Looking for Your Next Book

 Adelaide Henry is heading to Montana, a state where a woman can be a 'lone' woman and own her own parcel of land.  She leaves California behind by burning more than bridges and she'll carry her family curse with her ... both of these, literally. She leaves California by saying goodbye to her parents - by dousing their corpses and the entire house in gasoline and then lighting a match as the wagon she's hired, now carrying her entire life (and a family curse) in a large, locked trunk, rolls away.  But can you really escape any horror when you're a lone, Black woman in the middle of nowhere just after the turn of the 20th century? On paper, by description, this is exactly the kind of book that might appeal to me ... western and horror. But in practice, this had not enough to do with either. Despite the dark promise at the beginning of the novel with the burning of the homestead, the horror here is teased throughout. I'm not a fan of the in-your-face horror, and s...

 Author Alan E. Nourse was one of the first authors I had read that led to a long history of reading science fiction. For a few decades now I've felt as though I've outgrown Nourse's work but when I came across the free download of this story I thought it would be nice to give the author a read again. In this story, Tam has returned to Earth after spending a long time working in space.  But men such as he are known as "Sharkie's" and Sharkies are not welcomed. His clothes are shabby and his meager belongings don't look much better. All he wants is another job, to keep himself busy and productive, but no one will even give him the time of day. Tam visits an old school chum who is in a position to hire but the most he can promise Tam is a chance for a job on Mercury, but Tam knows that's a death sentence. Without a job prospect, Tam is willing to take matters into his own hands. Much of this story feels dated - I could pretty well guess when it was wr...

 Oof. This was a tough read. Our story (as best as I can sum it up): Kevin Knight has been pre-destined to be the galaxy's savior - an actual knight, so to speak. But things go sideways when tragedy strikes, he winds up in jail and demonic forces embed themselves like a parasite inside of him. The galxay now is doomed! But wait ... "Until a trench coat-wearing alien renegade shatters his understanding of reality" (from the Goodreads description of the book). Now his role of galaxy savior is back on, but his understanding of what is real and what is imaginary has been challenged and changed. And who does he listen to ... the renegade alien who has rescued him, or the demonic voices in his head? The fate of the galaxy stands in the balance. The problems here are .... well, numerous, but ultimately it boils down to some poor writing. The first thing that stuck me was the main character saying things like: "I was the family doctor for a while. The wounds my mom and I suf...

 I have recently enjoyed a few of the new Tim Pratt novels and I thought maybe I would go back and read some of his earlier works. As it turns out, this is apparently his first published novel (if my sources are correct). This is the story of Marzipan ("Marzi") - a young woman who writes and illustrates a graphic novel by the title of The Strange Adventures of Rangergirl . That book is what one refers to as 'cowpunk' - a hybrid of Western fiction and steampunk. As you might imagine, writing and illustrating your own graphic novel doesn't make for a big paycheck and Marzi does have another job as a night manager at a coffee shop. It is there that life gets a bit wonky for her when she begins seeing some of her characters (those she's created for her graphic novel) in the coffee shop. One of the things that Pratt does nicely here is blend the reality and the fantasy so that we're always guessing. Is that really a crazy woman, or is this a flight of fantasy? ...

Being from the U.S., I was moderately aware of POW and Internment camps here in the States.  I honestly hadn't given much thought to such camps in England during WWII, but of course there were. This book examines one such camp, meant to detain Germans and German sympathizers during the war. Unfortunately, camps such as this - which are often quickly assembled - suffer from some political turmoil and lack of proper oversight and in too many cases Jews who fled Germany (for obvious reasons) were detained in British internment camps because, on paper, they were German Nationals and therefore potentially sympathizers. In worst case scenarios, they could potentially be sent back to Germany. Just as the United States held those of Japanese descent (and Germans) in camps without regard to their actual leanings, the British over-compensated here, rounding up everyone and then addressed specific cases. The Island of Extraordinary Captives by Simon Parkin examines a few specific internees....

Eli Marks is a highly skilled magician but he's made a name for himself as a debunker of psychics, showing how so much of what they do is nothing more than magicians tricks. This doesn't make him very popular among the psychic community.  Eli debunks a popular psychic in a very public forum and then that same psychic is later discovered dead. At the scene of the crime is a playing card, the King of Diamonds - which happens to be the signature card for Eli's most famous trick. More psychics are killed and more clues lead police to seriously consider Eli as a suspect. It all gets more complicated for Eli when he falls in love with a psychic and then learns that she is targeted to be the next victim of the real killer. Somewhere along the line, in all the various ways I get books, I got this as a free read. Because I have such a backlog of ARCs from publishers, I tend to put my free reads on the back burner. But once in awhile I get in the mood to crack one open and in this ca...

Reading the description of this book I thought I might be in for something along the lines of the 1985 film, After Hours .  Lola is a hip, modern New Yorker.  She's an editor, now in her early 30's. She's had her string of boyfriends and lovers but is currently living a boyfriend whom she will be marrying soon. On one particular night out with some friends Lola steps away from the gathering to pick up a pack of cigarettes when she runs into an old boyfriend - someone she hasn't thought about in a very long time. The timing, however, creates some anxiety as Lola is currently in a relationship with 'Boots' and she's been stressing over whether or not this is 'the one' - the potential life-long marriage. Of course, running into this old boyfriend now prompts her to consider and compare. But as the evening wears on, Lola continues to run into ex-boyfriends (and she's had quite a few).  The meetings all feel as though they are chance encounters, but w...

Business is on the rise for private investigator Cassie Dewell and she now finds herself working two different cases simultaneously. First is the case of the hidden treasure.  Taking the nation by storm is the account of a millionaire who claims to have buried a chest full of treasure worth a million dollars or so. To find the location, would-be treasure hunters must decipher the clues in a poem. Currently, five people have died trying to find this treasure in remote, dangerous places in the Montana and Wyoming area.   Cassie isn't trying to find the treasure ... she's been hired by the man purporting to be the author of the poem and the man who buried the treasure.  He's hired Cassie to see if she can figure out his identity. His reasoning is that if someone were to discover his identity, they might be able to deduce, from his past and his writings (ah ha! he's an author!) where the treasure is buried and he really wants somone to find it based on his clues. Cassie...

Book Two?! This is the second book in a duology?!  I'm such a Chuck Wendig fan ... how did I miss the first book? Fortunately, I never felt like I was missing anything as relationships and circumstances felt well explained through the course of the book. The story: Five years ago, many ordinary Americans fell victim to a strange affliction that caused them walk, zombie-like, to a destination that only they seemed to know. Others followed them, to protect them. They became known as 'shepherds.' The secret destination was Ouray, Colorado and this town in the middle of the mountains would become one of the last bastions of civilization as the sleepwalking epidemic was only the first incident in what would be the end of the familiar world and the start of something new and very different. Those gathered in Ouray - sleepwalkers, shepherds, and survivors alike - struggle to understand their new situation and form new relationships with the strangers around them. Trust in one anot...

 I never expected to be a fan of legal thrillers, and perhaps, in general, I'm not. I am, however, a fan of Robert Bailey's writing (which happen to all be legal thrillers). Jason Rich is an attorney ... an admitted ambulance chaser. Billboards clutter the roadways, from Florida to Alabama, with his face and his slogan, "In an accident? Get Rich!" It's been successful for him and has made him a wealthy man. But Jason has his struggles. He's an alcoholic who's facing an official reprimand from the bar association for appearing in court while under the influence. And if this wasn't bad enough, now Jason has a new problem ... his sister, Jana, has been arrested for her husband's murder. The actual killer has already confessed but claims that he was paid by Jana to do the job.  Jana asks Jason to defend her - he's the only person she trusts, despite the fact that he's never tried a criminal case in his life. He's willing to take this on - m...