Sara Martin
A friend of mine loaned me the 2nd book in the series and I thought I'd read number 1 first so I checked this out. She said she didn't finish the 2nd one as it didn't make sense since she hadn't read #1, so good choice.
Urban fantasy is not really my genre, but I thought I'd give it a go. It was fun! Fast paced, hard boiled, tough talking chick as the main character, it was a real quick read.
Thankfully, no chapter long love scenes! In fact, if you didn't care for the action, just read a page or two, it changes like the weather.
The plot? Its about an alternative Portland that runs on magic. Allie is a Hound and she finds out if someone is practicing illegal magic for pay. Then everyone wants to kill her. Of course. And she meets a mysterious guy. Of course.
If you're into this sort of thing, its a fun and not too stressful of a read. Something to read at your mother in law's at Christmas.
I really liked this book. It was the right mix of science, supernatural, mystery, and romance.
I would love Amelia's job. She restores old graveyards. Yes! I want to change careers right now! She can see ghosts. That's a whole story by itself. Someone gets murdered. She meets a handsome detective. There's much more plot than love scenes so its all good.
I am moving on to book 2 eventually. This book was fun.
I dreamed about this book last night. I dreamed I was a character, one of the kids in the boarding school but all grown up. We sat in a group and discussed the way things were and the way things are. We had very serious discussions about our life. I carried those discussions into my waking morning.
That is how much this book affected me. There isn't a lot of action, not a lot of drama, but I had a difficult time putting this book down. I finally just had to finish it. As the pieces of the lives of these young people start to fall into place, there is a tension, a suspense, a sort of what-if feeling. At the end, you are left with quite a lot to ponder. It is sad, it is unsettling. It appears to be a simple story (albeit with a dystopian twist) but there are many layers to it which is what I ended up dreaming about.
It is not without some big questions such as “Exactly How” and I wanted more details on some behind the scenes puzzles. The adaptation of the students as they leave the boarding school isn't adequately described for me but as this is a memoir told by one of the former students, I can see that only what is essential to this story is actually included in the book. I get it, but I always want to know a little bit more.
Highly recommended.
Book Review
A vicious predator waiting for a vulnerability in the under belly of a novel.
See: Fiction, Experimental - Novel - Observations, Literary
Fiction, Experimental
Gabe focuses on his art. His broken family stares at him, encouraging but uncomprehending. Elizabeth tries to be the woman she should have been, would have been, if suburbia and all it's tentacles hadn't clawed their way into her soul. Jackie has a world in her head far better than the world outside the window that stares out at the neat rows of houses. Lacey knows the truth, it has to be the truth. Thomas has a secret. A story has been told in paragraphs, vignettes, photographs. To be read in any order, all of it a circle of civilization in Long Island - A field guide to the North American family.
See Book Reviews - Fiction, Experimental - Hallberg, Garth Risk - Novels - Observations, Literary - Storytelling
Observations, Literary
A story told in a non-traditional method, by what could almost be called diary entries from an unknown observer. There is no defined plot, merely an unfolding of the situation of two next door neighbors who have their own dark secrets and their own coping mechanisms in a world that should be picture perfect but, like all lives, is messy and ugly and disturbing and difficult. This work turns you into a voyeur, is fun to look at, pretty to hold, but ultimately leaves you dissatisfied as the threads do not tie into knots and the heroes become anti-heroes that cannot inspire you.
See also - Book Reviews - Fiction, Experimental - Quirkiness - Short Novella - WTF?
Well, I've gotten through Book #3.
I enjoy the world around Carlos, the vampire. The council, the intrigue, that sort of thing. I don't understand hardly any of it. This is the most confusing book series ever.
But - there's WAY too much angst here! I want more vampire hunting! More battles! Hold off on that drama, girl! It wears me out, it's stilly, it makes no sense. There are parts of this story that I like but parts that are so eye rolling.
It's also terribly confusing. I never understood a thing about the demons and the were-demons and the Neterus and the guardians and whatever else went on.
And an entire chapter to have sex? Really? That got old quick. And another entire chapter with these weird guardian dudes feeling oh-so-uncomfortable about Marlene maybe hooking up with an old boyfriend? No one can handle hormones? Why are hormones even running rampant in this book? What's the big deal you found out your boyfriend wanted to do a were-demon because she was hot and sexy? Grow up!
The most interesting thing I learned from this book was that Lawrence of Arabia was killed in a motorcycle accident.
This book is reserved, restrained, quiet, and dull. The author reflects on cars he has owned and cars that some famous people have owned, particularly during the early days of motoring.
He relates an incident that happened to him in Ireland. He was invited to dine in a restaurant with a friend but because he had just purchased a car - and was driving it - he did not have on a tie. Oh, dear. The restaurant had no spare ties so they put the men behind a screen in the dining area. Years later, his friend's daughter told him that story had become a family legend.
And that's as legendary as this book will get.
(I spent 20 minutes writing a review of this book on the app, turned my phone, and the entire review disappeared. Will rewrite in an hour or so on a real computer.)
Okay, enough time has passed that I can re-rewrite this review without feeling so upset!
This is the IT book of the moment! It seems like everyone is reading it. This book is witty, entertaining, and informative. Who knew, for example, that IRS rules regarding depreciation of unsold books in publisher's warehouses would have resulted in a smaller choice of books to read in stores? I learned quite a bit reading through this.
It is a testament to just how good this book is when I actually want to run out right now and look for some of these paperbacks, regardless of their lack of political correctness, their misogyny, sexism, and violence. Or maybe, I just want to check out the covers. The author did a great job with the covers and telling us the stories of the cover artists. I remember when these books were everywhere, in used book stores, and book sales. I had two of the books pictured in these pages.
In reality, I think I may check out George R R Martin's Fevre Dream. That looked really good.
Or maybe I will look for Blood Worm from 1987 after reading this plot summary: “. . . the main character's wife sleeps with an enormous number of men during the worm-and-beetle apocalypse and then leaves a note for her husband saying she's a slut and, by the way, their daughter is missing. She immediately becomes an alcoholic hobo and is last seen stumbling around the ruins of London, which has been abandoned to the inevitable postapocalyptic motorcycle gangs.” I laughed so hard I cried at that summary.
Another gem: the back page. Remember the paperback lists you could order from? There's a list of books here and a coupon. Upon further examination, you need to send your money c/o Damien Thorn and enclose 50 cents for postage, handling, and your soul.
A very unique book, very short. So much happened in 1918 in Iceland - the volcano, the flu epidemic, independence. During the course of this year, Mani Steinn (Moonstone), a 16 year old gay teenager, goes to the cinema for entertainment and makes money down by the docks servicing other men or occasionally seeing them at their homes.(Although no one must ever know. Not in 1918. And certainly not in Iceland.)
He is obsessed with Sola G, a tough motorcycle rider who resembles a film star, but he doesn't have a real relationship with anyone. His family consists of an elderly aunt. His world is the cinema and soon he sees cinematic vampires on every street. The Spanish flu has come to the island and suddenly, death is everywhere.
There is a detachment in the writing, a detachment shared with Mani Steinn. I felt like I looked at his life from a distance and found it an interesting, difficult, and not always understandable, life. Not many people in Mani's life have attempted to know him or understand him.
I had to read some literary reviews of this book, plus an interview with Sjon, to fully grasp all the implications present in this short, odd novel.
One note of caution: gay sex is graphic in this book and that might not be to some people's tastes. The author hits you very forcefully in the opening chapter so we know where we stand, and then moves into a subtle, dream like state for several chapters before the next powerful sexual encounter. The cinema, sex, desire - this keeps life going, interspersed as it is with the dullness and rigidity of daily living.
One day, I went to the Rocky Mountain Book and Paper Fair. One day, many years ago, I wandered around the booths of rare books. Snotty, they were all snotty. I am referring to the bookmen and bookwomen, but perhaps all those pristine first editions were a bit snotty, too.
Suddenly, the room came to life! John Dunning was in the house! It was as if the pope had come into the merchandise mart. People there were star struck, in awe of his presence.
And then a very bored looking man with nary a smile came in, sat, and proceeded to sign autographs. He looked so unfriendly, I swore I'd never read his books.
I didn't know at the time. of course, that he had hosted an Old Time Radio program for 25 years that my dad listened to religiously. I didn't know my mom liked his mysteries.
I fear I may have misjudged the man. I picked up - used - his Cliff Janeway series, all but book one. I finally found the first one at the library so I thought I'd dive in.
And I was pleasantly surprised. This is a pretty good mystery. It's not really my genre, but this book did not turn silly or go where it needn't go. It was good. I loved revisiting Denver circa 1986. I miss that Denver. That really was half the charm of this story.
I am going to continue on; after all, I've got the rest of the books on my shelf.
Cop turned bookstore owner. Dang it. I miss bookstores, too. Makes me wonder if what I have now in Denver will disappear and become nothing but a fond memory someday. Hmmm. Is Starbucks going anywhere? And the Jeffco whale of a book sale? Hope not!
This book is written by a forensic pathologist who has worked on some high profile cases in his career. I'm not sure I would have started by saying I was the one who got Zimmerman off in the Trayvon Martin case, though. He explains that he says it like he sees it and people often don't like it, especially if people feel a murder is racially motivated. This, then, is my introduction to Vincent Di Maio. His expert opinion on some of these high profile cases will go against the grain - many times.
There were some interesting stories in the book - the exhumation of Lee Harvey Oswald, the West Memphis Three, Phil Spector, even Vincent Van Gogh. What he says the evidence shows is not always accepted or believed.
A funny blurb in here is when he says his deviated septum has prevented the smell from getting too overwhelming!
So, I thought this book was okay. I learned about some crime cases from history. I learned that forensic pathologists are woefully underpaid and therefore scarce. The writing is a bit dry but the details are good.
I was interested in reading this because it took place in Iceland. I'm interested in Iceland, though I've never been there.
This is a murder mystery. Who killed the professor? The main cop is an American, although he was born in Iceland. I think I would have liked it better if he had just been Icelandic, but having an American gave us some comparisons. I didn't really like him, though. He didn't grow on me.
The story at the end got pretty crazy and a bit unbelievable, but I think that's how books like this go. I'll try book 2, see if Magnus grows on me.
Wow, I've never read anything by Carrie Fisher before. She's extremely funny. (Also intelligent and poignant.) I loved the illustrations and old gossip magazine covers.
She jumps around a bit, here. Different chapters talk about shock therapy, Michael Jackson, and her dad. I wish this book was longer.
I think I'll find something else of hers to read.
This was an interesting take on hauntings. The author did not discuss whether the hauntings were true or not (though he seems to have his doubts) but rather what they say about us as a society, as a country.
He discusses how some ghost stories may have a glimmer of truth in their origin but have been embellished to suit our purposes. The purpose may be to whitewash our history, to assuage our guilt about events that have happened. The purpose might be to draw attention to something in our past that needs to be addressed. The purpose might be to divert ourselves from more serious issues such as racism. The purpose might be as simple as drumming up tourism or scaring children into being good.
Colin Dickey traveled throughout the states, gathering these stories. Some I am very familiar with, others I had never heard of. He did put a good perspective on our hauntings, made me think about some new ideas. I never thought about our ghost stories as being part of our national mythology like this.
(I still like to be scared, so I think I'll stay less of a skeptic than he is.)
Much better than the first book! This time I knew the characters, knew what they did, knew the routine, and knew the background.
Lots of action! Pretty fast paced book, AND we got to see Damali rap. Finally!
Still a convoluted, confusing world, though. I ceased trying to make sense of it. The whole ovulation of a Neteru (vampire hunter) on her 21st birthday was eye rolling at best. A little tired of the scene. I did like the story of Carlos. Much more interesting than Damali.
I will read the next book, though, and hope there's more in it for Damali and her crew instead of same ‘ol, same ‘ol.
So this is the last book? I'm a bit sad about that, although this series never became what I wanted it to become. I loved Jackaby and I liked Abigail Rook, but I wanted stories about their investigations into supernatural cases. Instead, I got one long, convoluted story about a Dire King and some major battle between the worlds and between good and evil.
Whew, its over. It says it's the final one, so now that this has wrapped up, there definitely won't be any more supernatural detecting. A pity. There were some good characters here. I wish the storyline had just been more fun.
Well, that was a terribly ADHD, non-linear memoir! Not that I expected more, but, well, maybe I did. It was very Steven Tyler, but a little more from A to B to C might have helped.
I'm not a real big Aerosmith fan, but when a friend loaned me this book I thought it would be pretty entertaining. I do like some Aerosmith songs, they are catchy and fun. This book did entertain. There were some funny parts and some sad parts. And all the while you are watching a train wreck. When that train derails, its gonna be one massive, gruesome, bloody accident.
So, questions arise. I wanted him to discuss meeting Liz when she's a teen, after finding out Steven Tyler is her dad. And what did his patents think of all of this? He stops mentioning them at some point. Does he hate his band members at the end of this book? Do they hate HIM?
I don't think less or more of Steven Tyler. He came across as I expected. The drug addiction, sad. The sex addiction? Sad, yes, but more disturbing than the drugs and alcohol. Okay, he has zero self control as far as girls. Some men are like that. He has a problem with women NOT understanding that. I don't even know what to say about that. I guess I can say I wouldn't date him and at least he's honest and not hypocritical. I did read some of this to my husband. He found his escapades pretty amusing.
Big ego, Big, big ego. That's why he's who he is. He's in his own world, he is his world.
Its been awhile since I've visited with Tempe Brennan. I like her and I like her stories. I had to take a break, though, they were getting repetitive and formulaic.
I missed her, though, after all these years, so I read book 5. I liked it! This one takes place in Guatemala and there's a handsome detective down there that I like - Detective Galiano. He's giving Ryan a run for his money!
I like all the details in Kathy Reich's books. It's always fascinating learning about bones and cadavers. There was a lot of detail about excavating a corpse from a septic tank, but I made it through that.
We had the typical old murders and new murders. Temperance, of course, knows too much because she's just so smart and that's always a dangerous place to be. If she were real, she'd either be dead or the winner of a Nobel prize!
This story about a young vampire huntress was very confusing to me. I liked that it started by putting you in the thick of the action; however, the action made no sense. I also didn't get a back story until much later in the book and it was all too brief. I still don't know how this group got together or even what type of music they play. And how did they get that wealthy?
The vampire and demon hierarchy was way too confusing and I think my eyes glazed over a few times during the long winded explanations of who, what, and why. I do own some of the books in this series so I will continue on to the next one. I hope this gets clearer.
This wasn't a very scary book. At this point I'm not attached to anyone so they could all get ambushed and killed and that's okay. On the plus side, it was nice that everyone in this book isn't white; the diversity was refreshing.
This book was required reading for a Strengths Finder class I took at work. I was actually surprised after doing the survey how much was revealed about my strengths. My top 5 strengths are: Input (I collect - knowledge and stuff), Intellection (I think about stuff), Learner (I learn from all this stuff I've collected and thought about), Analytical (well, duh, that was a no brainer Ms. Number Balancer/Data Reconciler) and Consistency (wanting everything to be FAIR).
In the class, we of course compared strengths. Learned about how people work together. The end result was that we should look for a job that plays to our strengths, not necessarily waste a lot of time trying to improve our weaknesses.
When I think of new career paths, I play around with reptile pet sitter or hazmat crime scene cleaner. I will probably continue analyzing with the financial realm, though. We'll see.
Hmm, I actually moved on to book 2. At least this book only had 2 love scenes in it and they weren't doing it every other page. There was more room in this novel for a plot.
I'm getting used to this weird world of Broken Heart, OK, filled with vampires and lycans. This book was told from the perspective of the town librarian. She has a teenage daughter who finds a vampire hunter boyfriend (!) and she is in love with a terribly handsome, ancient, brooding vampire.
Yeh, I'm not sure of the attraction to these domineering, possessive men. Doesn't do a thing for me but sure turns Eva on.
I do own book 3 so I will be moving on!
Wow, it's been quite awhile since I've tackled a long book and also such a dark book.
I didn't really care for this book until closer to the end; too dark and disturbing, perhaps. Then I decided to consider it HORROR and in a good horror novel, everyone dies. So bring it on!
I did like the back and forth at first of the fairy world and modern New York; also, the flashbacks to Peter's youth. I was disappointed when it all became the present. Peter, of course, is never likable but he's charismatic and has the ability to make people follow him and die for him. Actually, no one is really likeable in this book except for the main character, Nick. Not really caring helped me stay detached and I needed detachment for this book.
I did like seeing the motives behind what people did, understanding why they were so excited about killing, what drove them and how they saw the world and their place in it. The author did well in that respect. Everyone was out for survival and all did what they did because they saw others as enemies. If only they could have worked together. . . .nah, that still wouldn't have worked, would it? I could make that into a metaphor for real life but that would be terribly obvious so I'm not going there.
Not sure I'd recommend this but I'm glad I got to the end. Again, it's a horror novel. Don't be expecting wine and roses without poison.