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Once a crossroads ghost, Mary Dunlavy is now the Price family babysitter. She's been their babysitter for four generations and she'll likely do it the rest of her life ... er, the rest of time. But to be a babysitter, there needs to be a family to sit for and with people dying the way they are, Mary has become a transporter of the dead. The Covenant is striking out at the Cryptids of New York, waging the all out war that's been festering for some time. The Price family has gathered - those that are still alive - and making plans to strike back at the Covenant, and to hit them fast and hard. The prolific Seanan McGuire has a number of fantastic series' and this is one of my favorites. While each book focuses on an individual, the series has a large cast of characters and many of them (all of them?) make an appearance in this book, despite the former Crossroads Ghost taken the narrative here. I can't help but wonder if this is the penultimate book in the series as it ...

 Flamboyant attorney, Jason Rich, whose billboards dot the surrounding Georgia landscape proclaiming to "Get Rich" when in need of a lawyer - generally for simpler things like divorces or accidents but recent events (the first two books in the series) had Jason Rich going big time and defending his sister and then a friend, on murder charges. But the events have taken a toll on him personally and he's barely scraping by - disgraced, disbarred, and a black-out alcoholic. One of the sources of Rich's problems is Tyson Cade, the local drug lord whose reach includes members of Rich's extended family. So when Jason wakes from a deep, drunken stupor to the sound of approaching emergency vehicles, and he has a gun in his hands, he instinctively tosses the gun in a lake just before he is arrested for the murder of Tyson Cade. Even Jason isn't sure whether or not he did it. Though Jason wants to defend himself, he's ordered to have another attorney on his team. But...

There's a really fine line, when writing stories set in dream worlds with nightmarish denizens and frustrated teens, between well-crafted worlds that make a certain kind of necessary sense even if it's not obvious to the reader at first, and self-indulgent whimsy that may have made sense to the author upon writing, but doesn't hold up for a general audience read. This book falls into the latter category. I think it's fitting to share the author's description of the book from Goodreads here (in part, I admit, because I'm not sure I could sum this up): Emmett’s dream is always the same. Tingling with half-forgotten memories, he stands in an unknown room surrounded by mirrors, curio cabinets, and nesting dolls. A painting, Belshazzar’s Feast, hangs on the wall, its disembodied hand numbering the King’s final days. Then comes the stranger, the serpent-wielding young woman with the glittering amber eyes. Her words are always the same. Emmett will soon save her. Then ...

Riley loves musical theatre. After high school she plans to study theatre and ultimately become a director on Broadway. But how is any of that going to happen if she doesn't get experience now? And when the school board, in all its uneducated wisdom, decides to 'save money' by cancelling the annual musical production, Rile knows she has to take matters into her own hands. But when Riley borrows her mom's car - without permission - she's grounded and given the worst punishment ever ... she has to spend her after school hours in her dad's game store (where the geeks sit around and play Dungeons and Dragons in the afternoons). Riley, wise and worldly, spots some romance tension among the afternoon nerds and makes a deal with the geek, Nathan who is having trouble getting one of the gamer girls to even notice him despite his huge crush.  Riley promises to 'fake flirt' with Nathan, which she guarantees will make the crush sit up and take notice.  In exchange,...

Without warning, an apparent sink hole completely swallows up a home in Oklahoma. Other  disasters also occur around the world about the same time, and when a human arm falls out of the sky in Missouri, geologist Dacey Livingstone teams up with physicist Gerald Meier to understand what's happening. Dacey had already explored the house-swallowing sink-hole with near fatal results. The occurrences are wormholes - a phenomenon that occurs in space, allowing for long-distance travel. Which begs the question - where did these come from? Is there an alien race (or races) that will soon be appearing?  Or is it simply an invitation - waiting for humans to step on through? Is it just a naturally occurring phenomenon that happens to have hit Earth? Dacey and Gerald work together to uncover the secrets of the wormholes and, if possible harness their power before other countries get their first. I found the story to be simple and slow.  Our brilliant scientists have to explain e...

Ophelia Bray is a psychologist whose specialty is a space-related PTSD-like symptom called ERS which can bring on violent episodes. She's now assigned to be a part of a small exploration crew. This crew is being sent to a remote, old, abandoned planet. The crew has been together for awhile now and they're not too keen to have a shrink aboard and they don't bother hiding their distaste and distrust for Ophelia. Having a 'head doctor' must be an indication of something they're heading in to. At first, things seem to go as planned on this once-thriving, now empty planet. But as the crew explores, there's evidence that prior crews sent to explore apparently left in a hurry and without trace where they may have gone. The planet holds mystery and danger, which Ophelia is meant to keep an eye on, but Ophelia has secrets of her own that she's trying to work through. I don't know that I've read anything by S.A. Barnes before, but I was looking forward to ...

This was one of the oldest books in my TBR-ARC queue - back from the days before I was more careful about not selecting books that were part of a series.  This particular book is book number three in The Sundering series which apparently was started by author R.A. Salvatore, and I have not read any of the previous volumes. Farideh (a character from a different series, created by author Erin M. Evans) is thrust quickly and decidedly into a maelstrom of political intrigue and magical turmoil in this third book of an epic series. She is taken prisoner only to discover that the other prisoners being held captive with her are no ordinary folk - they all have special powers and are being held captive so that their enslavers can exploit those powers. Farideh's sister, Havilar, is seeking to find and rescue Farideh, while Farideh is making a pact with some questionable Gods in order to save herself and her friends. Everyone seems to have an ulterior motive for whatever it is they are ...

It is 1864 and the Civil War in the United States is waning. Irish-Canadian Eoin O'Donoghue is hired as the personal secretary to William R. Roberts in New York. Roberts is the de facto head of the Irish Republican Army in New York. O'Donoghue is appalled at what he sees and the seemingly carelessness of Roberts and approaches Gilbert McMicken, head of Canada's secret police, and offers to spy for him. Canada is still a federation of British colonies but on the verge of becoming its own country. The events in the young United States has put many on edge. The Irish Republican Army, under the direction of Roberts, is planning an invasion of Quebec to form a 'New Ireland' while leaving sowing fear and leaving a reign of terror in their wake. Eoin's information could prove invaluable to preserving the formation of the new country of Canada, but but working as a spy, so very directly, is extremely dangerous. I suspect that if I grew up in an area where learning Canad...

Luke Perrone, an artist, and his girlfriend, Alexis Verde, purchase a painting for cheap at an antique shop. While looking to clean up they discover that there's something underneath the layer of paint and it turns out to be a layer of paper which is on top of another painting. Carefully removing it they discover what they believe to be a lost Van Gogh self-portrait.  A known painting of Van Gogh's went missing during World War II, often believed destroyed. In Jonathan Santlofer's novel The Lost Van Gogh , the painting was rescued and hidden with a painting on top of it. Unfortunately, before Perrone and Verde can even get it verified and before anyone should even known they have the painting, it is stolen from them. With help from Interpol, Perrone and Verde become embroiled in a high-stakes, black-market art game with some serious and powerful people not wanting anyone to get in the way of whatever they want. This book flashes back to 1940's, war-era Europe and remind...

 It's only in recent years that I've developed an interest in reading 'classic' pulp fiction, noir thrillers, and detective mysteries.  Because I'm new to the genre, I really didn't have a clue as to which authors I should be checking out - other than Fredric Brown, an author I consider among my favorites due to his sci-fi books. Seeing a collection like, featuring an author I knew and liked (but with a book I hadn't yet read), seemed like a great option.  It should introduce me to some great authors and stories. I liked three of the books collected here.  Two of them, Dead Calm and The Score left me a little bored, to be honest. I appreciated the information about the books and about the authors that was provided at the end of the collection. It's definitely helpful as I look to expand my reading in the genre. I've reviewed each of the books individually, but include the reviews again here: THE MURDERERS by Fredric Brown It is the late 1950's/...

Russ Tamblyn.  My guess is that anyone who knows the name likely knows him because of either his phenomenal performance in the original West Side Story movie or, for slightly younger audiences, his work as the off-kilter doctor on the TV series Twin Peaks . I fall primarily into the first group, having grown up admiring his work as a dancer in West Side Story and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers . I'm familiar with his work on Twin Peaks , and enjoyed it, but for me, it was dancer Russ Tamblyn acting in the show. Reading an autobiography like this brings about some conflicting feelings. I admire some of Tamblyn's work and wanted to read more about the man, but the blunt honesty of drugs and sex is sometimes a letdown. I actually got a little depressed reading about Tamblyn's lowest years.  But this might attest to his writing more than the events he relays. Tamblyn writes with a boyish, ebullient enthusiasm. One gets the sense that Tamblyn has so much to say and he can ha...