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Keeper Chance doesn't know what life holds in store for him, but he does know that he isn't enjoying school and he really isn't enjoying his grandmother nagging him about it, so when he's approached by a member of E.V.I.L. (Evil Villains International League) with an offer to join their ranks (as a trainee). It sounds interesting enough that he chooses to move forward, meeting another trainee, Toby, who's excited by the opportunity, having wanted to join EVIL for as long as he can remember. Their first EVIL mission, which could dictate whether or not they'll ever become full members ... steal enough cookies for the membership meeting. This should be pretty easy and straightforward, but the life as an EVIL henchman always takes disastrous turns. During their EVIL efforts, Chance and Toby encounter the enigmatic girl, Y, who's perhaps more capable than either boy. The simple crime of stealing cookies quickly snowballs into something much more dangerous and Kee...

 Based on an in-person presentation to help businesses strengthen the people in leadership roles, and to help people who want to move up (and stay up) the corporate ladder by being better leaders, authors Dave Ulrich and Norm Smallwood present their "Seven Disciplines to Achieve the Changes Great Leaders Know They Must Make". First they identify the seven key factors to better leaders (Simplicity;  Time; Accountability; Resources; Tracking; Melioration; Emotion), then they address each of them. It is essentially a workbook for their program, slightly modified to provide the narrative as well. The problem with this format is that we miss out on the charismatic presenters - and let's face it, anyone leading this kind of program is going to be very extroverted and very charismatic. It's the difference between reading and doing your homework and listening to your teacher explain it and walk you through your homework. A dozen years ago or so - about the time this book was ...

 Niri Lakani is the last surviving heir to the throne of Annwn, uncrowned ruler of the realm of Arawyn, sorceress master of the five elements and warrior guardian of Qi. She fights dark forces all across the magical realms as she looks to defeat the Mistress Witch with some help from some newfound friends. This is about as close to a DNF as I've ever come with a book.  I was absolutely ready to delete this from my Kindle about 20% into it when I thought I'd see what others were saying about it.  Seeing an overall rating of 4.63 on Goodreads, with only five and four star ratings I was shocked!  Clearly I was missing something, or the book was going to get much, much better. I wasn't, and it didn't. I continued because it was either going to be a really good book, OR there needed to be some reviews that provided a different viewpoint. First off, let's talk story.  There's nothing that really happens here.  Seriously.  It's a "wander" book - character...

Based on an Inuit tale passed down for generations, The Cannibal is a graphic novel telling the tale of one family working through the hard times when food was scarce and a community suffered.  When the patriarch of this Inuit family hunts, day after day and the animals he relies on for food for himself and his family have disappeared. Day after day the hunt produces nothing, and the family is going hungry. He knows where there is meat, though, and after another fruitless day, he he kills, skins, and boils the meat off the bones of the family pets. When that meat is gone, the man attacks his fellow villagers, providing a good stockpile of meat. But still the animals don't return and the man does the unthinkable, killing and eating his own children. His wife, heart-broken, refuses to eat her own children and settles for what few plants she can forage. But now the woman knows that her husband will stop at nothing to fill his stomach and there's only one source of meat left and i...

Ruby Tucker wants nothing more than to make it big in the punk music scene in Atlanta but she's currently stuck in her backwoods, small town with her dysfunctional family and she's had a falling out with her best friend and bandmate and her dreams look dead in the water, When Ruby goes to help her neighbor organize his religious relics, a strange ring affixes to her finger. The ensorcelled ring sends a blood-thirsty demon into Ruby's soul. The ring also acts as a broadcasting beacon, drawing all sorts of unnamable horrors toward her, all wanting to feast on her flesh. There's one way out - one way to remove the ring and rid herself of the demon: Ruby must get hundreds of people to chant a spell at the same time. Now Ruby needs to get the band back together, teach them a new song and take it on the road before it's too late. This is only my second experience with author Brom and, like the first, it's enjoyable. If you consider demons and bloodlust enjoyable, that...

Ellie Matthews is a criminologist, teaching at a local college and consulting with the FBI and local police. She has had a very tough early life (which perhaps prompted her interest in criminology) but things have finally started to go well for her. But her comfort is disrupted when, while at the college, she is visited by her stepfather, Marcus. but Marcus isn't supposed to be anywhere near Ellie and she asks her T.A. to call the police while she keeps a wary eye on the man. Marcus begs for her to listen but Ellie doesn't trust a word he has to say. When she is later called to an apparent overdose death and discovers the victim is Marcus, she has conflicting emotions. A search of his home reveals evidence of murders that Marcus may have committed, including that of Ellie's mother. Ellie tries to recuse herself from the investigation, but she's one of the best at what she does, and she's local, and is kept on the case. It could be easy to follow the apparent evidenc...

Tucked into the Swiss Alps is an elite boarding school catering to the world's wealthiest and most powerful vampire families. So it is a surprise to Dillon, who, son of a human man who has raised his son alone, didn't even know he had vampire blood in his veins until recently.  But as only half vampire, half human, Dillon is a Dhampire - hardly the trueblood that the wealthy are expecting to be joining their children in the school. Dillon has a lot to learn about being a vampire, but his blood shows that he is extraordinary, despite being human half. So extraordinary, in fact, that the smallest taste sends other vampires into a tizzy and, according to their ancient school customs, without knowing whose blood they were drinking, everyone voted for Dillon to be the leader for their year's students. This doesn't sit well with Bram - the spoiled, privileged student who's been groomed for this role since birth. Now Bram must serve as Dillon's second.  Maybe Bram'...

The fifteen year old in me absolutely loves this.  I sure would have liked having something like this in the 1970s when I was an avid comics - specifically Marvel - reader. I would have referenced this constantly with the introduction of new characters or villains (or at least someone i didn't think I was very familiar with). This purports to "define the Marvel Universe."  Not just the cinematic universe. But where is the line drawn?  What is knowingly excluded?  The Marvel Universe I grew up with included westerns like Kid Colt, Rawhide Kid, and Two-Gun Kid. These are not included.  This is not a surprise since it definitely appears to be geared toward the superhero stories and there's still plenty of information to include. (I should note that this isn't just a dictionary of character names and home-worlds, but anything that might be unique to the Marvel worlds.) But what IS interesting is the omission of major players like Magneto ... he is listed multiple ti...

Author Jacqueline Winspear wraps up her Masie Dobbs series with this, book number eighteen. She addresses this decision to end the series in her introduction, acknowledging that fans may not be happy with the decision but why she's made the decision. It is 1945, London, and Maisie discovers four youngsters squatting in an abandoned home - a home that the owners have asked Maisie to check on. The four orphans are terrified of being discovered and distrustful of Maisie, though Maisie recognizes they are still 'good' children as they've taken care of a British soldier who stumbled upon them while in the throes of what we would today refer to as PTSD. Maisie also chases some ghosts of the past - she learns that her first husband, James, had a son with Enid whom he never spoke about. It's hard not to review the entire series of Maisie Dobbs in this wrap-up volume. Especially hard given that much of this book is a wrap-up in itself. It creates a bit of an odd paradigm bec...

The opening sentence describing this book on Goodreads really is a very good set-up. "Escape isn’t the hardest challenge for a slave – it’s staying free afterwards." Mia and Thomas are brother and sister, on the run from the tyrannical King Williams. Mia has a magical power of foresight and the king wants her to use that power for him and his securing of power over the kingdom. But the siblings aren't interested in being used in this way. The territory they travel through is a gritty, desolate landscape with dangers of its own (such as the fierce sand-hogs) which Mia can't seem to foretell with her sight. Escape seems hopeless until they encounter a band of rebels and hear rumors of an airship that might help take them away. This book is billed as a steampunk adventure with shades of magic and alchemy tossed into the mix.  And while I understand why this classification, I find it to be more of an adventure fantasy (escape the mad king!) in a dystopian world.  There...

Seanan McGuire's Tidal Creatures is the third book in her Alchemical Journeys series and it's a powerhouse.  It's been a while since I read the previous two books, but it's likely that you may want to read them before taking this particular journey. The Lunar gods take human hosts and navigate the skies at night over the impossible city. The Alchemists are looking for a way to infiltrate the skies, using the lunar gods, and then rule the world. ("Alchemists have no morals" we are told.) At Berkely College, Jane, the human incarnation of the god Change'e tries to avoid a professor who she is sure can see her god identity, while meeting up with another god who is returning from his journey across the sky. What she finds, however, is the incarnate of the god Mani at the door to the world where they begin their journey. Working with other gods, and bringing the death - most likely a murder - to the attention of her superiors, Jane will try to find out how this...

I'm a fan of the works of Steve Almond, ever since I picked up and read, somewhat randomly, his collection of short stories, My Life in Heavy Metal . I will gladly buy and read anything he writes. Truth is the Arrow, Mercy is the Bow , Almond's latest book, is part memoir, part 'how to' for writers, and part teacher's classroom notes. Although Almond is a bit self-deprecating throughout, he uses it to point out mistakes he's made , hoping it helps others avoid the pitfalls: I realized that early in the drafting process, I wasn't thinking about plot at all. I was simply trying to get a beat on my characters, who they were and what they wanted. thus, I spent a lot of time simply marching them around their daily routines and hoping they would bump into plot. ... This kind of thinking requires the author to step back and consider the larger arc of her story. And again, speaking bluntly, I suck at this kind of stepping back. I'm an inveterate improviser. Put ...

 Paulie Johansson is in a long-term relationship with Declan. It's comfortable, but hardly exciting. On a lark, Paulie auditions to be on a Swedish reality television show,  Sverige och Mig ( Sweden and Me ) in which contestants participate in a number of contests, someone gets eliminated and the ultimate winner gets to connect with Swedish ancestral relatives. Paulie is accepted to the program and leaves her boyfriend and best friend to spend a couple of months in Sweden filming the new season of  Sverige och Mig. She gets highly emotional, crying a lot - which the Swedes love (their nickname for the show is "Crying Americans"), though she manages to make it through most of the challenges. There isn't a lot of personal time, but Paulie does manage to talk to Declan on occasion, though the conversations seem tepid at best.  She then has an emotional affair with a crew member from the Swedish production team. When Paulie returns home, having both pushed  Sverige...

 Well this was a surprise. I am by no mean a big James Bond fan.  I was, however, a teenage boy in the 1970's so spies, action, and beautiful-falling-out-of-their-skimpy-costumes-women were the kinds of movies I went to see with my friends.  And while the movie version of You Only Live Twice came out a  little early for me, you can be sure I went back and rented it when I was in college. But it's only been recently that I've decided to read the originals - the books that the fanciful movies were made from. My surprise, then, is that this book bares almost no resemblance to the movie of the same title. As Wikipedia says (I went to look it up, wondering if my memory of the movie was wrong): "( You Only Live Twice ) is the first James Bond film to discard most of Fleming's plot, using only a few characters and locations from the book as the background for an entirely new story." James Bond's wife, Tracy, was murdered shortly after their wedding.  The killer ...

I recognize that I am a sucker for any book either about the Beatles or about someone's connection or relationship to (or love of) the Beatles. This doesn't always serve me well. Beatles and Beacons is a coming of age story for Becca Beacon - a British girl going into her teens just as the Liverpudlian Fab Four are beginning to make waves at home and will soon be off to take the United States by storm. While she listens to their music constantly and hangs their photos on her bedroom wall, Becca is convinced that she's different from all the other girls. Becca's parents don't understand the attraction and encourage Becca to 'let go' of her interest in the mop-headed, noise-making boys. But of course she won't.  She'll even skip school in order to try to meet the young musicians. As she gets older, her interests broaden (though she's still firmly a Beatles fan) and now she plays music herself, forming her own group - The Beacons. Though she'll ...

After enjoying the previous Crime Novels collection ( Crime Novels: Five Classic Thrillers 1961-1964 ) I was reading to dig in to four more crime classics. Three of these books I've already reviewed here on my blog and on Goodreads, though I'm including those reviews here. The fourth book, The Tremor of Forgery , I'm reviewing here first. Once again, I enjoyed this collection overall. I wasn't familiar with Margaret Millar, but The Fiend definitely thrills. Ed McBain is a name I'm quite familiar with (I've spent many years working in bookstores) but I've never read anything by him.  The Doll is a great introduction and does make me want to read more in the series. Run Man Run didn't sit well with me, but it wasn't the writing - Chester Himes does a great job - but the subject always puts me on edge.  And Patricia Highsmith is a name I've seen on the shelves but also hadn't ever read prior to this. The Tremor of Forgery is both subtle and ...

This is one of the oldest books in my ARC queue ... clearly no longer a 'new' book, and likely out of print since the publisher closed down a number of years back.  Still, I committed to reading and reviewing it, even if I am a decade (or more) behind! This book is the second in a trilogy (typical of my luck to pick up in the middle of a series) and jumps right into action, presumably from where the first book left off. Micah and Drystan are on the run from a circus that they both once worked for. Drystan takes them to a run-down old theatre to meet with Jasper Maske, once a renowned magician, who agrees to provide refuge for them. Maske promises to also teach them magic so that they have another skill they can use as they continue on their own. Micah discovers he has a special talent, having visions and seeing glimpses of the future, which will be important as their new mentor, Jasper Maske, is about to face an old foe. Despite my feeling just a little bit lost because this p...