Stephen King

Time Travel Thursday, November 30, 2023

/ E.A. Hoffmann / Leave a comment

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.

Books I was Reading on This Day in 2022:

Into the Water by Paula Hawkins

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.

With the same propulsive writing and acute understanding of human instincts that captivated millions of readers around the world in her explosive debut thriller, The Girl on the Train, Paula Hawkins delivers an urgent, twisting, deeply satisfying read that hinges on the deceptiveness of emotion and memory, as well as the devastating ways that the past can reach a long arm into the present.

Beware a calm surface—you never know what lies beneath.

See my review of this book here.

The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake

The Alexandrian Society, caretakers of lost knowledge from the greatest civilizations of antiquity, are the foremost secret society of magical academicians in the world. Those who earn a place among the Alexandrians will secure a life of wealth, power, and prestige beyond their wildest dreams, and each decade, only the six most uniquely talented magicians are selected to be considered for initiation.

Enter the latest round of six: Libby Rhodes and Nico de Varona, unwilling halves of an unfathomable whole, who exert uncanny control over every element of physicality. Reina Mori, a naturalist, who can intuit the language of life itself. Parisa Kamali, a telepath who can traverse the depths of the subconscious, navigating worlds inside the human mind. Callum Nova, an empath easily mistaken for a manipulative illusionist, who can influence the intimate workings of a person’s inner self. Finally, there is Tristan Caine, who can see through illusions to a new structure of reality—an ability so rare that neither he nor his peers can fully grasp its implications.

When the candidates are recruited by the mysterious Atlas Blakely, they are told they will have one year to qualify for initiation, during which time they will be permitted preliminary access to the Society’s archives and judged based on their contributions to various subjects of impossibility: time and space, luck and thought, life and death. Five, they are told, will be initiated. One will be eliminated. The six potential initiates will fight to survive the next year of their lives, and if they can prove themselves to be the best among their rivals, most of them will.

Most of them.

You can see my review of this book here.

What I’m Reading Now:

If the Universe Is Teeming with Aliens … WHERE IS EVERYBODY?: Seventy-Five Solutions to the Fermi Paradox and the Problem of Extraterrestrial Life by Stephen Webb

Given the fact that there are perhaps 400 billion stars in our Galaxy alone, and perhaps 400 billion galaxies in the Universe, it stands to reason that somewhere out there, in the 14-billion-year-old cosmos, there is or once was a civilization at least as advanced as our own. The sheer enormity of the numbers almost demands that we accept the truth of this hypothesis. Why, then, have we encountered no evidence, no messages, no artifacts of these extraterrestrials? 

In this second, significantly revised and expanded edition of his widely popular book, Webb discusses in detail the (for now!) 75 most cogent and intriguing solutions to Fermi’s famous paradox: If the numbers strongly point to the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations, why have we found no evidence of them?

Progress: ebook 121 pages

One True Loves by Taylor Jenkins Reid

In her twenties, Emma Blair marries her high school sweetheart, Jesse. They build a life for themselves, far away from the expectations of their parents and the people of their hometown in Massachusetts. They travel the world together, living life to the fullest and seizing every opportunity for adventure.

On their first wedding anniversary, Jesse is on a helicopter over the Pacific when it goes missing. Just like that, Jesse is gone forever.

Emma quits her job and moves home in an effort to put her life back together. Years later, now in her thirties, Emma runs into an old friend, Sam, and finds herself falling in love again. When Emma and Sam get engaged, it feels like Emma’s second chance at happiness.

That is, until Jesse is found. He’s alive, and he’s been trying all these years to come home to her. With a husband and a fiancé, Emma has to now figure out who she is and what she wants, while trying to protect the ones she loves.

Who is her one true love? What does it mean to love truly?

Emma knows she has to listen to her heart. She’s just not sure what it’s saying.

Progress: 85 pages

The Edge of Reality: Two Scientists Evaluate What We Know of the UFO Phenomenon by J. Allen Hynek and Jacques F. Vallée

From the outset, Hynek and Vallee make their position UFOs represent an unknown but real phenomenon. The far-reaching implications take us to the very edge of what we consider known and real in our physical environment. Perhaps, say the authors, UFOs signal the existence of a domain of nature as yet totally unexplored.   In this mind-stretching book, the authors sample UFO reports, including those allegedly involving humanoids, and describe the perceived patterns in the behavior of the phenomenon. They also establish a framework for further study. Where might such study lead? What can be studied, and how? What is the real nature of the UFO phenomenon? Does it originate with the actions of other intelligences in the universe? If so, where and what might they be? Does the UFO phenomenon have a purely physical explanation, or is there a vast, hidden realm that holds the solution?   In this invaluable work, we gain insight into the thinking of Hynek and Vallee’s research and investigations into UFOs, including Project Blue Book, the Pascagoula case, and the Betty and Barney Hill experience

Progress: Audiobook 70%

Revival by Stephen King

A dark and electrifying novel about addiction, fanaticism, and what might exist on the other side of life.

In a small New England town, over half a century ago, a shadow falls over a small boy playing with his toy soldiers. Jamie Morton looks up to see a striking man, the new minister. Charles Jacobs, along with his beautiful wife, will transform the local church. The men and boys are all a bit in love with Mrs. Jacobs; the women and girls feel the same about Reverend Jacobs—including Jamie’s mother and beloved sister, Claire. With Jamie, the Reverend shares a deeper bond based on a secret obsession. When tragedy strikes the Jacobs family, this charismatic preacher curses God, mocks all religious belief, and is banished from the shocked town.

Jamie has demons of his own. Wed to his guitar from the age of thirteen, he plays in bands across the country, living the nomadic lifestyle of bar-band rock and roll while fleeing from his family’s horrific loss. In his mid-thirties—addicted to heroin, stranded, desperate—Jamie meets Charles Jacobs again, with profound consequences for both men. Their bond becomes a pact beyond even the Devil’s devising, and Jamie discovers that revival has many meanings.

This rich and disturbing novel spans five decades on its way to the most terrifying conclusion Stephen King has ever written. It’s a masterpiece from King, in the great American tradition of Frank Norris, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Edgar Allan Poe.

Progess: page 396 of 461

Four Winds by Kristin Hannah

Texas, 1934. Millions are out of work and a drought has broken the Great Plains. Farmers are fighting to keep their land and their livelihoods as the crops are failing, the water is drying up, and dust threatens to bury them all. One of the darkest periods of the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl era, has arrived with a vengeance.

In this uncertain and dangerous time, Elsa Martinelli—like so many of her neighbors—must make an agonizing choice: fight for the land she loves or go west, to California, in search of a better life. The Four Winds is an indelible portrait of America and the American Dream, as seen through the eyes of one indomitable woman whose courage and sacrifice will come to define a generation.

Progress: Audiobook 47%

Then vs. Now

 ThenNow
Fiction xxxxx
Horror x
Sci-Fi  
Fantasy x
Mystery x
Thriller 
Historical Fiction  x
Women’s Fiction  
Romance x
Contemporary 
Nonfictionxx
True Crime 
History 
Self-Help
Humor  
Memoir 
Science  xx

Goodreads Monday: November 27, 2023

/ E.A. Hoffmann / Leave a comment

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!”

Books I Finished In the Past 7 Weeks:

White Fuzz by William Pauly III

“White Fuzz is a weird sort of love story between two deeply disturbed individuals, each a product of their isolated environment. It’s not an easy read. It’s shocking, gross, and horrifying. Manages to check off every trigger! You’ve been warned.”

Franklin feels alone in life. One fateful night, he gets a curious text from a stranger, Lynda, another resident of his apartment building. She convinces him to come over, against his better judgment, and surprisingly, the night seems to be going great, despite a little awkwardness.

However, it’s clear that Lynda is living with demons that are in desperate need of exercising, as everything inside her apartment seems to trigger some dark memory buried deep within her psyche. In hopes of helping her escape the prison that is her home, he invites her over to his place, but the problems only get worse, to the point he fears she won’t make it through the night.

Just when he feels the night has reached peak insanity, he discovers her madness is rubbing off on him…

See my review of this book here.

Twelve Residents Dreaming by William Pauley III

A shipwrecked man comes upon an apartment building located in the middle of the ocean. Inside, he finds the skulls of twelve residents, each one eager to tell their story.

This is the final book of The Bedlam Bible.

See my review of this book here.

Sisters of the Lost Nation by Nick Medina

A young Native girl’s hunt for answers about the women mysteriously disappearing from her tribe’s reservation lead her to delve into the myths and stories of her people, all while being haunted herself, in this atmospheric and stunningly poignant debut.

Anna Horn is always looking over her shoulder. For the bullies who torment her, for the entitled visitors at the reservation’s casino…and for the nameless, disembodied entity that stalks her every step–an ancient tribal myth come-to-life, one that’s intent on devouring her whole.

With strange and sinister happenings occurring around the casino, Anna starts to suspect that not all the horrors on the reservation are old. As girls begin to go missing and the tribe scrambles to find answers, Anna struggles with her place on the rez, desperately searching for the key she’s sure lies in the legends of her tribe’s past.

When Anna’s own little sister also disappears, she’ll do anything to bring Grace home. But the demons plaguing the reservation–both ancient and new–are strong, and sometimes, it’s the stories that never get told that are the most important.

Part gripping thriller and part mythological horror, author Nick Medina spins an incisive and timely novel of life as an outcast, the cost of forgetting tradition, and the courage it takes to become who you were always meant to be.

See my review of this book here.

The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu

Set against the backdrop of China’s Cultural Revolution, a secret military project sends signals into space to establish contact with aliens. An alien civilization on the brink of destruction captures the signal and plans to invade Earth. Meanwhile, on Earth, different camps start forming, planning to either welcome the superior beings and help them take over a world seen as corrupt, or to fight against the invasion.

Emp Attack: Crucial Lessons on How to Survive the Most Overlooked Disaster the World by Mark Gibbs

Are You Looking for a Deeper Understanding of Emps and an Easy-to-follow Guide So That You Can Safeguard Yourself, Your Family, and Even Your Neighbors From an Electromagnetic Pulse Attack? If That Is You, You’re in the Right Place!In the Aftermath of an Emp Attack, Much of the Population Could Perish From Famine, Dehydration, Illness, Murder, and Suicide. The Power Grid Could Be Down for Years. Almost All Modern Equipment Would Quit Operating Instantly. What Does This Mean for You and Your Family? The Topics That We Will Cover Today – What to Do Right After the Power Goes Out- The Components You Need to Create a Self-sustaining Power System- Solar the Best Kinds to Use- Solar Panels Inverters- Why You Need a Ham Radio- Making Your Phone Untraceable- Building Faraday Cages- Getting Ready for Natural Disasters Even Though the Average American Citizen Is Not Prepared Whatsoever for an Emp Attack, That Doesn’t Mean That You Have to Be. This Book Is Going to Cover Survival Lessons (Plus a Few Bonus Lessons) on How to Prepare for an Emp Attack Before It Strikes and How to Survive Once It Does. It Doesn’t Matter Whether You Are Just the Average Person Looking to Become a Little More Prepared for an Emp Attack or Are Already a Seasoned Survivalist Looking for More Ways to Become Prepared, as There Is Valuable Information That You Will Learn From This Book.

I’m Glad My Mother Died by Jennette McCurdy

A heartbreaking and hilarious memoir by iCarly and Sam & Cat star Jennette McCurdy about her struggles as a former child actor—including eating disorders, addiction, and a complicated relationship with her overbearing mother—and how she retook control of her life.

Jennette McCurdy was six years old when she had her first acting audition. Her mother’s dream was for her only daughter to become a star, and Jennette would do anything to make her mother happy. So she went along with what Mom called “calorie restriction,” eating little and weighing herself five times a day. She endured extensive at-home makeovers while Mom chided, “Your eyelashes are invisible, okay? You think Dakota Fanning doesn’t tint hers?” She was even showered by Mom until age sixteen while sharing her diaries, email, and all her income.

In I’m Glad My Mom Died, Jennette recounts all this in unflinching detail—just as she chronicles what happens when the dream finally comes true. Cast in a new Nickelodeon series called iCarly, she is thrust into fame. Though Mom is ecstatic, emailing fan club moderators and getting on a first-name basis with the paparazzi (“Hi Gale!”), Jennette is riddled with anxiety, shame, and self-loathing, which manifest into eating disorders, addiction, and a series of unhealthy relationships. These issues only get worse when, soon after taking the lead in the iCarly spinoff Sam & Cat alongside Ariana Grande, her mother dies of cancer. Finally, after discovering therapy and quitting acting, Jennette embarks on recovery and decides for the first time in her life what she really wants.

Told with refreshing candor and dark humor, I’m Glad My Mom Died is an inspiring story of resilience, independence, and the joy of shampooing your own hair.

Book I am Currently Reading

If the Universe Is Teeming with Aliens … WHERE IS EVERYBODY? by Stephen Webb

Given the fact that there are perhaps 400 billion stars in our Galaxy alone, and perhaps
400 billion galaxies in the Universe, it stands to reason that somewhere out there, in the
14-billion-year-old cosmos, there is or once was a civilization at least as advanced as our
own. The sheer enormity of the numbers almost demands that we accept the truth of this
hypothesis. Why, then, have we encountered no evidence, no messages, no artifacts of
these extraterrestrials? 
In this second, significantly revised and expanded edition of his widely popular book,
Webb discusses in detail the (for now!) 75 most cogent and intriguing solutions to
Fermi’s famous paradox: If the numbers strongly point to the existence of extraterrestrial
civilizations, why have we found no evidence of them?

Progress: page 121 of 434 (August 21st page 22, September 4th page 26, September 11th page 56, October 2nd page 85, October 9th page 99)

One True Loves by Taylor Jenkins Reid

In her twenties, Emma Blair marries her high school sweetheart, Jesse. They build a life for themselves, far away from the expectations of their parents and the people of their hometown in Massachusetts. They travel the world together, living life to the fullest and seizing every opportunity for adventure.

On their first wedding anniversary, Jesse is on a helicopter over the Pacific when it goes missing. Just like that, Jesse is gone forever.

Emma quits her job and moves home in an effort to put her life back together. Years later, now in her thirties, Emma runs into an old friend, Sam, and finds herself falling in love again. When Emma and Sam get engaged, it feels like Emma’s second chance at happiness.

That is, until Jesse is found. He’s alive, and he’s been trying all these years to come home to her. With a husband and a fiancé, Emma has to now figure out who she is and what she wants, while trying to protect the ones she loves.

Who is her one true love? What does it mean to love truly?

Emma knows she has to listen to her heart. She’s just not sure what it’s saying.

Progress: page 85 of 331 (October 2nd page 1, October 9th page 70)

The Edge of Reality: Two Scientists Evaluate What We Know of the UFO Phenomenon by J. Allen Hynek and Jacques F. Vallée

From the outset, Hynek and Vallee make their position UFOs represent an unknown but real phenomenon. The far-reaching implications take us to the very edge of what we consider known and real in our physical environment. Perhaps, say the authors, UFOs signal the existence of a domain of nature as yet totally unexplored.   In this mind-stretching book, the authors sample UFO reports, including those allegedly involving humanoids, and describe the perceived patterns in the behavior of the phenomenon. They also establish a framework for further study. Where might such study lead? What can be studied, and how? What is the real nature of the UFO phenomenon? Does it originate with the actions of other intelligences in the universe? If so, where and what might they be? Does the UFO phenomenon have a purely physical explanation, or is there a vast, hidden realm that holds the solution?   In this invaluable work, we gain insight into the thinking of Hynek and Vallee’s research and investigations into UFOs, including Project Blue Book, the Pascagoula case, and the Betty and Barney Hill experience

Progress: Audiobook 70%

Revival by Stephen King

A dark and electrifying novel about addiction, fanaticism, and what might exist on the other side of life.

In a small New England town, over half a century ago, a shadow falls over a small boy playing with his toy soldiers. Jamie Morton looks up to see a striking man, the new minister. Charles Jacobs, along with his beautiful wife, will transform the local church. The men and boys are all a bit in love with Mrs. Jacobs; the women and girls feel the same about Reverend Jacobs—including Jamie’s mother and beloved sister, Claire. With Jamie, the Reverend shares a deeper bond based on a secret obsession. When tragedy strikes the Jacobs family, this charismatic preacher curses God, mocks all religious belief, and is banished from the shocked town.

Jamie has demons of his own. Wed to his guitar from the age of thirteen, he plays in bands across the country, living the nomadic lifestyle of bar-band rock and roll while fleeing from his family’s horrific loss. In his mid-thirties—addicted to heroin, stranded, desperate—Jamie meets Charles Jacobs again, with profound consequences for both men. Their bond becomes a pact beyond even the Devil’s devising, and Jamie discovers that revival has many meanings.

This rich and disturbing novel spans five decades on its way to the most terrifying conclusion Stephen King has ever written. It’s a masterpiece from King, in the great American tradition of Frank Norris, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Edgar Allan Poe.

Progess: page 294 of 461

Four Winds by Kristin Hannah

Texas, 1934. Millions are out of work and a drought has broken the Great Plains. Farmers are fighting to keep their land and their livelihoods as the crops are failing, the water is drying up, and dust threatens to bury them all. One of the darkest periods of the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl era, has arrived with a vengeance.

In this uncertain and dangerous time, Elsa Martinelli—like so many of her neighbors—must make an agonizing choice: fight for the land she loves or go west, to California, in search of a better life. The Four Winds is an indelible portrait of America and the American Dream, as seen through the eyes of one indomitable woman whose courage and sacrifice will come to define a generation.

Progress: Audiobook 27%

Next Up:

Title: The Prepper’s Long Term Survival Bible

Author: Jim Grylls

Book Length: 341 pages

Goodreads Summary: PREPARE FOR THE WORST — If you constantly fear what lies ahead, then let this 11-in-1 Long-Term Survival Bible for Modern Preppers help you!

Should disaster strike, are you and your family ready for it?

Your worries are valid.

From a global pandemic to ego-fueled wars, the constant barrage of bad news has made you wonder (more times than you care to admit) what lies ahead should natural or man-made catastrophes ensue.

That’s why you need to prepare yourself for the worst to ensure safety for you and your loved ones! But where do you even start?

“ THE PREPPER’S LONG TERM SURVIVAL BIBLE 11 Books in 1: A Guide to Thriving Self-Sufficiently During Disaster Scenarios. Home-Defence, Pantry, Stockpiling, Off-Grid Bunker, Survival Mindset and More ” by Jim Grylls is your one-stop shop to surviving the next earthquake, plague, or even World War!

Throughout his career as a renowned survivalist, Grylls has seen, done, and overcome it all! Using the insights, tips, and tools that he’s learned from his line of business, he strategically lays out everything you need to know on how to play the long game and survive any calamity!

Here are the survival masterpieces you’ll get from THE PREPPER’S LONG TERM SURVIVAL BIBLE 11 Books in 1:
● The Prepper’s Long Term Survival Guide : When and Why Prepping. 14+1 Catastrophes that Can Happen Tomorrow as a Déjà Vu, and How to Prepare Yourself for the Worse Scenarios
● The Prepper’s Long Term Pantry in 72 Hours : How to Acquiring Foods on a Budget, Canning, Preserving and Stockpiling for Long Term Survival
● The Prepper’s Doomsday Cookbook : How to Plan and Cook Nutritional Emergency Meal on a Budget + 15 Long-Term Foods You Always Need
● The Prepper’s Disaster-Ready Home : How to Convert Your Home into a Fortress and Build Your Own Off-Grid Bunker + Home-defense tips and tricks
● The Prepper’s Long Term Natural Medicine : Life-Saving Remedies, Herbs, Essential Oil, and Hygiene Tricks for When There is NO Doctor
● The Prepper’s Thriving Mindset : How to Think and Act after the Society Collapse + 3 Tips to Entertain Your Family
● The Prepper’s Military Protocol : Hidden Secrets Used by Forced Army to Survive during the Most Horrific Scenarios and how to Easily Apply Them Now
● The Prepper’s Wilderness Survival Tips and Tricks Handbook : 15 Items You Need, and You Can Afford (for NOW), Mistakes to Avoid while Prepping, the Family Escape Plan from City, and much More
● The Prepper’s Long Term Knowledge : Prepper Basic and Advanced Knots, Start Fires, Edible Wild Plants and Procure Guide
● BONUS 1: Off Grid Solar Panel & 12 Volt Power for Preppers : A Technical Guide to Design, Install and Maintain Self-Sufficient Solar Panels
● BONUS 2: U.S. Army Survival Guide Handbook : The Prepper’s Survival Army Guide to Wilderness Thriving
● You will also find another gift inside. This is a surprise!
» And…. personalized, professional formatting that will follow you throughout this survival journey

The 52 Book Club’s 2023 Reading Challenge: February, 2023

/ E.A. Hoffmann / Leave a comment

What is the challenge?

The 52 Book Club’s annual reading challenge is made up of 52 unique prompts. (You may have heard it described as 52 books in 52 weeks.) The goal is to match one book to each prompt. This means that participants will read a total of fifty-two books throughout the year. We encourage participants to try new authors or genres, push themselves to read more, read differently, and get creative with it!

The Challenge:

Books I’ve Read So Far:

Prompt 5: Title Starting with the Letter “I”
Prompt 6: Under 200 Pages
Prompt 45: First Word in the Books is “The”
Prompt 49: Books on the Cover
Prompt 50: Related to the Word “Murder”
Prompt 51: Doesn’t Fit Any of the Other 51 prompts
Prompt 52: Published in 2023

Goodreads Monday: February 20, 2023

/ E.A. Hoffmann / Leave a comment

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!”

Books I Finished In the Past Week:

Fairy Tale by Stephen King

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.

See my review of this book here.

Books I am Currently Reading:

Ripper: The Secret Life of Walter Sickert by Patricia Cornwell

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

Your First Novel Revised and Expanded Edition: A Top Agent and a Published Author Show You How to Write Your Book and Get It Published by Anne Rittenberg and Laura Whitcomb

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 38% (last week 26%)

Starvation Heights: A True Story of Murder and Malice in the Woods of the Pacific Northwest by Gregg Olsen

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 56% (last week 34%)

Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng

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.

Progess: Audiobook 49%

Next Up:

Title: Love on the Brain

Author: Ali Hazelwood

Number of Pages: 368

Goodreads Summary: From the New York Times bestselling author of The Love Hypothesis comes a new STEMinist rom-com in which a scientist is forced to work on a project with her nemesis—with explosive results.

Bee Königswasser lives by a simple code: What would Marie Curie do? If NASA offered her the lead on a neuroengineering project – a literal dream come true – Marie would accept without hesitation. Duh. But the mother of modern physics never had to co-lead with Levi Ward.

Sure, Levi is attractive in a tall, dark, and piercing-eyes kind of way. But Levi made his feelings toward Bee very clear in grad school – archenemies work best employed in their own galaxies far, far away.

But when her equipment starts to go missing and the staff ignore her, Bee could swear she sees Levi softening into an ally, backing her plays, seconding her ideas… devouring her with those eyes. The possibilities have all her neurons firing.

But when it comes time to actually make a move and put her heart on the line, there’s only one question that matters: What will Bee Königswasser do?

BOOK REVIEW: Fairy Tale by Stephen King

/ E.A. Hoffmann / 5 Comments

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.

Goodreads Monday: February 13, 2023

/ E.A. Hoffmann / Leave a comment

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!”

Books I Finished In the Past 8 Weeks:

Suspicious Minds by Gwenda Bond

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.

Took by Mary Downing Hahn

“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.

Murder Beyond the Grave by James Patterson

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.

The Book Woman’s Daughter by Kim Michele Richardson

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.

Briardark by S.A. Harian

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.

The Bookshop on the Corner by Jenny Colgan

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.

The Tower by William Pauley III

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.

It Starts With Us by Colleen Hoover

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.

Books I am Currently Reading:

Fairy Tale by Stephen King

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%

Ripper: The Secret Life of Walter Sickert by Patricia Cornwell

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

Your First Novel Revised and Expanded Edition: A Top Agent and a Published Author Show You How to Write Your Book and Get It Published by Anne Rittenberg and Laura Whitcomb

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%

Starvation Heights: A True Story of Murder and Malice in the Woods of the Pacific Northwest by Gregg Olsen

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%

Next Up:

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.

Time Travel Thursday February 9, 2023

/ E.A. Hoffmann / Leave a comment

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.

Books I was Reading on This Day in 2022:

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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.

What I’m Reading Now:

Your First Novel by Anne Rittenberg and Laura Whitcomb

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.

Ripper: The Secret Life of Walter Sickert by Patricia Cornwell

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.

Fairy Tale by Stephen King

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.

Starvation Heights by Gregg Olsen

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.

It Starts With Us by Colleen Hoover

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 vs. Now

 ThenNow
Fiction xx
Horror x
Sci-Fi  
Fantasy x
Mystery  
Thriller x
Historical Fiction  
Women’s Fiction  
Romance x
Contemporary x
Nonfictionxxxx
True Crime xx
History xx
Self-Helpxx
Humor  
Memoir  
Science  

Time Travel Thursday July 21, 2022

/ E.A. Hoffmann / Leave a comment

Time Travel Tuesday 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.

Books I was Reading on This Day in 2021:

Close to Shore by Michael Capuzzo:

Combining rich historical detail and a harrowing, pulse-pounding narrative, Close to Shore brilliantly re-creates the summer of 1916, when a rogue Great White shark attacked swimmers along the New Jersey shore, triggering mass hysteria and launching the most extensive shark hunt in history.

During the summer before the United States entered World War I, when ocean swimming was just becoming popular and luxurious Jersey Shore resorts were thriving as a chic playland for an opulent yet still innocent era’s new leisure class, Americans were abruptly introduced to the terror of sharks. In July 1916 a lone Great White left its usual deep-ocean habitat and headed in the direction of the New Jersey shoreline. There, near the towns of Beach Haven and Spring Lake-and, incredibly, a farming community eleven miles inland-the most ferocious and unpredictable of predators began a deadly rampage: the first shark attacks on swimmers in U.S. history.

For Americans celebrating an astoundingly prosperous epoch much like our own, fueled by the wizardry of revolutionary inventions, the arrival of this violent predator symbolized the limits of mankind’s power against nature.

Interweaving a vivid portrait of the era and meticulously drawn characters with chilling accounts of the shark’s five attacks and the frenzied hunt that ensued, Michael Capuzzo has created a nonfiction historical thriller with the texture of Ragtime and the tension of Jaws. From the unnerving inevitability of the first attack on the esteemed son of a prosperous Philadelphia physician to the spine-tingling moment when a farm boy swimming in Matawan Creek feels the sandpaper-like skin of the passing shark, Close to Shore is an undeniably gripping saga.

Heightening the drama are stories of the resulting panic in the citizenry, press and politicians, and of colorful personalities such as Herman Oelrichs, a flamboyant millionaire who made a bet that a shark was no match for a man (and set out to prove it); Museum of Natural History ichthyologist John Treadwell Nichols, faced with the challenge of stopping a mythic sea creature about which little was known; and, most memorable, the rogue Great White itself moving through a world that couldn’t conceive of either its destructive power or its moral right to destroy.

Scrupulously researched and superbly written, Close to Shore brings to life a breathtaking, pivotal moment in American history. Masterfully written and suffused with fascinating period detail and insights into the science and behavior of sharks, Close to Shore recounts a breathtaking, pivotal moment in American history with startling immediacy.

My Memory of this Book: A year ago I was sitting on a beach in Croatia on my babymoon. This book came with me every day to the beach. I read this book while gazing out into the crystal blue waters — probably not a great book to be reading at the beach, but I was pretty certain there were no sharks where I was swimming, and besides, the water was so crystal blue that I could see to the bottom. I wasn’t writing reviews at the time, so there are none available.

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab:

France, 1714: in a moment of desperation, a young woman makes a Faustian bargain to live forever and is cursed to be forgotten by everyone she meets.

Thus begins the extraordinary life of Addie LaRue, and a dazzling adventure that will play out across centuries and continents, across history and art, as a young woman learns how far she will go to leave her mark on the world.

But everything changes when, after nearly 300 years, Addie stumbles across a young man in a hidden bookstore and he remembers her name.

My Memory of this Book: I read this book as an audiobook. Although I wasn’t writing reviews at the time, I do remember enjoying this book and would highly recommend it.

Night Shift by Stephen King:

“You will encounter all manner of night creatures”, warns the author of this book. “None of them are real. The thing under my bed isn’t real. I know that, and I also know that if I’m careful to keep my foot under the covers, it will never be able to grab my ankle…”

Despite describing himself as ´the nicest sort of fellow you’d ever want to meet´, Stephen King is the author of three hugely successful horror novels, CARRIE, ´SALEM’S LOT and THE SHINING, all of which have been made into major films. In the foreword to NIGHT SHIFT he gives a fascinating insight into why he writes horror – and why people will always be enthralled by it. NIGHT SHIFT is your guide through the darker side of the human mind.

My Memory of this Book: I was reading this book as a edoc. I always enjoy Stephen King books, so I liked this one too.

BOOK REVIEW: Sleeping Beauties by Stephen King and Owen King

/ E.A. Hoffmann / Leave a comment

34466922Title: Sleeping Beauties

Author: Stephen King and Owen King

Book Length: 718 pages

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Genre: Fiction, Horror, Fantasy, Thriller

Read Start Date: February 25, 2019

Read Finish Date: November 17, 2019

Brief Summary of the Plot from Goodreads: In a future so real and near it might be now, something happens when women go to sleep; they become shrouded in a cocoon-like gauze. If they are awakened, and the gauze wrapping their bodies is disturbed or violated, the women become feral and spectacularly violent; and while they sleep they go to another place. The men of our world are abandoned, left to their increasingly primal devices. One woman, however, the mysterious Evie, is immune to the blessing or curse of the sleeping disease. Is Evie a medical anomaly to be studied, or is she a demon who must be slain?

My Review: Stephen King is probably one of my favorite authors out there. However, I’m finding that I’m not so happy with his new stuff. The book starts with a woman murdering a couple of meth cookers in a pretty violent way. It become rather apparent that this woman is totally off her rocker, but at the same time she seems to know stuff, private stuff, about people that she really has no business in knowing.

Soon after her arrival, women who fall asleep start growing cocoons around them like butterflies (or moths) and do not awaken — but it is only the women. The men are unaffected.

I originally started to read this book because I really like virus books in general and The Stand by Stephen King remains to be one of my all time favorites, so it seemed like a winning combination. As you can see above, it took me much longer than usual to get through this book, and I guess that the book wasn’t really keep my attention as much as other Stephen King books do.

It took me NINE MONTHS in all to finish it, I can truly say that the plot just progresses really, really slowly. In the book, only a few days actually goes by. 718 pages to describe events that takes place in less than a week. You do the math. I was really expecting something more from Stephen King.

I also was not so thrilled with the whole men are evil and women are perfect, because let’s face it that’s not true. And to be honest, has anyone ever worked in an office full of women? Was that such a utopian society? If your experience was anything like mine, you will give a resounding HELL NO!

I read a few reviews on this book and I liked the one from Katie Marie the best. I’ve included a link to her blog post.

On a scale of must read to don’t bother, this book falls somewhere in the middle. However, given the length, I would caution against starting it if you don’t have a lot of time to get through it.