Wednesday, March 27, 2024

The Werewolf at Dusk


A quick but masterful graphic novel told as three short stories. The Werewolf at Dusk is about the changes an aging werewolf goes through. Still able to change at the full moon, yet hardly able to chase a squirrel or climb up stairs. A Walk in the Old City is about a shrink who loses his way at night. Attempting to psycho-analyze himself will not getting him out of the mess he stumbles across. The final story is The Tiger in Vogue which is a terrifyingly whimsical look at Hitler's rise to power in Germany. Unique and wonderful storytelling in that one. Fantastic illustrations grace the pages of all three stories. I wish it were longer! 

Help for the Haunted


My rating is really a 3.5. This book is perfect for fans of The Conjuring and suspense novels. Sylvie is the good daughter, she is the youngest of her parent's two kids and the one that can be counted on. Her parents are "helpers" they take demonic or spiritual cases and try to solve problems with prayer. As their notoriety grows across the country, things get harder at home. Her older sister Rose acts up and starts driving a wedge between their parents. When her parents are murdered in a church after meeting with a client they helped in the past, Sylvie is the key to the case. But what does she really remember. Told in alternating timelines between the past and the present; Help for the Haunted starts out pretty slow but the pace really picks up in the last third of the book. 

Tuesday, March 26, 2024

Raiders of the Lost Heart


This was a fun, steamy, romantic comedy perfect for fans of Indiana Jones, Romancing the Stone, and The Mummy. Corrie gets called out to her dream archaeological dig, the study of her life's work, and she finds out that the lead of the dig is the guy that broke her heart in grad school. She is beyond angry but surprised the attraction is still there. Against her better judgement she finds herself staying onsite because she will never be this close to finding the lost remains of her ancestor, Chimalli, an ancient warrior of the Aztec empire. The two keep finding themselves flirting with each other and soon enough they are sharing tents. Very steamy - I could have used a little more adventure however!

Monday, March 25, 2024

All Hail, The Queen of the Freaks


I was far too sober to read this book. If you are a fan of nonsense novels then you may enjoy this weird young adult novel. Otherwise steer clear! The book opens with a warning to go to the author's website to learn how to properly read the website (which seems like it would be useful because trying to find the plot in this book....) - the only problem is the website no longer exists. The "premise" of this young adult novel is that a young female teenager wakes up in a weird asylum with no memory of who she is - all she knows is that people are trying to kill her. She runs away and finds herself in Paradiddle Lane - a high end street in the suburbs of Chicago. She runs into a high end collectible shop (that is alive) and a lonely German man takes her in and decides to raise her as his own. He enrolls her in a school for ultra rich teens called Prep and there she makes friends with some billionaires. While playing around she discovers she can enter different dimensions and time travel. Her friends are like, "that's cool." Nothing in this book makes any sense - it's weird and ironic and annoying and I hate read the whole book. Not one of the characters is likable, there is no plot, there are so many weird nonsensical asides. It was too much for me. Read at your own risk.

Friday, March 22, 2024

Live and Let Chai


Cheesy, predictable, and a fun cozy read. The book was fun and highly improbable as all good cozy mysteries are. Everly has moved back to her hometown on Charm Island after a devastating breakup with a cowboy. She buys a fixer upper on the boardwalk and decides to convert the downstairs into an iced tea shop called Sun, Sand and Tea. Things get off to a rocky start when the old town curmudgeon is found dead, with her tea glass right beside him. The new detective insinuates her tea poisoned him and suddenly she can't get any customers. It's up to her to clear her name and prove she's not an iced tea killer. Lots of small town cliches, zero business sense, and attraction to the hunky detective. Nice fluff. I may continue with the series later. 

Thursday, March 21, 2024

The Real Hoosiers


For someone who doesn't get that into sports I freaking LOVE reading about them. The Real Hoosiers is magnificent, it's a breathtaking look at The Big O, Attucks, and basketball in Indiana. As a Hoosier, this content isn't brand new to me. I have read several other books on Hoosier basketball, and a young adult book on Attucks - however the framework of this book included so much background and depth that I learned a ton. This should be required reading. It talks in depth about how deep racism permeated in the Hoosier Heartland (on and off the court) and the hoops (see what I did there) that African American players faced just to play the game they love. I love Indiana and we've come a long way as a state - but boy... things were bad. It's amazing that we got such a great school and basketball team out of so much prejudice. Wonderful book, I loved all the footnotes and anecdotes! 

A Place Called the Tree


A relatable teen novel about wanting to belong, parental angst, tumultuous friendships, drama club, and first romance. Leah has always felt like she is on the outside looking in. Her mom has been in and out of relationships and has moved her from place to place. Tipton, Indiana is the place where she has lived the longest and it's starting to feel like home. What if she could really belong? She belongs in drama club and with her two friends Justin and Becky. But she doesn't feel as if she belongs at home with her mom's new boyfriend and she longs to belong to the "cool kids" group at the high school, the choir. The choir kids have a tree they all sit around at lunch and to Leah it's larger than life. What are they discussing out there? After school she sneaks out to be by the tree when no one can see her, and on one auspicious day she finds a letter buried in dirt from an old man named Robert. Life as she knows it will never be the same. Teens will really relate to this novel but the I did not care for the ending. As a Hoosier, I did love all the Indiana references.