Personally I feel like October should have another week left in it, but here we are. It's Halloween! My your movies be spooky and your candy by your favorite. Stay safe today! Oh, and don't forget to VOTE!
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!
Saturday, October 31, 2020
Friday, October 30, 2020
November TBR
I feel like October has flown by. Halloween is tomorrow and I honestly have had the hardest time picking my TBR. Just like I've had a pretty hard time focusing on one book in the last couple of weeks. So, I had my roommate pick a few books from shelves that I've been meaning to read. On top of these, I've got some Netgalley books, The Lost Village and Lawbreaking Ladies, to pick up. One is my spotlight book this month!
My only goal for next month is to get out of this weird reading rut I've seemed to fallen into. I've liked a lot of the books I've been picking up, but nothing seems to be holding my attention right now. Hopefully, it's chest the weather change and the fact it's getting darker earlier. Because I have a lot of good books planned for this month.
What's everyone gearing up to read in November?
HAPPY READING!!
Thursday, October 29, 2020
Favorite Horror Novels
Halloween is just days away, and to kick off the celebration I thought I'd share some of my favorite scary and spooky stories. Horror is one of my favorite genres whether with books or movies, and I read them all year long. However, the Fall is one of my favorites times to read them with the weather changing and it getting dark sooner. I've come to learn I'm a bit picky when it comes to the books (and movies) that I love in this genre and these are just a few of my favorites that I push on a lot of people. Some sleep with the lights on scary, while others are just weird and spooky and left me a little creeped out. A few it a combination of all of the above.
MY FAVORITES:
I limited my list to the books that really stuck with me after reading them, otherwise I would pages and pages of books. It was kind of fun making this list and seeing the reasons some of these books stuck with me. For example, Woman in Black is the only Susan Hill novella I really like, and Die Softly has stuck with me even though I read it once back in junior high. I think Tommyknockers was my first Stephen King novel, and I read it because I knew he was one of my mom's favorite authors. While Warm Bodies was one fo the first books I won through Goodreads, but stuck with me. NOS4AU nearly ruined Christmas and I made my roommate read the book right after me, and Supernatural Enhancements was one that had me sleeping with the lights on.
There are probably books I didn't think to add to this list because they didn't stick with me quite the ways these books did. Or, just throw me for a loop as much as Monster of Elendhaven did. I honestly need to re-read that book because so much happens in so few pages.
Anybody else has any spooky, or creepy, reads that stuck with them? Ones that recommend to friends?
HAPPY READING!!
Wednesday, October 28, 2020
Waiting on Wednesday
Can't-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Wishful Endings to spotlight and talk about the books we're excited about what we have yet to read. Generally, they are books that have yet to be released but don't have to be. It is based on Waiting on Wednesday, hosted by the fabulous at Breaking the Spine.
You have to remember, he reminded me, that Harvard is older than the U.S. government. You have to remember because Harvard doesn't let you forget.
1969: the height of counterculture and the year universities would seek to curb the unruly spectacle of student protest; the winter that Harvard University would begin the tumultuous process of merging with Radcliffe, its all-female sister school; and the year that Jane Britton, an ambitious 23-year-old graduate student in Harvard's Anthropology Department and daughter of Radcliffe Vice President J. Boyd Britton, would be found bludgeoned to death in her Cambridge, Massachusetts apartment.
Forty years later, Becky Cooper a curious undergrad, will hear the first whispers of the story. In the first telling the body was nameless. The story was this: a Harvard student had had an affair with her professor, and the professor had murdered her in the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology because she'd threatened to talk about the affair. Though the rumor proves false, the story that unfolds, one that Cooper will follow for ten years, is even more complex: a tale of gender inequality in academia, a "cowboy culture" among empowered male elites, the silencing effect of institutions, and our compulsion to rewrite the stories of female victims.
We Keep the Dead Close is a memoir of mirrors, misogyny, and murder. It is at once a rumination on the violence and oppression that rules our revered institutions, a ghost story reflecting one young woman's past onto another's present, and a love story for a girl who was lost to history.
1969: the height of counterculture and the year universities would seek to curb the unruly spectacle of student protest; the winter that Harvard University would begin the tumultuous process of merging with Radcliffe, its all-female sister school; and the year that Jane Britton, an ambitious 23-year-old graduate student in Harvard's Anthropology Department and daughter of Radcliffe Vice President J. Boyd Britton, would be found bludgeoned to death in her Cambridge, Massachusetts apartment.
Forty years later, Becky Cooper a curious undergrad, will hear the first whispers of the story. In the first telling the body was nameless. The story was this: a Harvard student had had an affair with her professor, and the professor had murdered her in the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology because she'd threatened to talk about the affair. Though the rumor proves false, the story that unfolds, one that Cooper will follow for ten years, is even more complex: a tale of gender inequality in academia, a "cowboy culture" among empowered male elites, the silencing effect of institutions, and our compulsion to rewrite the stories of female victims.
We Keep the Dead Close is a memoir of mirrors, misogyny, and murder. It is at once a rumination on the violence and oppression that rules our revered institutions, a ghost story reflecting one young woman's past onto another's present, and a love story for a girl who was lost to history.
HAPPY READING!!
Tuesday, October 27, 2020
New Release Tuesday
Two sisters.
One brutal murder.
A quest for vengeance that will unleash Hell itself…
And an intoxicating romance.
Emilia and her twin sister Vittoria are streghe – witches who live secretly among humans, avoiding notice and persecution. One night, Vittoria misses dinner service at the family’s renowned Sicilian restaurant. Emilia soon finds the body of her beloved twin…desecrated beyond belief. Devastated, Emilia sets out to find her sister’s killer and to seek vengeance at any cost-even if it means using dark magic that’s been long forbidden.
Then Emilia meets Wrath, one of the Wicked-princes of Hell she has been warned against in tales since she was a child. Wrath claims to be on Emilia’s side, tasked by his master with solving the series of women’s murders on the island. But when it comes to the Wicked, nothing is as it seems…
One brutal murder.
A quest for vengeance that will unleash Hell itself…
And an intoxicating romance.
Emilia and her twin sister Vittoria are streghe – witches who live secretly among humans, avoiding notice and persecution. One night, Vittoria misses dinner service at the family’s renowned Sicilian restaurant. Emilia soon finds the body of her beloved twin…desecrated beyond belief. Devastated, Emilia sets out to find her sister’s killer and to seek vengeance at any cost-even if it means using dark magic that’s been long forbidden.
Then Emilia meets Wrath, one of the Wicked-princes of Hell she has been warned against in tales since she was a child. Wrath claims to be on Emilia’s side, tasked by his master with solving the series of women’s murders on the island. But when it comes to the Wicked, nothing is as it seems…
HAPPY READING!!
Monday, October 26, 2020
Short Horror Mini Reviews
This is the second book in the Greenhollow Duology series and told from Silver's point-of-view. We get introduced to a new character Maude, honestly, I could take her or leave her. I understood her point in the story and she's young and ambitious, kind of like Silver in the first book. She was fine. I was not happy with Silver for a good chunk of this book. Like I know your life sucks but really dude. He deserved what Tobias did even if it broke my heart. But, all of these are personal. As for the story itself, it was beautifully written. I had no problem picturing the rocky seaside town of Rothport, or the desolation of the Fey Kingdom. It was a wonderful story of Silver becoming the Green Man, his version, not the version Tobias was, or the one Tobias wanted him to be. I also loved the ending of this book and giving Bramble a part in that ending. Honestly, I'd love to get another volume because I love the main characters in this series!
This was close to a four-star read for me. So close! In fact, I really liked this story and how it was told as a confession. I thought the pacing was great. There was enough padding between the major plot points to get a feeling for the Home and the farms around them. Part of me felt bad for Wilf, but another part of me hated him because of all he kept taking one step forward and two steps back. My heart bled for Hank, that poor kid never had a chance. For me, this book was more grotesque than scary, which was fine by me. I don't mind a bit of gore. My biggest issue was about three-quarters of the way through the book. I just got to the point where Wilf was still talking, and talking, and talking, and all I could think is why are there more pages. Now that being said I did like the twist at the very end. It left with me questions but was also satisfying. I am also really excited to watch the Neflix movie based on this because I think it will translate to the screen well.
HAPPY READING!!
Sunday, October 25, 2020
Cover Runway Sunday
The letter was short. A name, a time, a place.
Marion Lane and the Midnight Murder plunges readers into the heart of London, to the secret tunnels that exist far beneath the city streets. There, a mysterious group of detectives recruited for Miss Brickett’s Investigations & Inquiries use their cunning and gadgets to solve crimes that have stumped Scotland Yard.
Late one night in April 1958, a filing assistant for Miss Brickett’s named Michelle White receives a letter warning her that a heinous act is about to occur. She goes to investigate but finds the room empty. At the stroke of midnight, she is murdered by a killer she can’t see—her death the only sign she wasn’t alone. It becomes chillingly clear that the person responsible must also work for Miss Brickett’s, making everyone a suspect.
Almost unwillingly, Marion Lane, a first-year Inquirer-in-training, finds herself being drawn ever deeper into the investigation. When her friend and mentor is framed for the crime, to clear his name she must sort through the hidden alliances at Miss Brickett’s and secrets dating back to WWII. Masterful, clever and deliciously suspenseful, Marion Lane and the Midnight Murder is a fresh take on the Agatha Christie—style locked-room mystery with an exciting new heroine detective at the helm.
Marion Lane and the Midnight Murder plunges readers into the heart of London, to the secret tunnels that exist far beneath the city streets. There, a mysterious group of detectives recruited for Miss Brickett’s Investigations & Inquiries use their cunning and gadgets to solve crimes that have stumped Scotland Yard.
Late one night in April 1958, a filing assistant for Miss Brickett’s named Michelle White receives a letter warning her that a heinous act is about to occur. She goes to investigate but finds the room empty. At the stroke of midnight, she is murdered by a killer she can’t see—her death the only sign she wasn’t alone. It becomes chillingly clear that the person responsible must also work for Miss Brickett’s, making everyone a suspect.
Almost unwillingly, Marion Lane, a first-year Inquirer-in-training, finds herself being drawn ever deeper into the investigation. When her friend and mentor is framed for the crime, to clear his name she must sort through the hidden alliances at Miss Brickett’s and secrets dating back to WWII. Masterful, clever and deliciously suspenseful, Marion Lane and the Midnight Murder is a fresh take on the Agatha Christie—style locked-room mystery with an exciting new heroine detective at the helm.
HAPPY READING!!
Saturday, October 24, 2020
Dewey's 24-Hour Readathon
I thought I was going to miss this readathon because my new job was in a resturant, which means I have non-traditional hours. But, that changed at thes start of the month and I wasn't about to complain! I'm more excited for Dewey's then usual because I haven't picked up a book in two weeks. I've started a handful of books, but then put them aside for no real reason.
So, my goal for the next 24-hours is to finish all three novellas on my list, and get half way through at This is Not the Jess Show.
We have plenty of snacks set up for today, and a cauldron full of candy, and all the coffee. So much coffee. And, if the weather stays wet and cold I might even start the first fire of the year!
TBR:
What's everyone else got on their TBR for the next 24-hours?
You can follow all the days shenanigans on my Twitter @BookishShh or on Instagram @Bookish_Whisipers!
HAPPY READING!!
Wednesday, October 21, 2020
Waiting on Wednesday
Can't-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Wishful Endings to spotlight and talk about the books we're excited about what we have yet to read. Generally, they are books that have yet to be released but don't have to be. It is based on Waiting on Wednesday, hosted by the fabulous at Breaking the Spine.
The Office meets Stephen King, dressed up in holiday tinsel, in this fun, festive, and frightening horror-comedy set during the horror publishing boom of the ’80s, by New York Times best-selling satirist Andrew Shaffer.
Out of work for months, Lussi Meyer is desperate to work anywhere in publishing. Prestigious Blackwood-Patterson isn’t the perfect fit, but a bizarre set of circumstances leads to her hire and a firm mandate: Lussi must find the next horror superstar to compete with Stephen King, Anne Rice, and Peter Straub. It’s the ’80s, after all, and horror is the hottest genre.
But as soon as she arrives, Lussi finds herself the target of her co-workers' mean-spirited pranks. The hazing reaches its peak during the company’s annual Secret Santa gift exchange, when Lussi receives a demonic-looking object that she recognizes but doesn't understand. Suddenly, her coworkers begin falling victim to a series of horrific accidents akin to a George Romero movie, and Lussi suspects that her gift is involved. With the help of her former author, the flamboyant Fabien Nightingale, Lussi must track down her anonymous Secret Santa and figure out the true meaning of the cursed object in her possession before it destroys the company—and her soul.
Out of work for months, Lussi Meyer is desperate to work anywhere in publishing. Prestigious Blackwood-Patterson isn’t the perfect fit, but a bizarre set of circumstances leads to her hire and a firm mandate: Lussi must find the next horror superstar to compete with Stephen King, Anne Rice, and Peter Straub. It’s the ’80s, after all, and horror is the hottest genre.
But as soon as she arrives, Lussi finds herself the target of her co-workers' mean-spirited pranks. The hazing reaches its peak during the company’s annual Secret Santa gift exchange, when Lussi receives a demonic-looking object that she recognizes but doesn't understand. Suddenly, her coworkers begin falling victim to a series of horrific accidents akin to a George Romero movie, and Lussi suspects that her gift is involved. With the help of her former author, the flamboyant Fabien Nightingale, Lussi must track down her anonymous Secret Santa and figure out the true meaning of the cursed object in her possession before it destroys the company—and her soul.
HAPPY READING!!
Tuesday, October 20, 2020
New Release Tuesday
From the decipherment of hieroglyphics in 1822 to the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb by Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon a hundred years later, the uncovering of Egypt’s ancient past took place in an atmosphere of grand adventure and international rivalry.
In A World Beneath the Sands, acclaimed Egyptologist Toby Wilkinson chronicles the ruthless race between the British, French, Germans, and Americans to lay claim to its mysteries and treasures. He tells riveting stories of the men and women whose obsession with Egypt’s ancient civilization helped to enrich and transform our understanding of the Nile Valley and its people, and left a lasting impression on Egypt, too. Travelers and treasure-hunters, ethnographers and archaeologists: whatever their motives, whatever their methods, a century of adventure and scholarship revealed a lost world, buried for centuries beneath the sands.
In A World Beneath the Sands, acclaimed Egyptologist Toby Wilkinson chronicles the ruthless race between the British, French, Germans, and Americans to lay claim to its mysteries and treasures. He tells riveting stories of the men and women whose obsession with Egypt’s ancient civilization helped to enrich and transform our understanding of the Nile Valley and its people, and left a lasting impression on Egypt, too. Travelers and treasure-hunters, ethnographers and archaeologists: whatever their motives, whatever their methods, a century of adventure and scholarship revealed a lost world, buried for centuries beneath the sands.
Sunday, October 18, 2020
Cover Runway Sunday
Who's ready to sparkle??
Project Runway goes to Comic Con in an epic queer love story about creativity, passion, and finding the courage to be your most authentic self.
Raffy has a passion for bedazzling. Not just bedazzling, but sewing, stitching, draping, pattern making--for creation. He's always chosen his art over everything--and everyone--else and is determined to make his mark at this year's biggest cosplay competition. If he can wow there, it could lead to sponsorship, then art school, and finally earning real respect for his work. There's only one small problem... Raffy's ex-boyfriend, Luca, is his main competition.
Raffy tried to make it work with Luca. They almost made the perfect team last year after serendipitously meeting in the rhinestone aisle at the local craft store--or at least Raffy thought they did. But Luca's insecurities and Raffy's insistence on crafting perfection caused their relationship to crash and burn. Now, Raffy is after the perfect comeback, one that Luca can't ruin.
But when Raffy is forced to partner with Luca on his most ambitious build yet, he'll have to juggle unresolved feelings for the boy who broke his heart, and his own intense self-doubt, to get everything he's ever wanted: choosing his art, his way.
Project Runway goes to Comic Con in an epic queer love story about creativity, passion, and finding the courage to be your most authentic self.
Raffy has a passion for bedazzling. Not just bedazzling, but sewing, stitching, draping, pattern making--for creation. He's always chosen his art over everything--and everyone--else and is determined to make his mark at this year's biggest cosplay competition. If he can wow there, it could lead to sponsorship, then art school, and finally earning real respect for his work. There's only one small problem... Raffy's ex-boyfriend, Luca, is his main competition.
Raffy tried to make it work with Luca. They almost made the perfect team last year after serendipitously meeting in the rhinestone aisle at the local craft store--or at least Raffy thought they did. But Luca's insecurities and Raffy's insistence on crafting perfection caused their relationship to crash and burn. Now, Raffy is after the perfect comeback, one that Luca can't ruin.
But when Raffy is forced to partner with Luca on his most ambitious build yet, he'll have to juggle unresolved feelings for the boy who broke his heart, and his own intense self-doubt, to get everything he's ever wanted: choosing his art, his way.
HAPPY READING!!
Thursday, October 15, 2020
A Diary of a Haunting
Author: M. Verano
Genre: Young Adult / Horror
Format: Hardback
Pages: 313
This was a bit of a disappointing read for me. From the synopsis and the cover, it seemed like this story had a lot of potential. I also really liked that it was set up in a journal format that way it a first-hand account of what was going on inside the house, and I just love a good haunted house story. Unfortunately, everything just fell a little bit flat for me.
Except for Paige, our main character, I really did like her. Throughout the whole story, she kept trying to figure out what was happening to her family. To figure out what was wrong with the house. Only to find out the whole time the downstairs neighbor had all the answers but refused until the last minute to help. And I understand that when bad things happen to people they want to talk to about them, but he could have pointed Paige in the right direction of answers. Instead, he waited until he no other choice and even then getting answers out of him was trusting. I was frustrating just reading.
Then there was Paige's mother. I understand she was supposed to be an old school hippie, a pacifist, and music of some kind, but really she was a bad mom. She ignored the signs that something was wrong with her son until the last minute, and constantly Paige to be more positive and ignoring her when she killed bugs. But really when there are that many spiders and flies it's time to call the exterminator women. Throughout the whole book, Paige would go to her and her mother would blow off her concerns, and I couldn't honestly write paragraphs on what was wrong with the physiologist.
And, for a story about a haunted house, the house wasn't really haunted, or cursed, or possessed. There were moments when I thought the build-up was going somewhere but it didn't. The only really paranormal thing about the house is something that would go missing, then turn up later only to have multiplied. I understand that goes into the Pronoica part of the story, but since the backstory happens so close to the end, it really doesn't do much good. There wasn't a moment where I was more than grossed out because of spider nests, or flies flying into mouths. I was just a drafty old house.
The whole backstory was kind of lackluster for me as well. While pieces did explain what was happening to Logan, the younger brother, it just didn't leave me at the edge of my seat. Or, honestly make much sense as a whole.
Also, the ending didn't make much sense either. It honestly felt like it came from left-field since you only got Paige's side of the story, but everyone kept telling her she changed and had been acting strange. But, the only sign we ever got was in the last few pages when she attacked the downstairs neighbor in her sleep. So really the ending made no sense and didn't feel like it tied with the story, and then there is the article at the end about a wildfire not burning the house down.
It all felt disconnected in the last hundred pages or so. The writing itself was solid, I just felt like Paige could have been a strong lead character than she was used for. There were whole opportunities for her figure things out through the duplicate journal pages and letters. I'm not sure if the author wanted her to be a dumb high school kid. But, then why was there the experiment with the flies? I feel like Paige had more potential than she was given. This story also had more potential to be scary than it was given as well.
So, I liked the book in the fact it had potential, but I don't see myself finishing this series.
HAPPY READING!!
Wednesday, October 14, 2020
Waiting on Wednesday
Can't-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Wishful Endings to spotlight and talk about the books we're excited about what we have yet to read. Generally, they are books that have yet to be released but don't have to be. It is based on Waiting on Wednesday, hosted by the fabulous at Breaking the Spine.
Daffodil Franklin has plans for a quiet summer before her freshman year at college, and luckily, she’s found the job that can give her just that: housesitting a mansion for a wealthy couple.
But as the summer progresses and shadows lengthen, Daffodil comes to realize the house is more than it appears. The spacious home seems to close in on her, and as she takes the long road into town, she feels eyes on her the entire way, and something tugging her back.
What Daffodil doesn’t yet realize is that her job comes with a steep price. The house has a long-ago grudge it needs to settle . . . and Daffodil is the key to settling it.
Why I'm Waiting: I mean they had me at creepy house.
HAPPY READING!!
Tuesday, October 13, 2020
New Release Tuesday
In the aftermath of Headmaster Boddy’s murder, Blackbrook Academy has been thrown into complete disarray. Half the student body hasn’t bothered to return to campus—but those who have include Orchid, Vaughn, Scarlett, Peacock, Plum, and Mustard, now warily referred to by the other students as the Murder Crew. When another staff member is found dead and an anonymous threat begins to target the group, each of the teen’s opportunistic reasons for sticking around come to light. Orchid’s identity comes under question while Vaughn’s family life takes a turn; Finn and Mustard grow closer; and Scarlett and Beth struggle to turn over new leaves. All of this comes to a dramatic head at Tudor House with a cliff-hanger...
HAPPY READING!!
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