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Mini Reviews: A Mystery Mixed Bag

Mini Reviews: A Mystery Mixed Bag

Sandra
Books

It's been well-documented that I love mysteries of all sorts. I recently devoured three, all of which I recommend--but with varying degrees of enthusiasm.

Game (Jasper Dent #2) by Barry Lyga

I Hunt Killers, the first in Barry Lyga's series featuring Jasper Dent better known as Jazz, a serial killer's son, ended with a cliffhanger--a seriously obnoxious one. Game was released about two weeks after I finished “Killers” so my wait wasn't too painful.  But, Game goes beyond cliffhanger. It leaves you plummeting off the cliff with no way of knowing or guessing what the landing will entail.

Billy Dent, Jazz's serial killer father, roams free to continue his dastardly deeds while Jazz searches for him in New York City. In contrast to his demented father, Jazz has come to his own understanding of humanity and his place in the world.

People are real, Jazz told himself, repeating his mantra. People matter … Jazz had always thought that his past was his own burden to bear, but could it be possible that he was meant to have people around him? Was this the true meaning of “People are real. People matter?

Jazz confronts his past, his own emotional pain and commits himself fully to finding and bringing down his father.

Connie, his girlfriend,  goes against her parents wishes and her own common sense  to follow Jazz to the city with the intention of helping him, even saving him from whatever may come.  

I closed the pages of the second in Lyga's series, frustrated and irritated. Everyone I liked best in the novel was heading down a winding road toward a collision. Nothing is resolved, and this does not read as a complete story.

I haven't found a date for publication of the sequel to Game.  So it goes. I'll just have to wait.

Audio Review: Time Between Us by Tamara Ireland Stone

Audio Review: Time Between Us by Tamara Ireland Stone

Sarah Moon
Books

Between my blog post about audiobooks and a desperate cry on Goodreads and Twitter for audiobook recommendations, there were several suggestions of Tamara Ireland Stone's debut novel, Time Between Us. I'd been curious about this book anyway, as I am a tremendous sucker for time travel or parallel universe-type stories (I lay the blame for this squarely on Fringe). 

I figured giving this particular book a whirl, since I had a couple of gratis Audible credits, and while I had extremely mixed feelings about The Time Between Us, I still enjoyed it quite a bit and am definitely onboard for the sequel, because there's something about this story that's extremely engaging and entertaining--and this was very much bolstered by the narrator's performance. 

Time Between Us is set in 1995 Evanston, Illinois and is told in the first person present perspective of Anna, a 16-year old avid runner who works in her father's bookstore and dreams of traveling the world. She meets Bennett, a boy she first spots at the track where she runs and later enrolls as a temporary student at the private school she attends. 

The two embark on an intense, whirlwind of a romance, culminating in Anna's discovery that Bennett has a big secret: he's from 2012, not 1995 and has traveled through time in search of someone from his present. 

Much of this premise mirrors the plot of the hordes of paranormal YA novels that exploded in recent years: average girl, mysterious book, special powers, etcetera, etcetera. However, despite that the basics of Time Between Us are nothing new, there's something fresh and fun in the writing and the engaging pace of the story. Some of this is because of the travel-meets-time travel aspect which we see through Anna's enthusiastic, very (in a good way) teenage eyes. But it's also because the wintery Evanston setting is well done and Anna has friends whose characters are well-developed and important to the story. She has a rich life before Bennett--she simply dreams of more.

Unfortunately, as much as I was swept up in Anna and Bennett's story and the question of if and how they could possibly be together, there is much in this story that's problematic.

Review: The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey

Review: The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey

Sarah Moon
Books
But if I’m it, the last of my kind, the last page of human history, like hell I’m going to let the story end this way. I may be the last one, but I am the one still standing. I am the one turning to face the faceless hunter in the woods on an abandoned highway. I am the one not running but facing. Because if I am the last one, then I am humanity. And if this is humanity’s last war, then I am the battlefield.

Earlier this year, I happened to meet the editor of Rick Yancey's The 5th Wave at the ALA Midwinter Meeting. I'm not exaggerating when I say that she accosted me, and forced The 5th Wave into my hands, despite my protests that I'm not really a science fiction reader and that I had major burnout on post-apocalyptic/dystopian novels.

She promised that this one was different, that this wasn't like those other books, that if I liked character-driven stories with lots of moral conundrums, I'd love this book (she clearly had my number on those counts). Then, because I was probably still looking doubtful, she told me that The 5th Wave was her favorite book she'd worked on. There was something that told me that this wasn't a line, that she she loved this book that much.

Just a few days later, my curiosity got the best of me and I cracked open The 5th Wave.  Let's just say, I never bring print books with me, instead relying on my ereader or Kindle app to read on the go. However, my review copy of The 5th Wave went everywhere with me while I was reading it--it's simply that excellent.

The 5th Wave opens after aliens have invaded and attacked Earth. First, electricity was destroyed with an electromagnetic pulse; then the coasts were enveloped by rising seas; next, an Ebola-like plague wiped out much of the population; then, what were effectively alien sleeper cells were activated, and the few remaining humans can't trust anyone. 

I know what you're thinking: Another post-apocalyptic novel?

The 5th Wave isn't just another post-apocalyptic novel. It's it's character-driven, it's complexly-plotted, it's frightening. 

While The 5th Wave is written in multiple points-of-view, Cassie, the teen narrator of the largest chucks of the novel, is the character whose voice will likely receive the most attention. She's one of the few who's managed to stay alive during the invasion, but not without a high, high cost. She lost her mother to the third wave (the viral infection), her father in the fourth wave and her younger brother is now missing--Cassie is alone in the world, dodging snipers and making life and death decisions in order to survive.  

Verse Week Review: May B. by Caroline Starr Rose

Verse Week Review: May B. by Caroline Starr Rose

Sandra
Verse Week, Books

Before putting my fingers to the keyboard to write my review of May B., a middle grade novel in verse by Caroline Starr Rose, I went to the Poetry Foundation's website to see if my confusion between poetry and prose could be clarified. The answer I found didn't particularly surprise me.

To put it in the simplest of terms, it's all about snobbery. Poetry, according its aficionados, stands several rungs above verse. Verse does not--according to them--employee the sophisticated use of language that poetry does.

Alrighty then...

Keats apparently writes poetry and Robert Service apparently writes verse. What's the difference? I've yet to answer that one but I will say that I read Service for pleasure, for the joy of his playful and often robust use of language. Keats I read as assigned work in my studies at the universities where I earned my degrees. I enjoy and appreciate Keats, so I am not picking on his work, I promise. My point is about the joy of language, pure and simple.

Review: I Hunt Killers by Barry Lyga

Review: I Hunt Killers by Barry Lyga

Sandra
Books

The cover of Barry Lyga's I Hunt Killers asks,

"What If The World's Most Notorious Serial Killer . . . Was Your Dad?"

Told from from the mind of the son of said notorious killer, this book's creepy question hooked me from the first page and held me until the end.

Lyga created a complex character, Jasper known as Jazz by family and friends, whom most of us can relate to. Not because he's the son of a serial killer, but because he struggles with memories of his growing up years.

He tries to understand them and to sort through his memories to know himself for who he is, rather than what others may think he is or who his father tried to craft him into becoming.

A haunting question is seared into his mind by his experiences: Are memories dreams or are they real?

A river of images and thoughts and feeling, dirtied and polluted so that no one could drink from it without gagging... Jazz knew killers. Billy [ Jazz's father] had studied the serial killers of the past the way a painter studies the Renaissance masters. He learned from their mistakes. He obsessed over them. And he passed his knowledge down to his son. Lucky Jazz--those were the things he remembered from his childhood.

Jazz wonders about his lineage. Perhaps, he muses, caring for his grandmother whose mind flits randomly from one thought to another in a crazy zig-zag that often coalesced into cruelty causes Jazz to wonder about his relationship with her.

Review: Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell

Review: Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell

Laura
Books, Greatest Hits

I have thought about Eleanor and Park everyday since I read it two months ago.

That’s not a compliment.

In some respects, my attitude is perhaps not terribly fair because a particular aspect of Eleanor and Park elicited a visceral reaction from me that is personal to me, a reaction that a lot of people would not have or understand.

But as I’ve thought about the novel over the past two months, mulling over the possibility that I was perhaps being too sensitive, that the possibility of my being too sensitive was unfairly impacting my view of the rest of the book, and the book as a whole, my final analysis has always been the same: I don’t believe this book.

I don’t believe the historical context.

I don’t believe the characters.

I don’t believe the romance.

Let’s start with the first issue, the historical context.

Eleanor and Park is framed as a historical novel, taking place in Omaha, Nebraska, the author Rainbow Rowell’s hometown, in 1986. Our titular 16-year-old characters meet on the school bus when Park grudgingly allows new kid Eleanor to share his seat. 

Park is half-Korean, his parents having met and married in South Korea, where his father was stationed as a member of the army. Hmmmmm. Okay, so they met around 1968? 1969? I have to assume it was no later than 1969 since as a sixteen year old in 1986, Park would have to have been born in 1970. So...during the height of the Vietnam War, when a draft was in place to send as many young men as possible into the fray, Park’s father, an able-bodied member of the U.S. military was...stationed at an army base in Korea. Possible, I suppose, but still a bit ludicrous to me.

Ok, so then his parents get married and move to his father’s hometown of Omaha, Nebraska where Park is raised and, according to Park, the good people of Omaha,

“...couldn’t call him a freak or a [anti-Asian slur] or a [homosexual slur], because—well, first, because his dad was a giant and a veteran and from the neighborhood.”

Let me get this straight. 

Mini-Reviews: Two Historical-ish Novels That Didn't Work

Mini-Reviews: Two Historical-ish Novels That Didn't Work

Sarah Moon
Books

​I used to gobble up historical fiction, especially a million years ago when I was a teenager. History piqued my interest from a young age and I loved reading books with these settings. However, as an adult, I've found historical fiction a tougher nut to crack, with it being my most "did-not-finish" genre by a long mile. 

I suspect my lack of engagement with historical fiction has to do with my having read a lot of excellent historical narrative non-fiction in college, graduate school and later. Top-notch works from that genre just grab me in a way that fiction often falters. It may sound snotty, but it's true. 

However, I keep revisiting historical fiction because I want to revisit that love I once had--it used to thrill me to visit a time period other than my own and feel immersed in the experiences inherent to that time. Recently, I tried out a couple more historical novels, both YA, one a realistic novel set in 1938 Los Angeles, the other a historical with fantasy elements set in the pre-Civil War American South. Unfortunately, I was unable to finish either, but on the bright side, I think they both have audiences who will adore them.

Review: If You Find Me by Emily Murdoch

Review: If You Find Me by Emily Murdoch

Sandra
Books

The Advance Readers Edition of If You Find Me arrived with the words "Beautiful, Wonderful, Powerful, Heart-Breaking, Impressive, Compelling and Emotional" dominating its cover. Emily Murdoch's book captivated me in all those ways and more. The words, "hope-filled, joyous and inspirational" describe my whole-hearted response.

Fifteen-year-old Carey leads you  through the story of herself and her younger sister, Jenessa, who lived in a dilapidated old camper in the depths of a national forest. Their mother, a meth addict, fabricates a reason for the life in the forest. She holds them there to keep them "safe" from Carey's father who she claims will wreak great harm and havoc upon their serene woodland existence if he should find them. 

The mother comes and goes as she desires. Her mission in life is to fulfill her need for meth; to that end, she willingly puts her children in jeopardy to keep herself high. The only people the two girls see is the occasional man coming in search of payment for their mother's drugs. The girls have lived in the forest for ten years with a few books, scant food supplies, a violin and their mother's stories of the horrible fate that awaits them outside their forest home.

​

Twofer Review: Shatter Me & Unravel Me by Tahereh Mafi

Twofer Review: Shatter Me & Unravel Me by Tahereh Mafi

Sarah Moon
Books

One of my favorite things about the book blogging world is that sometimes it gives me the shove I need to read books I would have normally passed up. Such is the case of Tahereh Mafi's Shatter Me, which came highly recommended by the lovely Angie, whose taste is very similar to my own. 

Frankly, I'd assumed that ​the Shatter Me series was yet another in a long series of dystopian copycats that are just okay. (I'm looking at you, Divergent, Legend, Delirium, et al.) However, to my surprise, I was absolutely sucked into the--and I mean this in a good way--absolute weirdness of the writing style and narration.

​Juliette has spent her teen years locked away in a prison because her touch is fatal--she's killed before. Her family has shunned her and the system doesn't care about her. So she sits in a cell. Alone. Abandoned.

All I ever wanted was to reach out and touch another human being not just with my hands but with my heart.

She frantically scribbles her semi-maniacal thoughts in a journal, until one day, she's no longer by herself. A new prisoner is locked up in her cell--it's Adam a boy from her past who has secrets of his own. ​

​Eventually (intentional vagueness here to avoid spoilage), the story's location shifts to the compound of the regional government, where the young madman Warner, hopes to figure out how to use Juliette's power for his own destructive purposes. 

In both Shatter Me and its sequel, Unravel Me, Warner steals many of the scenes.

Three Mini Reviews: A Paranormal YA, Funny Urban Fantasy + A Kick-Ass Aussie Contemporary

Three Mini Reviews: A Paranormal YA, Funny Urban Fantasy + A Kick-Ass Aussie Contemporary

Sarah Moon
Books

I've recently read a few books (or in one case, didn't finish) that I didn't take particularly good notes about, which means I can't write a full-on review. But, I wanted to give some quickie thoughts on these three, which I recommend with varying degrees of enthusiasm.

The Last Echo (The Body Finder #3) by Kimberly Derting

​I read the first two books in Kim Derting's Body Finder series, but then decided to wait until the series was completed to finish it up (I have cut way back on my series reading, because it was actually getting hard to keep things straight). I picked up the third book in this series at a super-fun event the author hosted at Powell's along with one of my favorites, Lisa Schroeder, back in February. (I also won an ARC of the final book in the series, Dead Silence, by identifying whose tweets were whose--apparently, I spend a lot of time on social media.Ahem.)

I've recommended The Body Finder series to ​so many people, particularly Actual Teens, who like mysteries of paranormal stories, because these books really do it right. The aspect of this series that I think is really quite good is the relationship between Violet and her childhood best friend turned boyfriend, Jay. It's warm, it's grown through the series and avoids the yucky gender dynamics of many paranormal YA novels. (You know what I mean.) 

Review: Out of the Easy by Ruta Sepetys

Review: Out of the Easy by Ruta Sepetys

Sandra
Books
The clouds shifted, and the glow of sun brightened on my face. “But she's from a really wealthy family, a good family, and she's a freshman at Smith College in Massachusetts. She even flies a plane. Charlotte kept telling me that I should apply to Smith. I know it sounds ridiculous, me being able to go to a prestigious school like that, but she sent me all the information.”

Suddenly, the insanity of the whole thing came into focus, and I nearly laughed.

“But for some reason, I began to want it, really badly. I told Willie, and she was mad. She said I had to go to school here in New Orleans, that I was out of my league trying to get into a college like that.”

Willie Woodley, the madam who owns and officiates over a high class brothel on Conti Street in New Orleans loves Josie Moraine as only a mother can love a child, love that never came from Josie's mother.  Set in the milieu unique to the fifties, Out of the Easy brings a flavor and cast of characters that only that time and place can offer. 

The novel's setting and characters could have been a humdrum of stereotypes, but in the hands of  gifted writer, Ruta Sepetys, who wrote the excellent Between Shades of Gray, it's the polar opposite.

Josie and Willie stole my heart. I cheered for them; shed a tear or two for them when I despaired for them; and most of all, believed in them.

Josie's mother, Louise, has no redeeming qualities. She's a prostitute with no qualms about who she uses for her own purposes, which is mainly to use others to get what she wants--money and things. At age seven Josie comes to live in Willie's brothel with her mother who has no consideration for what Josie will see or experience. This house frames its beguiling women in dark brocade curtains, crystal chandeliers and paintings on the walls of nude women with expansive nipples.

Josie much prefers the local bookstore. She wanders about the shop in awe of the many books that rise above her like skyscrapers. Charlie, the owner, notices this quiet child. He befriends her and by the time she reaches eleven, he's offered her a room in his attic. To Josie, it's a secret garden filled with the smell of paper, the whisper of pages turning and the kindness of a truly fine person.

Neither the kindness of Charlie nor the love of Willie will protect Josie from the inescapable reality of her life.

Review: Star Crossed by Jennifer Echols

Review: Star Crossed by Jennifer Echols

Sarah Moon
Books

Jennifer Echols is one of my go-to writers for quality character development, sharp dialogue and memorable stories. Needless to say, her foray into fiction for adults with Star Crossed was one of my most anticipated novels of the year. 

While I adore Jennifer's dramatic novels like Such a Rush and Going Too Far, I have a soft spot for her more light-hearted books, particularly Major Crush. What can I say? I'm a sucker for a good romantic comedy to balance out all the angst and drama.

Fortunately for me, Star Crossed falls into the lighter vein of Jennifer's oeuvre. 

Wendy Mann is a publicist to the stars. She's spent six years saving celebrities from their public disasters, rescuing their images and turning around careers. She's blunt and tough, and that's why she's so good at her job. Her beloved career is threatened when one of her clients pushes back and almost gets her fired. In order to save her job at the high powered PR firm where she works, Stargazer, she's sent to Las Vegas to salvage another career--that of a young singing who's nasty habit of posting inappropriate photos of herself on Twitter and publicly sparring with her ex-boyfriend.

Wendy finds herself up against her old college rival, Daniel, who's representing her client's ex. The two competed for top rankings all through school and their firms are also rivals (Daniel's father owns the firm where he works and he's expected to take over leadership of the family business). The pair's history is pretty fun. Daniel secretly crushed on Wendy from afar, but Wendy simply saw him as a rival to be squashed (she's extremely competitive). I enjoyed that their shared history wasn't as dramatic as is in a lot of novels of this ilk, it's more of a vague thing that doesn't have a lot of baggage. 

Review: Dark Tide by Elizabeth Haynes

Review: Dark Tide by Elizabeth Haynes

Sarah Moon
Books

My expectations of thrillers and mysteries are pretty simply: intriguing characters, both good and bad, a mystery that tantalizes but isn't resolved until the end, clever language and a setting that's a bit real or surreal. This is not all that unreasonable.

I received an advance reader's edition of Elizabeth Haynes second novel Dark Tide. Eagerly, I opened it and dug into it with these expectations, as the summary promised all of this and more.

Dark Tide will hit the racks and e-readers March 12. I am glad I did not pay for the book as it would have felt like I'd not spent my money wisely. With that said, for me to have a copy from the library would be a reasonable way to access the book.

The characters did not intrigue me in any way. 

Genevieve, the central character, at best made me yawn and mostly irritated me. She's highly successful in sales at her London-based job but hates the work. Since she was a child she has dreamed of living on a houseboat–living on it and refurbishing and repairing it to her liking. This takes money, a lot of it. 

She finds a way to earn large sums in a relatively short time doing pole dancing, private lap dancing and chatting up customers at an exclusive gentlemen's club on the weekends. With that, comes the darker side of life which she believed she held herself apart from. Money flows, she quits both jobs with rancor from her employers, buys her boat and proceeds to live her dream. But, a dark tide follows her. She meets another guy, not the guy she truly loves, but there's an undeniable attraction.

Review: Bruised by Sarah Skilton

Review: Bruised by Sarah Skilton

Sarah Moon
Books
My black belt represents everything I could've done and everything I didn't do, the only time it really mattered.​

Sarah Skilton's debut novel, Bruised, opens with a gut-punch of a first scene. Imogen, a 16-year old Tae Kwon Do black belt has just witnessed a gunman be shot and killed by police while attempting a holdup at the diner. Imogen hides under a table, paralyzed as the events unfold before her.

Thanks to her years of training to achieve her black belt, ​Imogen always believed that she was stronger than everyone else, a real-life superhero, that she could and would diffuse a volatile situation. In the aftermath of the violence at the diner, she's wracked by guilt, convinced that she should have saved the gunman.

Imogen's entire identity is wrapped up in her Tae Kwon Do achievements. She studied hard to achieve her mediocre grades so she could practice the sport, was in constant training, followed the discipline's rules about behavior and conduct and ate all the right things. And yet, for Imogen, those years of work were all for naught ​when it really mattered that day at the diner.

This belief sends Imogen's sense of who she is into a tailspin as she has to piece her identity back together as she navigates her changing family relationships, friendships and her relationship with a boy, Ricky, who understands her experience in a way that no one else can.

​The sharpest element of Bruised is Imogen's voice--it's absolutely unwavering in its authenticity.

If a girl punches someone, she's crazy. If a guy punches someone, he's dealing with his feelings. He's normal.
Review: Dancing in the Dark by Robyn Bavati

Review: Dancing in the Dark by Robyn Bavati

Sandra
Books

Dancing in the Dark by Robyn Bavati explores the double life of Ditty, a young Haredi Jew, when she discovers the beautiful world of ballet and the passion it invokes in her. Along with this passion the darkness of an invisible wall of fundamentalist religion held together by the rigidity of her family and community.

Bavati breathes life into Ditty's dream of dancing and the depth of deceit she had to descend into to bring her passion for dance into reality.

As a young girl, Ditty happens upon a DVD of The Nutcracker while watching television in a forbidden venue--her dear friend's mother had surreptitiously purchased a television that she hides far back in her closet. Ditty could not turn herself away from the transfixing dance before her.

The movements seemed to ripple through me as my  body flowed to the music, and my spirits lifted. I felt vulnerable and vibrant and intensely alive, bursting with feeling I hadn't know existed, couldn't name.

The  television and DVD player opens a door to another world.  Ditty and her friend become enamored with the life that spread before them. Ditty, at twelve begins to question the dictates of her faith that should, according to her religious parents and community, fill her with all the happiness and joy she could want.

But what, I wondered now, did they actually mean? I knew what I'd been taught – that happiness wasn't something a Jew should strive for, it was a bonus that came from keeping the laws and strictures that had been passed down from one generation to the next.

Review: Practice Makes Perfect by Julie James (aka That Time That Sandra Read a Romance Novel)

Review: Practice Makes Perfect by Julie James (aka That Time That Sandra Read a Romance Novel)

Sandra
Rookie Reads, Books

I am not usually a fan of romances, but Julie James' Practice Makes Perfect is fantastic.

It brings to mind a delightful movie and cast: You've Got Mail. Indeed this one would make a great film. Julie James' romantic and funny novel has maybe even hooked me into romance as a genre. Anything that makes me laugh, think, "awwww how sweet" and look kindly on the characters and their actions, is a big win for me!

​The setting of Practice Makes Perfect is a fast-paced, high-pressure law firm in Chicago. The characters are a couple of thirty-two year old lawyers on the cusp of making partner in said firm. Payton and J.D.  had a contentious, but outwardly civil, relationship during their years working at the firm. But all bets are off when, only days before the announcement of promotions to partner, they're told that only one can come out victorious. 

They've each been at the firm for eight years with tension building to a nearly explosive level between them. The pressure isn't all it's cracked up to be. Everything is ready to explode between them as they await the firm's decision as to who will make partner. Whoever doesn't make the grade is expected to resign--immediately. Gone. No longer welcome.

A prank war breaks out between the two would-be law firm partners, making each scene crackle with humor and chemistry.

One hilarious scene ensues when during an important court case one of Payton's beloved Jimmy Choo heels breaks; she catapults into the jury box, rips the seam of her pencil skirt straight up the back and exposes her thong-clad butt to the courtroom. All right then! All hell breaks out in the courtroom along with much hilarity.

Review: Also Known As by Robin Benway

Review: Also Known As by Robin Benway

Sarah Moon
Books
...I had a shiny new plan.

And like most of my plans, it involved deviousness, blatant lying, and coffee.

I started with the coffee first.

About a month ago, I re-watched all five seasons of Alias (and, yes, I'm still mad about the suckitude of the final season) and found myself wishing that I could find books that fit the Alias-style mold: spying, action, romance and humor all wrapped into a quickly-paced, mysterious storyline.

Around the same time, I went to ALA's mid-winter exhibits and ended up in a conversation with one of the representatives from Bloomsbury about how I wished there were more young adult novels that were full of smart humor (I'd just finished reading and loving The Reece Malcolm LIst, which nails that). The rep then dug into her stash of review copies and handed me Robin Benway's Also Known As.

Strangely, not only had a never read Benway, I'd never even heard of her, despite that seemingly everyone on the internet adored Audrey, Wait!​

Clearly, the reading stars aligned, converging as Also Known As, a fun, fresh and absolutely charming novel.

Review: The Madness Underneath by Maureen Johnson

Review: The Madness Underneath by Maureen Johnson

Sarah Moon
Books
I was in the unusual position of holding all the cards. I had to decide what to do, and only I could do it. And I was going to do it. I had faced frightening things before and had been powerless. But not this time.

Maureen Johnson's The Name of the Star was a real surprise for me in 2011. It had a bit of everything--mystery, paranormal, romance, humor--and it all came together in quickly-paced, gripping read.

The long-awaited sequel, The Madness Underneath, continues in the same vein, but amps up the over-arching intrigue factor, building the overarching mystery that began in the first Shades of London novel.

Note: the rest of review contains mild spoilers for the previous book in the series. If you want to remain wholly unspoiled about The Name of the Star and are curious about starting reading this series, please read Sandra's spoiler-free review of that book. 

The Madness Underneath revisits Rory, a Louisiana native in England who survived a run-in with the ghost of Jack the Ripper in the first novel, but was also profoundly transformed--in a very literal way. She's now a terminus, a human who can vanquish ghosts on contact. Her background means that she's mostly unflappable, even to her weird circumstances.

It’s possible that I have a higher tolerance for crazy talk than most people because of my background. I’ve channeled multicolored angels with my cousin and gone for discount waxes with my grandmother. I know two people who have started their own religions. One of my neighbors was arrested for sitting on top of the town equestrian statue dressed as SpiderMan. He just climbed up there with a few loaves of bread and tore them up and threw bread at anyone who got near him. Another neighbor puts up her Christmas decorations in August and goes caroling on Halloween to “fight the devil with song.”

Rory finds herself back in London after her parents sequestered her away in Bristol. She's rejoined her classmates at Wexford, the boarding school she left after her incident with the aforementioned ghost. Understandably, Rory has a difficult time adjusting, especially since her friends from the ghost catching squad (I call them the Ghost Busters in my head, but they're actually called The Shades), Stephen, Callum and Boo, seem to be missing. She's alone with her weird ability.

Review: How to Misbehave (Novella) by Ruthie Knox

Review: How to Misbehave (Novella) by Ruthie Knox

Sarah Moon
Books

Ruthie Knox's Ride with Me was a favorite at Clear Eyes, Full Shelves in 2012. Both Rebeca aka Renegade and I immensely enjoyed Ruthie's clever, witty storytelling that was both light-hearted and grounded.

Her books very much have a Julie James vibe (good humor and great character chemistry) with more of a blue collar sensibility.

In 2013, readers can look forward to even more Ruthie, with two full-length books and a novella featuring characters in the fictional town of Camelot, Ohio. 

The novella, How to Misbehave, introduces Camelot and the family each story centers around by taking us back toY2K and introducing Amber Clark (whose siblings are main characters in the other two books in the series) and Tony Mazzaro, a contractor.

Amber and Tony meet at the community center where Amber works and Tony is supervising a construction job. As one does, Amber spends her spare time ogling Tony and his fine ass while he supervises the job-site. 

Amber is a rather unusual (at least to me) character in romance. While at first glance, she appears like a same old, same old shy romance lead, she's more complex--and that's quite a feat for such a short story (it's approximately 100 pages). Amber attended a Christian college but ultimately left that conservative world (and her virginity) behind. She's had boyfriends, but none have been particularly, uh... satisfying, if you know what I mean. 

Frankly, Amber could have easily been a stereotype, but one of the things that Knox does with How to Misbehave is play with the "good girl" archetype.

Review: Half Broke Horses by Jeanette Walls

Review: Half Broke Horses by Jeanette Walls

Sandra
Books
Lily was a spirited woman, a passionate teacher and talker who explained in great detail what had happened to her, why it had happened to her, what she'd done about it, and what she's learned from it, all with the idea of imparting life lessons to my mother.

Jeannette Walls placed this statement about her grandmother in the Author's Note at the end of her fabulous novel, Half Broke Horses. On the cover above the title in all capitals are the words A TRUE LIFE NOVEL.

Walls' "true life novel" presents the events in the life of Lily Casey Smith, a colorful and fascinating person spicing the pages of this book. This retelling of stories from her family's oral history were handed down through the years, and Walls admits that she does take a few storyteller's liberties.

Growing up in west Texas where horses and buckboards were the only mode of transportation, Lily learned to live tough, face obstacles and come out swinging regardless of what she faced. Her father spouted philosophy like a flash flood of insight that went straight into the fiber that made Lily Casey one of the strongest, most durable individuals in Texas. 

“Most important thing in life.” he would say, "is learning how to fall.”
“If I owned hell and west Texas,” he said, “I do believe I'd sell west Texas and live in hell.”
“When God closes a window, he opens a door. But it's up to you to find it.”

Lily's mother, though, stood in stark contrast to her father. Pious to a fault, she was a woman certain that everything that happened came straight from the hand of God. 

If you want to be reminded of the love of the Lord, Mom always said, just watch the sunrise. And if you wanted to be reminded of the wrath of the Lord, Dad said, watch a tornado.

Half Broke Horses takes the reader on a sweeping, panoramic ride.

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