When the great iron machine finally comes to rest, the only casualty is the Pierces’ son, Bennie. The loss sends First Lady Jane Pierce into mourning, and casts Franklin’s presidency under a pall of sorrow and grief.

As the Pierces move into the White House, they are soon plagued by events both bizarre and disturbing. Strange sounds seem to come from the walls and ceiling, ghostly voices echo out of time itself, and visions of spirits crushed under the weight of American history pass through empty hallways. But when Jane orchestrates a séance with the infamous Fox Sisters—the most noted Spiritualists of the day—the barrier between this world and the next is torn asunder. Something horrific comes through and takes up residence alongside Franklin and Jane in the very walls of the mansion itself.

Only by overcoming their grief and confronting their darkest secrets can Jane and Franklin hope to rid themselves—and America—of the entity that seeks to make the White House its permanent home.]]> 343 Andrew Pyper 1982147369 Mick 4 best-of-2020-fiction 3.27 2020
author: Andrew Pyper
name: Mick
average rating: 3.27
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2020/10/09
date added: 2020/12/30
shelves: best-of-2020-fiction
review:

]]> 56055114 • La lettura perfetta per i fan dei film Suicide Squad e Birds of Prey e la fantasmagorica rinascita di Harley Quinn!
• Una storia spumeggiante che reinventa le origini di un personaggio amatissimo!
• E se il Cavaliere Oscuro ostacolasse l’amore tra Harleen Quinzel e Joker?

Contiene: Harleen #1-3]]> 208 Stjepan Šejić 8828731397 Mick 5 4.60 2020
author: Stjepan Šejić
name: Mick
average rating: 4.60
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2020/08/10
date added: 2020/12/29
shelves: graphic-novels, best-of-2020-fiction
review:

]]> 52381770
It worries about the fragile human crew who've grown to trust it, but only where no one can see.

It tells itself that they're only a professional obligation, but when they're captured and an old friend from the past requires urgent assistance, Murderbot must choose between inertia and drastic action.

Drastic action it is, then.

]]> 350 Martha Wells 1250229863 Mick 5 4.44 2020
author: Martha Wells
name: Mick
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2020/11/18
date added: 2020/11/17
shelves: science-fiction, best-of-2020-fiction
review:

]]> 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 Mick 5 3.68 2020
author: Stephen Graham Jones
name: Mick
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2020/11/15
date added: 2020/11/15
shelves: horror-fiction, best-of-2020-fiction
review:

]]> 51171377
It’s fall 2007. A well-timed leak has revealed that the US government might have engaged in first contact. Cora Sabino is doing everything she can to avoid the whole mess, since the force driving the controversy is her whistleblower father. Even though Cora hasn’t spoken to him in years, his celebrity has caught the attention of the press, the Internet, the paparazzi, and the government—and with him in hiding, that attention is on her. She neither knows nor cares whether her father’s leaks are a hoax, and wants nothing to do with him—until she learns just how deeply entrenched her family is in the cover-up, and that an extraterrestrial presence has been on Earth for decades.

Realizing the extent to which both she and the public have been lied to, she sets out to gather as much information as she can, and finds that the best way for her to uncover the truth is not as a whistleblower, but as an intermediary. The alien presence has been completely uncommunicative until she convinces one of them that she can act as their interpreter, becoming the first and only human vessel of communication. Their otherworldly connection will change everything she thought she knew about being human—and could unleash a force more sinister than she ever imagined.]]> 384 Lindsay Ellis 1250256739 Mick 5 3.68 2020
author: Lindsay Ellis
name: Mick
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2020/10/14
date added: 2020/10/14
shelves: science-fiction, best-of-2020-fiction
review:

]]> 52869814 A spine-tingling portrait of our obsession with technology, from the Man Booker International-shortlisted literary star

They look harmless enough: you could even call them cute. Not quite a phone, not quite a toy, not quite a robot, these are Kentukis. And it doesn’t take long for these apparently innocent devices to fall prey to our dark obsession with technology.

Little Eyes is a chilling portrait of our compulsively interconnected society. Schweblin irresistibly pulls the reader into an unsettling world of voyeurism, narcissism and the sinister reality that lies beneath the most seductive of masks.]]> 256 Samanta Schweblin 1786077922 Mick 5 3.57 2018
author: Samanta Schweblin
name: Mick
average rating: 3.57
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at: 2020/09/29
date added: 2020/10/03
shelves: science-fiction, best-of-2020-fiction
review:

]]> 53152636
Noemí is also an unlikely rescuer: She’s a glamorous debutante, and her chic gowns and perfect red lipstick are more suited for cocktail parties than amateur sleuthing. But she’s also tough and smart, with an indomitable will, and she is not afraid: Not of her cousin’s new husband, who is both menacing and alluring; not of his father, the ancient patriarch who seems to be fascinated by Noemí; and not even of the house itself, which begins to invade Noemi’s dreams with visions of blood and doom.

Her only ally in this inhospitable abode is the family’s youngest son. Shy and gentle, he seems to want to help Noemí, but might also be hiding dark knowledge of his family’s past. For there are many secrets behind the walls of High Place. The family’s once colossal wealth and faded mining empire kept them from prying eyes, but as Noemí digs deeper she unearths stories of violence and madness.

And NoemĂ­, mesmerized by the terrifying yet seductive world of High Place, may soon find it impossible to ever leave this enigmatic house behind.]]> 320 Silvia Moreno-Garcia 0525620788 Mick 5 3.66 2020
author: Silvia Moreno-Garcia
name: Mick
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2020/08/19
date added: 2020/08/22
shelves: horror-fiction, best-of-2020-fiction
review:

]]> 42074525
Every city has a soul. Some are as ancient as myths, and others are as new and destructive as children. New York City? She's got five.

But every city also has a dark side. A roiling, ancient evil stirs beneath the earth, threatening to destroy the city and her five protectors unless they can come together and stop it once and for all.]]> 437 N.K. Jemisin Mick 5 3.83 2020
author: N.K. Jemisin
name: Mick
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2020/08/16
date added: 2020/08/15
shelves: fantasy-fiction, best-of-2020-fiction
review:

]]> 52257262 The Earth is in environmental collapse. The future of humanity hangs in the balance. But a team of women are preparing to save it. Even if they’ll need to steal a spaceship to do it.

Despite increasing restrictions on the freedoms of women on Earth, Valerie Black is spearheading the first all-female mission to a planet in the Goldilocks Zone, where conditions are just right for human habitation.

The team is humanity's last hope for survival, and Valerie has gathered the best women for the mission: an ace pilot who is one of the only astronauts ever to have gone to Mars; a brilliant engineer tasked with keeping the ship fully operational; and an experienced doctor to keep the crew alive. And then there's Naomi Lovelace, Valerie's surrogate daughter and the ship's botanist, who has been waiting her whole life for an opportunity to step out of Valerie's shadow and make a difference.

The problem is that they’re not the authorized crew, even if Valerie was the one to fully plan the voyage. When their mission is stolen from them, they steal the ship bound for the new planet.

But when things start going wrong on board, Naomi begins to suspect that someone is concealing a terrible secret -- and realizes time for life on Earth may be running out faster than they feared . . .

Goldilocks is a bold and thought-provoking new thriller for readers of The Martian and The Handmaid's Tale.]]> 352 L.R. Lam 1472267648 Mick 5 3.69 2020
author: L.R. Lam
name: Mick
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2020/08/05
date added: 2020/08/05
shelves: science-fiction, best-of-2020-fiction
review:

]]> 53318847
In this unflinching new anthology, twelve of Australia’s most daring Indigenous writers and writers of colour provide a glimpse of Australia as we head toward the year 2050.

Featuring Ambelin Kwaymullina, Claire G. Coleman, Omar Sakr, Future D. Fidel, Karen Wyld, Khalid Warsame, Kaya Ortiz, Roanna Gonsalves, Sarah Ross, Zoya Patel, Michelle Law and Hannah Donnelly. Edited by Michael Mohammed Ahmad. Original concept by Lena Nahlous.

Published by Affirm Press in partnership with Diversity Arts Australia and Sweatshop Literacy Movement.]]> 288 Michael Mohammed Ahmad 192597281X Mick 5 3.85 2020
author: Michael Mohammed Ahmad
name: Mick
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2020/07/22
date added: 2020/07/22
shelves: anthologies-and-collections, best-of-2020-fiction
review:

]]> 43719523
Rooted in the hope that can live in anger, Riot Baby is as much an intimate family story as a global dystopian narrative. It burns fearlessly toward revolution and has quietly devastating things to say about love, fury, and the black American experience.

Ella and Kev are both shockingly human and immeasurably powerful. Their childhoods are defined and destroyed by racism. Their futures might alter the world.]]> 167 Tochi Onyebuchi 1250214769 Mick 5 3.72 2020
author: Tochi Onyebuchi
name: Mick
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2020/02/17
date added: 2020/07/20
shelves: science-fiction, best-of-2020-fiction
review:

]]> 53411405
This is the story of just such a man. Like the others, he had a sword. He slew until slain. Unlike the others, we remember him. We remember King Arthur.

This is the story of a land neither green nor pleasant. An eldritch isle of deep forest and dark fell haunted by swaithes, boggarts and tod-lowries, Robin-Goodfellows and Jenny Greenteeths, and predators of rarer appetite yet.

This is the story of a legend forged from a pack of self-serving, turd-gilding, weasel-worded lies told to justify foul deeds and ill-gotten gains.

This is the story – viscerally entertaining, ominously subversive and poetically profane – of a Dark Age myth that shaped a nation.]]> 512 Lavie Tidhar Mick 5 3.52 2020
author: Lavie Tidhar
name: Mick
average rating: 3.52
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2020/06/21
date added: 2020/06/21
shelves: fantasy-fiction, best-of-2020-fiction
review:

]]> 46158562 thing, is haunting the Titanic. This is the only way to explain the series of misfortunes that have plagued the passengers of the ship from the moment they set mysterious disappearances, sudden deaths. Now suspended in an eerie, unsettling twilight zone during the four days of the liner's illustrious maiden voyage, a number of the passengers - including millionaires Madeleine Astor and Benjamin Guggenheim, the maid Annie Hebbley and Mark Fletcher - are convinced that something sinister is going on... And then, as the world knows, disaster strikes.

Years later and the world is at war. And a survivor of that fateful night, Annie, is working as a nurse on the sixth voyage of the Titanic's sister ship, the Britannic, now refitted as a hospital ship. Plagued by the demons of her doomed first and near fatal journey across the Atlantic, Annie comes across an unconscious soldier she recognises while doing her rounds. It is the young man Mark. And she is convinced that he did not - could not - have survived the sinking of the Titanic...

Brilliantly combining fact and fiction, the historical and the horrific, The Deep reveals a chilling truth in an unputdownable narrative full of unnerving moments and with a growing, inexorable sense of foreboding.]]> 432 Alma Katsu 1473564492 Mick 5 3.30 2020
author: Alma Katsu
name: Mick
average rating: 3.30
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2020/04/26
date added: 2020/06/14
shelves: historical-fiction, horror-fiction, best-of-2020-fiction
review:

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