Category: 3 stars

BOOK REVIEW: Fairy Tale by Stephen King

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Title: Fairy Tale

Author: Stephen King

Audiobook Length: 24 hours and 6 minutes

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Genre: Fiction, Horror, Fantasy

Read Start Date: December 23, 2022

Read Finish Date: February 13, 2023

Brief Summary of the Plot from Goodreads: Legendary storyteller Stephen King goes deep into the well of his imagination in this spellbinding novel about a seventeen-year-old boy who inherits the keys to a parallel world where good and evil are at war, and the stakes could not be higher—for their world or ours.

Charlie Reade looks like a regular high school kid, great at baseball and football, a decent student. But he carries a heavy load. His mom was killed in a hit-and-run accident when he was ten, and grief drove his dad to drink. Charlie learned how to take care of himself—and his dad. Then, when Charlie is seventeen, he meets Howard Bowditch, a recluse with a big dog in a big house at the top of a big hill. In the backyard is a locked shed from which strange sounds emerge, as if some creature is trying to escape. When Mr. Bowditch dies, he leaves Charlie the house, a massive amount of gold, a cassette tape telling a story that is impossible to believe, and a responsibility far too massive for a boy to shoulder.

Because within the shed is a portal to another world—one whose denizens are in peril and whose monstrous leaders may destroy their own world, and ours. In this parallel universe, where two moons race across the sky, and the grand towers of a sprawling palace pierce the clouds, there are exiled princesses and princes who suffer horrific punishments; there are dungeons; there are games in which men and women must fight each other to the death for the amusement of the “Fair One.” And there is a magic sundial that can turn back time.

A story as old as myth, and as startling and iconic as the rest of King’s work, Fairy Tale is about an ordinary guy forced into the hero’s role by circumstance, and it is both spectacularly suspenseful and satisfying.

My Review: Stephen King is one of my favorite authors and he is a brilliant story teller and writer. That being said, Fairy Tale was not among my favorites of his books. With elements of King’s Dark Tower series, and express mention of Grimm fairy tales, and other fairy tales and myths in the book itself, Fairy Tale felt like a retelling or a reimaging of old stories in King’s own style. Told in the first person, Charlie Reade even alludes to certain fairy tales by telling us, the readers, that this aspect of the story reminded him of Rumpelstiltskin, or that Charlie himself was like Jack, climbing the beanstalk to fight giants.

The first 30% of the book was probably my favorite, and it was literally ALL backstory. Charlie’s elderly neighbor Howard Bowditch takes a nasty spill, and Charlie (to atone for some bone headed stuff he did when he was younger) takes on a care-taker role, feeding Howard’s elderly German Shepard Radar, doing chores around the house, etc. There is some weird stuff going on in the shed in Howard’s backyard, but this takes second seat to the friendship developing between Charlie and Howard and Charlie and Radar.

When Howard dies suddenly of a heart attack, Charlie becomes not only the owner of Radar, but the owner of Howard’s house and all his possessions as well, including the weird shed and the even weirder noises that emanate from inside. Charlie learns that inside the shed is a gateway to another world, one that is in peril — one that holds a magical sundial that can turn back time and make the dying Radar young again.

The book held my attention up until the point when Radar was restored to youth, but when Charlie is captured by the evil forces threatening the realm and imprisoned, the story took a real noise dive into Snoozeville. The audiobook is 24 hours long, and at this point in the story, I felt every second of it. I feel like a lot of the details about this portion of the book could have been cut and the book wouldn’t have been worse for it (possibly it could have been better).

If you are new to Stephen King I would suggest reading some of his earlier work before picking up this one.

Other Bloggers:

Space and Sorcery captures my thoughts so exactly, that I think you NEED to read his/her/their blog about it! You can find the same by clicking on the link here.

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BOOK REVIEW: It Starts With Us by Colleen Hoover

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Title: It Starts With Us

Author: Colleen Hoover

Book Length: 323 pages

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Genre: Fiction, Romance, Contemporary, Chick Lit

Read Start Date: January 31, 2023

Read Finish Date: February 9, 2023

Number in Book Series: 2

Brief Summary of the Plot from Goodreads: Before It Ends with Us, it started with Atlas. Colleen Hoover tells fan favorite Atlas’s side of the story and shares what comes next in this long-anticipated sequel to the “glorious and touching” (USA TODAY) #1 New York Times bestseller It Ends with Us.

Lily and her ex-husband, Ryle, have just settled into a civil coparenting rhythm when she suddenly bumps into her first love, Atlas, again. After nearly two years separated, she is elated that for once, time is on their side, and she immediately says yes when Atlas asks her on a date.

But her excitement is quickly hampered by the knowledge that, though they are no longer married, Ryle is still very much a part of her life—and Atlas Corrigan is the one man he will hate being in his ex-wife and daughter’s life.

Switching between the perspectives of Lily and Atlas, It Starts with Us picks up right where the epilogue for the “gripping, pulse-pounding” (Sarah Pekkanen, author of Perfect Neighbors) bestselling phenomenon It Ends with Us left off. Revealing more about Atlas’s past and following Lily as she embraces a second chance at true love while navigating a jealous ex-husband, it proves that “no one delivers an emotional read like Colleen Hoover” (Anna Todd, New York Times bestselling author).

My Review: As of the writing of this review, It Starts with Us is on the NY Times best seller’s list at the #2 spot, the first spot being taken by It Ends With Us. In fact, Colleen Hoover pretty much dominates the NY Times best seller’s list with all her books. The book has around 4 stars on Goodreads. Yet, I struggled to give the book 3 stars.

The things that I liked: 1) Hoover’s descriptions of the characters interactions; and 2) Hoover’s writing style. Hoover writes an engaging story with prose that sucks the reader in. So while I found it hard to put down, it wasn’t without the eye rolls and the groans of annoyance (mostly when it got too sappy).

What I didn’t like: 1) Hoover’s portrayal of Ryle. Why is it that he is ONLY violent toward Lily? As an aggressive person, wouldn’t he have problems with other relationships in his life e.g. his sister? Why has he never gotten in trouble at work? If he is prone to violent outbursts, why are these outbursts ONLY toward Lily? It honestly never made sense to me, even in the first book. It was like Hoover had to have a redeeming quality to Ryle so that the reader felt pity for him or something. Well, I never felt pity for him, and it annoyed me that anyone in either book did, including Lily. In the second book he is more of an ass without any redeeming qualities at all, but I guess that is to be expected as in the first book Lily saw him through rose colored glasses.

2) Which brings me to my second point. Why in the hell would Lily EVER EVER EVER voluntarily agree to let Ryle have their daughter, Emerson for unsupervised visits? I mean, wouldn’t she fight tooth and nail in court to have only supervised visits, if any visits at all? Lily is worried that Ryle will hurt Emerson and so only allows daytime visits. Huh? Because violence only occurs after dark?

Secondly, on the Ryle topic, by the end of the book he calms down A LOT regarding the Atlas and Lily thing…this was something completely out of character for him. I wasn’t the only one to think so. Robyn Reads Books states: “If I’m being honest I wouldn’t have expected Ryle to calm down and be civil like he did, I thought there would have been a lot more pushback first but I guess it couldn’t really be written that way without extending the book another 100 pages to have it gradually happen.”

Other than that, the book was plot light and character heavy. We learn more about Atlas’s past, which was interesting. We get to see Lily and Atlas finally get together, which is what I understand Hoover’s fans literally asked for. From what I understood of Hoover’s Afterward, she had never intended to write a sequel, but did so at the request of her fans. I thought this was pretty well done seeing as she pulled new characters out of the air, but somehow made them fit into the story, to a large extent (although at times I had to wonder why — like Theo the 12-year old son of Atlas’s employee that Atlas uses as a “therapist”??)

Since I feel like I’m on the other end of what lots of people think is a great book, I wanted to read some other blog posts about it.

I really loved AceReader’s blog review. She literally shares every thought she had while reading the book and at times I laughed out loud.

Life According to Jamie loved the book.

Anyway, as you can see above, there are some mixed reviews, feelings, and thoughts about the book. If you liked It Ends With Us, chances are you will like this sequel, if for no other reason than you want to see Lily finally have the happy ending she deserves.

Other Books in the Series:

Title: It Ends With Us

Author: Colleen Hoover

Audiobook Length: 11 hours and 11 minutes

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Genre: Fiction, Romance, Contemporary, Sociology

Read Start Date: January 2, 2022

Read Finish Date: January 5, 2022

Number in Book Series: 1

Brief Summary of the Plot from Goodreads: Sometimes it is the one who loves you who hurts you the most.

Lily hasn’t always had it easy, but that’s never stopped her from working hard for the life she wants. She’s come a long way from the small town in Maine where she grew up — she graduated from college, moved to Boston, and started her own business. So when she feels a spark with a gorgeous neurosurgeon named Ryle Kincaid, everything in Lily’s life suddenly seems almost too good to be true.

Ryle is assertive, stubborn, maybe even a little arrogant. He’s also sensitive, brilliant, and has a total soft spot for Lily. And the way he looks in scrubs certainly doesn’t hurt. Lily can’t get him out of her head. But Ryle’s complete aversion to relationships is disturbing. Even as Lily finds herself becoming the exception to his “no dating” rule, she can’t help but wonder what made him that way in the first place.

As questions about her new relationship overwhelm her, so do thoughts of Atlas Corrigan — her first love and a link to the past she left behind. He was her kindred spirit, her protector. When Atlas suddenly reappears, everything Lily has built with Ryle is threatened.

See my review of It End With Us here.

BOOK REVIEW: Murder Beyond the Grave by James Patterson

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Title: Murder Beyond the Grave

Author: James Patterson

Book Length: 295 pages

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Genre: Nonfiction, True Crime

Read Start Date: December 28, 2022

Read Finish Date: January 4, 2023

Brief Summary of the Plot from Goodreads: Two true-crime thrillers as seen on Discovery’s Murder is Forever TV series

MURDER BEYOND THE GRAVE: Stephen Small has it all – a Ferrari, fancy house, loving wife, and three boys. But the only thing he needs right now is enough air to breathe. Kidnapped, buried in a box, and held for ransom, Stephen has forty-eight hours of oxygen. The clock is ticking . . .

MURDER IN PARADISE: High in the Sierra Nevada mountains, developers Jim and Bonnie Hood excitedly tour Camp Nelson Lodge. They intend to buy and modernise this beautiful rustic property, but the locals don’t like rich outsiders changing their way of life. After a grisly shooting, everybody will discover just how you can make a killing in real estate . . .

My Review: I purchased this book at the library near my parents house in South Carolina for $1. I thought it was a pretty good deal, as James Patterson books are usually entertaining. Although this book was nonfiction / true crime, it had all the classic hallmarks of what make a James Patterson book a JP book. The prose was easy to read and the were stories engaging.

SPOILER ALERT:

Murder Beyond the Grave tells the story of Danny, a “reformed” drug dealer, who can’t handle the straight life. Where once he had cash to burn, he now has piles of bills with no way to pay them. One day he drives past the house of a rich man, Stephan Smalls. Stephan is living the good life. Family. Career. Nice house. Even a Ferrari in the driveway.

Danny is jealous. Worst of all, Danny sees the opportunity to make some cash. He hatches a plan to kidnap Stephan for ransom money.

Danny has a girlfriend. She knows he’s up to no good — but she stays quiet. She sees him building a wooden coffin. Still, she says nothing. Not to friends, family, the police. She never says anything when she picks up Danny in a remote location in the middle of the night. When Danny continues to act strangely for the following few days.

When Stephan is found dead, both Danny and his girlfriend are convicted of murder. This didn’t sit well with me.

Although this book read like fiction, this is a true story. I found it not only incredulous but absurd that Danny’s girlfriend was found guilty of murder simply for not telling the police Danny was “up to no good”. Put it simply, the jury did not believe that she didn’t know. Personally, I believe she had nothing to do with it. Yes she’s dating an ex-con, but that doesn’t make her a murderer. She seemed like a nice woman with a small child to care for. If her known drug dealer boyfriend was acting cagey, she probably thought he was dealing again. Why would she think he was kidnapping someone? And even if he was dealing again, did she have a legal OBLIGATION to turn him in? No. Does that make her an accomplice? I would argue also not.

I was really pissed off by her conviction and would have liked to hear more about why she was found guilty. For example, what persuaded the jury that she knew, and not only knew but PARTICIPATED? Isn’t it more likely that she just didn’t want to know what he was doing, so she didn’t ask questions? Is ignorance a crime? I guess, in her case, it was.

Murder in Paradise is the second story in the book about a woman who is shot and killed. Bonnie Hood is the owner of a lodge in the Sierra Nevada mountains. While renovating the place, she starts an affair with an employee. He was also shot but lived. The two had been sleeping together the night of the crime.

Speculation swirled — was it the husband? Did someone have a vendetta against Bonnie? Eventually, a suspect surfaced: Bruce Beauchamp, a construction worker of Bonnie’s husband, Jim. Without solid evidence, Bruce is acquitted but is later shot to death by Jim Hood. Jim claimed it was “self-defense,” but after a mistrial, Jim was convicted and sent to prison for 27 years.

This Jim guy sounds like a real “winner.” Not. Is it nice to be cheated on? Of course not, but that doesn’t make it all right to kill your wife and attempt to kill her lover. It also doesn’t make it okay to kill the guy you hired to do it…because, let’s be honest, that’s what he was doing, right? Jim was afraid that Bruce would implicate Jim in Bonnie’s murder, so he had to get rid of him. And that self-defense BS almost worked — there was a mistrial the first time around. He almost got away with it. Almost. I read online that this guy got out of jail in 2017. This totally blows my mind.

The woman in the first story goes to jail for life because of ignorance, and this guy killed 2 people and wounded another and gets out after 27 years? Ugh.

This is, of course, all speculation and my own opinion based on the limited facts presented in the book. I think, in general, I would have liked more facts and more details.

In conclusion: 1) this book is entertaining and at points, even thought provoking; 2) reads like a fiction book, although a nonfiction / true crime story; and 3) could use some extra facts and more about the trials.

Verdict: Fans of James Patterson will enjoy it.

BOOK REVIEW: Into the Water by Paula Hawkins

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Title: Into the Water

Author: Paula Hawkins

Book Length: 386 pages

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Genre: Fiction, Thriller, Mystery, Suspense, Contemporary

Read Start Date: November 14, 2022

Read Finish Date: December 8, 2022

Brief Summary of the Plot from Goodreads: A single mother turns up dead at the bottom of the river that runs through town. Earlier in the summer, a vulnerable teenage girl met the same fate. They are not the first women lost to these dark waters, but their deaths disturb the river and its history, dredging up secrets long submerged.

Left behind is a lonely fifteen-year-old girl. Parentless and friendless, she now finds herself in the care of her mother’s sister, a fearful stranger who has been dragged back to the place she deliberately ran from—a place to which she vowed she’d never return.

My Review:

Beckford is not a suicide spot. Beckford is a place to get rid of troublesome women.”

Into the Water by Paula Hawkins, page 83

I really enjoyed The Girl on the Train by the same author (you can see my review here), so I thought that I’d like this one just as much. I was rather disappointed. While there was certainly mystery and thriller aspects, there was just too many POVs.

In order of first appearance:

Jules: The sister of Nel Abbott, the woman who was killed and found dead of drowning in the river under suspicious circumstances. We also see the storyline of Jules when she is a teenager. Something horrible happens to her for which she blames Nel. At the time of Nel’s death, they haven’t spoken in years.

Josh: The brother of the teenage girl, Katie, who committed suicide, by drowning herself in the river. Josh and Lena share a horrible secret, one which isn’t revealed until later in the book.

Nickie: the town “weirdo” who claims that she can hear the dead speaking to her. Nickie is being told by her dead sister, Jeanie (who used to be a police officer) that something isn’t right with Patrick Townsend.

Lena: The daughter of Nel Abbott. She was best friends with Katie and is completely devastated to have lost both her mother and best friend in short order. Lena is convinced that her mother killed herself, but we don’t find out until later why she is so convinced of this fact. Lena hates Jules because even though Nel called and called over the years, Jules never once returned the call.

Mark: The high school teacher of Lena and Katie. There is a twist to the story involving this character later on in the book.

Louise: The mother of Katie and Josh. Is she a suspect or just a grieving mother?

Erin: a police officer assigned to the case of the death of Nel Abbott.

Patrick: A former police officer and father to Sean. His wife was also found in the river back when his son was a young child. I hated Patrick from the start. He is a real a**hole and that is putting it mildly. I suspected that he killed Nel and his wife from the beginning of the book. Trigger warning here for animal abuse.

Helen: School teacher and wife of Sean. I didn’t really like Helen. There was something weird going on between her and Patrick, almost like a perverted father-daughter relationship. Sean had been unfaithful to Helen and they were having a rough time. They used to live together in the cottage on the main property, but Helen moved into the main house with Patrick when she learned of the infidelity.

Sean: a police officer assigned to work the Nel Abbott case with Erin. He is the son of Patrick and the husband of Helen. We don’t know until later the identity of the woman he was having an affair with, but it changes everything.

In my opinion, having 10 POVs is way too much! Some of the chapters were written in the third person, some in the first person. It took me a while to get into the story because of it.

In the middle of reading the book, my daughter was sent to the hospital for severe bronchitis and I had to stay overnight with her for more than a week. I tried to read this book while at the hospital, but honestly, I was just in the wrong headspace for something so dense and difficult. I had to put it down and read something lighter.

It’s not that it’s a bad book, but I think that it could have been better. I knew who the killer was from the very beginning, so it wasn’t really a mystery to me–it was more about reading to see how the police figured it out.

As of writing this review, this book has a rating of 3.59 on Goodreads with more than 350,000 ratings. My 3 rating is therefore not far from the average opinion. If you are looking for the next best read to start 2023 off right, I might bump this book a little further down the list.

BOOK REVIEW: Wraith by Mark Wheaton

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Title: Wraith

Author: Mark Wheaton

Audiobook Length: 8 hours and 49 minutes

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Genre: Fiction, Horror, Paranormal, Thriller, Gothic, Mystery

Read Start Date: October 30, 2022

Read Finish Date: November 3, 2022

Brief Summary of the Plot from Goodreads: After witnessing the death of her mother at a young age, Cecily LeClercq grows up hiding herself away in the remote Carolina wetlands. When a stranger arrives from Paris saying a distant, elderly relative is desperate to see her before she dies, Cecily travels to an old chateau deep in the French woods. There she learns of an ancient curse that has consumed generations of her ancestors, personified by a vicious, ghostly wraith who emerges from the forest when the death of a LeClercq is near…

My Review: I received this audiobook from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. The book opens with the death of Cecily’s mother under strange circumstances. Although everyone has always tried to tell Cecily that her mother drowned in the severely bad hurricane, Cecily cannot escape the memory of the ghostly figure a.k.a the wraith, whom Cecily believes was responsible.

When we next see Cecily, she is an adult and works as a botanist (?) in Charleston, South Carolina. A man from France (Rene) approaches her and informs her that the great-grandmother Cecily had never known about, wants to see her urgently. By the time they reach France, however, she is already dead, and seemingly she has taken the information she wanted to tell Cecily with her to her grave.

Cecily stays on in France for a little while longer, learning about the alleged LeClercq curse i.e., that when the wraith comes for you, you have 2 options: kill yourself or the wraith will take the lives of those around you instead. Now that Cecily has seen the wraith, can she unravel the curse before the wraith takes vengeance on Cecily and those she cares about?

While I generally liked the story, I found it to be a little slow going at times, leading to a conclusion that was somewhat unsatisfactory. Even though billed as “horror”, I didn’t find it scary. I didn’t really feel any edge of my seat tension either, to be honest. I thought it was more of a mystery / thriller with a ticking clock (i.e., Cecily only had a certain amount of time to solve the mystery before the wraith got her).

That being said, the story line is interesting and the book was well written. Coming in at a rating of 3.57 on Goodreads at the time of this review seems about right. Some people are more enthusiastic than others and it seems to be split down the middle in terms of those who liked it and those who didn’t.

SPOILER ALERT: By the end of the book we find out that a LeClercq hundreds of years ago was a giant monster who basically stole land and killed a bunch of people. The wraith is the tormented spirit of one of those murdered people. Since the LeClercqs have benefited from this theft and murder, the wraith comes to ruin the lives of the descendants and/or kill them. Cecily ends up solving the mystery and puts everything to rights — but at the end of the book, the wraith is still following her around.

Why was the spirit not satisfied? This was just annoying to say the least. I think that I would have given the book 4 stars had it not been for the ending. Because honestly, if the curse wasn’t lifted by solving the mystery and putting things right — then what was the point of the book?

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from Netgalley. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.

BOOK REVIEW: This Time Tomorrow by Emma Straub

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Title: This Time Tomorrow

Author: Emma Straub

Audiobook Length: 8 hours and 31 minutes

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Genre: Fiction, Science Fiction, Time Travel, Contemporary, Magical Realism

Read Start Date: October 1, 2022

Read Finish Date: October 4, 2022 

Brief Summary of the Plot from Goodreads: With her celebrated humor, insight, and heart, beloved New York Times bestseller Emma Straub offers her own twist on traditional time travel tropes, and a different kind of love story.

On the eve of her 40th birthday, Alice’s life isn’t terrible. She likes her job, even if it isn’t exactly the one she expected. She’s happy with her apartment, her romantic status, her independence, and she adores her lifelong best friend. But her father is ailing, and it feels to her as if something is missing. When she wakes up the next morning she finds herself back in 1996, reliving her 16th birthday. But it isn’t just her adolescent body that shocks her, or seeing her high school crush, it’s her dad: the vital, charming, 40-something version of her father with whom she is reunited. Now armed with a new perspective on her own life and his, some past events take on new meaning. Is there anything that she would change if she could?

My Review: I liked this book, but I wouldn’t say I loved it. After a few too many drinks on the eve of Alice’s 40th birthday, she finds herself passing out in the guardhouse of her childhood home. The next morning she wakes up on her sixteenth birthday, in her sixteen year old body, but with her forty year old mind. She has the chance to do it all over again — the infamous night when she didn’t hook up with the “one that got away.” What strikes Alice about her sixteen year old self, is her forty year old father, who is, in the present day, dying. He seems so young, so full of life, and she finds herself just wanting to be close to him. To spend time with him.

Nevertheless, Alice goes to the party, sleeps with the one that got away, and wakes up on her 40th birthday to find that she is now married (to the one who (previously) got away) with children. What I didn’t like about this reiteration of Alice is that she almost despises her children. She has no memory of the past 24 years of her “new” life, which I find strange — wouldn’t she have remembered both time lines? Since she has no memories of her children, she feels no connection with them. She doesn’t feel like their mother, and so, she doesn’t want to be their mother. She doesn’t want the life with the husband she must love, right? Did Alice at 39 and 364 days love her family and then when she wakes up at 40 she is a different person (because she doesn’t remember her new past)? This just doesn’t square with me.

Anyway, Alice goes back in time again and does it all over again and again trying on new lives like new jackets. Each time she doesn’t remember how she got there — she is perpetually the original Alice in a new life she doesn’t remember living. Then she compares her old life with the aspects of the new life and makes a determination about which life is better — I don’t think this is a fair comparison. She has no memories, no emotions, etc. of her new timeline. How can she really judge which is best?

While it was nice that she got to spend time with her father again and again in the past, I was ultimately dissatisfied with the ending. I won’t go into too much detail, but it felt like the book was about a futile journey. Since the father didn’t remember each timeline, the only one developing a longer, lasting relationship was Alice. And what happened from the age of 16 to 40 in the timeline she chose last? All of the new memories she would have had with her father, anything she started to build on the do-over night of her 16th birthday, was just nonexistent in her mind.

As of the writing of this post, This Time Tomorrow has a 3.83 rating on Goodreads, which seems to mean that it has mixed reviews. So I guess on this one, I’m not that far off the mark with my assessment. Nevertheless, I think that if you like time traveling stories with themes of father-daughter relationships, then this book is for you.

BOOK REVIEW: Hell Spring by Isaac Thorne

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Title: Hell Spring

Author: Isaac Throne

Book Length: 374 pages

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Genre: Fiction, Horror

Read Start Date: July 31, 2022

Read Finish Date: September 30, 2022

Brief Summary of the Plot from Goodreads: In the twilight of March 21, 1955, eight people take cover in their local general store while a thundering torrent and flash flooding threatens life and livelihood alike. None of the eight are everything they claim to be. But only one of them hungers for human souls, flesh, and blood.

An overflowing waterway destroys their only path of escape. The tiny band of survivors is forced to confront themselves and each other when a peculiar stranger with a famous face tries to pick them off one by one.

Can the neighbors survive the predator in their midst as well as the 100-year flood that drowns the small town of Lost Hollow?

Or will they become victims of the night the townsfolk all remember as Hell Spring?

My Review: I received this ebook from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. The description of the book was so great that I really wanted to like this book more than I did. I just finished writing my first novel, so I know how much work and effort goes into something like this, but Hellspring just wasn’t resonating with me enough to say that I loved it. I did like it though!

The first chapter was a little strange to say the least and was almost a complete turn off for me. I’m not a prude by any stretch of the imagination, but I found it to be a little disgusting.

In short, we find ourselves in a cavern of sorts where hell hound type creatures live and dine on the souls of the damned. In the center of the cavern is a giant engorged penis (yes, that’s right) that is leaking ejaculate and is ready to blow its load (yes, you read that correctly). We get multiple sentences / images revolving around the penis and ejaculate. For example: “The gigantic head flattened on top as it engorged with the juice it would eventually spill over the arena and all within it.” And “A geyser of milky yellowish goo suspended inside a sticky transparent gel spewed high into the orange sky above the arena. It separated in mid-air and rained down globs upon all within.” I can’t think of a more appropriate time for the barf emoji.

At the end of the first chapter, a hell hound escapes the ejaculate into the “real world”, where she takes on the form of Marilyn Monroe. The year is 1955, and the biggest storm of the century is about to erupt. Marilyn is hungry and she needs to feed. But where can she find the sin riddled souls she is used to eating?

Beginning in Chapter 2 we start learning about the characters who eventually end up in Beard’s General Store (they are trapped there by the flood with Marilyn). Once we are in the general store, we do not leave for the rest of the book — all of the main aspects of the book take place there while the flood waters are rising outside. Many of the characters have committed recent “sins” for which they feel guilty, which gives Marilyn exactly what she needs.

The book is descriptive and well written, especially the scenes of the horrible acts committed by Marilyn. As the reader I somehow felt trapped along with the characters in the General Store and just wanted out. What it lacked however was the tension — the characters didn’t feel this either. After a character was devoured by Marilyn, the memories of that person were erased from the mind of the remaining people. Therefore, the characters never felt the rising tension of “will I be next” because none of them knew what was going on.

This book is extremely character driven, and usually for books like that to catch my attention, the characters have to be great — they have to be people you can really root for and whose story you are invested in. What I liked about the character development was that Isaac Thorne spent time on each person and really fleshed out the characters. Unfortunately, I just didn’t find any of the characters in Hell Spring to be all that particularly interesting — I didn’t love them enough to really be invested in their fate — would they make it out alive? Would they be eaten by the Marilyn hell creature?

The above being said, other people really loved this book. In her blog Mullen Crafts, it is stated: “Time is taken to really detail each event that occurs, drawing out the horror to the maximum. Yet for all its horror, for all the loss, for all the lies, shame, evil and deceit, the struggle in the fight between good and evil, the story ends on an unexpected note. I have not read anything by Issac Thorne before, but this piece of excellent writing will definitely send me looking for more. An excellent horror read which will leave you questioning your human decency and how you would measure up!”

I also really like what Kay Hanifen has to say about the themes of the book and Peter’s character progression. “Fundamentally, Hell Spring is about shame and the fear of being judged. All these characters harbor guilt within them for things that they don’t necessarily need to feel guilty about, particularly guilt related to sex. 

Though there are several main characters, the story is more Peter’s than anyone else’s, and I loved the way he grew and changed throughout the story, going from someone broken by self-loathing to an evangelical believer in a false prophet to a hero at the end. Though the trajectory of his arc places him as both the hero and a villain at points, his shift between these roles does not feel forced because it all ties together and culminates in a way that fits the character. He more than earns his ending.”

I gave this book 3 stars, however Hell Spring has an overall rating on Goodreads as of the writing of this post of 3.81, with 53% being in the 4 star range and 18% being in the 5 star range. It seems therefore that my assessment of the story falls a little below the average and maybe then I am an exception rather than the norm and/or maybe I haven’t given the book its due credit. You should read it and judge for yourself :).

Reviews Published
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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from Netgalley. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.

BOOK REVIEW: The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Michele Richardson

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Title: The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek

Author: Kim Michele Richardson

Audiobook Length: 9 hours and 26 minutes

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Genre: Fiction, Historical Fiction

Read Start Date: September 13, 2022

Read Finish Date: September 23, 2022

Number in Book Series: 1

Brief Summary of the Plot from Goodreads: In 1936, tucked deep into the woods of Troublesome Creek, KY, lives blue-skinned 19-year-old Cussy Carter, the last living female of the rare Blue People ancestry.

The lonely young Appalachian woman joins the historical Pack Horse Library Project of Kentucky and becomes a librarian, riding across slippery creek beds and up treacherous mountains on her faithful mule to deliver books and other reading material to the impoverished hill people of Eastern Kentucky.

Along her dangerous route, Cussy, known to the mountain folk as Bluet, confronts those suspicious of her damselfly-blue skin and the government’s new book program. She befriends hardscrabble and complex fellow Kentuckians, and is fiercely determined to bring comfort and joy, instill literacy, and give to those who have nothing, a bookly respite, a fleeting retreat to faraway lands.

My Review: Kindred Spirits summarizes it pretty well in her blog: “Cussie Mary is never more satisfied than when she is able to carry a new bit of reading material to a beloved patron, whether it be a young, aspiring forester or an elderly, near-blind seamstress. She loves her mission as “Book Woman”, working as a Pack Horse Librarian here in Kentucky, and does not wish for any other role in what others might perceive as a lonely life. Pa, though, has a different idea. He seems hell-bent on finding her a husband, and continues to light the courting candle, much to her dismay. What ensues opens up her very narrow world to unimaginable possibilities, both dangerous and hopeful.”

Cussy “Bluet” Carter has blue skin, which makes her an outcast in the rural community of Troublesome Creek, Kentucky. She is ostracized by most of the community (except her book patrons) for fear that her disease is catching. This makes it difficult for her father to find her a husband, and he eventually chooses an unsavory character, who dies shortly after their wedding. Suspecting foul play, his relative harasses Cussy Mary through out the book, which lends some of the only high tension to the story.

When I first started reading this book, I thought that this was an alternate reality where blue was a code for African American. It wasn’t until I researched the blue people of Kentucky, that I realized that there was an actual family of people with blue skin — well, in actuality it wasn’t blue skin but rather a genetic blood disorder which turned the blood a brown color which in turn gave the skin a blue hue. With the administration of medicine, the blood went back to its normal color, and so did the skin.

It took me 10 days to get through as many hours, which is not common for me. While interesting, I thought this book was really slow, and not much really happened. I rented this audiobook from the library as it was under the heading “popular global”. I had never heard of it before and didn’t check the synopsis before reading. This can be a hit or miss approach — The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek a bit more miss than hit, but still worth the read if you have the time.

In researching what other bloggers felt about this book, I came across a really great blog post from Leaving LanguishLand that I would suggest you check out. I included the link in the name of the blog.

BOOK REVIEW: The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner

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Title: The Lost Apothecary

Author: Sarah Penner

Book Length: 316 pages

Rating:  3 out of 5 stars

Genre: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Mystery, Thriller, Contemporary, Crime

Read Start Date: September 30, 2022

Read Finish Date: October 18, 2022

Brief Summary of the Plot from Goodreads:  A female apothecary secretly dispenses poisons to liberate women from the men who have wronged them – setting three lives across centuries on a dangerous collision course.

Rule #1: The poison must never be used to harm another woman.
Rule #2: The names of the murderer and her victim must be recorded in the apothecary’s register.

One cold February evening in 1791, at the back of a dark London alley in a hidden apothecary shop, Nella awaits her newest customer. Once a respected healer, Nella now uses her knowledge for a darker purpose – selling well-disguised poisons to desperate women who would kill to be free of the men in their lives. But when her new patron turns out to be a precocious twelve-year-old named Eliza Fanning, an unexpected friendship sets in motion a string of events that jeopardizes Nella’s world and threatens to expose the many women whose names are written in her register.

In present-day London, aspiring historian Caroline Parcewell spends her tenth wedding anniversary alone, reeling from the discovery of her husband’s infidelity. When she finds an old apothecary vial near the river Thames, she can’t resist investigating, only to realize she’s found a link to the unsolved “apothecary murders” that haunted London over two centuries ago. As she deepens her search, Caroline’s life collides with Nella’s and Eliza’s in a stunning twist of fate – and not everyone will survive.

My Review: As of writing this post, this book has a 3.76 rating on Goodreads, which isn’t stellar for a mainstream, popular book. 37% gave the book 4 stars, while 27% gave the book 3 stars. I read this book about a year ago as an audiobook, and I remember liking it more than I did when I read it in paperback. I had given it 4 star last year, but after rereading the book, I’m switching to 3 stars. Maybe thinking it was better was due to my delirium of being a new mom and never sleeping. Anyway, I liked the story of Eliza and Nella more than Caroline. In fact, Caroline’s story really annoyed me to the point where I was rolling my eyes frequently.

I think the issue is that I just didn’t like Caroline as a character. I didn’t relate to her one bit. Caroline began the application process to attend graduate school at the University of Cambridge, as was her dream. Her then boyfriend, James, had been “adamantly against the idea” because he had plans to propose to her. The second he did “Cambridge could have fallen of the map, for all I cared–Cambridge and advanced degrees and every novel ever written by Charles Dickens. From the moment I wrapped my arms around James’ neck at the end of that pier and whispered yes, my identity as an aspiring historian rusted away, replaced with my identity as his soon-to-be-wife.” Then she takes a stable, secure job at her parent’s farm, while James steadily rises the corporate accounting ladder.

Because I guess America doesn’t offer masters degrees in history?

Regardless, even if the University she wanted to attend was in Australia, I’m still wondering, why the hell couldn’t she have gone and done her masters and still been a wife? Especially since kids were far off in the distance. “Though I’d wanted kids early in our marriage, James didn’t want to deal with the stress of long hours and a young family. And so just as he had climbed the corporate ladder every day for a decade, so too did I put that little pink pill on the tip of my tongue and think to myself, Someday.” I mean, 10 years is a long time to wait for “someday”. So Caroline puts her academic, career, AND family dreams on hold for a decade? Ummm, no thank you. There would have definitely been a Me shaped hole in the wall long before it got to the 10 year mark.

Also, from everything the book tells us of James, he doesn’t seem like he would be spending all that much time with the kids anyway…so not sure why they couldn’t have had kids early on in the marriage, since Caroline would have been the primary care giver (and since she wasn’t going back to school).

But okay, whatever, they waited 10 years. And now that they are trying for a baby, Caroline finds out he’s cheating, because, wait for it, he’s bored with his predictable, stable, and secure life. Eye roll. And then he tries to gaslight Caroline into believing that it was all HER fault! I can’t even with this guy. He’s such a piece of garbage (there are other supporting examples in the book of this) that I can’t believe Caroline didn’t notice the stench until she caught him cheating.

In all honesty, I’m not ever sure the Caroline story was really required because we learned everything that Caroline did from the Nella and Eliza storyline’s anyway.

Nella and Eliza on the other hand have stories that are much more interesting and include thrill, murder, intrigue, etc. Nella’s mother was an apothecary who dispensed remedies for women. When Nella’s mother died, Nella became romantically involved with a man. “In the weeks to follow, we fell terribly, wonderfully in love. My sea of grief grew shallower; I could breath again, and I could envision the future–a future with Frederick. I couldn’t have known that mere months after falling in love with him, I would dispense a fatal dose of rat poison to kill him. The first betrayal. The first victim. The beginning of a stained legacy.”

While I found Nella and Eliza’s story to be more interesting (I am also a big lover of the horror and true crime genres) Nella is, for all intents and purposes, a serial killer, and therefore while seemingly sympathetic, when you look deeper into her character, she is also a little dark. I mean, she’s literally been the reason why countless people are dead. And she doesn’t seem to care — or rather — she is glad that they are dead because they deserved it for being adulterous or lecherous or whatever else they did to affront the women in their lives. So in short, none of the characters are particularly relatable. I can understand wanting to harm someone who has betrayed you, but actually doing the harm is a whole different ball game.

I know that I’ve rambled a bit in this review, and I hope that I’ve made sense. Would I recommend this book? Yes…but there are other ones which I would pick up first.

BOOK REVIEW: Local Woman Missing by Mary Kubica

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54737068Title: Local Woman Missing

Author: Mary Kubica

Audiobook Length: 11 hours and 40 minutes

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Genre: Fiction, Mystery, Thriller, Suspense, Crime, Contemporary

Read Start Date: August 30, 2022 

Read Finish Date: September 2, 2022

Brief Summary of the Plot from Goodreads: Shelby Tebow is the first to go missing. Not long after, Meredith Dickey and her six-year-old daughter, Delilah, vanish just blocks away from where Shelby was last seen, striking fear into their once-peaceful community. Are these incidents connected? After an elusive search that yields more questions than answers, the case eventually goes cold.

Now, 11 years later, Delilah shockingly returns. Everyone wants to know what happened to her, but no one is prepared for what they’ll find….

In this smart and chilling thriller, master of suspense and New York Times best-selling author Mary Kubica takes domestic secrets to a whole new level, showing that some people will stop at nothing to keep the truth buried.

My Review: I really struggled between giving this book 3 or 4 stars, but landed on 3 stars. This book is essentially about two women and a 6 year old girl who goes missing in the same town 11 years ago. The story is told by 3 separate POVs, some in the present and some 11 years in the past.

Essentially, the plot of the book is as follows: One woman (Shelby) is found dead, buried in a shallow grave — her husband is sent to prison for her murder. The other woman, Meredith, is found dead in a motel — death by apparent suicide — her 6 year old daughter is missing, and has been for the last 11 years. Meredith left a note saying that her daughter was “safe” and not to bother looking. The daughter, Delilah, is found in the opening scene of the book (after she escapes her captors), but her brother Leo soon suspects that the girl calling herself Delilah is not actually his sister.

I read some Goodreads reviews that said that they didn’t like the way the sentences were written. They were really short — however, this did not come across in the audiobook, so perhaps audiobook in this instance should be the preferred medium. For me, this was an easy listen and one that could be done while doing chores etc.

I liked the suspense of finding out what really happened — this was building through out the entire book. I was entertained and generally liked the book until I got to the end. I was disappointed as to how it all turned out. There was a lot of potential for this to be better than it was — the ending just was not plausible and there seems to be a lot of convenient police incompetence, which would not normally happen. I feel like so many things went wrong just for the sake of the story.

If you want to read this book, please do not read on.

SPOILER ALERT:

I need to give away key elements of the plot to fully state my feelings on why I gave this book 3 instead of 4 stars.

We are told that Leo and his dad always believed that Meredith killed herself after giving away Delilah to some unknown person. Say what now? Does that make sense to anyone? But ok. So they believe this hogwash, which means that they basically have believed the whole 11 years that Delilah is safe and happy living with some kind family.

Did the police really believe that Meredith would go to a motel, kill herself, but before doing that “hide” her daughter somewhere? Essentially give the child away to someone else?  Why would she do that? Meredith was happy in her career, her marriage, her life. The dad was a good guy, husband and father. It just really makes no freaking sense whatsoever. And who would she stash the daughter with? Wouldn’t there be a list of trusted friends?

If there was an Amber Alert out for the girl, how would no one recognize her? How would she be living a good life elsewhere without coming into contact with someone, anyone? A 6 year old girl is old enough to know who her parents are — she is old enough to tell someone. How anyone could have thought she was anything but kidnapped and hidden is ludicrous. And if she was kidnapped, then of course Meredith was murdered. Duh. Also, can’t pathologists figure out it wasn’t suicide by the angle of the wounds? Like, if Meredith was stabbed in the stomach, the angle of the wound would be different than if she stabbed herself in the stomach. Right? Sigh.

Then there is the issue of the girl being found. So Delilah escapes, and the cops take a DNA sample. Turns out, it is not the right girl, but the family keeps on thinking it is Delilah because one detective with a crush of the dad tells him that the DNA results are positive so that he won’t be sad anymore. Uh, what? No one else at the police department checked the file? Was this detective actively lying to everyone? Did she honestly think no one would find out?

By this point in the book, we have almost reached the culmination of the storyline 11 years in the past.

We find out that Shelby was a victim of a hit and run accident (Bea (Kate’s partner) was driving drunk with Meredith in the passenger seat). To hide the crime, Bea and Meredith bury the body in a shallow grave, and then Meredith comes back later to cover her with a blanket. There are so many problems with this. The police eventually arrest Shelby’s husband for the murder (I guess based upon the theory he beat her up or something), but like, hello, how is this even possible? She was HIT BY A CAR! Did the pathologist miss this fact? How did the police think the husband had killed her? And what about the blanket? Couldn’t they tell with forensics that the blanket was placed later — didn’t they look at video surveillance at shops to see who had purchased the blanket? Are the police in this town just crazy incompetent?

I mean these crimes did not take place in 1940 — DNA existed. I watch enough true crime to know that there is ALWAYS DNA left at the scene of the crime. I mean, come on. Was NO DNA testing done on Shelby’s body? And if not, why not? Did Shelby’s husband have an incompetent lawyer also?

The ending is probably the most farfetched, but I won’t spoil that for you. I could go on, but I won’t. I think you get the idea.

As I said above, I would recommend this book as a beach read or something you can listen to while multitasking. As long as you don’t think too much about the plot holes, it’s actually rather enjoyable.