First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday! Hosted by Socrates Book Reviews this is where you share the first paragraph of one of the books that you are currently reading.
The way ass whole is misspelled in red spray paint across the back door of Bib’s makes me think of my mother.”
It Starts With Us by Colleen Hoover
Goodreads Monday is hosted by Budget Tales Book Blog. “Goodreads Monday allows you to post about what books are on your “to read” lists, the progress you have made on your current books and reading challenge, and any other Goodreads news!”
A mysterious lab. A sinister scientist. A secret history. If you think you know the truth behind Eleven’s mother, prepare to have your mind turned Upside Down in this thrilling prequel to the hit show Stranger Things.
It’s the summer of 1969, and the shock of conflict reverberates through the youth of America, both at home and abroad. As a student at a quiet college campus in the heartland of Indiana, Terry Ives couldn’t be further from the front lines of Vietnam or the incendiary protests in Washington.
But the world is changing, and Terry isn’t content to watch from the sidelines. When word gets around about an important government experiment in the small town of Hawkins, she signs on as a test subject for the project, codenamed MKUltra. Unmarked vans, a remote lab deep in the woods, mind-altering substances administered by tightlipped researchers . . . and a mystery the young and restless Terry is determined to uncover.
But behind the walls of Hawkins National Laboratory—and the piercing gaze of its director, Dr. Martin Brenner—lurks a conspiracy greater than she could have ever imagined. To face it, she’ll need the help of her fellow test subjects, including one so mysterious the world doesn’t know she exists—a young girl with unexplainable, superhuman powers and a number instead of a name: 008.
Amid the rising tensions of the new decade, Terry Ives and Martin Brenner have begun a different kind of war—one where the human mind is the battlefield.
See my review of this book here.
“Folks say Old Auntie takes a girl and keeps her fifty years—then lets her go and takes another one.”
Thirteen-year-old Daniel Anderson doesn’t believe Brody Mason’s crazy stories about the ghost witch who lives up on Brewster’s Hill with Bloody Bones, her man-eating razorback hog. He figures Brody’s probably just trying to scare him since he’s the new kid . . . a “stuck-up snot” from Connecticut. But Daniel’s seven-year-old sister Erica has become more and more withdrawn, talking to her lookalike doll. When she disappears into the woods one day, he knows something is terribly wrong. Did the witch strike? Has Erica been “took”?
See my review of this book here.
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 . . .
See my review of this book here.
Bestselling historical fiction author Kim Michele Richardson is back with the perfect book club read following Honey Mary Angeline Lovett, the daughter of the beloved Troublesome book woman, who must fight for her own independence with the help of the women who guide her and the books that set her free.
In the ruggedness of the beautiful Kentucky mountains, Honey Lovett has always known that the old ways can make a hard life harder. As the daughter of the famed blue-skinned, Troublesome Creek packhorse librarian, Honey and her family have been hiding from the law all her life. But when her mother and father are imprisoned, Honey realizes she must fight to stay free, or risk being sent away for good.
Picking up her mother’s old packhorse library route, Honey begins to deliver books to the remote hollers of Appalachia. Honey is looking to prove that she doesn’t need anyone telling her how to survive, but the route can be treacherous, and some folks aren’t as keen to let a woman pave her own way. If Honey wants to bring the freedom that books provide to the families who need it most, she’s going to have to fight for her place, and along the way, learn that the extraordinary women who run the hills and hollers can make all the difference in the world.
See my review of this book here.
For Dr. Siena Dupont and her ambitious team, the Alpenglow glacier expedition is a career-defining opportunity. But thirty miles into the desolate Deadswitch Wilderness, they discover a missing hiker dangling from a tree, and their satellite phone fails to call out.
Then the body vanishes without a trace.
The disappearance isn’t the only chilling anomaly. Siena’s map no longer aligns with the trail. The glacier they were supposed to study has inexplicably melted. Strange foliage overruns the mountainside, and a tunnel within a tree hollow lures Siena to a hidden cabin, and a stranger with a sinister message…
Holden Sharpe’s IT job offers little distraction from his wasted potential until he stumbles upon a decommissioned hard drive and an old audio file. Trapped on a mountain, Dr. Siena Dupont recounts an expedition in chaos and the bloody death of a colleague.
Entranced by the mystery, Holden searches for answers to Siena’s fate. But he is unprepared for the truth that will draw him to the outskirts of Deadswitch Wilderness—a place teeming with unfathomable nightmares and impossibilities.
See my review of this book here.
Nina Redmond is a literary matchmaker. Pairing a reader with that perfect book is her passion… and also her job. Or at least it was. Until yesterday, she was a librarian in the hectic city. But now the job she loved is no more.
Determined to make a new life for herself, Nina moves to a sleepy village many miles away. There she buys a van and transforms it into a bookmobile—a mobile bookshop that she drives from neighborhood to neighborhood, changing one life after another with the power of storytelling.
From helping her grumpy landlord deliver a lamb, to sharing picnics with a charming train conductor who serenades her with poetry, Nina discovers there’s plenty of adventure, magic, and soul in a place that’s beginning to feel like home… a place where she just might be able to write her own happy ending.
See my review of this book here.
Something is happening to the residents of Eighth Block Tower…
There’s radiation in the walls. Salt covers the hallways. The food and water are poisonous. A giant green brain pulsates under the roof, pumping electric venom throughout the apartment building. The residents are trapped and losing their minds.
Sanity is a myth. Sickness is life.
See my review of this book here.
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 is pending as of the date this post was first published.
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.
Progress: Audiobook 93%
From New York Times bestselling author Patricia Cornwell comes Ripper: The Secret Life of Walter Sickert, a comprehensive and intriguing exposé of one of the world’s most chilling cases of serial murder—and the police force that failed to solve it.
Vain and charismatic Walter Sickert made a name for himself as a painter in Victorian London. But the ghoulish nature of his art—as well as extensive evidence—points to another name, one that’s left its bloody mark on the pages of history: Jack the Ripper. Cornwell has collected never-before-seen archival material—including a rare mortuary photo, personal correspondence and a will with a mysterious autopsy clause—and applied cutting-edge forensic science to open an old crime to new scrutiny.
Incorporating material from Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper—Case Closed, this new edition has been revised and expanded to include eight new chapters, detailed maps and hundreds of images that bring the sinister case to life.
Progress: 321 pages of 497
In this revised and expanded edition of Your First Novel, novelist Laura Whitcomb, seasoned literary agent Ann Rittenberg, and her knowledgeable assistant, Camille Goldin, team up to provide you with the essential skills needed to craft the best novel you can–and the savvy business know-how to get it published. Complete with updated references, analysis of new best-selling novels, and the same detailed instruction, Whitcomb will show you how to:
– Practice the craft of writing, using both your right- and left-brain
– Develop a flexible card system for organizing and outlining plot
– Create dynamic characters that readers love–and love to hate
– Study classic novels and story structure to adapt with your ideas
Featuring two new chapters on choosing your path as an author and understanding the world of self-publishing, Rittenberg and Goldin dive into the business side of publishing, including:
– What agents can–and should–do for your future
– Who you should target as an agent for your burgeoning career
– How the mysterious auction for novels actually goes down
– Why you should learn to work with your agent through thick and thin
Guiding your first novel from early words to a spot on the bookshelf can be an exciting and terrifying journey, but you’re not alone. Alongside the advice of industry veterans, Your First Novel Revised and Expanded also includes plenty of firsthand accounts from published authors on their journeys, including Dennis Lehane, C.J. Box, Kathleen McCleary, David Kazzie, and more.
Progress: Kindle book 26%
In 1911 two wealthy British heiresses, Claire and Dora Williamson, came to a sanitorium in the forests of the Pacific Northwest to undergo the revolutionary “fasting treatment” of Dr. Linda Burfield Hazzard. It was supposed to be a holiday for the two sisters. But within a month of arriving at what the locals called Starvation Heights, the women were emaciated shadows of their former selves, waiting for death. They were not the first victims of Linda Hazzard, a quack doctor of extraordinary evil and greed who would stop at nothing short of murder to achieve her ambitions. As their jewelry disappeared and forged bank drafts began transferring their wealth to Hazzard’s accounts, Dora Williamson sent a last desperate plea to a friend in Australia, begging her to save them from the brutal treatments and lonely isolation of Starvation Heights.
In this true story—a haunting saga of medical murder set in an era of steamships and gaslights—Gregg Olsen reveals one of the most unusual and disturbing criminal cases in American history.
Progress: ebook 34%
Title: Our Missing Hearts
Author: Celeste Ng
Number of Pages: 335
Goodreads Summary: A novel about a mother’s unbreakable love in a world consumed by fear.
Twelve-year-old Bird Gardner lives a quiet existence with his loving but broken father, a former linguist who now shelves books in a university library. Bird knows to not ask too many questions, stand out too much, or stray too far. For a decade, their lives have been governed by laws written to preserve “American culture” in the wake of years of economic instability and violence. To keep the peace and restore prosperity, the authorities are now allowed to relocate children of dissidents, especially those of Asian origin, and libraries have been forced to remove books seen as unpatriotic—including the work of Bird’s mother, Margaret, a Chinese American poet who left the family when he was nine years old.
Bird has grown up disavowing his mother and her poems; he doesn’t know her work or what happened to her, and he knows he shouldn’t wonder. But when he receives a mysterious letter containing only a cryptic drawing, he is pulled into a quest to find her. His journey will take him back to the many folktales she poured into his head as a child, through the ranks of an underground network of librarians, into the lives of the children who have been taken, and finally to New York City, where a new act of defiance may be the beginning of much-needed change.
Title: The Tower
Author: William Pauley III
Audiobook Length: 2 hours and 23 minutes
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Genre: Fiction, Horror, Short Story
Read Start Date: January 27, 2023
Read Finish Date: January 31, 2023
Number of Book in Series: 1
Brief Summary of the Plot from Goodreads: Something is happening to the residents of Eighth Block Tower…
There’s radiation in the walls. Salt covers the hallways. The food and water are poisonous. A giant green brain pulsates under the roof, pumping electric venom throughout the apartment building. The residents are trapped and losing their minds.
Sanity is a myth. Sickness is life.
My Review: I received this book from NetGalley and exchange for an honest review. The Tower is the first book in the “Bedlam Series.” I wasn’t sure what to think of this book. It was a little trippy, like what all the movies portray an acid trip to be like. But it was also a little confusing.
Although a novella, the book seems to be split into 2 separate stories. Both take place in the “Eighth Block Tower,” which is more or less an apartment building with radiation in the walls. At least that’s what the inhabitants say. The inhabitants themselves are strange. Some might even say “radiated” or “mutated.” They are too weird to leave, even if they want to.
The first story is about a killer who starts killing the women of the building. The twist at the end was weird and a little off putting.
The second story is about someone who works at a meat facility located at the apartment complex (also somehow strange). I didn’t really get the point of this story. The ending is weird and also confusing.
I read some reviews on Goodreads that said there was a third story…but actually I’m not sure what that one was…
What I did like was the futurist atmosphere of the place. But this also left me with unanswered questions. What was the outside world like? What was society like? Why were these people at this building? There were so many interesting elements of this story that weren’t explored. I’m giving it 4 stars despite the confusion because it was just so damn intriguing, the writing was good, and the idea was imaginative.
Hopefully, my questions will be addressed in the next book, which I definitely will be reading.
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.
Title: Briardark
Author: S.A. Harian
Audiobook Length: 10 hours and 33 minutes
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Genre: Fiction, Horror, Mystery, Thriller
Read Start Date: January 19, 2023
Read Finish Date: January 22, 2023
Number of Book in Series: 1
Brief Summary of the Plot from Goodreads: For Dr. Siena Dupont and her ambitious team, the Alpenglow glacier expedition is a career-defining opportunity. But thirty miles into the desolate Deadswitch Wilderness, they discover a missing hiker dangling from a tree, and their satellite phone fails to call out.
Then the body vanishes without a trace.
The disappearance isn’t the only chilling anomaly. Siena’s map no longer aligns with the trail. The glacier they were supposed to study has inexplicably melted. Strange foliage overruns the mountainside, and a tunnel within a tree hollow lures Siena to a hidden cabin, and a stranger with a sinister message…
Holden Sharpe’s IT job offers little distraction from his wasted potential until he stumbles upon a decommissioned hard drive and an old audio file. Trapped on a mountain, Dr. Siena Dupont recounts an expedition in chaos and the bloody death of a colleague.
Entranced by the mystery, Holden searches for answers to Siena’s fate. But he is unprepared for the truth that will draw him to the outskirts of Deadswitch Wilderness—a place teeming with unfathomable nightmares and impossibilities.
My Review: I received this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank God there is a sequel to this book planned because I NEED TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS!
Dr. Siena Dupont leads a team into the Deadswitch Wilderness to research the Alpenglow glacier. When they get there, though, the glacier is inexplicably gone. How can a glacier melt entirely within a few days? But that isn’t the only strange thing. Time seems to pass differently in this part of the forest, with saplings turning to full-grown trees in a matter of days.
Then they find a dead body in a tree that Siena and Cam swear is a hiker that went missing in the wilderness 7 years ago. But how can it be her? The body is a body, not a skeleton.
It’s almost as if an alternate reality, where time passes differently, was bleeding into the Deadswitch Wilderness and causing all these weird anomalies. Would Siena and her team make it out before it was too late?
I listened to this book as an audiobook and got through it in about 3 days. I wanted to find out what was happening. A nail-biter from the beginning, this book was fast-paced and super engaging. This book had it all: mystery, thrills, horror, and an overall creepiness factor. The tension never quit! I love that in a book. It’s not so often that I am so enthralled with a book; it was disappointing to put it down.
Even though the book was plot-driven, the author also developed the characters well, which doesn’t always happen in plot-driven books.
This book deserved every one of its 5 stars, and I can’t wait until the next book.
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.
Title: The Bookshop on the Corner
Author: Jenny Colgan
Book Length: 384 pages
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Genre: Fiction, Romance, Chick Lit, Books about Books, Contemporary, Scotland
Read Start Date: November 18, 2022
Read Finish Date: January 26, 2023
Number in Book Series: 1
Brief Summary of the Plot from Goodreads: Nina Redmond is a literary matchmaker. Pairing a reader with that perfect book is her passion… and also her job. Or at least it was. Until yesterday, she was a librarian in the hectic city. But now the job she loved is no more.
Determined to make a new life for herself, Nina moves to a sleepy village many miles away. There she buys a van and transforms it into a bookmobile—a mobile bookshop that she drives from neighborhood to neighborhood, changing one life after another with the power of storytelling.
From helping her grumpy landlord deliver a lamb, to sharing picnics with a charming train conductor who serenades her with poetry, Nina discovers there’s plenty of adventure, magic, and soul in a place that’s beginning to feel like home… a place where she just might be able to write her own happy ending.
My Review: Nina has always had a dream of owning her own bookstore. When she loses her job as a librarian in Birmingham, she heads to the Scottish Highlands to purchase a van that would be perfect to house a mobile bookshop. Nina hits a snag when the gruff seller won’t sell it to her. With the help of the book-starved inhabitants of Kirrinfief, the seller finally relents. The townspeople are disappointed when Nina tells them she doesn’t intend to open her shop in Kirrinfief.
While Nina had originally planned to open the shop in Birmingham, red tape prevents her from doing so. Reluctantly, she returns to Kirrinfief and rents a renovated barn from a stubborn, abrasive, hunky farmer, who goes by the name of Lennox. He is in the midst of a bitter divorce, and is more rude than welcoming. It is obvious, however, that this guy will be the love interest by the end of the book.
Despite her initial hesitance, Nina soon becomes enamored with the Scottish Highlands and its people.
One night, Nina is driving in the van, and she stalls on the train tracks as a train is coming. Luckily, the train stops. She meets Marek, the gorgeous and kind train operator from Latvia (he is living in Birmingham). They soon fall into a romantic exchange –they leave notes and books for each other by hanging them on the tree next to the spot where they first met. The romance is more emotional than physical, as they rarely see each other, and it is ill fated from the start.
By the end though, Nina is where (and with whom) she should be and has her own “happy ever after”.
I started reading this book back in November, 2022, when my daughter was in the hospital with a bad case of bronchitis. I needed something light and fluffy, and this book fit the bill. Jenny Colgan writes with a nice and easy prose that begs the eyes to keep reading. It took me a while to finish it, because recently I’ve only had time to read at bedtime, and I have been trying to read paperbacks before bed (to avoid screens). As I was reading this via the library app Libby on my ipad, I turned to this book only when my mood couldn’t handle the subject matter of the true crime books I’ve been reading.
It is a bit sappy in parts — like how Nina calls her bookshop “The Little Shop of Happy-Ever-After” — but overall a good book.
This is a great read for when you are in a bad or sad mood and need something light and uplifting.
Welcome to Friday 56! Hosted by Freda’s Voice, you turn to page 56 or 56% in any book or reading device and pick a sentence that grabs you.
The days began to take on a pattern. After Nina had finished work, she would cash out, then start planning what she was going to leave Marek on their tree. It had developed into a full-blown flirtation. Some days she wanted to be funny, some days more serious. Some days she just wrote to him what was on her mind, and he’d write back. She realized that she hadn’t written a letter for year and years, actually sat down and committed her thoughts to paper rather than pinging them off in an e-mail. She wrote more slowly, felt more deeply.”
The Bookshop on the Corner by Jenny Colgan, taken from 56% of the way through the ebook
Title: The Book Woman’s Daughter
Author: Kim Michele Richardson
Audiobook Length: 10 hours and 29 minutes
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Genre: Fiction, Historical Fiction,
Read Start Date: January 7, 2023
Read Finish Date: January 18, 2023
Number in Book Series: 2
Brief Summary of the Plot from Goodreads: Bestselling historical fiction author Kim Michele Richardson is back with the perfect book club read following Honey Mary Angeline Lovett, the daughter of the beloved Troublesome book woman, who must fight for her own independence with the help of the women who guide her and the books that set her free.
In the ruggedness of the beautiful Kentucky mountains, Honey Lovett has always known that the old ways can make a hard life harder. As the daughter of the famed blue-skinned, Troublesome Creek packhorse librarian, Honey and her family have been hiding from the law all her life. But when her mother and father are imprisoned, Honey realizes she must fight to stay free, or risk being sent away for good.
Picking up her mother’s old packhorse library route, Honey begins to deliver books to the remote hollers of Appalachia. Honey is looking to prove that she doesn’t need anyone telling her how to survive, but the route can be treacherous, and some folks aren’t as keen to let a woman pave her own way. If Honey wants to bring the freedom that books provide to the families who need it most, she’s going to have to fight for her place, and along the way, learn that the extraordinary women who run the hills and hollers can make all the difference in the world.
My Review: This book is both a standalone book and a sequel to The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek. This book is told from Honey Mary Angeline Lovett’s POV. If you haven’t read the first book you will still be able to read and enjoy this book, but you will miss out on some of the backstory of Honey’s mother and the packhorse project.
The story starts off with Honey’s parents going to jail for violating Kentucky’s misogyny laws, which outlaws the marriage of two different races. Honey and her mother, Cussie, are carriers of a genetic trait that led to the blood disorder methemoglobinemia, turning their skin blue. Therefore, in the eyes of the racist, ignorant Kentucky folk, the marriage between Cussy and her husband, a white man, violates the law. They are sent to prison for 2 years.
Honey, nearly 17 years old, is at risk — the authorities want to send her to a reform school until the age of 21 — which is little more than a child prison — even though she would legally be an adult at the age of 18. Luckily, a guardian (an elderly woman and friend of Cussy’s named Loretta) steps forward, keeping her out of prison for the moment. That path is shattered when Loretta dies, leaving Honey again at risk.
But Honey is resilient and a tough cookie, as my boyfriend would say. She gets a job and makes a salary (the same one her mother had bringing library books on mule back to the disadvantaged folk in the Kentucky mountains). She makes friends, she pays her own way, and she even researches a landmark case in Kentucky for emancipation. She is determined to gain her freedom.
This is a story about friendship, overcoming adversity, and about standing up for your beliefs, even in the face of danger.
I found this book slow at times, and I couldn’t put it down at other times. Trigger warning for elements of domestic abuse and violence against women. Although I did enjoy it when the villain got the comeuppance he deserved at the end.
All in all a great book. I would recommend it along with the first one.
For some interesting book club questions, I would recommend visiting Three Sisters Read blog post here.
Other Books in this Series:
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
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.
See my review of The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek here.
Time Travel Thursday is hosted by Budget Tales Book Blog. This is where I take a look back at what I was reading this time last year (or the year before or the year before that…) and compare it to what I am reading now.
Title: Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know About the People We Don’t Know
Author: Malcolm Gladwell
Audiobook Length: 8 hours and 42 minutes
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Genre: Nonfiction, Psychology, Self-Help, Sociology, Science, Business, Language, Communication
Read Start Date: February 9, 2022
Read Finish Date: February 11, 2022
Brief Summary of the Plot from Goodreads: How did Fidel Castro fool the CIA for a generation? Why did Neville Chamberlain think he could trust Adolf Hitler? Why are campus sexual assaults on the rise? Do television sitcoms teach us something about the way we relate to each other that isn’t true?
While tackling these questions, Malcolm Gladwell was not solely writing a book for the page. He was also producing for the ear. In the audiobook version of Talking to Strangers, you’ll hear the voices of people he interviewed–scientists, criminologists, military psychologists. Court transcripts are brought to life with re-enactments. You actually hear the contentious arrest of Sandra Bland by the side of the road in Texas. As Gladwell revisits the deceptions of Bernie Madoff, the trial of Amanda Knox, and the suicide of Sylvia Plath, you hear directly from many of the players in these real-life tragedies. There’s even a theme song – Janelle Monae’s “Hell You Talmbout.”
Something is very wrong, Gladwell argues, with the tools and strategies we use to make sense of people we don’t know. And because we don’t know how to talk to strangers, we are inviting conflict and misunderstanding in ways that have a profound effect on our lives and our world.
My Review: I listened to the audiobook version of this book and I have to say it was awesome. The audiobook is read by the author and also includes some bonus material e.g. recordings of the statements / incidents quoted in the book.
The book opens with the tragic story of Sandra Bland, a black woman, who commits suicide in jail after being arrested by an over zealous cop. She was originally pulled over for “failure to signal” after she changed lanes for the said cop without signaling, as he came up behind her. When the officer asks how she is, Bland responds that she is upset. The officer then asks her if she “is done”. Although the officer says that it was not meant in a sarcastic way, Bland takes it as such, escalating the traffic stop. When Bland lights a cigarette to calm her nerves, the officer asks her to put it out. She refuses. Escalating the traffic stop further, the officer tells her to get out of the car, because she had failed to follow his direction. Bland initially refuses. The incident was caught on the officer’s vest cam, and with the audiobook you can hear the actual tape.
The book dives into the potential reasons why this tragedy occurred. The author posits, for example, that when talking with strangers, people “default to truth”, in other words that we initially believe what a stranger is telling us, even if it is a lie. For most of us, the instinct is to believe, not distrust. Another example is “transparency”. Sometimes people are transparent and strangers can infer state of mind by actions, other times, people do not act as we think they should and so we misunderstand them. This is what happened in the case of Sandra Bland.
I really liked listening to the different stories that that author gave as support for his theory. Even if you don’t like, or agree with, the author’s theory, the stories were really interesting e.g. a cuban spy who no one suspected, the interrogation of KSM after 9/11, and the Amanda Knox story. What made it more interesting was the format. I can’t imagine reading this book in paper format. The quotes would have less impact when only read and not listened to.
I definitely recommend this book, but I think that it should be read as an audiobook.
Your Expert Guide to Writing and Publishing a Novel
In this revised and expanded edition of Your First Novel, novelist Laura Whitcomb, seasoned literary agent Ann Rittenberg, and her knowledgeable assistant, Camille Goldin, team up to provide you with the essential skills needed to craft the best novel you can–and the savvy business know-how to get it published. Complete with updated references, analysis of new best-selling novels, and the same detailed instruction, Whitcomb will show you how to:
– Practice the craft of writing, using both your right- and left-brain
– Develop a flexible card system for organizing and outlining plot
– Create dynamic characters that readers love–and love to hate
– Study classic novels and story structure to adapt with your ideas
Featuring two new chapters on choosing your path as an author and understanding the world of self-publishing, Rittenberg and Goldin dive into the business side of publishing, including:
– What agents can–and should–do for your future
– Who you should target as an agent for your burgeoning career
– How the mysterious auction for novels actually goes down
– Why you should learn to work with your agent through thick and thin
Guiding your first novel from early words to a spot on the bookshelf can be an exciting and terrifying journey, but you’re not alone. Alongside the advice of industry veterans, Your First Novel Revised and Expanded also includes plenty of firsthand accounts from published authors on their journeys, including Dennis Lehane, C.J. Box, Kathleen McCleary, David Kazzie, and more.
From New York Times bestselling author Patricia Cornwell comes Ripper: The Secret Life of Walter Sickert, a comprehensive and intriguing exposé of one of the world’s most chilling cases of serial murder—and the police force that failed to solve it.
Vain and charismatic Walter Sickert made a name for himself as a painter in Victorian London. But the ghoulish nature of his art—as well as extensive evidence—points to another name, one that’s left its bloody mark on the pages of history: Jack the Ripper. Cornwell has collected never-before-seen archival material—including a rare mortuary photo, personal correspondence and a will with a mysterious autopsy clause—and applied cutting-edge forensic science to open an old crime to new scrutiny.
Incorporating material from Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper—Case Closed, this new edition has been revised and expanded to include eight new chapters, detailed maps and hundreds of images that bring the sinister case to life.
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.
In 1911 two wealthy British heiresses, Claire and Dora Williamson, came to a sanitorium in the forests of the Pacific Northwest to undergo the revolutionary “fasting treatment” of Dr. Linda Burfield Hazzard. It was supposed to be a holiday for the two sisters. But within a month of arriving at what the locals called Starvation Heights, the women were emaciated shadows of their former selves, waiting for death. They were not the first victims of Linda Hazzard, a quack doctor of extraordinary evil and greed who would stop at nothing short of murder to achieve her ambitions. As their jewelry disappeared and forged bank drafts began transferring their wealth to Hazzard’s accounts, Dora Williamson sent a last desperate plea to a friend in Australia, begging her to save them from the brutal treatments and lonely isolation of Starvation Heights.
In this true story—a haunting saga of medical murder set in an era of steamships and gaslights—Gregg Olsen reveals one of the most unusual and disturbing criminal cases in American history.
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).
| Then | Now | |
| Fiction | xx | |
| Horror | x | |
| Sci-Fi | ||
| Fantasy | x | |
| Mystery | ||
| Thriller | x | |
| Historical Fiction | ||
| Women’s Fiction | ||
| Romance | x | |
| Contemporary | x | |
| Nonfiction | x | xxx |
| True Crime | xx | |
| History | xx | |
| Self-Help | x | x |
| Humor | ||
| Memoir | ||
| Science |
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.
Shelf Control is hosted by Bookshelf Fantasies. Instead of always looking ahead to upcoming new releases, I thought I’d start a weekly feature focusing on already released books that I want to read. Consider this a variation of a Wishing & Waiting post… but looking at books already available, and in most cases, books that are either on my shelves or on my Kindle!
Title: The Ruins
Author: Scott Smith
Published: 2006
Length: 319 pages
Synopsis via Goodreads: Trapped in the Mexican jungle, a group of friends stumble upon a creeping horror unlike anything they could ever imagine. Two young couples are on a lazy Mexican vacation–sun-drenched days, drunken nights, making friends with fellow tourists. When the brother of one of those friends disappears, they decide to venture into the jungle to look for him. What started out as a fun day-trip slowly spirals into a nightmare when they find an ancient ruins site . . . and the terrifying presence that lurks there.
How I got it: I bought this book from a used book website.
When I got it: 2023
Why I want to read it: I owned a copy of this book when I lived in the US, but it was one of the many books I left behind when I moved to Europe in 2017. I recently read a book (review pending) that reminded me of The Ruins, and so I wanted to read it again.
The Legal Alien 