Looking for Your Next Book

 Nami Miyamoto has just graduated from high school and has a great future ahead of her.  Now she's on her way to a graduation party to celebrate the milestone with her friends when she is murdered in a convenience store. With that, Nami learns what people have wondered about for centuries ... what happens to the soul after death? Nami wakes up in a place called Infinity - where the consciousness goes when the body dies. But Infinity is not the pastoral oasis we sometimes call 'heaven.' Nami learns that a virtual assistant used widely by the living, named Ophelia, has integrated into Infinity. It has declared herself Queen of Infinity and is forcing the human souls to be servants to her desires, much the way she has been to the living bodies. But Ophelia's ultimate goal is to eradicate all human life and she's getting closer and closer to making that work. Nami connects with some Infinity rebels who are looking to defeat Ophelia and free the humans she has imprisoned...

 As much as I wish I would like every book I read, and I'm sure every author wishes everyone would like their book, sometimes an author, at least a book, and a reader don't connect.  That would be the case for me and Composite Creatures by Caroline Hardaker. The earth is toxic. Air, soil, water. The years of pumping pollution have taken their toll.  Humanity is still learning to deal with this new world. But traditional social behavior is even harder to shake. But the government can help with that. Norah meets Aaron at a restaurant for a first date. We watch Norah go through her day and peek into her life and get a sense of what she's thinking along the way. Norah and Aaron get to know each other as they plan their lives together. Everything looks good until an unusual creature is delivered to them. And I didn't care. A sci-fi/fantasy novel with a strong emphasis on environmental conditions? Toss in some strange creatures? This should be right up my alley. And the first...

Somehow I managed to get through high school and college without ever having read The Aeneid .  I'm happy to have finally corrected that. Inspired by Homer's slightly better-known, more familiar works, Virgil's The Aeneid takes the hero, Aeneas, a survivor of the fall of Troy, and tells his story of war and defeat, his loves and passion, and presents the best of human nobility and the pain of human suffering. The book is much more episodic than I was expecting (I guess I wasn't expecting anything, specifically). Our hero wanders and has some encounters. This takes up the early portions of the book.  Then his wanderings get him to places where he isn't wanted and this the second portion of the book. He may have lost the war, but the gods haven't abandoned him ... or have they?  These ancient Greek gods don't always seem to have their s*** together and they're just as likely to use a mortal to mess with another god as they are to help the suffering man. B...

Well, this didn't work for me at all. A one-time theatre professional, Miranda Fitch, is now a college professor and she's close to losing this job. She is addicted to pain-killers for her chronic back pain. She loathes herself, her students, her life. She has selected Shakespeare's All's Well That Ends Well - one of his 'problem' plays - for the current production. The majority of the theatre students however were hoping to perform Macbeth  and have decided to revolt.  The leader of the revolt, the star of this (or any) play ... not because she's so talented, but because her parents make donations to the school ... has called for mom and dad to threaten to pull funding if the play isn't Macbeth . Everything in Miranda's life seems to be going against her until some unknown supporter steps in and offers a larger donation to the school's theatre program and growth if Miranda can do the show she wants to do. With this surprise, life slowly turns ...

 Historical fiction has become immensely popular (or perhaps I'm just becoming more aware of it). For me, I like bringing history a little more into focus - the reminder that events from history are surrounded by people. People who lived, loved, and who did things that changed lives. What I don't like about historical fiction is the (necessary) blending of fact and fiction to tell a story.  Despite author's notes letting the reader know where the line was drawn, it can be hard to separate the fact from the fiction in the reader's memory.  I've also found that many of the historical fiction books I've read have included a strong romantic angle. Not unusual, I suppose, given that we're reading and writing about people, but sometimes it seems that this is all people (mostly women in these books) thought about in the past. The Girl in His Shadow , by Audrey Blake (coauthors Jaima Fixsen and Regina Sirois), is a thoroughly researched novel about orphan girl Nora...

Nikolai Gogol.  Like many, I suppose, I first encountered the work of Nikolai Googol while in college.  I found his stories "The Nose" and "The Overcoat" entertaining, original, with some biting social commentary ... exactly the sort of writing a university student might really get into. This collection includes Gogol's arguably three most famous short stories ("The Nose," "Diary of a Madman," and "The Overcoat") as well as two other, lesser-known works.  The collection is billed as 'Essential Stories.' Other than the first three stories (which can be found just about anywhere), I don't know how 'essential' this collection is.  It is, however, nice to have these stories collected and in hand for quick and easy reading. I find that these stories, like any true classic, stand the test of time.  Not only are they a great look at manners, customs, and social conventions of some 150+ years ago, the human emotions and ...

 A secretive organization called The Cabal believe that Lorelai "Lori" Palumbo has committed unspeakable crimes in the past and now she must pay. To that end, The Cabal slowly rips apart Lori's safe, organized life. The Cabal ruins Lori's job, her health, everything and everyone she loves. And Lori has no idea what The Cabal thinks she's done to deserve this punishment. After being pushed to the brink, Lori has nothing left to lose and she decides to take her questions (and her anger) directly to the Cabal.  But they are not exactly easy to find, either. Lori's direct approach takes her into a mind-spinning world where anything can (and often does) happen. Your Turn to Suffer is more than just horror fiction, it is weird horror fiction. I've been a fan of author Tim Waggoner's work since reading his Shadow Watch novels back in 2014/2015 (you want weird horror ... it doesn't get much stranger than those!).  His work is fresh (with a strong scent o...

 Stephanie Plum is on the hunt for an international computer hacker - Oswald Wednesday. Stephanie is not the most technology proficient sleuth and she's probably going to need some help.  One night Stephanie is awakened in the middle of the night when she hears footsteps in her apartment. Her gun is not in the bedroom, and Stephanie isn't sure how she'll fend off an intruder. Fortunately, she won't have to - the late night visitor turns out to be Diesel, a fellow agent.  And if there's going to be a man wandering in to Stephanie's apartment in the middle of the night, "over six feet of gorgeous, hard-muscled, slightly tanned male" is the way to go. Diesel and Stephanie have shared a flirtatious relationship for years. He's been gone for a few years now and Stephanie is in a relationship with Joe Morelli. Letting Diesel stay in her apartment (sometimes in her bed!) will certainly test her relationship with Joe. But Stephanie's biggest probably w...

The time has finally arrived.  October "Toby" Daye is going to get married.  She's been engaged to her fiancé, Tybalt, the King of Cats, for some time now.  Every time she thinks the wedding might happen, she ends up doing something else - saving the world or solving some problem within the Kingdom. Toby's friends have decided to see to it themselves that October and Tybalt finally tie the knot. The only way to do this is to ambush Toby with the power of the high court behind them. Of course, in Toby's life, not even a royal wedding can take place without a little drama.  Toby has to find a way to stop a plot to overthrown the High Throne and a destabilization of the Westlands. We are fifteen books in to the October Daye series now, and still author Seanan McGuire finds a way to give us something familiar and something new with each book. This book is filled with the familiar - characters and themes, but we also get a few new things.  For instance, we finally ge...

 In the 1950's (and a few decades prior) it was pretty easy to find and read some short western fiction if that was your literature of choice. There were scores of western pulps. Today, western readers are generally limited to a few publishers of western novels by a very few western writers. Law of the Land is a collection of short western fiction by Elmer Kelton, an author whose works have spanned many decades - from 1948 ("There's Always Another Chance" originally published in Ranch Romances ) to 2010 ("The Ghost of Two Forks" originally published in Ghost Towns , edited by Martin H. Greenberg and Russell Davis).  That's an incredible period of work for anyone! I enjoy reading western fiction (I think I'm among a dying breed) and enjoy short fiction, so a book like this is very much appreciated.  That said, everything included in this collection is very well written and an enjoyable read and at the same time, nothing here stands out as being excep...