Colorless Tsukura Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage - Haruki Murakami (Book Review)

Title - Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage

Author - Haruki Murakami

Summary -

Tsukuru Tazaki is a young man who has experienced incredible loss. He has lived the majority of his adult life alone, but unable to connect with anyone on a relationship level that is sustainable. He doesn't know why and until it is pointed out to him by his current girlfriend.

He retells the story of his teenage years and the four friends he had. All of their names translated into a color, except for his. He always felt that somehow that showed how he was less than them. But they cared for him anyway and with them he felt part of something very special.

Until the day he returned back home from college, on a weekend break, to have each of his friends refuse to take his calls. Until finally one of them calls him and tells Tsukuru that the group wants nothing to do with him any longer and that they would rather he never called them again. Shocked, he agrees to leave them alone. This episode has shaped his whole being into adulthood. Leaving him a solitary and untrusting man. Unable to sustain or build a true relationship with anyone.

"...Perhaps he didn't commit suicide then because he couldn't conceive of a method that fit the pure and intense feelings he had toward death. But method was beside the point. If there had been a door within reach that led straight to death, he wouldn't have hesitated to push it open, without a second thought, as if it were just a part of ordinary life..."


His girlfriend convinces Tsukuru, that after all these years, he needs to search out these friends and find out why they cast him out. That he would never truly be complete until he finds out why they abandoned and shunned him.

Reluctantly, but knowing he needed to, Tsukuru begins his pilgrimage to find out the truth. In doing so, he will unravel truths and secrets about himself and his friends. And the lies they have weaved around one another for the last decade. This journey for Tsukura is one of self discovery and redemption. Of forgiveness given and needed for all involved. Of friendship and memories that can never be reclaimed, but yet, perhaps better left to the past.

Review -

I am left with mixed emotions on this novel. For that alone it should be read. Any book that can illicit from the reader a sense of emotion should be recognized for what it truly is.
Damn good writing.
My issue is simple. If I had known Tsukuru Tazaki, I would probably have asked the depressing, self involved, emotionally handicapped whiney ass to stop calling me too and that I no longer wanted to be friends with him. Like ever. But I would have told him why. That he was a depressing, self involved, emotionally handicapped whiney ass but wipe and honestly, because your name does not translate into a color you are less than everyone else? Seriously? Instead his friends simply refuse to talk to him and he, for his part, simply accepts this proclamation and tries to go on. Spiraling even deeper into what can only be a suicidal depression.
So what is good about this story?
Writing. Damn good writing! And did we mention that this damn good writing is a translation as well?
I am convinced that Haruki Murakami could write out my grocery list and make it dramatic and compelling. The depths of Tsukuru's mind that Murakami plumbs to describe the pain and confusion he feels by being ostracized by his friends is handled with a grace and poise that is rarely seen in American novels. Murakami does it with effortless ease, or so it seems. For all of this is from Tsukuru's thoughts, dreams and muses. On the outside, as is true in Japanese culture, nothing is shown.
Murakami is exploring not only the human mind, but the tender and often confusing emotions that dwell within.
Damn good writing. A very good read.

The Secret Place - Tana French (Book Review)

Title - The Secret Place

Author - Tana French

Summary -

In an upscale boarding school for girls, a young boy was found murdered over a year ago. Teenage Holly Mackey finds a photo pinned to a board, a community board the school calls The Secret Place; the photo is of the murdered boy, sixteen year old Christopher Harper. The caption under the photo reads, I KNOW WHO KILLED HIM.

Holly is not like the other girls who go to St. Kilda's, she doesn't come from a well off family, she is the daughter of a cop. A Detective and she knows what she has to do. But she cannot take this to her father so she takes it to the only cop she knows who has treated her like an adult.

Cold Case Detective Stephen Moran has been waiting for his chance to get the attention of Dublin’s Murder Squad and move up in the department. So when teenage Holly Mackey walks in with the photo of the deceased boy, he knows this is his one chance to work a homicide and get a shot at being part of the Murder Squad. Only problem is, the Detective he would have to work with is Antoinette Conway, a tough as nails female Detective who guards her secrets even better than the school of teenage girls they will have to investigate.

Together Moran and Conway investigate the year old murder of Chris Harper and unravel the rumors and innuendos of teenage lust and hate amongst bitter cliques and fierce enemies. Between loyalty and lies. Only Conway doesn't trust Moran, his ambitions or his ties to Holly Mackey and her father. The school itself would rather keep this death in the past and its influential patrons are not above calling the Detectives superiors to stop the investigation.

In one day, Moran and Conway must find the killer and who put the photo up in the Secret Place.

Review -

Tana French is wicked. The lilt and drive of her novels are fierce and there is a very strong ring of truth to all her characters. Young Detective Moran must weigh between his sense of the truth and his own ambitions as he unravels the truths amongst all the innuendos and lies told by this entire school of teenage girls. Truths that will both shock and sadden you.

If you ever hated high school. French shows you why in HD and surround sound. The cliques between the cool kids and the outcasts are powerful and honest. Both with blood on their hands and heartlessness to preserve their place above all else.

The mystery is tight and well woven, each strand unraveling slowly with more than a few red herrings to have you guessing until the very end. The dynamic between the two Detectives is intriguing as they struggle to work together while not fully trusting one another.

A terrific and very well written novel. Another great mystery by Tana French.

Annihilation - Jeff VanderMeer (Book Review)

Title - Annihilation

Author - Jeff VanderMeer

Summary -

Area X has been cut off from the rest of the world for decades. Nature has reclaimed the last vestiges of human civilization. Twelve expeditions have been sent into Area X to investigate what is happening. The first returned with tales of a pristine landscape. A virtual Garden of Eden. The second expedition committed mass suicide. The third turned the guns on each other. The eleventh expedition returned, shells of their former selves, all soon dying of an unexplained cancer. This is the record of the twelfth expedition.

"...If you looked out through these areas, toward the ocean, all you saw was the black water, the gray of the cypress trunks, and the constant, motionless rain of moss flowing down. All you heard was the low moaning. The effect of this cannot be understood without being there. The beauty of it cannot be understood, either, and when you see beauty in desolation it changes something inside you. Desolation tries to colonize you..."

The Southern Reach, the government agency charged with investigating all things doing with Area X, has prepared a twelfth expedition. Hoping to use all that had been learned previously, they believe they are ready to learn the secrets of Area X. How it came to be. Why it affects so many so differently and why it is changing now. They send in four researchers. A biologist, an anthropologist, a surveyor and a psychologist.

"...I would tell you the names of the other three, if it mattered, but only the surveyor would last more than the next day or two. Besides, we were always strongly discouraged from using names. We were meant to be focused on our purpose, and "anything personal should be left behind." Names belonged to where we had come from, not to who we were while embedded in Area X..."

The four researchers arrive in Area X and immediately understand that where they are cannot be natural. Changes occur to the world around them, but it is the changes that occur within that haunt them most. Inside Area X, they will face that which can destroy them. In Area X, they will lose what little is left of themselves.

Review -

Annihilation is book one in the Southern Reach Trilogy and it gets the tale of with a haunting and deeply unnerving start. It is a book onto itself. If it wasn't for the cover stating it is part one of a trilogy, you would not know it from the story. It is its own tale. Complete and disturbing.

VanderMeer does a terrific job of building suspense and isolation. Not only are the four researchers separated from the rest of the world, but they also immediately feel a sense of distrust and apprehension from one another. In refusing to name the characters, only allowing them their titles, VanderMeer does a brave and bold act. He does humanize his characters, making it difficult for the reader to relate to them. The biologist, the narrator of the story, does an admirable job of weaving the life she left behind with the happenings of Area X. Her own secrets perhaps leading to her being chosen as part of the expedition and at once a strength but also a great weakness. Her survival depending on how well she can leave those parts of her behind until all is left is what Area X will allow.

Annihilation has all the hallmarks of a good horror story. It is in effect a haunted house tale without the brick and mortar. It is the landscape, so lush and green, yet able to fill all who enter it with such an overwhelming sense of desolation, that serves as the structure of the haunted house. Together or separated, the team must tear out its secrets, while guarding their own. The atmosphere is one of dread, as thick as a rolling fog, and fills you from within and without.

An excellent start to the series, I hope the next novels are just as good.

Alice in Zombieland - Gena Showalter (Book Review)

Title - Alice in Zombieland

Author - Gena Showalter

Summary -

Alice Bell doesn't live a normal teenage life. With a paranoid and fearful father, Alice and her sister are not allowed to go out at night. They are not allowed to even play outside unattended. Her social life is nil and at school her and her sister are outcasts. But that is all going to change. On her sixteenth birthday she asks her parents for one thing and only one. To watch her sister dance in the school play, after dark. One night, outside the house, after dark and then everything changed.

"...My names is Alice Bell, and on the night of my sixteenth birthday I lost the mother I loved, the sister I adored and the father I never understood until it was too late. Until that heartbeat when my entire world collapsed and a new one took shape around me.
My father was right. Monsters walk among us..."

That night her family is in a one car accident and her sister, her mother and her father are killed. Alice is lost to a coma for weeks. But what she doesn't tell the police and what they don't tell her is that the bodies of her mother and father were mutilated beyond the results that could have come from the accident. As if something had come upon them and begun to feed. What Alice doesn't tell them is that she had been awake at that time and she saw what came for her parents.

Alice's father had been terrified of monsters that came out at night. Creatures that would haunt him until his dying day. Alice knows that these creatures exist and that they killed her family. But she also knows that no one will believe her and so she keeps quiet. Sent to her grandparents to live. Alice must prepare herself for the day she will face these creatures.
But for now there are even worse creatures to face. A new high school. New friends and enemies and a young boy who knows more about her and what lurks in the night than he is letting on. Alice must decide who she can trust and who she cannot in her battle to face what comes out only at night.

Review -

Gena Showalter's foray into teen paranormal drama is fresh and inventive. Her adult novels rely heavily on the sexual themes to help drive them, which she doesn't use in her teen books and it is refreshing to see that she can absolutely create a story with pace and tempo without the adult themes.
Alice Bell is the lost awkward teen whose grief drives her forward to discover what it is that truly killed her parents and sister. She knows what she saw cannot exist but she also knows that her father was afraid of this very thing all her life.
The zombies in Showalter's novel are not the of the flesh eating variety but rather spirits who attack their victims in the spirit world and whatever damage they afflict there, manifests itself in the real world. Alice must learn to fight them in this spirit world to defeat them and protect what is left of those she loves.
If there is a negative in the story is that it only relates to Alice in Wonderland in name alone. There is little correlation between this tale and the class story. I had hoped that Showalter would have used more of the background of the Alice in Wonderland story to set the background for her novel. Perhaps that will show in the next book.
A good well paced read.

The Poor Boy's Game - Dennis Tafoya (Book Review)

Title - The Poor Boy's Game

Author - Dennis Tafoya

Summary -

When US Marshal Frannie Mullen gets one of her best friends shot during a sting operation, her career is over. Still reeling from the loss, Frannie is trying to sort out her feelings for Wyatt, the reformed outlaw who loves her, and to support her newly-sober sister, Mae, as she struggles with the fallout of their unstable, violent childhood. The murder of her own mother at the hand of her father.

Their father Patrick Mullen is a thug, a vicious enforcer for a corrupt Philadelphia union, and when he escapes from prison, bodies of ex-rivals and witnesses begin piling up. Now Frannie is suspected as an accomplice in his escape and targeted by shadowy killers from the Philadelphia underworld, the US Marshals she used to serve with and the local police. Unsure who to trust, drawing on the skills she's learned as a Marshal and her training as a boxer, Frannie is forced to fight to protect her shattered sister and Patrick’s pregnant girlfriend from the most dangerous criminal she’s ever faced—her own father.

Review -

This is Noir. This is what Noir is suppose to be. Not the Hollywood pretty boy in dark lighting Noir. This is dirty cold live in the shadows with disfunction every second of the day and how can you save those you love when you are barely able to hold yourself up Noir. How? With guts and a gun and more than a few scars. This is Noir and I freaking loved it.

Tafoya writes about the streets of Philiadelphia with grit and determination. His prose is direct and solid. No flash or overindulged prose to set the mood. This is Elmore Leanord and Cormac McCarthy territory. Tafoya may be new (three books to date that I know of) but he is staking his claim and growing.

Frannie Mullen is a deeply flawed character. Her traumatic childhood at the hands of her violently abusive father has left deep emotional crevises in her soul. More so because she knows she is way too much like him. The position with the US Marshals was all she had to show she wasn't Patrick Mullen's daughter and when she loses that she falls into a spiral of depression. But when Patrick escapes she knows she has to pull herself out of it. Because Patrick swore to kill everyone who had anything to do with putting him away and that included his two daughters. With the Marshals believing she had something to do with Patrick's escape, her resources are limited to protect herself and her sister. But Frannie knows, the only way she is going to beat Patrick is to allow herself to become Patrick.

Tafoya allows Frannie to carry the novel, there is no prince to save the day. She has friends, and they help her, but in the end its Frannie making her way through the past and the present to secure the safety of whats left of her family.

A very well executed and strong read.

Crazy Rich Asians - Kevin Kwan (Book Review)

Title - Crazy Rich Asians

Author - Kevin Kwan

Summary -

Rachel Chu has a boyfriend she has been dating for the last two years. He is Chinese with a British accent, well educated, charming and totally unassuming. But her boyfriend, Nick Young, has a secret he hasn't really told her about. A secret that will tear her world apart. Nick Young comes from a family of crazy, rich Asians.

Nick is heading back to Singapore to be best man at his childhood friend Colin's wedding. He takes Rachel along to meet the family. But Nick doesn't understand the true nature of his family. He has always been sheltered by the snobbery and bigotry that his mother and grandmother have. Worse, he has no idea how brutal the women in his family will treat an outsider. Once they feel could never be worthy of them.

A bloody cut open fish in her hotel room. Rumors of Nick's escapades whispered in her ear from cousins. Gold digging cunt written in blood in her room. All this and worse await Rachel. Even her family and their history is not out of bounds as the women in Nick's life decide to destroy this American Born Chinese girl.

Review -

Crazy Rich Asians is a sad, funny, tragic, uplifting and demoralizing novel of family and bloodlines. How far some will go to protect them and how far they are willing to go to maintain the class status they believe they are entitled to. It is cruel and yet at times very funny. The actions and attitudes are those expressed around any table by moms. aunts, sisters and cousins when a favored son is in love with a girl they don't approve of. Only here it is done with an unlimited supply of money behind it.

This is high drama with a more than a little reality show thrown into it. A mix between the old Dallas soap opera and Wives of Beverly Hills or some nonsense.

But the writing and prose Kwan uses raises it above that level. This is a throwback to the old Irwin Shaw novel, Rich Man, Poor Man. The large scale operatic novel of families and dynasty but with a little more humor tossed in to temper the cruelty.

A well paced and enjoyable read.

The Boy Who Drew Monsters - Keith Donohue (Book Review)

Title - The Boy Who Drew Monsters

Author - Keith Donohue

Source - Net Galley

Summary -

Three years ago Jack Peter Keenan and his friend Nick nearly drowned in the ocean by his home. Since then Jack Peter, called Jip by his father, has never been the same. Jip was already diagnosed with Aspergers, but after the incident he became even more withdrawn and anti-social. He hated to be touched and if startled would lash out, even blackening his mother's eye. His was a high functioning disease, but for his mother and father, dealing with Jack Peter was destroying them. But what they didn't know was that the world Jip retreated to in his mind was even more terrifying to him than the world on the outside.

"...The boy was not sure if it was a house in which dreams came true or if the house itself had been made our of dreams. Once upon a time, the name had made him happy, but on ice cold nights like these, the dreams turned into nightmares, and monsters under the bed stirred in the bump of the night..."

Jack Peter finds an outlet for the world trapped within his mind. He draws and he draws all the time. He draws everything he thinks of, only lately he thinks of monsters. Creatures that rise out of the sea and great massive dogs. He listens to the conversations around him and from there he draws, turning comments and thoughts into nightmares. But once they are on paper, the scenes begin to come to life. And out on the shore his father sees a shambling form of a man, a creature that wanders nude in the freezing snow. Lately, he can even hear something moving inside the house at night. Something that leaves the floor cold and the doors like ice.

Jack Peter knows what the thing is and he knows its real. He draws it to keep it away and he draws other things to keep them near. The line between the world's reality and Jip's mind has cracked and soon all the monsters will begin to flood in.

Review -

Keith Donohue writes creepy stories. Not the bloody slasher type, but the old black and white Twilight Zone kind that sort of cause the hairs on the back of your neck to stand. It is the old instincts within us. The one that says there is something darker and far more evil nearby. A predator. A sense that for a moment, the story could be more real than we want it to be.

Little Jack Peter is not a likable kid. The difficulty his parents have in managing him is well written. Though you know it's because of the Autism, still you find it difficult to imagine having to work that hard just to communicate with your child. Slowly, Donohue unravels the secrets behind this family and you begin to understand that in some way they have laid all their troubles at the feet of the child. Blaming him for all that is wrong in their lives and their marriage. For Jack Peter's part, he is just trapped in his world with his monsters.

Donohue builds the suspense slowly, taking his time to develop the characters and the story until midway through you are re-examining your feelings about each individual one. The secrets unfold and there is something of a sense of retribution forthcoming in the appearance of Jack Peter's nightmares. These monsters are not only here to terrorize but perhaps to also take some recompense for the wrongs of the past.

In the end, the power of Jack Peter's drawings goes far beyond the creatures he calls forth. In the end, Jack Peter is drawing for their very lives.

A good read.

Krampus The Yule Lord - Brom (Book Review)

Title - Krampus The Yule Lord

Author - Brom

Summary -

One Christmas Eve in the small town of Boone County, West Virginia, failed musician and drug runner Jesse sees an amazing sight. Seven devilish figures chasing a fat man in a red suit and eight flying reindeer. When the reindeer fly upward the devils attack the man in the red suit and they battle on board the enormous sleigh. In the screams and blood that follow a large sack falls to the ground.

It is a magic sack that can grant Jesse anything he can envision. Only the man in the red suit is going to want it back and so do the devils that attacked him. And someone else. Someone who has been forgotten.

"...Santa Claus, my dear friend, you are a thief, a traitor, a slanderer, a murderer, a liar, but worst of all you are a mockery of everything for which I stood.
You have sung your last ho, ho, ho for I am coming for your head. For Odin, Loki, and all the fallen gods, for your treachery, for chaining me in this pit for five hundred years. But most of all I am coming to take back what is mine, to take back Yuletide. And with my foot upon your throat, I shall speak your name, your true name, and with death staring back at you, you will no longer be able to hide from your dark deeds, from the faces of all those you betrayed.
I, Krampus, Lord of Yule, son of Hel, bloodline of the great Loki, swear to cut your lying tongue from your mouth, your thieving hands from your wrists, and you jolly head from your neck..."

Jesse quickly becomes the hunted. From the drug dealers he works for who believe he's betrayed them. From the local Police Chief whose taken Jesse's wife and child to be his own. From his own failed ambitions. From the jolly old man in the red suit who doesn't look like the Santa he's come to know. Not when Santa looks really pissed off and carrying a broadsword. From the devils who are hunting the sack for their awakening Yule Lord. To Krampus himself. The forgotten god from another time.

But the Yule Lord finds more than Santa in his way to reclaim what was once his. He finds mankind itself may be his greatest adversary.

"...Mankind has lost its connection to the land, to the earth, to the beasts and spirits. They gather their food not from the forests and fields, but from plastic bins and ice boxes. Their lives are no longer tied to the cycles of the seasons and the harvest, no longer do they need the Yule Lord to chase away the winter darkness and usher in the light of spring. Man has only himself to fear now...he has become his own worst devil..."

Jesse finds himself in service to the returning Yule Lord, as the only means to protect his wife and daughter. But first, before he can help them, he must help Krampus kill Santa Claus.

Review -

Krampus the Yule Lord is a big, bad, bloody kick ass of a book. You will never look at Christmas, Santa, mistletoe and the flying reindeer quit the same way again. Brom does an excellent job of tracing these Christmas traditions back to their roots in Norse mythology and with incredible wit and outrage develops the tale of an ancient God; revived to see how these traditions have been bastardized by today's religions.

Krampus is an ancient bitter God, betrayed by the one who would become Santa Claus. A son of Odin who was befriended by Krampus out of pity and then betrayed and trapped the Yule Lord. Taking the traditions of Yule and making them his own in service to the coming of the one God. The new religion of the Christ child. To keep himself alive and strong in the new religion, the God that would become Santa Claus betrays all the old values to become the neutered servant of Christianity. A betrayal Krampus looks to reverse. But to do it, he must win back humanity.

The research Brom has done to craft his tale and make it believable is delivered with pain and suffering from the fallen Krampus. You will actually be wanting him to win back his place, and see the head of dear old Santa stain the snow red with blood.

A fun and enjoyable tale.

Countdown City - Ben H Winters (Book Review)

Title - Countdown City (The Last Policeman #2)

Author - Ben H. Winters

Summary -

In seventy-seven days, the asteroid 2011GV1 is going to slam into the planet Earth and destroy all life on it. It will be a catastrophe on par with the impact that ended the reign of the dinosaurs. All humanity knows it is coming and they know just as well that there is nothing they can do about it. Many have chosen to deal with this impending doom in different ways. Some have decided to end their own lives rather than wait out the day. Others have gone on extensive trips, fulfilling bucket lists they had put off to another time and now there is no more time.

But for forcibly retired Police Detective Henry Palace, he does the only thing he can. The only thing he knows to do. He stays on the job and today, seventy-seven days away from the apocalypse, he has a new case to work.

Martha Milano babysat Henry and his sister Nico when they were kids. Now they are all grown up and Martha's husband Brett has gone missing. Martha is sure there is more to it than Brett running away in the face of the end of times. She is positive he wouldn't do that. No something else has happened and she needs Henry to look into to it. To find and bring her husband back home. The police will be no help. They have been replaced with young kids who simply are there to provide a presence. No one investigates. Henry is sure that the databases are even working. But still he agrees to find Brett.

"...My missing person was a man dying to leave, in a fever to leave, but who knew that leaving was wrong. He made a compromise with himself, struck a moral balance, did what he had to, to make arrangements for the woman he'd be leaving behind..."

Henry follows Brett to a pizza parlor and through the dark street to a hideout for one of the few remaining criminal enterprises. All the while knowing that Brett had left Martha. But why? Brett was an ex-cop and what Henry was sensing was that Brett wasn't running from something, he was running to something.

The mystery deepens as Henry must work through the remaining camps of humanity that live outside the city. Survivalists and communes. Both thinking that the government is lying to them all and that there is no end of the world. Conspiracy nuts who are sure this is all a Government cover-up. All to find one missing man and bring him home. So that he can die with his wife, when the seventy-seventh die finally arrives.

Review -

Countdown City is an excellent sequel to The Last Policeman. Henry Palace is such a well written character that his drive to do the right thing in the face of such over whelming helplessness just endears him the readers even more.

The story is well plotted and though it is a desperate situation, the novel never gets bogged down in the setting and hopelessness. Even besides the impending doom, there is a real mystery here. Where is Brett? Why did he leave? What is he doing and are the rants and ravings of the communes and conspiracy nuts hold any validity? What is Henry going to tell Brett when he finds him? Excuse me but your wife would like you to come home now so you can die together.

Countdown City is well written mystery and if Henry Palace is the Last Policeman then perhaps there is some hope left. At least until the asteroid hits and the planet overheats and everything dies and then well it all kind of sucks after that. But until then, it looks like there is one more book coming with Henry Palace to be read!

A very good read!

The Wrath of Angels - John Connolly (Book Review)

Title - The Wrath of Angels

Author - John Connolly

Summary -

A plane wreckage is found deep in the woods of Maine, there are no bodies but a satchel of money. More money than the two men who have found it have ever seen. Good men. Honest men. Tempted men. They do something that they would never have done before and take the list. Doing this they set in motion a series of events that would end up hurting those they love and bringing forth a malevolence that they had never known. An evil that doesn't care about the money. It cares about the list of names that was concealed in the missing plane as well.
Charlie Parker is a private detective who specializes in malevolence. Charlie has made a career of hunting those things that go bump in the night. The list of names is a record of those who have made deals with the devil. People and spirits that work on the side of evil. Only for some strange reason, Parker's name is on that list as well. Now those who stood with him before, question who Parker serves.

"..But there was one other who had been intimately involved in the matter of Brightwell and the Believers, one who knew more than anyone else about the bodies that decayed but did not die, and migrating spirits, more perhaps than he had even admitted to me. His name was Epstein, and he was a rabbi, and a grieving father, and a hunter of fallen angels..."

Aided only by his closest allies, Louise and Angel, Charlie Parker must find the wreckage and retrieve the list before any one else does. It is his only hope to clear his name.
In his way is a demon and her child, a serial killer known only as the Collector who kills those who are evil and now believes Parker to be among the damned; and a small spirit child who seeks to trap those in the woods and keep them with her.

"..It was to Harlan, and to Harlan alone, that Barney Shore told the tale of the girl in the woods, a girl with sunken eyes, and wearing a black dress, who had come to him with the first touch of snow, inviting him to follow her deeper into the woods, calling on him to play with her in the northern darkness..."

Parker must face an evil greater than any he has faced before. A serial killer that judges his soul and a spirit that wants to keep it. Parker, who after his long journey of redemption, is not sure how much of a fight he wants to put up to save what is left of his soul.

Review -

The Charlie Parker series just won't stop! Each novel adds to the mythos that John Connolly has created around his paranormal detective yet stands solely on its own. There is not one that simply leads to the next. This is the 11th in the series and we can only hope it will go on and on.
To really appreciate the darkness that is the Charlie Parker novels you have to pick up other writing by John Connolly. The Samuel Johnson stories for young adults. The Book of Lost Things. The fairy tale stories laced with humor and wit. Turning the dwarves of Snow White into socialist activists who fight for better working conditions and fairer wages is short of brilliant. I wont tell you what book that is in, you'll just have to look for yourself.
The darkness of the Charlie Parker series would be overwhelming if not for the moments of wit Connolly has infused into the narrative. The scene in the ice cream parlor where Angel and Louis have to control themselves when a group of drunk men get out of hand, only because Parker's young daughter is with them. It doesn't matter, because she tells her mom anyway how Angel cursed and Louis threatened to shoot someone.
There are real characters here that take over sections of the novel that you come to care about greatly. Characters that live and breath in you mind long after the last page is turned and the book put away.
But it is Parker and his struggle that is central to the novel. It is the binding principle throughout the entire series. How far can Parker go before he slips into the evil that is waiting for him. How close is he and is that why his name appears on the list? How much more in cost can Charlie Parker pay? A wife and child tortured and murdered. His career gone. Friends and family disowning him or dying at the hands of those he hunts. Another wife and child lost to him for their own safety. The whispers in the woods from the dead child that was his daughter. The bitterness that only the hunt will salve.
Parker is on the side of the Angels. But which ones. The Better Angels or the Fallen ones.
Another awesome read from John Connolly.

The Fainting Room - Sarah Pemberton Strong (Book Review)

Title - The Fainting Room

Author - Sarah Pemberton Strong

Summary -

Evelyn has the perfect life. A big house. A wonderful doting husband in Ray. A life of leisure and wealth. A far cry from the life she left behind. But it is the life she left behind that is catching up to her. The life of a battered woman. The body covered in tattoos that harkened back to an earlier time. A time when she was little more than a teenage bride in a traveling destitute circus.
A life she thought she had left behind except for the recesses of her mind. A mind that is haunted by the past and a dead husband.
Ray has the perfect life. A beautiful home given to him by his wealthy parents. A job doing what he loves and a wife he adores. A wife who's past excites and thrills him. A past he doesn't understand holds dangers that in his world he cannot fathom.

"..There were bad things inside her; things Ray knew nothing about..."

Into this home comes Ingrid. A student at the local private school who is in the midst of being suspended for drinking when she finds that she cannot go home. Her father and new wife are out of the country. Evelyn and Ray decide to take her in. A distraction for the cracks that are being to unravel their marriage.
Ingrid is smart, but rebellious in her musings. She sees in herself a writer of detective novels and begins to sense a mystery in the lives of her caregivers. Slowly she begins to peel back the layers of the relationship between Ray and Evelyn.

"..Each of these possibilities produced the same flare of panic in his chest. Down the hall she was still crying. In the sea of the sound of her sobs Ray sat down, put his head on the desk and cried, too, not only because he had hurt Ingrid, not only for the loss of her who he could never have, but for the loss of the part of himself he most cherished: the part he thought of as Arthur Braeburn Shepard, a good man..."

In her fantasies, as the noir detective she writes about, Ingrid is falling in love with the red haired, tattooed Evelyn with the dark past. Oblivious to the haunting desire that is in Ray's eyes.

"...Why's it called a fainting room?" Ingrid asked.
"That's what the Victorians called it. Some of the houses from this period have a room like this on the second floor. After climbing the stairs in tight corsets," Ray smiled, "breathless ladies would go into the fainting room to sit down and sniff sal volatile to recover themselves..."

The three, in the large house, this one summer, are colliding in their emotions and desires. Until they are breathless seeking a rest in The Fainting Room.

Review -

I really liked The Fainting Room. The characters drive this novel and in this S P Strong has done a masterful job. Evelyn is powerful as the wife with the haunted past who finally has all she ever wanted but finds herself imprisoned in a gilded cage. Ray is the husband, so used to having all he wants, how he wants until he finds something he wants that even he knows he must deny himself. And then there is Ingrid, the lost girl whose desire for a family pushes her way into their lives.
The Fainting Room is a well written emotional roller coaster of a book that explores forbidden passion as well as the frail fabric between reality and the fantasies we sometimes wish we had instead. It is a novel about what happens when you get everything you want and find out that the only thing that can take it from you is yourself.
Evelyn's character drives this book for me. Her secrets and tendency to violence lay just under the surface and she is losing the ability to control it. She wavers between the woman she is and the girl she use to be. She is so well written that I found myself rushing through the parts of the novel where she wasn't present just to get to the next scene she was in.
A very good read.

  

The Farm - Tom Rob Smith (Book Review)

Title - The Farm

Author - Tom Rob Smith

Summary -

It is a normal day for Daniel, his life proceeding at a comfortable level. On the outside all is fine and he seems happy. Then comes the call from his father, the call that changes everything. The call that begins the process that strips the veneer from his life.

"Dad?"
"Your mother...She's not well."
"Its so sad."
"Sad because she's sick? Sick how? How's Mum sick?"
Dad was still crying. All I could do was dumbly wait until he said:
"She's been imagining things - terrible, terrible things."

Daniel's parents had left England and travelled to Sweden, the country of his mother's birth. The place she had run from at such an early age. Now his mother is ill and Daniel must get to her. As he plans to take a flight he receives another call, this time from his mother and she tells him to wait. That she is coming to him. When she lands she tells him he cannot talk to his father. She tells him there is a conspiracy to prove she is mad. She tells him a story so incredible...

"..In no more than a brief aside, my mum had swept away my entire conception of our family life.."

Daniel's mother, Tilde, tells Daniel the true reason she and his father had left to go to Sweden. The truths of her childhood and her lost friend Freja. And now, while she has little time, the truth of his father and the men of the small village they had settled in and the disappearance of the young girl Mia.
Daniel must hear his mother out as his father Chris is now following her with his own tales of his mother's madness.
Daniel is forced to choose between his parents and their truths and what truly happened to the people he loved on the Farm.

Review -

Slow to begin with, this novel picks up speed and force as it builds its mystery with layer after layer of secrets and lies. You are left to wonder as Daniel must, is his Mom going mad or is his father a murderer?
You are witness as the family is torn apart by its own desire to find the truth in one another. Tilde's descent into her convictions drag her son and husband down into the same abyss.
Daniel must face the reality and step into the past of his mother's life to find out what created this break with reality. Or else, is it a break at all and is she correct.
A very good read.

Cress (The Lunar Chronicles #3) - Marissa Meyer (Book Review)

Title - Cress (The Lunar Chronicles, #3)

Author - Marissa Meyer

Summary -

In Book #1, Cinder, the cyborg girl Cinder confronts the evil Lunar Queen Levana and the reality of her own hidden past. In Book #2, she teams up with the young girl and pilot Scarlett and cage fighter Wolf. Along the way they pick rogue pirate Space Captain Thorne. That is a quick summary of two very good and exciting YA, sci-fi, fantasy books that I strongly urge you to pick and read before you read Cress.
In Book #3, Cinder and her crew are orbiting the Earth deciding on their next course of action. The forced marriage between Queen Levana and Emperor Kai of Earth. Levana expects through this marriage to rule not only her Lunar kingdom but Earth as well. Cinder has learned that she is the long lost Princess Selena; true heir to the lunar kingdom sent to Earth as an infant for her safety from Levana when her ship crashed and she was horribly injured. Resulting in her becoming the cyborg girl she is now.
The crew receive a communication, alarming them as they felt no one knew where they were. Cautiously they answer the call. It is a young girl named Cress who has information of Levana's plans that she is willing to trade for your escape.

"...I'm not on Luna!" The words tumbled out of Cress, coaxed on by a twist of hope. "You don't have to come to Luna. I'm not there."
Cinder scanned the room behind Cress. "But you said before that you couldn't contact Earth, so you're not..."
"I'm on a satellite. I can give you my coordinates..."

"How long have you been living in a satellite?"
She twisted her hair around her fingers. "Seven years...or so."
"Seven years? By yourself?"
"Y-yes." She shrugged. "Mistress restocks my food and water and I have net access, so it isn't so bad. But...well..."
"But you're a prisoner," said Thorne.
"I prefer damsel in distress," she murmured...

For seven years the girl named Cress has been isolated on a satellite orbiting Earth, monitoring all transmissions for Queen Levana, when a new task was set before her. Find the fugitive Cinder and her crew. But for Cress, it was an opportunity of another kind. The chance to escape from her captures and join Cinder on her quest.

Review -

I have a hard time deciding which of these books I enjoyed the most. Cinder, Scarlett or Cress. For the uninitiated into Marissa Meyer's fantasy sci-fi world. Cinder is Cinderella. Scarlett is Red Riding Hood and Cress is Rapunzel. Wolf, from Scarlett is the big bad wolf but with a change of heart. And Levana, was think every evil female Disney stepmom and Queen and you got her. Emperor Kai, is the Prince only in these tales it is he who needs the saving.
But don't get the wrong message, these books are far from feminist ravings, they encompass far more. There is class warfare, Orwellian themes of the all powerful Government and the controlling of the minds of its people and enemies.
Into all of this steps Cinder. She is far from beautiful, her scars and metal body parts keep her from seeing the true beauty that she is. A powerful albeit reluctant hero.
Scarlett, who's family loss haunts her. There is a grandmother here that doesn't quite make it. And Wolf whose prior acts of violence he seeks to rectify as his love of Scarlett is the most powerful emotion he knows.
There are many other characters in and out of these books, characters who resemble a childhood memory but whose part in these tales is stunningly their own.
Meyer has done far more than re-write a fairy tale or two. She has had the audacity and originality to re-write beloved characters into an adventure all her own.
A very good read!

Tempting A Sinner - Kate Pearce (Book Review)

Title - Tempting a Sinner

Author - Kate Pearce

Summary -

As young lovers, Benedict Keyes and Malinda Rowland are separated by class. Benedict, the heir to English aristocracy, and Malinda the daughter of a sergeant in the English army.
When Malinda's father dies in battle, seeking to protect her and her mother, Benedict rashly marries her. But when his father learns of it he has the marriage annulled and Malinda sent away.
Eighteen years later Malinda returns to England and with Benedict's help, begins to unravel the mystery behind her father's death. But in their way are the secrets of the past and the ones they keep from one another.

"You haven't told him the truth, have you?"
"And which truth would that be, my lord?"
"The reason you left."
Malinda went still, and Benedict watched a triumphant smile grow on his father's haggard face. He stepped in front of her.
"What truth?"
"The fact that her mother was my mistress, and that your darling Malinda is my bastard, and therefore your half sister?"

Benedict and Malinda must weave their trail through secrets and lies and their own conflicted desires. Together they will find out the truth of the death of Malinda's father and the payroll he was guarding. Also Malinda learns what Benedict has become and of the activities that go on in the Sinners Club. Activities that she herself desires to be a part of.

Review -

Wow. Pearce is not shy about what she infuses her tales with. There is sexual activity for all here. Man and woman. Woman and woman. Man and man. Threesomes of various kinds. Voyeurism. All told in rich and powerful detail with a prose and tempo often missing in erotica.
But Pearce also writes a really good mystery here. Not just some filler until the next sex scene. She layers secret upon secret and discovery upon discovery. Remove the sex and you have a very good mystery novel that would stand on its own.
But why would you want to?
Surprisingly good. I will definitely be looking for others in her collection of stories.
A very good read.

The Mist In The Mirror - Susan Hill (Book Review)

Title - The Mist In The Mirror

Author - Susan Hill

Summary -

One night a young man, having supper in his private club and carrying on with his friends of the existence of a ghost on the club's grounds is asked by one of the elder statesmen the following question:

"..You...believe?"
"Believe? Oh as to that..." I made a dismissive gesture. The topic was not one I wanted to raise again, in the late, silent street.
I have...a story. It is in my possession...which perhaps you might care to read..."

The young man is given a package which tells the tale of the elder club member, Sir James Monmouth, a young orphan, who has explored all around the globe, following in the footsteps of his idol; Conrad Vane. His final destination being London as he seeks further knowledge into the life of Conrad Vane. It is Monmouth's desire to write a book about his idol. But instead he is greeted with warnings and dire predictions by those he meets and questions about Vane.

"...Then Dancer said, his voice almost a whisper. "Whoever touches, explores, follows after Vane, will be run mad, and will never afterward rest his head or enjoy his peace or have a home. He will be haunted. He will be cursed. I saw what lay ahead, Monmouth, I drew back..."

Monmouth is not deterred. Despite the warnings. Despite the history of those who have followed Vane and perished. Despite the ghostly figure of a small child that he spies everywhere he goes. Monmouth goes on. His investigation eventually brings him to Kittiscar and a mystery he had no knowledge of.
In Kittiscar Hall is the last known surviving member of a family. The family of Monmouth. The family James Monmouth was orphaned from. Before he can question her, she passes away, leaving the Hall and all the family riches to James. But she leaves him with something else.

"...She continued to stare at me but now a look of almost horror crossed her features when she spoke, her voice a whisper.
"You surely are not planning to live here at Kittiscar?"
"Why certainly I am! I have no other home. I am the heir to the house, am I not?"
"But you cannot...surely you will not."
"Why do you say so?"
"Because...because you are a Monmouth and a man..."

It is here in Kittiscar Hall that James Monmouth must come face to face with the true nature of Conrad Vane, with the legacy of the Monmouth family and the clouded features that in the mist in the mirror.

Review -

Gothic Horror. Ghost Story. Things that go bump in the night.
This is the real thing.
Susan Hill writes fog heavy, English countryside, atmospheric tension, old time Saturday morning, black and white horror like you grew up with. Boris Karloff and Christopher Lee could literally step off these pages.
Like her novel, The Woman In Black; not the slow moving Daniel Radcliff movie, but the book itself; The Mist in the Mirror, moves steadily, building tension and fear as it slowly unravels the mystery behind the legacy that James Monmouth has unwittingly inherited.
This novel is what true horror novels were before the need to splash buckets of blood on every page became the standard.
A really good read.

Any Other Name - Craig Johnson (Book Review)

Title - Any Other Name

Author - Craig Johnson

Summary -

Sheriff Walt Longmire's old boss Lucian Connally asks Walt to look into the suicide of a Detective in Campbell County. Lucian has a relationship with the family and the death of the Detective just doesn't ring true. Only problem is the case is closed, its outside of his jurisdiction and his only daughter is having a baby in Philadelphia and he is expected to be there. The clock is ticking and Longmire is smelling something really wrong with the death of Detective Gerald Holman.
First is it took two shots to kill himself. Next is the last cases Holman was working. Girls gone missing. And too many unanswered questions for Walt to ignore.

"..I want to warn you that if you put Walter on this you're going to find out what it's all about, one way or the other." Another pause, and I could imagine the face that was peering down at her, a visage to which I was accustomed. "You're sure you want that? Because he's like a gun; once you point him and pull the trigger, it's too late to change your mind..."

With the help of Under-Sheriff Vic Moretti and friend Henry Standing Bear, Walt is set to unravel the mystery of the dead Detective and the slew of missing girls. And somehow be there for the birth of his first grandchild.

Review -

Most series will lose steam after the fifth book or so. But Craig Johnson has maintained momentum with the Walt Longmire books and the 10th novel in the series is as crisp and well written as the first one. The characters have evolved but in essence stayed incredibly true to themselves.
I will admit being a fan of the TV show and was introduced to the characters through the show but the books are incredibly well written and stand on their own. The relationship between Vic and Walt is far more complicated in the novels and Henry Standing Bear much more imposing and zen like.
If you have not read any of the novels, you are cheating yourself. They are well written, plotted, and character driven mysteries that are in fact, true mysteries and not just some worn out plot line just there to give the characters something to talk about.
Another good read from Craig Johnson.

Roosevelt's Beast - Louis Bayard (Book Review)

Title - Roosevelt's Beast

Author - Louis Bayard

Summary -

It is 1914, along Brazil's River of Doubt, a band of explorers travel deep into the Amazon. In the party are a father and son of one of America's most powerful families. Theodore Roosevelt and his son Kermit.
But the Roosevelt's become detached from the rest of the group and with Theodore injured, it falls to Kermit to rescue them. Kermit who is plagued with self doubts and an overriding sense of failure must now care for and save his larger than life father.
Alone and captured by the remote tribe known as the Cinta Larga, the Roosevelts bargain for their lives. They are offered a task for their freedom.
They must find and kill the Beast that has been terrorizing the village. A Beast of unspeakable evil.

"...The Beast, though, hadn't left much for the bugs to feast on. Muscle, heart, liver-all were gone. The man had been peeled open and scooped out like a tin of sardines. The only organs that remained were his eyes, and, under the ministrations of heat and bacteria, even these had melted into black craters, staring out of a mustard-colored mask..."

Theodore and Kermit, with only a child and his mother to guide them, go into the jungle to hunt the Beast of the Cinta Larga. But what they find, what they bring back, is a Beast much more powerful than they imagined.

"...Both Cherrie and Rondon were silent for a time. Then the Brazilian looked up.
"You are asking us to lie, Colonel?"
"I am asking you to omit. Surely, amidst the...the infinite gradations of human venality, that particular sin ranks low." The old man kneaded the folds of his throat. "What happened out there belongs out there. The jungle has it; let the jungle keep it..."

Roosevelt's Beast is written out of the history books but never from the thoughts and souls of those who faced it.

Review -

Louis Bayard's talent for re-writing snippets of the past and infusing them with the real people who lived through those times is on full view here. Though slow to begin with, the setting is powerful and the pace quickly picks up and slams into the jungle foliage with all the force and rage of the Beast it projects.
It is Kermit, not his father Theodore, who is the narrator of this grand misadventure. Kermit, so full of self doubt and eagerness to please. Kermit, who must decide if the visions he sees are real or is he descending into the madness that has taken others in his family.
The tale itself weaves in and out of adventure and the supernatural until together they create their own well woven tapestry. Bayard is a master craftsman at this.
Underneath it all there is a mystery. Blood and death. Done by some Beast or by man. This is what Kermit must decide and when he learns the truth, how to deal with it.
Another wonderfully novel by one of the best writer's of our generation.

The Lost Sisterhood - Anne Fortier (Book Review)

Title - The Lost Sisterhood

Author - Anne Fortier

Summary - (SPOILERS)

"..Thank you, Dr. Morgan. I am gratified to discover that I am no longer the most antiquated scholar at Oxford. For your sake I hope the academy will one day come to need feminism again; the rest of us, I am relieved to say, have long since moved along and buried the old battle-ax..."

Diana Morgan has an obsession. A belief ingrained in her by countless tales told to her by her grandmother. A faith that the Amazons of legend did exist and not only did they exist, but that she will find archaeological proof of such an existence. Unfortunately she is also very alone among her colleagues in such a belief and finds her career stalled often for it.
Until one afternoon after a lecture she has given, she is propositioned by a strange man. Propositioned to fly across the world to decipher a text; in a language she has seen only once before. In a tattered old notebook written in by her grandmother. The very grandmother who has disappeared but left in Diana, the tales of the Amazons.

Parallel to the tale of Diana is the tale of Myrina. A young girl who along with her younger sister finds herself outcast from her village. A disease has attacked the village and Myrina's mother, whose faith in herbs and potions finds herself the scapegoat in the villagers fears. Myrina takes her sister to the city of the Goddess to seek refuge and there joins with the Sisterhood of the Goddess.
But such safety does not last as the Temple is sacked and the Sisterhood is taken into slavery or killed. The attackers, Greek pirates led by the son of King Agamemnon have taken Myrina's sister captive.

"..If there exists a land without men," replied Myrina, glancing at her sisters, "we above all should like to know where it is. As you can surely see, we have suffered much, and expect to suffer more, for this world of ships and journeys has not been kind to us." She bent her head as images of the temple raiders passed before her eyes. "Happiness has long since run its course in us. We are now to choose between danger and regret, neither of which can ever restore the lives we have lost..."

"..To the Greeks," Paris went on. "women are little more than livestock, and foreigners are considered more brutish still. This is why Agamemnon's pirates think nothing of attacking a foreign temple and laying hands on a priestess, and why I urge you to forget this quest of yours. If your friends are not already dead, they will be soon. Why add more bodies to the pyre?"
Myrina was shocked by his words that her growing respect for Prince Paris almost lost its footing. "If I were a man," she said, straightening, "you would not have spoken to me thus. Because I am a woman, you assume my aim in life is comfort, and that my honor lies in my chastity alone. I can't blame you, for you are merely saying what you think I am hoping to hear. But you are wrong..."

Myrina finds an ally in the young Prince of Troy, Paris, and together they set forth to free the captive Sisterhood. Thus setting the stage for the great War of Troy.

Diana finds clues to the existence of Myrina, the last known queen of the Amazons and of the battle of Troy. But in doing so she finds something else. Did the Sisterhood truly die defending the city of Troy against the Greeks, or do they still live today?

Review -

Anne Fortier has done it again. Her first English novel, Juliet, told the story of Shakespeare's Juliet in historical terms and how it relates to a modern day Juliet. In The Lost Sisterhood, she brings the strength of and power of the legend of the Amazons to life but in terms that are realistic and true to their time.
Myrina and her Sisterhood find themselves becoming warriors not by choice but by necessity. And it is their great loss that leads them to seek a sanctuary without men. Where they can provide for themselves and build a life without the limitations pressed upon them by the cultural expectations of their time.
In telling Diana's story, Fortier shows with deftness and grace, that little has changed as Diana fights for the respect and equality that her male counterparts receive in the academic world.
Do not get me wrong. This novel is not a flag waving, bra burning condemnation of the male species. Perhaps this is what Fortier has done so very well in this tale. She makes her point without alienating the male reader.
More than that alone, it is a suspenseful and wonderfully researched novel of the fall of Troy and the legends of the Amazons that defended it. She does not mimic the story we have heard before but writes one of her own. There is little mention of Achilles and none of Paris' older brother Hector. Helen is here of course but not quite in the fashion we are use to.
The Lost Sisterhood is an ode to strong independent women and insightful to the sacrifice and gain that comes with such independence.
But best of all, it is a really good story.

Alison's Wonderland - Alison Tyler (Editor) (Book Review)

Title - Alison's Wonderland

Author - Alison Tyler (Editor)

Summary -

Alison's Wonderland is a collection of short story erotica, using established fairy tale characters in a modern twist. In these pages you will find a red-haired girl with a broken down car on her way to grandmother's house; Snow-white entertaining her seven roommates; Cinderella after the ball and the three Billy goats gruff and a rather reserved Mrs. Troll. These and many more re-imaginings of classic tales.

Review -

It's difficult to know just where to begin with this collection of erotica. Some of the tales borrow heavily from their counterparts while others only name the characters to resemble the fairy tales. What they all share is a clever inventiveness and creativity to which each tale is told.
Granted, taken out of the context of the short story, some of the premises would seem to be ludicrous, they are so well told in this collection that you would believe a young woman would fantasize of being spanked by the massive fishtail of a mermaid. Belle travels to meet the Beast, herself a bought sex slave; but who will end up dominating who? Beauty or the Beast?
In the hands of these authors, each story comes tantalizingly alive. And isn't that the greatest problem with collections? That after a few, they all blend into the same story. Here the variety is what is so well maintained.
A very good read.

William Shakespeare's The Empire Striketh Back (William Shakespeare's Star Wars #2) - Ian Doescher (Book Review)

Title - William Shakespeare's The Empire Striketh Back (William Shakespeare's Star Wars #2)

Author - Ian Doescher

Synopsis -

Do I really need to tell it?
Okay for those of you that have been in a coma for the last decade or two.
After destroying the Death Star, Luke, Han and Leia find that the rebellion is still in danger from the power of the Empire and the greatest evil, Darth Vader. On the icy planet Hoth, Luke investigates a probe landing and finds himself attacked by Yeti like creature Wampa, after his escape he hears the ghost of Ben (Obi Wan) Kenobi telling him to go the Dagobah system to find the great Jedi master Yoda.
But the Empire attacks with At-Ats and the battle of Hoth insues. Escaping from the Empire, Luke races to Dagobah and Han, Leia, Chewbacca and 3PO seek refuge in the outpost of Cloud City run by Lando Calrissian.
Only Han has a price on his head and their refuge turns into a trap. As Han is tortured but not to illicit information but to illicit only pain. A pain that Luke will feel on the swamp like planet in the Dagaboh system where he trains with Yoda. Luke leaves in haste to save his friends and with this decision seals his true fate and learns the truth.

Review -

Okay this is just a geekfest. Plain and simple and for that alone it should be loved. It is Star Wars written as a Shakespearian Play. Can you dig it!!??

The immortal words "Luke I am your father" cried out in the angst and torment of a Hamlet player.

Get this book! Love it! Read it! Force your children to hear it out!

Too much fun to miss!

The Ape Man's Brother - Joe R Lansdale (Book Review)

Title - The Ape Man's Brother

Author - Joe R. Lansdale

Story Summary -

In the dense jungle, a species of ape like creatures witness the crash of an airplane. Amongst the wreckage a baby lays crying. A female of the tribe takes the baby and raises him as her own. Together with her family the child grows in the wild. We know this story only it is not the one we were told. This is the true story of the child raised in the jungle among the tribe of apes.

"..Now the true events can be told, because other than myself, everyone involved with the sordid affair is now dead or missing, except that goddamn chimpanzee. He's got the constitution of a redwood tree. Then again it's not his fault. He was an actor. He was never actually involved, but the way he's treated, living in a retirement home for animals of the cinema, photos and articles popping up about him on his birthday every year, his fuzzy face covered in birthday cake, you'd think he'd at least have been President for a term.
Me, I was the real thing, and my raggedy ass has been left to its own devices. So, I thank you for coming to me to get the real story, and I will tell it true without dropping a stitch on the real lowdown..."

Life for the ape man ( The Big Guy) and his adopted brother goes along as normal as life can be. They hunt, they kill, they eat and they screw. Until one day they hear a sound unlike any they have ever heard in the jungle. It was the sound of singing. Human singing. And with this sound the whole world is changed.
They have found The Woman.

"..The Delicate Thing struck me at that moment in time as ugly as The Big Guy. Reason for this, I'm sure, is obvious. My view of what was beautiful was based on my upbringing, my culture, and my own appearance. My idea then of attractive was fur-covered, no sores, both eyes worked, they had a vagina, and the fleas were minimal, though sometimes you could eat fleas while you mated, which I suppose for us could be classified as a cheap dinner date.
In time my views on attractiveness changed..."

The Big Guy falls hard for The Woman and is taken back, along with his brother, to America where they become instant celebrities. The Brother takes to civilization quickly, wearing clothes, trimming his body hair and even setting fashion trends. And also finding himself wanted by a variety of human females. None of which he said no too.
The Big Guy finds civilization more difficult to conform to. He and the woman try to settle down, making the occasional appearance and the Big Guy appearing in movies. But the jungle won't leave him alone and soon his actions lead to public humiliation and from there the Big Guy finds his solace in whiskey and other drink.
The Woman finds her solace in The Ape Man's Brother.
This sordid triangle of love and betrayal lead to unfathomable repercussions for all involved.

"..The Woman had seen him as well. She had tears in her eyes.
We waited.
He didn't come rushing down after us.
I heard a car start up behind the trees and race away.
I could tell by the sound of the engine that it was his Buick, the one he hardly drove and really shouldn't drive at all. The Big Guy could do many things, but he never really learned to drive too well. He was always being pulled out of ditches and having to pay other drivers for banging up their cars. But he had been smart enough to ease up behind that hill silently, get out and climb that tree. Now he didn't care. About anything was my guess.
You want to know what hurt me the most right then? That he didn't even have the courtesy to kill us..."

Together the Ape Man's Brother and The Woman must find a way to save The Big Guy and return them all to the way things had been.

Review -

Wow. Okay I have to say I really liked this book. It is like Tarzan on an E Channel Expose. Where are they now and all that. It is twisted and sordid and a whole lot of fun. Told through the voice and eyes of The Big Guy's brother, the ape, it is just a fun story.
Joe R. Lansdale rendition of the Tarzan story is going to go missed by a lot of readers and that is a shame. It should be read. It should be laughed out loud at and OMG'd at and whatever the hell the tale illicits from you because it will. You will have a reaction.
Like Christopher Moore's take on the life of Jesus in Lamb, this novel is satire on an Icon of Pop Culture. This is the Tarzan you never knew but you should.
A really good and fun read.

Mrs. Poe - Lynn Cullen (Book Review)

Title - Mrs. Poe

Author - Lynn Cullen

Genre - Historical

Story Summary -

It is New York City, 1845, and poet Frances Osgood is struggling to feed her family and keep a roof over her head. Saved from life on the streets for herself and her children by a well to do friend, she is fighting to provide for her young family after her philandering husband has disappeared. But no one is looking for poetry. New York and the literary world is taken by a very different kind of poet. A very different kind of writer.
Edgar Allan Poe.
Unlike so many others, Poe is vastly different from the rest of the literary poets Frances knows and slowly they develop a friendship. Soon she is the only one who seems to know him and his young ill wife at all. A friendship that turns into something even more.

"...I peered ahead. My heart leaped as I caught sight of Mr. Poe, hatless among the river of black stovepipes. And then I saw his wife. They were promenading in our direction, along with Mrs. Clemm.
"Why does he not stay at home?" said Reverend Griswold. "Does he not think of the health of his wife? She is obviously consumptive-I think he wishes to hasten her to her grave!"
I felt a stab of guilt. Did her condition seem that severe? I recalled Mr. Bartlett's accusation that Mr. Poe's characters often murdered their wives..."

As Frances and Poe carry on their affair, the ailing Mrs. Poe is far from weak as there seems to be far more to Mrs. Poe as meets the eye. Strange happenings carry on and there are fires and near accidents that happen only when she is there or has only just left. Strange portents of things that are yet to come.

"...Mr. Brady turned the plate to our group. On it was a perfect reproduction of my body standing before the curtain on the stage, with my dress flawless and my clenched hand lying upon the table. But where my head should have been was a blank. It was a portrait of a headless woman..."

Frances begins to suspect that Mrs. Poe is behind the dangerous accidents or should she listen to others and believe that it may be Edgar Allan Poe himself.

Review -

Sometime back I had read and loved Lynn Cullen's book: Reign of Madness. So I came into the reading of Mrs. Poe with some pre-conceived standards for the writing. Cullen did not disappoint, the prose and skill with which she handles the tale of Poe and Osgood is detailed and forlorn as a love that cannot be.
As a married woman of the time, Osgood could not divorce her husband and for all intents and purposes, was still his property. There could be no future for her and Poe. Then there was always the ever present spectre of Mrs. Poe. Dying and weak yet as terrifying in her sweet innocence and anyone could be.
Soon, Osgood must come to a decision for herself and her children.
Mrs. Poe is very well written and detailed. The New York and Boston of the 1800s is as much a character in this novel as the protagonists themselves.
A very good read.

Something Reckless - Jess Michaels (Book Review)

Title - Something Reckless

Author - Jess Michaels

Story Summary -

Penelope Norman is on a crusade. It is 1819 and the women of her world are used and discarded by men who have the means and the lack of scruples to care for them. The men go from woman to woman, wife or mistress and use them as they seem fit. It is an over indulgence of their basest desires that Penelope finds offensive and she has gathered the women around her to fight back in the only way they can. By withholding from their lovers and husbands what they want.
Jeremy Vaughn, Duke of Kilgrath, is commissioned by his friends and colleagues to do what needs to be done to stop Penelope Norman. To use his skill and charm to seduce her into the world she so fights against. To unleash in Penelope her own desires and needs.
Unknown to Jeremy and what Penelope keeps hidden from herself is the inner turmoil and pain she feels from an empty marriage and rejection from the one man she had ever allowed herself to be given to. Unknown also to Jeremy are the true reasons his friends want Penelope stopped. The depths their own depravity have given them the freedom to unleash.
What will Jeremy do? Will he continue to seduce Penelope and convince her that men can only cause pain? Will he become as the others in their city have?
And will Penelope learn to trust a man not only with her heart but will herself as well?

Review -

I enjoyed this story very much. The characters were well constructed and the inner turmoil that fills Penelope is given plenty of development. The story was about much more than her introduction to sex and her enjoyment of the very things she was preaching against. Her awakening of her own fire is what makes much of this tale so enjoyable.
Jeremy's growth as a man is well structured as well. It is not the simple plot line of - she is so awesome so he changes everything about himself so she will sleep with him - that is the cookie cutter plot of so many of the poorly structured erotica in the market.
The characters, not the sex even though there is quite a bit of it and very well written as well, is what drives this novel.
I would have liked it more if it had not been wrapped up so neatly at the end. The love conquers all ending seemed somewhat formula and unoriginal when the novel itself was so much more throughout.
Overall a very good read and worth looking into the author's other work.

The Impossible Knife of Memory - Laurie Halse Anderson (Book Review)

Title - The Impossible Knife of Memory

Author - Laurie Halse Anderson

Genre - YA

Summary -

Hayley Rose Kincain and her father have finally settled down in the town Andy, her father, grew up in as a young man after years on the road. Hayley is a smart young girl, gifted even, but her anger and bitterness at the adults and people around her hold her back. A bitterness stemming from the treatment given to her father and the disappointments that life itself have brought her way.

"...I shrugged again. Dad rarely talked about growing up in Belmont, but I wasn't about to let her know that. The first time we me, Benedetti told me that I could trust her and tell her anything. People who have to announce that they are trustworthy deserve to be lied to..."

Hayley and Andy have been on the road for years, driving eighteen wheelers and home schooling as best they can. With her mother and grandmother passed on they had no one else. Hayley just wanted to be with her father and Andy was running from the demons of his service to his country. Together they get through the dark times as best they can. But like with most things, eventually they can only run for so long as the demons catch up with Andy and he tries to drive them away with drugs and alcohol. Hayley does her best to help her father but the darkness of his dreams.

"...The old men take us there. A tiny hand, stained with blood and dust, pokes out of the rubble. The old men shout at us.
"What are they saying?" I ask.
"We got the wrong house," the interpreter says.
We blew up a house filled with children and mothers and toothless grandmothers. The insurgent house sits empty, a stone's throw away.
The ancient men yell at me and shake their fists.
I understand every word they say..."

Compounding their lives is Hayley's own distrust of everyone, young and old alike. Doing the best she can, she believes that she alone can help and save her father. But the weight of the guilt Andy carries is too large for the both of them as they begin to understand that they cannot carry it alone. Together, somehow, they must find a way to save one another.

Review -

I wanted to like this book more than I did. I picked up my copy at the Tucson Festival of Books at an author signing. I found the topic intriguing and the story itself is well written. I simply had a tough time liking the main character. Hayley. But in all fairness, she comes by her difficult and nasty attitude through experience and pain. It is only until later in the book, as layers of Andy and Hayley's lives are peeled away do you begin to understand her.
I do want to commend and point out that Anderson does a wonderful job of not holding back when it comes to the pain and suffering that Andy is going through with his post traumatic stress. Nor the impact it has on his relationships and on the life of his teenage daughter as she tries to hold it all together. This realism is something that is missing from much of today's Young Adult fiction and Anderson should be recognized for bringing such a difficult topic to bear with strong writing and beautiful prose.
The Impossible Knife of Memory is a powerful novel of how war and its aftermath continues to take casualties long after the shots are fired.
A good read.

Red Rising - Pierce Brown (Book Review)

Title - Red Rising

Author - Pierce Brown

Genre - Fantasy

Story Summary - (SPOILERS!)

In the caste society of future mankind, the Reds dig below the surface of Mars, sacrificing their lives and future to make the planet habitable for all people. But it is the ruling caste,the Golds, that has deceived them all.

"...I would have lived in peace. But my enemies brought me war..."

Darrow is a miner, deep in the underground, struggling to feed his young family when a simple act of trespassing delivers a sentence of death to his beautiful wife Eo.

"...The trapdoor beneath her feet opens. She falls, and for one moment, her hair hangs suspended about her head, a flourish of red. Then her feet scramble at air and she falls. Her slim throat gags. Eyes open so wide. If only I could save her from this. If only I could protect her; but the world is cold and hard to me. It does not bend as I wish it to bend. I am weak. I watch my wife die and my haemanthus fall from her hand. The camera records it all. I rush forward to kiss her ankle. I cradle her legs. I will not let her suffer.
On Mars there is not much gravity, so you have to pull the feet to break the neck. They let the loved ones do it.
Soon, there is no sound, not even the creaking of the rope.
My wife is too light.
She was only just a girl..."

In overwhelming grief Darrow steals the dead body of his wife and buries her deep in the mines. For this he too will face the sentence of death.
But fate has other plans as a seed of rebellion is planted and Darrow is saved from death for mission that will send him into the very heart of the Golds. Transformed to appear to be a Gold, he joins the young of the ruling caste and is sent to a school for training. Here he learns that the young of the Gold are taught to value power and strength and that even the youth of the Gold are sacrificed to strengthened the ruling caste.

"...Now if you think this was vile, consider that the Spartans would kill more than ten percent of all children born to them; nature would kill another thirty. We are gory humanitarians in comparison. Of the six hundred students that are left, most were in the top one percent of applicants. Of the six hundreds that are dead, most were in the bottom one percent of applicants. There was no waste..."

Of the remaining six hundred, they are set into teams and each team given an area to claim and protect. They will battle until one team controls them all. Darrow must survive and conquer if he is to be believed to a Gold. Yet this time the game is rigged and no matter how he fights, Darrow finds not only the other youth standing against him but the leaders of the Golds as well. Who can he trust? How will he survive?

"..I would have lived in peace. But my enemies brought me war.
I watch twelve hundred of their strongest sons and daughters. Listening to a pitiless Golden man speak between great marble pillars. Listening to the beast who brought the flame that gnaws at my heart.
"All men are not created equal," he declares. Tall, imperious, an eagle of a man. "The weak have deceived you. They would say the meek should inherit the Earth. That the strong should nurture the gentle. This is the Noble Lie of Demokracy. The cancer that poisoned mankind..."

Darrow is a Red. His wife is a Red. But to win his vengeance, he must learn to be a Gold.

Review -

First I will say I am sorry for giving so much of the story away in the summary, but believe me when I say that there is so much more to the novel than what is summarized. This is 2014's heir apparent to the blockbuster fantasy trilogy. Red Rising is on the same level as Hunger Games and Divergent. I have yet to read Divergent but I will take everyone else's word for it that it too is this good, because fellow readers Red Rising is that good.
READ THIS BOOK!!
Really this is one not to be missed.
In Darrow, Brown has created a hero who everyone, man or woman, can connect with. The desire to do good and strive for more, for himself and those he loves. Then to find out that there is no way he would every be allowed to as he is a Red. The pain and grief at the loss of his young wife. The hatred and anger to destroy the Golds and then the cold realization that all he has ever known and believed in has been a lie. The final truth, the understanding that to avenge his Eo, to bring down the Golds, he must give up the last thing that makes him Darrow. That makes him a Red. His own humanity as he becomes the very enemy he is sworn to destroy. As he becomes a Gold.
Brown has been very ambitious in this first novel. I am hoping that he maintains this pace and action throughout the trilogy. If he can, you will be talking about this one for years to come!

A terrific read!!