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.

Divided by their castes. United by their vengeance.

Iraya has spent her life in a cell, but every day brings her closer to freedom—and vengeance.

Jazmyne is the queen’s daughter, but unlike her sister before her, she has no intention of dying to strengthen her mother’s power.

Sworn enemies, these two witches enter a precarious alliance to take down a mutual threat. But revenge is a bloody pursuit, and nothing is certain—except the lengths they will go to win this game.

Deadly, fierce, magnetically addictive: this Jamaican-inspired fantasy debut is a thrilling journey where dangerous magic reigns supreme and betrayal lurks beneath every word.

Why I'm Waiting: Everything about this has my attention and sounds like something I won't be able to put down.

HAPPY READING!!

New Release Tuesday

The last thing Barclay Thorne ever wanted was an adventure.

Thankfully, as an apprentice to the town’s mushroom farmer, Barclay need only work hard and follow the rules to one day become the head mushroom farmer himself. No danger required. But then Barclay accidentally breaks his town’s most sacred rule: never ever EVER stray into the Woods, for within the Woods lurk vicious magical Beasts.

To Barclay’s horror, he faces a fate far worse than being eaten: he unwittingly bonds with a Beast and is run out of town by an angry mob. Determined to break this bond and return home, Barclay journeys to find the mysterious town of Lore Keepers, people who have also bonded with Beasts and share their powers.

But after making new friends, entering a dangerous apprenticeship exam, and even facing the legendary Beast of the Woods, Barclay must make a difficult choice: return to the home and rules he’s always known, or embrace the adventure awaiting him.

HAPPY READING!!

Our Last Echoes - Review

Author: Kate Alice Marshall

Genre: Paranormal / Young Adult

Format: Hardback

Pages: 416

The cover for Our Last Echoes is what originally caught my eye and then the tag line at the bottom. Then I saw it being compared to the TV show Twin Peaks and I was completely sold. Both these things being said I did go into this book not completely sure what I was getting myself into, and I think this time that was one of the reasons I enjoyed this book so much. After finishing this I would say this book is more LOST than Twin Peaks.

Our Last Echoes doesn't ease you into this story. It starts you in the middle before jumping back to the present day. Which does grab your attention from the word go, but also gave me a bit of whiplash. It took me a bit to get my footing with this book, and a part of me thinks that while Our Last Echoes is a standalone book, it connects to another book by Kate Alice Marshall, The Rules of Vanishing. Both of these books not only exist in the same world but by the end of the book connect. You don't have to read one before the other.

I will say the story does move rather quickly, and it's hard to find a place to stop for things like sleep and work. Every time you think you've found a spot to walk away from for a few minutes, something else happened. I also liked how we got back the story of what happened to Sophie's mother. Joy's story is told through a transcript of a video that was recorded at the time of the incident. What I liked about this, is you got to experience Joy's story just as much as Sophie's. It didn't become dry or glossed over. You were with Joy through it all, and it connected to Sophie's story and affected the outcome of the end of the book itself.

The plot for this book is one of my favorite scary tropes of Doppelgangers. I liked the way that Kate Alice Marshall morphed that trope with another of my favorites. Altogether I thought it morphed into a wonderful story that kept me turning the pages because I wanted to know what was happening on this island, how were keeping it a secret, and why were we not making a bigger deal of the fact it was spreading. As you read you start to ask more and more questions that slowly get answered than there are more questions. 

I will admit I stayed up way past my bedtime to finish this book. The last hundred pages are so were hard to put down as all the answers started to come together to one explosive ending. 

And that ending, I loved it. With books like Our Last Echoes, I like when it leaves with more than just a few questions left unanswered right at the end. That you don't really know a handful of things. Kate Alice Marshall did set it up so there could be another book series to tie up a few things that were brought to light about another character, but things with our main character were tied up at the end.

My only real issue, and what kept this from a five-star was read, was that I didn't get connect with a single character in this book. They aren't terrible characters, there just wasn't one that I connected with on a personal level. Well, there was the crow Moriarty. I was really worried about him at the end, but as for the human characters. Yeah, I don't think I would have been too overly sad if the main three had died.

But, the crazy twisted story that Kate Alice Marshal tells sucked me right in. I spent the whole book just needing to know the hell was going on with this island! This means I have added The Rule of Vanishing to my TBR, and I'd read another book set in this universe.

HAPPY READING!!

Cover Runway Sunday

They say don't judge a book by its cover, but we all know we do it. Sometimes it's the cover that originally catches our eye, drawing us to give a book a closer look. It's the first thing we see, our first impression. Every Sunday I'm going to post some of my favorite covers of books coming soon!

Wynd seems like a regular boy in the fantastical world of Esseriel, except he’s got a magical secret. Now he’s set off on a journey with his best friend and the boy of his dreams to discover the magic in the world around him and, most importantly, within himself.

YOU CAN’T FIND YOUR HOME UNTIL YOU FIND YOURSELF.

Wynd lives a quiet life in Pipetown -- working at the local tavern, out of sight in the secret rooms beneath the floorboards, often stealing away to catch glimpses of the son of the castle’s groundskeeper as he works.
 
But Wynd also has a secret… magical blood betrayed by his pointed ears, forbidden within the city limits. His shaggy hair has obscured them for most of his life, but now that Wynd is a teenager they are growing too unwieldy to hide.
 
Joined by his best friend Oakley and Thorn, the groundskeeper’s son, Wynd’s strange dreams and an encounter with the city guard send him on the most dangerous adventure he could imagine, where Wynd will discover the magic in the world around him and, most importantly, the magic within himself.

HAPPY READING!!

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.

Inspired by the McMartin preschool trials and the Satanic Panic of the ‘80s, the critically acclaimed author of The Remaking delivers another pulse-pounding, true-crime-based horror novel.

Richard doesn’t have a past. For him, there is only the present: a new marriage to Tamara, the first chance at fatherhood to her son Elijah, and quiet but pleasant life as an art teacher at Elijah’s elementary school in Danvers, Virginia. Then the body of a rabbit, ritualistically murdered, appears on the school grounds with a birthday card for Richard tucked beneath it. Richard doesn’t have a birthday—but Sean does . . .

Sean is a five-year-old boy who has just moved to Greenfield, Virginia, with his mother. Like most mothers of the 1980s, she’s worried about bills, childcare, putting food on the table . . . and an encroaching threat to American life that can take the face of anyone: a politician, a friendly neighbor, or even a teacher. When Sean’s school sends a letter to the parents revealing that Sean’s favorite teacher is under investigation, a white lie from Sean lights a fire that engulfs the entire nation—and Sean and his mother are left holding the match.

Now, thirty years later, someone is here to remind Richard that they remember what Sean did. And though Sean doesn’t exist anymore, someone needs to pay the price for his lies. 

Why I'm Waiting: I had to google the McMartin Preschool Trial, but they had me Satanic Panic of the 80's.

HAPPY READING!!

New Release Tuesday

It's been five years since Wendy and her two brothers went missing in the woods, but when the town’s children start to disappear, the questions surrounding her brothers’ mysterious circumstances are brought back into the light. Attempting to flee her past, Wendy almost runs over an unconscious boy lying in the middle of the road and gets pulled into the mystery haunting the town.

Peter, a boy she thought lived only in her stories, claims that if they don't do something, the missing children will meet the same fate as her brothers. In order to find them and rescue the missing kids, Wendy must confront what's waiting for her in the woods.

HAPPY READING!!

Cover Runway Sunday

They say don't judge a book by its cover, but we all know we do it. Sometimes it's the cover that originally catches our eye, drawing us to give a book a closer look. It's the first thing we see, our first impression. Every Sunday I'm going to post some of my favorite covers of books coming soon!

It knows your fear...

Summer, 1989. Four best friends—Gabe, Kimberly, Charlie, and Sonya—are preparing for their last summer together before senior year, after which they’ll all be splitting up to start college in different parts of the country. They make a promise to always find their way back to each other, no matter how far away from their sleepy Pennsylvania hometown they get.

But their plans are destroyed when a plane crashes right on top of their favorite hangout outside of town—and right on top of them.

In the catastrophic aftermath of the incident, Gabe, Sonya and Charlie are plagued by eerie visions and messages from an unknown watcher. They soon realize that the plane crash was no accident, and now they are being hunted by a sinister presence. And everyone is still searching for Kimberly, who has been missing ever since Gabe saw somebody wearing a gas mask carry her out of the woods the day the sky fell down on them...

HAPPY READING!!

Upright Women Wanted - Review

Author: Sarah Gailey

Genre: Novella / Alt. History / Western

Format: Hardback

Pages: 175

This is one of those books where I thought I knew what I was getting myself into, a little bit, but actually had no idea. Between the synopsis and reviews, I thought I had a pretty good idea what Upright Women Wanted was about. Now let me say, sometimes it's good to be wrong. This book was so much more than I thought, and I still have no idea how Sarah Gailey packs so much into their books as they as do. 

I loved this book, and I would love to have another novella in this universe. It would be so cool to see what exactly caused the world to become the way it currently is, I would love to see Bet's backstory and Cye's, or even a sequel set a few years later. But, I don't need it because I adored how this book ended with Esther finally accepting herself. I loved the representation Sarah Gailey brought to the story, and I feel like this was a story a lot of people needed to hear for many different reasons. I love how they give you just enough information to form an idea of what this future world holds and how character driver this story was.

Esther wasn't my favorite character in the novella, but as the main character, I loved watching her grow throughout this journey. She goes through a lot very quickly and through it, she finds herself and a way to accept herself. And toward the end of the book, I found myself rooting for her to make the right choice.

The size of this story is also perfect in my opinion. Sarah Gailey somehow manages to create a world, badass characters, drama, and shove it into so few pages, and it blows my mind every time. There are slow-building scenes as Esther meets the Librarians and starts on her path as their stowaway. After that, it's literally one moment after another until the Librarians finally reach Utah. Any longer than novella length and I feel like the story would have dragged. Personally, I love learning about the world through the story. I don't want a ton of chapters just telling about the past. I'd much rather do like Gailey did here and teach as they tell a story. Give us key facts and let us build the world around it. Because Upright Women Wanted is so short there is no good place to put down this book. Too much is going on.

And honestly, I go invested in the romance. This is something I don't always do, but here I couldn't help it. I was rooting for them the maybe three, or four, chapters, and I love how it ended. Yeah, it's an open ending where we don't know, but it's so hopeful at the same time. Like maybe that was the year Leda was talking about, and not a year on the road.

Upright Women Wanted has given me such a book hangover. Because this book hits on a cellular level. Some days I feel like maybe the world isn't so far away from the world Sarah Gailey created here on some level, but to also have ended on such a hopeful note. This book packs a punch for a hundred and seventy-five pages. I'm having a hard time letting go of this book, and I'm definitely going to go back and read it again because I feel like maybe there were things I missed the first time around. Sarah Gailey is one of my favorite authors, and this book is exactly why.

HAPPY READING!!

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.

Prince Tal has long awaited his coming-of-age tour. After spending most of his life cloistered behind palace walls as he learns to keep his forbidden magic secret, he can finally see his family’s kingdom for the first time. His first taste of adventure comes just two days into the journey when their crew discovers a mysterious prisoner on a burning derelict vessel.

Tasked with watching over the prisoner, Tal is surprised to feel an intense connection with the roguish Athlen. So when Athlen leaps overboard and disappears, Tal feels responsible and heartbroken, knowing Athlen could not have survived in the open ocean.

That is, until Tal runs into Athlen days later on dry land, very much alive, and as charming—and secretive—as ever. But before they can pursue anything further, Tal is kidnapped by pirates and held ransom in a plot to reveal his rumored powers and instigate a war. Tal must escape if he hopes to save his family and the kingdom. And Athlen might just be his only hope…

Why I'm Waiting: This sounds adorable and fun and I've been waiting forever for this.

HAPPY READING!!

New Release Tuesday

Marjorie Glatt’s life hasn’t been the same ever since she discovered a group of ghosts hiding in her family’s laundromat. Wendell, who died young and now must wander Earth as a ghost with nothing more than a sheet for a body, soon became one of Marjorie’s only friends. But when Marjorie finally gets accepted by the popular kids at school, she begins to worry that if anyone learns about her secret ghost friends, she’ll be labeled as a freak who sees dead people. With Marjorie’s insistence on keeping Wendell’s ghost identity a secret from her new friends, Wendell begins to feel even more invisible than he already is.

Eliza Duncan feels invisible too. She’s an avid photographer, and her zealous interest in finding and photographing ghosts gets her labeled as “different” by all the other kids in school. Constantly feeling on the outside, Eliza begins to feel like a ghost herself. Marjorie must soon come to terms with the price she pays to be accepted by the popular kids. Is it worth losing her friend, Wendell? Is she partially to blame for the bullying Eliza endures?

Delicates tells a powerful story about what it means to fit in, and those left on the outside. It shows what it’s like to feel invisible, and the importance of feeling seen. Above all, it is a story of asking for help when all seems dark and bringing help and light to those who need it most. 

HAPPY READING!!

Kid Innovators - Review

Author: Robin Stevenson

Genre: Nonfiction

Format: Hardback

Pages: 208

I want to thank Quirk Books for a copy of Kid Innovator in exchange for my honest review. This book is on sale now through their website or your favorite bookstore!

Kid Innovators is the seventh book in the Kid Legends series, but the great thing is each book stands on its own, with its own theme. This was the first book I've read in the series, and even though I have seen this series at bookstores, on my library dash, and on the Quirk website, I wasn't sure what I was getting myself into. 

The first thing you notice about Kid Innovators is the cover artwork by Allison Steinfeld. It's bright, fun, and catches your eye right off the bat. This continues through the entire book bringing the histories of each person to life. It adds a great visual to the book. I felt it was a great addition for younger readers who might get bored with just words on a page, but it also brings a bit of the story to life. And, I love the character drawings she did for each person. 

But, the artwork while a great addition to each little biography that gets told, wasn't my favorite part. My favorite part was the language that Robin Stevenson used throughout this book. One of the biggest turn-offs for me in middle grade is when it feels like authors talk down to readers. Just because this book is aged toward younger kids doesn't mean you cannot use bigger words, and that's exactly what Robin Stevenson does. Even I had to jump on Google to puzzle out a few things, and I don't think that's a bad thing. This a nonfiction book, meant to teach. But, this is anything but dry. Stevenson found a balance in the book that I that was spectacular. Each story is upbeat and she definitely tries to make learning fun, but without shying away from certain facts. She mentions slavery in the chapter about Madam CJ Walker, she mentions Alan Turing's suicide, hard topics, but important ones nonetheless. Yet, Stevenson handles it in a way that could spark conversation, and without too much explanation, leaving room for parents, or teachers, to explain these topics as needed.

Stevenson does all of that but somehow still manages to use a tone that I feel would excite a lot of young readers.

As an adult reader, I enjoyed the fact that there were quite of individuals that I didn't know anything about inside this book. Which made the book a little more enjoyable to read because it wasn't filled with histories I'd learned before. 

I also really liked that each chapter was fairly short but packed full of information. Each person got a little bit of their back story that explained how they ended being the innovator they would eventually become. Basically, these are mini-biographies that are well researched, and a wonderful introduction to each individual person. A great starting point that includes a bibliography page at the end of the book, in case anyone wants to read more on a certain person. 

I really enjoyed this book and how brightly colored and fun it was to read. I loved the section's pages and how they were done up almost like circus posters. All around it's an inviting read. My only big complaint about this book was a personal one. For reasons, I skipped the chapter on Elon Musk. I just wasn't interested. Everything else though was fantastic. This is a great book for kids who love science, computers, inventing. Or, kids who love nonfiction and learning.

So a huge thank you to Quirk for sending this my way. While Kid Innovator isn't going into my permanent collection, it's going to a kid I know will love it!

HAPPY READING!!

Cover Runway Sunday

They say don't judge a book by its cover, but we all know we do it. Sometimes it's the cover that originally catches our eye, drawing us to give a book a closer look. It's the first thing we see, our first impression. Every Sunday I'm going to post some of my favorite covers of books coming soon!

When a reaper comes to collect Wallace Price from his own funeral, Wallace suspects he really might be dead.

Instead of leading him directly to the afterlife, the reaper takes him to a small village. On the outskirts, off the path through the woods, tucked between mountains, is a particular tea shop, run by a man named Hugo. Hugo is the tea shop's owner to locals and the ferryman to souls who need to cross over.

But Wallace isn't ready to abandon the life he barely lived. With Hugo's help he finally starts to learn about all the things he missed in life.

When the Manager, a curious and powerful being, arrives at the tea shop and gives Wallace one week to cross over, Wallace sets about living a lifetime in seven days.

By turns heartwarming and heartbreaking, this absorbing tale of grief and hope is told with TJ Klune's signature warmth, humor, and extraordinary empathy. 

HAPPY READING!!

Mini Reviews

I really liked this! Kim Newman is one of my favorite authors and he didn't disappoint here. The story is very in the vein of Cthulu, but with eels. I stumbled a bit at the beginning. Like all of the other volumes, this one had some editing issues: conversations getting cut off at where the pages bound together, missing words from thought and speech bubbles, etc. After the first issue, and getting a grasp of the story, I flew through this. For the most part, I really liked the artwork, and the coloring, it really fit the story being told. My only issue a couple of the male side characters (the two important ones) looked so much like that I kept getting them confused. But, all-in-all I really liked this and I'm excited about the next issue!

A solid second volume to this series, that starts off just a few days after the end of the first volume. I will admit that enough time had passed that I was fuzzy on some of the details. Tynion does a great job of refreshing your memory without pulling from the plot. Most of the reminds came as backtalk and sass, so I wasn't bad at it. I thought the story progressed well quickly, and it was nice to get a bit of background on Erica and her creepy little stuffed friend. I'd also forgotten how much I loved the artwork in this. It's definitely a dark series, but the use of purples keeps it from being hard to see or read. The only real complaint, I had about the entire volume is the page set up. Some pages are set up so the panels read through both pages, others are split so read partly on the first then through to the second, others are done more traditionally with one page then the next. It makes it hard to read when you get used to one way, then the next two pages are different. I definitely had to backtrack a couple of times because I couldn't follow the flow of the conversation. But, a solid addition to the story and I'm excited for June to see where the story goes in the third volume!

HAPPY READING!!

Last Call - Review

Author: Elon Green

Genre: True Crime

Format: Paperback / ARC

Pages: 272

Thanks to Bookish First and Celadon Books for an early copy of the Last Call in exchange for my honest review.

What drew me to the Last Call was the fact that I'd never heard of this case before. Something that felt wrong because I grew up in the '90s, and I felt like a crime like this should have been one of the ones that stuck with me. In fact, I even realized that in my Case Studies class a lifetime ago, we never even touched on this case. I wanted to know why.

I got my answer, whether I liked it or not.

This is one of those books where it feels wrong to say I liked it. The stories this book tells aren't happy ones, and the picture it paints isn't a pretty one either. But, it is well written and well researched. It tells the stories of the victims of Last Call Killer, their lives, and of those they left behind. It tells a story about a piece of American history that I don't ever remember learning about in school. This book broke my heart in so many ways. It left me angry at the end, not with writing, but with how this case was handled. How these people were treated and just how long it took to get them justice.

Personally, I think the best part of  Last Call is how not once do you see the author's opinion on the page, or even feel them as the story unfolds. Elon Green wanted this to be about the victims and those they left behind, and I feel like he accomplished that. Through their stories, the story of why this case almost went unsolved was told. For me the more the police failed to do anything the more frustrated I got. As the chapters started to jump in years and more hurdles had to be jumped, I got angry.

It shouldn't have taken them over a decade to catch a man who killed and mutilated four people.

On that note, I really liked that Roger's is almost a footnote in this book. Yes, there is a chapter about his past and little add-ons here and there, but never once is an excuse given for what he did. There aren't several chapters on what drove him to do this. This book is about his victims, not him. I wish more true crime books were set up this way.

The inclusions of murder maps were also nice. I don't know the East Coast all that well. So having them helped me get my bearings when so many jurisdictions were involved.

Lastly, I liked how small this book was, just shy of three hundred pages. I don't feel like anything was missing information-wise, or we didn't get a sense of who each victim was before they met Roger's. These crimes were horrific in nature and Elon Green did a fine job of showing with that making it grotesque. I also felt by using other people's stories he painted a pretty ugly picture of the decade and the AIDS Crisis. 

As I said early, the end of this book got me fired up. The fact that Roger's should have been jailed twice before this but skated away, on top of just a lack of empathy for these victims, and just stupid judgment calls that hindered the investigation. It all just led to me nearly throwing the book against a wall. We'll never how many people Roger's actually hurt thanks to the quick draw to bring Roger's into custody, and his refusal to talk to anyone. But, I'm glad I read this book. I'm glad this story was finally told, and this is a book I'm definitely passing around to my friend group.

Last Call was published March 9, 2021!

HAPPY READING!!

 

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.

London, 1938. In the suburbs of the city, an ordinary young housewife has become the eye in a storm of chaos. In Alma Fielding's modest home, china flies off the shelves, eggs fly through the air; stolen jewelry appears on her fingers, white mice crawl out of her handbag, beetles appear from under her gloves; in the middle of a car journey, a terrapin materializes on her lap. Nandor Fodor - a Jewish-Hungarian refugee and chief ghost hunter for the International Institute for Psychical Research - reads of the case, and hastens to the scene of the haunting. But when Fodor starts his scrupulous investigation, he discovers that the case is even stranger than it seems. By unraveling Alma's peculiar history, he finds a different and darker type of haunting: trauma, alienation, loss - and the foreshadowing of a nation's worst fears. As the specter of Fascism lengthens over Europe, and as Fodor's obsession with the case deepens, Alma becomes ever more disturbed. With rigor, daring, and insight, the award-winning pioneer of non-fiction writing Kate Summerscale shadow Fodor's inquiry, delving into long-hidden archives to find the human story behind a very modern haunting.

Why I'm Waiting: This marked as paranormal and both true crime, which are two of my favorite things. So I'm all in on this book.

HAPPY READING!!

New Release Tuesday

The gripping true story, told here for the first time, of the Last Call Killer and the gay community of New York City that he preyed upon.

The Townhouse Bar, midtown, July 1992: The piano player seems to know every song ever written, the crowd belts out the lyrics to their favorites, and a man standing nearby is drinking a Scotch and water. The man strikes the piano player as forgettable.

He looks bland and inconspicuous. Not at all what you think a serial killer looks like. But that’s what he is, and tonight, he has his sights set on a gray haired man. He will not be his first victim.

Nor will he be his last.

The Last Call Killer preyed upon gay men in New York in the ‘80s and ‘90s and had all the hallmarks of the most notorious serial killers. Yet because of the sexuality of his victims, the skyhigh murder rates, and the AIDS epidemic, his murders have been almost entirely forgotten.

This gripping true-crime narrative tells the story of the Last Call Killer and the decades-long chase to find him. And at the same time, it paints a portrait of his victims and a vibrant community navigating threat and resilience. 

HAPPY READING!!

Bout of Books 30.5

This week Bout of Books is doing an in-between readathon! For me, this comes at the perfect time. I have a decent-sized stack of books I need a little push to start working my through. Because most of them are library books and I really need to get onto reading them before they due. So I will be attempting to work my way through that stack this week. I also have a true crime book sitting on my Netgalley that needs my attention. So this week I'm going to make sure I'm carving out more reading time than usual, which means less TV time. Because I feel like I've been watching a lot of it the last month!

If you wanna join alone jump over to the Bout of Books page here to join up. This week will be different since they aren't doing anything on social media, but I'm excited about the new setup for this. It sounds as low stress as usual, and I can't wait to talk to everyone about books. And see what everyone's reading this week!

HAPPY READING!!

Cover Runway Sunday

They say don't judge a book by its cover, but we all know we do it. Sometimes it's the cover that originally catches our eye, drawing us to give a book a closer look. It's the first thing we see, our first impression. Every Sunday I'm going to post some of my favorite covers of books coming soon!

When a child goes missing in Edinburgh's darkest streets, young Ropa investigates. She'll need to call on Zimbabwean magic as well as her Scottish pragmatism to hunt down clues. But as shadows lengthen, will the hunter become the hunted?

When ghosts talk, she will listen...

Ropa dropped out of school to become a ghostalker. Now she speaks to Edinburgh's dead, carrying messages to the living. A girl's gotta earn a living, and it seems harmless enough. Until, that is, the dead whisper that someone's bewitching children--leaving them husks, empty of joy and life. It's on Ropa's patch, so she feels honor-bound to investigate. But what she learns will change her world.

She'll dice with death (not part of her life plan...), discovering an occult library and a taste for hidden magic. She'll also experience dark times. For Edinburgh hides a wealth of secrets, and Ropa's gonna hunt them all down.

HAPPY READING!!