Looking for Your Next Book

GRAPHIC NOVEL WEEK Some people prefer to take the 'off the beaten path' tours and see some unconventional sites. That's what happens here in the graphic novel Disaster, Inc., written by Joe Harris and illustrated by Sebastián Píriz. In 2011 one of the worst earthquakes in Japan history caused three of the four nuclear reactors in the Fukushima Daiichi power plant to melt down, releasing enough radioactive material into the air and ground that the area may be a hot zone for the rest of time. So a tour to the area is not officially authorized or sanctioned, but a daring few can't resist the lure of visiting the place. What they didn't realize until it was too late was that the Fukushima Daiichi area was once home to the samurai, who patrolled and protected the region.  The leaked radiation has awakened the long-dead samurai who are still looking to protect their territory. This doesn't bode well for those who've intruded in the area. Ghost/zombie samurai? A ra...

Charlie N. Holmberg's The Will and the Wilds is a fantasy that feels deeply rooted in mythology and the tradition of storytelling. Enna lives with her father at the edge of the wildwood - a border to the land of monsters. She was raised to exercise great caution when dealing with Mystings - a part demon, part fae creature. Enna's grandmother kept a journal of her knowledge and experiences with Mystings, and Enna refers to it often for guidance. The Mystings have gotten bolder and one tries to kill Enna just outside her home. Ignoring it will only serve to have more encroach on their home, so Enna feels her only option is to call her own Mysting to protect her home. But making a deal with a Mysting is possibly more dangerous than having one try to kill you. The Mysting Enna calls upon, Maekallus, agrees to help Enna for a very simple payment ... a kiss. But with a Mysting, a kiss has the power to steal one's soul. But for Maekallus, a kiss, given willingly, will break a spe...

Sometimes I read a 'classic' author and I wonder why the heck anyone thinks it's still worth reading, and other times I will read a 'classic' author and realize that the author is still relevant and accessible and well worth reading.  This collection of early short stories by F. Scott Fitzgerald fits comfortably in the latter category. Oddly enough, I'm not a huge fan of Fitzgerald's novels, but I've long admired his short works. I feel as though his short fiction really captures the era - the jazz age (coined by Fitzgerald) - better than any other author of the time.  I see it in the characters who always seem to be on the verge of crossing from innocence to experience within the confines of the stories. Sometimes this transformation is not too subtle (remember, these are Fitzgerald's early short stories) as in the first story "Babes in the Woods"  - the second section of which opens with "Isabelle and Kenneth were distinctly not inno...

Vikings and Valkyries - these two words can conjure up a lot of images, especially today with the popularity of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But the real Vikings and Valkyries (real Valkyries?) were much more interesting, and although the Vikings we are referencing here were alive more than one thousand years ago.  Even so, we're still learning about how they lived, worked, and fought.  In 1878, in the Viking village of Birka, the bones of a Viking warrior were discovered.  The figure was determined to be a warrior based on what had also been buried with the figure: an axe blade, two spearheads, a two-edged sword, a clutch of arrows, their shafts embellished with silver thread, a long sax-knife in a bronze-ringed sheath, iron bosses for two round shields, a short-bladed knife, a whetstone, a set of game pieces (bundled in the lap), a large bronze bowl (much repaired), a comb, a snip of a silver coin, three traders’ weights, two stirrups, two bridles’ bits, and spikes to...

 Ellie Matthews is a criminalist, in a personal relationship with FBI Agent Vic Manetti. The two have just started running together, but their first competitive race is cut short with the discovery of a body of a runner murdered the night before. The local sheriff's department asks for Ellie's help again (her last case was quite personal) and she's teaming up with Detective Nick Baxter, despite a very strained personal and professional relationship between the two. Ellie is struggling in her personal life - with her relationships with Vic Manetti and Nick Baxter, and with alcohol. She'd turned to the bottle in the last book and now she's trying hard to keep her head straight, but the killer will be working to get under Ellie's skin. If everyone is to survive, Ellie will need to stay sober and keep her wits about her - which may be more difficult than it sounds. Author Caroline Fardig's Java Jive series was a top-notch cozy mystery series (one of the very few...

This is definitely one of the more original fantasy stories I've read in awhile. In a remote community in the mountains is a village. Sometimes the children born here are born with two hearts. A child born this way is called a 'striga' - considered to be demons. When discovered, the child is abandoned at the edge of the forest. The mother of the child can then choose to either leave with the child - given both a faint hope at survival, or stay with the village, almost certainly ensuring the death of the striga. Salka, age nineteen, is recognized as a striga and is led to the edge of the forest and sent away. Her mother, Miriat, chooses to join her and live a life in poverty in another village. Salka is encouraged to settle in and appreciate what little she has - following her heart, her demon heart, will only cause problems and pain.  But Salka is a very independent spirit and finds that it is her nature to follow her heart. There was a poetic quality to the book that I qui...

In the not too distant future, it will become nearly impossible to kill someone. 99.9% of the time, when someone is intentionally killed, they come back - their bodies disappear from where they were "killed" and reappear at their home, naked, in bed.  Only death by natural causes or true accidents are otherwise permanent. No one knows how or why this has happened, but it has definitely changed everyday life in many ways - including the creation of a job as "Dispatcher" ... someone who 'kills' people for pay so that they can be reset for whatever personal reason they might have. (Let's say someone is in surgery and something goes wrong ... 'dispatch' them so that the don't actually die, allowing doctors to try again.) But while some old problems have gone away, some new problems arise. What happens when a 'dispatch' goes wrong and the target actually dies? Who is responsible?  And if you wanted to really torture someone now you could t...