Two people in two days told me to read The Midnight Library, and I'm rather glad they did. I'm also glad that I listened to them. What's The Midnight Library about? This unique, thought-provoking novel by Matt Haig maintains a "road not taken" approach. It's about a suicidal woman, Nora, who's magically transported to the "midnight library," a place where each book contains the story of the life she could have lived if she had...
Christmas Joy by Nancy Naigle is the perfect book to sink into over the holiday season. Last year, I basically swiped right on a bunch of Christmas books available from my local library. My six weeks leading up to Christmas were spent reading about nothing but candy canes, cookies, holiday décor, and small-town romance. There were some hits and some misses, but Christmas Joy is definitely one of the highlights from that book stack. ...
I never really think of December as a spooky time of year. But, author Cassandra Parkin manages to change that with her book The Winter's Child. What's The Winter's Child about? The Winter's Child is full of twists and turns, ghostly premonitions and ghastly visions as main character Susannah waits for her long-lost -- and possibly deceased -- son to return to her on Christmas Eve. Soon, Susannah starts seeing things that...
N0S4A2 is a Christmas book in the way that Die Hard is a Christmas movie. It's a horror novel that just so happens to be centered around Christmas. There are all the entrancing, alluring elements of the holidays that we love: carols, trees decorated with ornaments, and the smell of gingerbread in the air. But, author Joe Hill doles out each charming tidbit with a sinister twist that morphs the innocent into something incredibly dark and...
The Last Commandment, which is the first book in the Austin Grant of Scotland Yard series by Scott Shepherd, has a really great premise: a serial killer running across two continents, leaving behind murder victims who correspond to The Ten Commandments. If you're a Dan Brown fan -- all about the murder mystery mixed with Christian religious themes -- I'm going to say this one is for you, even though I've never actually read a Dan Brown novel....
Calling all Janeites! I’m here to tell you that not only is The Other Bennet Sister worth your time, but that it’s one of the best Jane Austen-inspired novels I've ever read. And I’ve read a lot of them. What's The Other Bennet Sister about? The Other Bennet Sister is about Mary Bennet, who's Elizabeth Bennet's "least eligible" sister in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. The Mary Bennet that author Janice Hadlow...
I was fully prepared to hate Daisy Jones & The Six. But, I ended up loving it instead.
Why I decided to read Daisy Jones & The Six I refused to read Daisy Jones and the Six during the first year it was published. Why? For starters, I don't like band biopics. They bore me with their petty dramas and creative differences and substance abuse problems. Drugs and drinking hold no allure for me. Reading...
I love discovering new authors in supernatural fiction, and The Voices falls perfectly into this genre. This story starts off like most haunted house novels -- a happy couple moves into a too-good-to-be-true lovely old house that turns out to be creepyAF. But that's where anything expected in The Voices ends. What's The Voices about? Main character Christopher composes music for a living. During some recording sessions in his new...
It took me a long time to write my book review of My Dark Vanessa. Much longer than it took me to read the book, which I drank up as quickly as I could. Author Kate Elizabeth Russell's novel is exquisite, which is an odd thing to say for a story about such a delicate topic, but it's true. The writing in My Dark Vanessa is haunting, beautiful, and lyrical from the get-go. The book pulls you right into its troubling depths. ...
I can't believe I'm saying this, but Mexican Gothic is the latest bestseller to fall into the DNF pit. Let me start off this book review by saying that I'm not only disappointed by how much I didn't enjoy this Gothic suspense -- but I'm very surprised by it. Author Silvia Moreno-Garcia's Mexican Gothic made HUGE waves last year among bookstagrammers and book bloggers, for its book cover alone! Which is, admittedly, gorgeous. ...
