It is a country to breed mystical people, egocentric people, perhaps poetic people. But not humble ones. At noon the total sun pours on your single head; at sunrise or sunset you throw a shadow a hundred yards long. It was not prairie dwellers who invented the indifferent universe or impotent man. Puny you may feel there, and vulnerable, but not unnoticed. This is a land to mark the sparrow’s fall.
Wolf Willow by Wallace Stegner
Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together. Today’s topic didn’t work for me, so I’m doing something different.
It’s around freezing temperature here and falling, so what better time than to read some icy cold reads! Grab a warm fuzzy blanket, your favorite hot beverage, and settle down to read.
Book Description:
“Cas Lowood has inherited an unusual vocation: He kills the dead.
So did his father before him, until he was gruesomely murdered by a ghost he sought to kill. Now, armed with his father’s mysterious and deadly athame, Cas travels the country with his kitchen-witch mother and their spirit-sniffing cat. They follow legends and local lore, destroy the murderous dead, and keep pesky things like the future and friends at bay.
Searching for a ghost the locals call Anna Dressed in Blood, Cas expects the usual: track, hunt, kill. What he finds instead is a girl entangled in curses and rage, a ghost like he’s never faced before. She still wears the dress she wore on the day of her brutal murder in 1958: once white, now stained red and dripping with blood. Since her death, Anna has killed any and every person who has dared to step into the deserted Victorian she used to call home.
Yet she spares Cas’s life.”
My thoughts:
If you are looking to spend quarantine curled up with a creepy ghost story and hint of romance, a little dash of teen angst, new friends and a homecoming queen, look no further. This YA supernatural thriller has got it all. Cas is used to being the new kid in school, since he crosses the country (and now Canada too) looking for the uneasy dead -and making sure they stay dead.
But even Cas has never had a first week like this – he meets the A crowd at school, gets invited to a killer party, and finishes up the night by getting assaulted at the local haunted house. Now he’s got to figure out why this ghost, a Finnish immigrant named Anna, is so much more powerful than every other spirit he’s faced. And he’d better do it before she kills again.
This was a little different from my usual read, since I don’t read a lot of ghost stories and I’m not as into YA books anymore either. But that cover – I mean, come on! That was so intriguing and beautiful and creepy! I don’t love this book description – it was a little weak – but it was good enough to convince me to get this from the library.
I listened to this one and it was so much fun. The narrator did a good job of getting Cas’s voice right. This one would be perfect for a wintery night or Halloween, but I enjoyed it right now. Definitely an absorbing story perfect for keeping your spirits high – get it? Spirits? Yeah, I’m hilarious.
TW and spoilers: Contains references to physical and emotional abuse, hints of possible sexual abuse, lots of violence and blood, and the death of a pet. It also contains profanity and teenage drinking.
This review appeared earlier, but I am sharing it again while I am recuperating. Enjoy.
I picked this up because of the title, but I brought it home because I had just finished The War of the Worlds. The book is about an obscure female writer, Florence Deeks, who accused H G Wells of plagiarizing large portions of his World History book from her unpublished manuscript. The writer starts by profiling each party in the lawsuit, first Wells, then Deeks, then back to Wells for a bit, and so on. I certainly learned much that I had never heard before about Wells. I was really only familiar with his science fiction writing, although I had heard the titles of another book or two. But I had no idea what a ladies’ man he was. He was a fervent advocate of free love and Fabianism, had at least one illegitimate child, and made his wife extremely unhappy by the way he couldn’t stay away from other women. The worst part was the way that he wrote books about his affairs, only halfway hiding their identities, and then published them for the whole world to read. His regular publisher even had to refuse a couple of books as too racy to handle, thinking more of lawsuits and poor taste that actual content.
So what’s the verdict? Did he steal her work? Well, sadly, that’s where this book got boring. I really didn’t care about the state of Canadian publishing at the time, the characters involved, or long passages comparing sections sentence by sentence. I also especially didn’t care about the court cases. I just wanted a summary of that, and more of the personalities involved. It was interesting to learn about Canada at the time, but get on with the verdict! The court decided in favor of the man, naturally, but the writer and the reader will probably disagree.
If you are a fan of Wells, I think you might enjoy at least looking through this one. Otherwise, I would stay away. It was somewhat interesting, but would have been much better if the focus had stayed on the people and not strayed so far into details. 2.5 stars
Can’t-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted here, at Wishful Endings, to spotlight and discuss the books we’re excited about that we have yet to read. Generally they’re books that have yet to be released. It’s based on Waiting on Wednesday, hosted by the fabulous Jill at Breaking the Spine. If you’re continuing with WOW, feel free to link those up as well! Find out more here.
I love retellings of the classics, and this week’s pick takes a Jane Austen favorite and gives it an Indian twist in Ayesha at Last by Uzma Jalaluddin.
Book description
“A smart young Muslim Canadian woman navigates the complexities of career, love, and family in this lively homage to a Jane Austen classic. “While it is a truth universally acknowledged that a single Muslim man must be in want of a wife, there’s an even greater truth: To his Indian mother, his own inclinations are of secondary importance.” With that nod to Pride and Prejudice firmly in place, Jalaluddin lays the groundwork for a raucous story that mixes a zany cast of characters with a tightly wound plot.”
This time me sounds great. I have a hold on it at the library and I can’t wait!
Murder Among the Pines by John Lawrence Reynolds
I got this one from Early Reviewers for free in exchange for an honest but fair review. My opinion remains my own.
Police chief Max Benson is busy enough with the summer visitors to her sleepy Canadian town, but when her ex-husband becomes the chief suspect in a murder investigation, she might have to clear up her schedule. This was a very quick read. The ending was not really a surprise, but if you like mysteries, I think you’d like this. Perfect for beginning readers. It is the third in the series, but that didn’t keep me from enjoying it.
This book was received in exchange for an honest and unbiased review. My opinions, however, remain my own. Thanks for the chance to read this book!
Title: Along Came Jones
Author: Victoria Bernadine
Summary: Benjamin Ferrin Macon-Jones has it all: a luxurious lifestyle in Toronto and the love of an intelligent, ambitious woman…until that same woman refuses his marriage proposal, tells him he’s a detriment to her career, and leaves him. Unable to deal with his cantankerous family trying to be supportive, he quietly slips away into the Canadian countryside.
Lou Upjohn has problems of her own. She’s a recluse and agoraphobic, staying safely within the walls of her ancestral home in small town Saskatchewan and depending on Ike, her best and only friend, to deal with the outside world.
Only Ike’s just married another woman and now he’s moving to Vancouver. Before he leaves, he hires the new guy in town, Ferrin Jones, to run her errands and do her yard work. Lou isn’t happy, but even she has to admit the stranger looks mildly interesting.
Both their lives could be changed forever if she only has the courage to open the door.
My thoughts:
I don’t read much contemporary romance, like, at all, so I was a little surprised to be approached to review this story. However, I am pretty open about my mental health issues, and I found that angle intriguing enough that I said yes. I’m so glad I did!
I am really not a fan of the insta-love that substitutes for a real relationship in so many new books. Maybe that’s because it’s primarily YA, but I *so* don’t want to read about a couple who meet, fall in love, and fall into bed. I’m not into those books. If you are, hey, good for you, but I want real people who have time to get to know one another before they fall.
So this book was a breath of fresh air for me. I loved the MCs – Ferrin was just so appealing, with his crazy family and optimistic attitude. I can see why Lou fell for him – he’s just a great guy. And Lou, she’s so real and so much stronger than she has given herself credit for being. I liked that she didn’t magically overcome her panic attacks. The pacing felt pretty realistic. The bad guy is just human garbage and I was glad to see them get what they deserved.
If you are looking for a good romance with a great small town setting, I would definitely recommend this one. The author says she’s been writing for a long time, and it shows. Recommended.
Title: Invinciman
Author: Ricky Leone
Note: This review was requested by the author, but the opinions expressed are my own.
Setting: near future Canada
Format: ebook
Engineer Ray Martin has this one friend. You know the kind, the one that gets you into trouble, but then gets you back out again? Except that this friends gets him into the kind of trouble that’s going to get him killed; and he may not get him out of trouble ever again.
Ray and Daniel are both engineering students when they meet. Their skills complement each other, and they wind up teaming up to get their projects done. Only trouble is that Ray want to graduate and get the job and Daniel? Well, Ray can’t tell what he wants.
His friendship with Daniel, if that’s what it is, is told in flashback. The story actually opens with Ray being shot in the head and left for dead. And that’s really where I had trouble with the book. The story, and the complicated relationship between the two guys, was really interesting. They want to make robots – excuse me, a “super advanced artificial intelligence robot,” which will fight in an arena like Robot Wars on TV today. Except bigger and badder and more awesome. I absolutely can’t argue with that. It’s the terrorist angle which had me scratching my head. I was excited for the rivalry and the robot fights. And while I knew this was a superhero book, it never felt like the two halves of the story worked together as well as they should have. By the time I got to the ending, I was quite confused.
I’m not sure who I would recommend this one for. I see that it got good recommendations from most other readers, so it might just be me being picky. I would be willing to give this author another try though. I’d like to see some female characters and more diversity too. Thanks for the chance to read this one.
Title: As Chimney Sweepers Come to Dust. Flavia De Luce #7
Author: Alan Bradley
Spoilers for the previous books in the series, so if you’re planning on reading them but haven’t yet, don’t read this review! You’ve been warned.
At the end of the previous book, Flavia’s beloved mother Harriet has been located and brought home to Bishop’s Lacey at last for a burial. But while Flavia has inherited everything, she’s being packed off to Canada to Miss Bodycote’s Female Academy to be trained up in all the things a gentlewoman (and a spy?) might need to know. Flavia is homesick, but full of pluck as per usual, so when a body falls out of her chimney, she takes it in her customary stride. Something is clearly a foot.
I enjoyed this one, but it wasn’t as much fun without the usual Buckshaw crowd. Still, it did Flavia good to let her stretch her wings a bit and see what she was made of. Looking forward to the next one.
It’s been really hot here in Utah and I’m not enjoying it much! Summer is just getting started really and it’s already nearing 100. You know what I need? Some nice frozen reads! Here are a few I can recommend.
This list ought to keep you cool for a bit. I’m going to check the air conditioning now!
Speedy Reader 