This is the perfect wintry romance novel. Flannery Jansen and Anne Arden meet through a diner window and its love at first sight. Anne is somber and brooding while Flannery is playfully whimsical. The age difference plays a huge part in the differences of their personalities. Nonetheless, they are on the same campus, Flannery an undergrad and Anne a graduate student.
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At a glance, I sensed the first scent of winter on the morning's breath. Written on the Body gives a similar sensual chill emanating from Jeanette Winterson's prose. The story unfolds perfectly without haste, without hesitation and without a gender for the narrator.
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A vision of orange, red and yellow leaves fall a flutter and filter down and once the wind subsides, the Birthing House reveals itself. Just as a death has the power to shake the cosmos, so does a birth. A birth, some may say rattles all layers of the earth’s spheres because birth brings forth life and is in essence, creation. Something in the atmosphere, lithosphere, hydrosphere, cryosphere, biosphere and exosphere changes. Imagine a haven for thousands of births. There lays the Birthing House, incarnate, a container for the creation of life. The earth pulsates with energy from the structure and so does everyone contained within, around, or inside a few mile radius.
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Summer camp for the gifted turns out to be more fun than academic. Katrina, Isaac, Battle and Nic comprise your above average teenage group just trying to get a foothold in society’s wall. All are friends, but soon crushes develop. We can only hope who we’re crushin’ on is crushin’ on us also. It takes most of the book to find out but the story is very well woven and worth the perseverance.
Pick out your darkest petticoats ladies because Seth Grahame- Smith and Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is a classic zombie novel unlike any other.
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Ever wonder what happens to the survivors of a murdered family? Usually, one family member survives. How are they? How do they live? DO they live? Flynn answers these questions and many more of the like in her incredible second outing, Dark Places.
If a book could be analogized into a pretzel this is it. Dennis Lehane surpasses Mystic River with Shutter Island. In the beginning, the story is all about a missing person from an island institution for the criminally insane. Marshals, Chuck and Teddy are sent out to investigate the disappearance of Rachel Solando, Ashecliffe escapee who drowned all three of her children.
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High school senior Holland Jaeger has the typical teenage life. She has siblings, a Mom and Dad who love her, top percentile grades, a posse of friends, a bright future and a loving boyfriend. Holland believes with all of her heart she has her whole life flawlessly plotted out. She probably does…until she meets Cece. Out and proud transfer student Cece Goddard breezes into Holland’s life and that flawlessly plotted plan changes just a weensy bit.
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Raymond Tyler is an above average law school student, girl crazy alpha male on the rise. Raymond has everything going for him and a brighter than bright future. He's sure of himself, his goals and his direction in life. His girlfriend, Sela adores him. This all sounds so ideal and so perfect. It is a storybook until Raymond meets Kelvin. What seemed like a perfect life, a perfect future has now been put into question. The equation wasn't supposed to equal the sum of Raymond, Kelvin and Sela. Raymond is at a loss of what to do, thus he flees to New York in search of solace, answers and inner peace.
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It’s finally getting creepy in here. Dismantled by Jennifer McMahon chronicles the lives of a New England self-proclaimed college posse-- the Compassionate Dismantlers-- who take practical pranks way too far. Tess, Henry, Val/Winnie, Spencer and Suz make up the Compassionate Dismantlers but the acts they perform can hardly be described as compassionate….
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For a debut novel, Precious Blood exceeded my expectations. Medical examiner Edward Jenner was hired to investigate the exceedingly gruesome murder of a young woman in New York City. Needless to say, other murders follow and as the numbers mount, the severity of cruelty increases. There are decapitated heads soaking in deep puddles of milk, pole impalements and a creative new use for an ice cream scooper other than dipping ice cream.
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Tighten your toe tags, there’s a new breed of zombie in town. Pan’s Labyrinth creator slash (pun intended) Hellboy director Guillermo Del Toro and Hammett Award winning Prince of Thieves author Chuck Hogan collaborate to invent a voracious vampire-zombie hybrid like nothing else in The Strain.
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This book was over before it ever began. Meet Johnny Merrimon, thirteen, twin, crusader, outlaw and friend. Johnny’s sister Alyssa is missing and has been for a year now. Johnny will stop at nothing to find her. He doesn’t go to school, he doesn’t engage in extracurricular activities and he doesn’t lounge around at home. Johnny, his friend Jack and the entire state of North Carolina will stop at nothing to bring Alyssa home.
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It seems my goal of finishing a book by week’s end pales in comparison to the substantial ambition of author Julie Powell. The book is Julie and Julia 365 days, 524 recipes, 1 tiny apartment kitchen. The goal implicated in this title is astronomical yet entirely doable. Sometimes we need the astronomical to make us feel alive, or make us hungry at the very least.
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What happens after we die is all summed up in forty scientifically sporty vignettes written and compiled by David Eagleman. The stories are concise, creative and air-tight. Thought provoking and based on science as well as religion, Eagleman's debut conjures seizmic blips on the radar the size of Everest. Things that we’ve never thought of are happening in our afterlives according to David Eagleman’s dazzling debut, Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives.
Gazing at the cover of this novel made me gain weight. There is a picture on the cover of this book that will make anyone’s eyes glaze over. If it weren’t for the cover of the book, I probably wouldn’t have picked it up to investigate. Please, have a look and you tell me. The inside satisfies just as much, if not more so, than the cover promises. Oh mama. DONUT.
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I laughed until I cried. Denis Cooverman, delivers a valedictory speech of a lifetime that includes outing a closeted homosexual, exposing clandestine teacher's affairs and exposing the truth about rumors. He airs his own dirty laundry when he makes the simple declaration, " I Love You, Beth Cooper." And then the novel rockets off into oblivion via VW Cabriolet convertible.
There is one corpse in the body count and the novel isn't open yet. Richard Bachman, pseudonym for Stephen King, died of cancer of the pseudonym back in 1985. This novel, Blaze, was unearthed by Stephen King and published just this year. It's about a dead guy and written by a different dead guy yet the codex exists right here in my hot little hands in all it's jacketed black and orange glory.
Clayton Blaisdell Jr. is one of the most unfortunate characters of the lot of Stephen King's books. His mother dies and Clayton is left with his alcoholic and abusive father who throws him down the apartment stairs one time too many.
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Schaffert’s Devils in the Sugar Shop is sophisticated chick lit set in present day Omaha, Nebraska. The story is centered around a group of women who, try as they might, just can’t seem to get it right. DeeDee is the proprietress of a very tasteful adult oriented store called the Sugar Shop. Ashley is a failed writer of erotic fiction. Artist and bookstore owners are also among the occupations of the group. Add stalker to the list, but just whom that happens to be is a delicious mystery deeply embedded in the novel.
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Justin Evans’ psychological thriller debut, A Good and Happy Child doesn’t open, it launches. Once began, the story grimly informs the reader that the protagonist, George Davies is neither good nor happy.
George Davies is a married New Yorker with a newborn son. George and his wife aren't getting along because he cannot hold his infant son. His wife orders him to seek help, so he begins to see a psychiatrist and record his past in notebooks. Each chapter is representative of a notebook and they reveal that George was admitted to a mental institution in his adolescent years for violent behavior and possible demonic possession.
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Drivers wanted for Burt (B.S) Levy's Series of 1950's open-road car racing novels!
The Last Open Road series features narrator and small-town New Jersey resident Buddy Palumbo. Willing to do anything besides follow in his father’s footsteps by working in a chemical plant, Buddy finds work as an auto mechanic. Through this medium, Buddy discovers his talent for fixing classic sports cars. Among his favorites are MG’s, Ferraris and Jaguars. Eventually, Buddy falls into the practice of racing the sports cars and testing out his skills and handiwork. He develops a deep love for the cars, the racing, and the boss’ off-limits daughter, Julie Finzio. Continue Reading…
Call it ‘literary crack cocaine’ like the blurb on the volume's cover from Kirkus reviews or on a less exotic plane; call it psychological coconut sorbet for the soul. Christopher Pike’s Falling possesses a title that’s simple, benign, and unassuming but don’t be fooled. Beware. It is anything but. Start down this pike and fall you will.
Matt Connor is an average American male. He has a wonderful girlfriend, Amy, who keeps him at arms length constantly over the course of a year. Thinking all is roses between them, Matt is shocked to discover his beloved with her ex-boyfriend David. He’s even more perplexed when he finds that she is with child, David’s child, and does not wish to reconcile with him. Utterly incensed and hopelessly obsessed, Matt devises a plan to make Amy pay and pay she does, in droves.
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