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 family physician Dr. Benjamin Gilmer began working at the Cane Creek clinic in rural North Carolina, he was following in the footsteps of a man with the same last name. His predecessor, Dr. Vince Gilmer, was beloved by his patients and community--right up until the shocking moment when he strangled his ailing father and then returned to the clinic for a regular day of work after the murder. He'd been in prison for nearly a decade by the time Benjamin arrived, but Vince's patients would still tell Benjamin they couldn't believe the other Dr. Gilmer was capable of such violence. The more Benjamin looked into Vince's case, the more he knew that something was wrong.

Vince knew, too. He complained from the time he was arrested of his SSRI brain, referring to withdrawal from his anti-depressant medication. When Benjamin visited Vince in prison, he met a man who was obviously fighting his own mind, constantly twitching and veering off into nonsensical tangents. Enlisting This American Life journalist Sarah Koenig, Benjamin resolved to get Vince the help he needed. But time and again, the pair would come up against a prison system that cared little about the mental health of its inmates--despite an estimated one-third of them suffering from an untreated mental illness.

In The Other Dr. Gilmer, Dr. Benjamin Gilmer tells of how a caring man was overcome by a perfect storm of rare health conditions, leading to an unimaginable crime. Rather than get treatment, Vince Gilmer was sentenced to life in prison--a life made all the worse by his untrustworthy brain and prison and government officials who dismissed his situation. A large percentage of imprisoned Americans are suffering from mental illness when they commit their crimes and continue to suffer, untreated, in prison. In a country with the highest incarceration rates in the world, Dr. Benjamin Gilmer argues that some crimes need to be healed rather than punished.

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 that 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.

As the true Descendant, I command to open
The door to Chidani; it shall be broken

Magic awaits those who seek the queen’s peace
And all the suffering you feel will cease

Those who open the histories will hear a sound
What was lost has finally been found.

Cameron Battle grew up reading The Book of Chidani, cherishing stories about the fabled kingdom that cut itself off from the world to save the Igbo people from danger. Passed down over generations, the Book is Cameron’s only connection to his parents who disappeared one fateful night, two years ago.

Ever since his grandmother has kept the Book locked away, but it calls to Cameron. When he and his best friends Zion and Aliyah decide to open it again, they are magically transported to Chidani. Instead of a land of beauty and wonder, they find a kingdom in extreme danger, as the Queen’s sister seeks to destroy the barrier between worlds. The people of Chidani have been waiting for the last Descendant to return and save them . . . is Cameron ready to be the hero they need?

HAPPY READING!!

The Devil's Music - Review

Author: Nathan Page & Drew Shannon

Genre: Graphic Novel

Format: e-book

Pages: 320

I cannot thank Nathan Page and Drew Shannon enough for an early copy of The Devil's Music! It was the best thing I've seen in my inbox all month! What follows is my honest review and probably a lot of fangirling. I'm not sorry.

The Devil's Music takes place just a few months after the first book, The Witch's Hand. Enough time for our group of heroes to start to heal from what happened over the summer, and too that the four of them have bonded, and their powers of grown in the few months that have passed. We also finally get a look at the Faculty, the mysterious group that guides magic users.

Not only do we get a bit more on the back story of why the Faculty exists, but we also get more of the back story of the Montague family. Mostly because their mysterious Uncle blows into town without really a reason. I have to say I'm thankful for our cautious Nathan made the twins about their father's family, but I'm also thankful he didn't use their Uncle as a way to split the twins up. While I'm always game for an evil twin trope, I love the bond that Pete and Al have in this story. They are each other's rocks and I just want them to be happy!

I enjoyed the main story of the second book. Nathan Page dives into the trope of selling your soul for talent but uses it his way to tie newcomer Gideon to our main characters. So it was a trope I knew with a story I didn't. Which kept me reading because I needed to know why this song was affecting its listeners, and how it was tied to our rockstar. It's a solid mystery with a few twists and turns, that easily fits into what we're learning about Al and Pete's parents. And, the history of magic in this timeline.

I will have to that I was a bit disappointed in Chuck this volume when Al raised concerns about Pete and Gideon. While I understand the period and why she was worried about Al's intentions, she should have known Al better. He looks like an asshole, but Al has the biggest heart, and watching him get hurt by that album was the worst handful of pages. Just rude. 

And, yes Al is my favorite character. However, could you tell?

I will say these kids aren't half bad detectives, and I still think this would make a good tv show! David and Shelly are two of my favorite fictional parents. There is a lot to unpack when it comes to the Montague family history, and it can't be easy deciding how to tell anyone that story, especially teenagers. I also adored the way David handled Al's bout with depression. It was validating and allowed Al to have a piece of his father at the same time. Which for the time period Nathan chose for this story is saying something.

As for the mystery, I liked the way it unraveled and how our team split off so the readers could get a full look at what was happening. I liked that Gideon was able to clean up his mess, at least in Port Howl, and that both twins got a bit of a happy ending. Here's to hoping they get to keep it. I think Rachel is good for Al, she doesn't take his crap.

I cheered for both the twins when got their person in this book. I adore them both!

Lately, I cannot describe how much I love Drew Shannon's art on both volumes of this graphic novel. There are so many little details on every page, and the color palette is always perfect. And I love that he went with a more old-school design on the characters and everything to fit the time period of the story itself. It works together. 

And, really this book left me with only one real question. Is there going to be book three? Because you just don't end a book like that! Who was lying? Where are the lying, or just exhausted teenagers who don't know what they want? WHY WOULD YOU END IT THERE?

Okay, so maybe several questions, but really, I need a book three! Please!

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!

The winter hike is meant to bring their nature group together.
Emily, the sister who never lets her hearing loss hold her back.
Lauren, the sister who always feels a step behind.
Morna, who doesn’t get on with Lauren.
Ben, whose feelings for Emily border on obsession.
Dan, the quiet newcomer to the group.
Kai, who isn’t just on the hike to enjoy the wildlife.
And Alec, the one who knows all their secrets.


As the sun sets, a gunshot rings out on the nature reserve.


One of the seven is dead. And one of their number killed them…

HAPPY READING!!

Forest of Memory - Review

 

Author: Mary Robinette Kowal

Genre: Novella

Format: e-book

Pages: 88

Somehow in not even a hundred pages Mary Robinette Kowal created an entire futuristic world, and then explained how it was going to be toppled. Which was not what I was expecting from this book at all from what I read on the back. What I thought I was going to get was a strange story about our main Katya and that time she was kidnapped in the woods. And, while that's what I got, it somehow in less than a hundred pages was so much more than that. 

A hundred percent was impressive. 

I loved that we learned about this future as the story went on. As Katya talked about being offline, that was affecting her. While she was figuring out how "Johnny" was working without being connected to the smart dust around her. You get to see how our world has turned into her world, and they live inside of it. Even living on the ground isn't something everyone does. Sky cities have become a thing where people live. It's one of my favorite ways that authors' world build. Instead of chapters, or page after page, dedicated to the world, it's seen through the main character(s) eyes. For me, it makes the world a little more real that way.

Also, I want to say this world terrifies me more than the fact that whoever kidnapped Katya was tracking her every moment. The latter is creepy enough, but the fact that every little thing you do is streamed lived, and archived into the cloud. Hard pass. I had a time just glossing over that bit when she talked that. Like, I understand privacy isn't really a concept in this current world, but there are still barriers. Barriers that seem to be gone in this world.

So hard pass on twenty-four me TV. I'm not that exciting. Not really.

But, back to Forest of Memory! I can't decide which part I liked more about this book. That Katya was typing it on an old-school typewriter so the text included spelling mistakes. Because if you've ever used one of those, there is no backspace. Which made the book feel like the document she was writing or the all-around actual plot of this book. While the former gave the book more wabi-sabi, to steal a phrase from the book, it gets a little hard to read in places. But, the later, oh let me tell you that snuck up on me in the last like twenty or so pages.

Like, I was wrapped up in what these people wanted with Katya that I was like oh yeah the deer. This all started because was doing something with the deer. Then as she was finishing the story I started to see what she was laying down with all of this. Why the deer was so important, why her communication with the cloud went offline, it all sort of came together and I had this sort of 'aha' moment. 

Honestly, this was a delight to read, and it messed with my head. So good, probably my favorite read of the month!

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 that 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.

Travel journalist and mountaineer Nick Grevers awakes from a coma to find that his climbing buddy, Augustin, is missing and presumed dead. Nick’s own injuries are as extensive as they are horrifying. His face wrapped in bandages and unable to speak, Nick claims amnesia—but he remembers everything.

He remembers how he and Augustin were mysteriously drawn to the Maudit, a remote and scarcely documented peak in the Swiss Alps.

He remembers how the slopes of Maudit were eerily quiet, and how, when they entered its valley, they got the ominous sense that they were not alone.

He remembers: something was waiting for them...

But it isn’t just the memory of the accident that haunts Nick. Something has awakened inside of him, something that endangers the lives of everyone around him…

It’s one thing to lose your life. It’s another to lose your soul.

HAPPY READING!!

Your Guide to Not Getting Murdered in a Quaint English Village - Review

Author: Maureen Johnson

Genre: Humor / Nonfiction

Format: e-book

Pages: 128

This was an absolute delight! Cozy murder mysteries are one of my favorites, both on-screen and in books. So this book spoke to my soul. It's a quick read, just a little over a hundred pages long. Said pages aren't even full pages, just little pieces of humor for each little section. However, it was so much fun. I laughed out loud through a lot of the book. It calls out the classic tropes and pokes fun at them.

The book as a whole was well put together in my opinion. I love that it was split up into sections: the Town, the Manor, the People. Because apparently for such a small village there are a lot of ways to die and so many tie back to the Vicar and the church. So it was nice the book was split up, gave it a nice flow from one section to the next one. 

For me, I loved this book was also illustrated. I thought it added to the fun to get to see what the village and manor looked like. To have a visual of the characters you learned how they'd kill you, or how they were going to be killed. I loved the little splash of reading that drew your way to different parts of the illustrations.

All of it came together in an Ed Gorey kind of fashion that I adored. While I'm sad I put this book off so long because it was a fun read, and glad it was put in my path again. Thank goodness books don't expire! This is a book I could see myself going back to read again to pull myself out of a reading slump. It's also a book I would give as a gift to other reader friends who also love cozy mysteries!

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’s New Year’s Eve 1999. Y2K is expected to end in chaos: planes falling from the sky, elevators plunging to earth, world markets collapsing. A digital apocalypse. None of that happens. But at a Blockbuster Video in Linden, New Jersey, four teenage girls working the night shift are attacked. Only one survives. Police quickly identify a suspect who flees and is never seen again.

Fifteen years later, in the same town, four teenage employees working late at an ice cream store are attacked, and again only one makes it out alive.

Both surviving victims recall the killer speaking only a few final words... “Goodnight, pretty girl.”

In the aftermath, three lives intersect the survivor of the Blockbuster massacre who’s forced to relive her tragedy; the brother of the original suspect, who’s convinced the police have it wrong; and the FBI agent, who’s determined to solve both cases. On a collision course toward the truth, all three lives will forever be changed, and not everyone will make it out alive.

Twisty, poignant, and redemptive, The Night Shift is a story about the legacy of trauma and how the broken can come out on the other side, and it solidifies Alex Finlay as one of the new leading voices in the world of thrillers.

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 that 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.

When Gwendy Peterson was twelve, a mysterious stranger named Richard Farris gave her a mysterious box for safekeeping. It offered treats and vintage coins, but it was dangerous. Pushing any of its seven-colored buttons promised death and destruction.

Years later, the button box entered Gwendy’s life again. A successful novelist and a rising political star, she was once again forced to deal with the temptation that box represented.

Now, 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 you hide something from such powerful entities?

Why I'm Waiting: I really liked the first two books in this series, and I'm curious to see how it's going to wrap up.

HAPPY READING!!

New Release Tuesday

From debut author, Stacy Willingham comes a masterfully done, lyrical thriller, certain to be the launch of an amazing career. A Flicker in the Dark is eerily compelling to the very last page.

When Chloe Davis was twelve, six teenage girls went missing in her small Louisiana town. By the end of the summer, Chloe’s father had been arrested as a serial killer and promptly put in prison. Chloe and the rest of her family were left to grapple with the truth and try to move forward while dealing with the aftermath.

Now 20 years later, Chloe is a psychologist in private practice in Baton Rouge and getting ready for her wedding. She finally has a fragile grasp on the happiness she’s worked so hard to get. Sometimes, though, she feels as out of controlling of her own life as the troubled teens who are her patients. And then a local teenage girl goes missing, and then another, and that terrifying summer comes crashing back. Is she paranoid, and seeing parallels that aren't really there, or for the second time in her life, is she about to unmask a killer?

HAPPY READING!!

Book Mail

Hello! I started the year was some awesome book mail. I always love when I get mail from Quirk Books because I never what it'll be. Though with how last week went, any book mail would have been perfect. 

Fighting the snow to get to work while be a commuter is never fun.

Anyhow! I was gifted the second book in the This is Not the Jess Show series! I really liked the first book. It was a lot of fun, and packed with 90s throwbacks. So I'm pretty excited to crack this one open. In fact it's my next read once I wrap the book on my currently on.

Any one else excited for any sequals coming out this year?

HAPPY READING!!

Cover Runway Sundays

 

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!

Beth and Fran spend their days traveling the ravaged New England coast, hunting feral men and harvesting their organs in a gruesome effort to ensure they'll never face the same fate.

Robbie lives by his gun and one hard-learned motto: other people aren't safe.

After a brutal accident entwines the three of them, this found family of survivors must navigate murderous TERFs, a sociopathic billionaire bunker brat, and awkward relationship dynamics―all while outrunning packs of feral men, and their own demons.

Manhunt is a timely, powerful response to every gender-based apocalypse story that failed to consider the existence of transgender and non-binary people, from a powerful new voice in horror.

HAPPY READING!!

2022 Book BINGO

We are seven days into the new year and finally, I have the BINGO card up and ready. There is a handful of us participating this year. In fact, this might be the biggest number of us yet. Which I'm excited about, but it could always be more! So as always I'm posting the card down here and anyone who wants to join in is more than welcome!

I'm really excited about this year's card. My friends are out to kill me with a couple of these squares. Mostly the 1000+ pages square. I have zero ideas what I'm going to read for that one. I don't know if I have a book with that many pages on my TBR. Do books that big actually exist?! On the other hand, I'm really excited about some of the squares we picked this year.

Anyone else doing any reading challenges this year?

HAPPY READING!!

January Spotlight

 

 A new year means a new round of Spotlight books! This was an easy month for me to pick my Spotlight book. It was the original Spotlight book for last month, but sadly the release date was pushed back to do shipping issue. Which is an understandable bummer! But, fingers crossed come together this month. I've already got my heart set on reading this on plane for my trip in February.

Alastair, Pete, Charlie, and Rachel aren't just magical teen detectives in their coastal town of Port Howl--they are also members of a local teen rock band. Before a show one night, Charlie and Rachel meet a famous rockstar, Gideon, and invite him to their show. He'll never come, but why not try, right?

Little do they know, Gideon does show up, and he brings the threads of his dark past with him. In fact, he might even be the source of the rumored Devil's Music, a limited-release song that entrances all of its listeners in deadly hypnosis.

When Pete quickly gets drawn into Gideon's web, it's up to his brother and friends to save him. But Pete might not be the only Montague Twin at risk for Gideon's spell...

HAPPY READING!!

The Keeper - Review

Author: Guadalupe Garcia McCall

Genre: Middle Grade

Format: e-book

Pages: 288

A huge thank you to NetGalley and HarperCollins for an advanced copy of this book for my honest review!

What drew me to this book originally was that it's loosely based on the Westfield Watcher case. It's probably one of the weirdest unsolved crimes, and I'm absolutely fascinated by it. So I was excited to see how McCall was going to spin this case into a middle-grade book. Because even as an adult this case is super unnerving.

Huge props to this author for how she handled not only the case but the scare factor as well. While I'm always down for a book that creeps me right out. For a book that is targeting a younger reader, I think the scare factor is on point. This would have definitely been a book that I would read under the covers with my flashlight, and then regret as every single nose in my house kept me up that night. And, while McCall doesn't deep dive into this case, I did like how she weaved through the story. Just enough that if you an adult reading this book you have to send you straight down a Google rabbit hole. But, enough that the kids will find it super creepy.

McCall also hit on my favorite tropes in any magic set book, and that is magic with consequences. None of this comes from being free and to protect their town, they have to make a great sacrifice. Only it doesn't stop there, once the magic goes wrong, there are also consequences to that as well. I like a magic system that is given and taken instead of what just is. For me, that kind of magic is more tangible, especially for a story like this when the magic is tied to the land.

I also adore the setting of this story. Not only is my neck of the woods so it's easy for me to picture this little town in Oregan, but it fits the story perfectly. There's something about Oregon and Washington that fits that creepy little town where somebody is up to something hinky. So setting here was perfect, and I'm also a sucker for a young adult and middle grade just moved in trope. That always adds to the creepy factor, not really knowing your surroundings. Absolutely perfect.

And while the first-person point of view isn't really my favorite, it really works for The Keepers. This way we're seeing all of this through James' eyes, and while he isn't the most reliable narrator because he was at ten. McCall writes in a way that you really feel who scared James gets throughout the book, who lonely he is at this movie, and just unsure of himself after losing his grandmother and being uprooted. It's hard not to adore him, and it was so amazing to see him find himself and work with his sister to survive this story. 

The other great thing about this book is having McCall put her own heritage into this book, it added great depth to the book. Made you see these characters as a family, and that heritage helped James and his sister fight back against the Keeper and its minions. I loved it. 

This book was everything I wanted and a little more. It definitely applied to my younger self, and I'm so glad to see this weird case be used in such a great way.

The Keeper by Guadalupe Marie McCall comes out on Jan. 24, 2022!

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 that 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.

Beth and Fran spend their days traveling the ravaged New England coast, hunting feral men and harvesting their organs in a gruesome effort to ensure they'll never face the same fate.

Robbie lives by his gun and one hard-learned motto: other people aren't safe.

After a brutal accident entwines the three of them, this found family of survivors must navigate murderous TERFs, a sociopathic billionaire bunker brat, and awkward relationship dynamics―all while outrunning packs of feral men, and their own demons.

Manhunt is a timely, powerful response to every gender-based apocalypse story that failed to consider the existence of transgender and non-binary people, from a powerful new voice in horror.

Why I'm Waiting: I'm all in on this. Manhunt grabbed me from the first sentence of the synopsis, and that cover! I cannot wait to have this end up in my hands!

HAPPY READING!!

New Release Tuesday

A new Slayer for a new generation...

Frankie Rosenberg is passionate about the environment, a sophomore at New Sunnydale High School, and the daughter of the most powerful witch in Sunnydale history. Her mom, Willow, is slowly teaching her magic on the condition that she use it to better the world. But Frankie’s happily quiet life is upended when new girl Hailey shows up with news that the annual Slayer convention has been the target of an attack, and all the Slayers—including Buffy, Faith, and Hailey’s older sister Vi—might be dead. That means it’s time for this generation’s Slayer to be born.

But being the first-ever Slayer-Witch means learning how to wield a stake while trying to control her budding powers. With the help of Hailey, a werewolf named Jake, and a hot but nerdy sage demon, Frankie must become the Slayer, prevent the Hellmouth from opening again, and find out what happened to her Aunt Buffy, before she’s next.

Get ready for a whole new story within the world of Buffy!

HAPPY READING!!

Favorite Reads of 2021

Hope everyone had a great New Year's weekend! Personally, I can't complain about mine, had a quiet night in after work. Marathoned the new season of Queer Eye. It also gave me time to get some things caught up here and sort out my posts for the month. I was looking back on the year and realized that I read some really great books this year, but nine of them stood out and I wanted to share those with all of you who read this!

All of these books were the ones I gushed about the most this year. Almost all of these were new authors to me this year except for three. I've read a handful of things from Christina Henry and Joe Hill, and this is the second book I've read from K.J Parker. All three of them are instant TBR authors for me. Tade Thompson and Clay Mcleod Chapman have also been added to that list. 

For 2022 I hope to finish the Molly Southbourne series, as well as get caught up on the Gideon series. I think I'm about to be two books behind! Honestly, this should be the year I finally finish all the series I'm one, or two books, away from finishing.

Drop a comment on your own favorite reads of last year or your thoughts on my favorites!

HAPPY READING!!