The best thing about Black Sheep is that it is funny. Mordantly so, knowingly so, and that’s part of what makes it so great. It’s also genuinely suspenseful, but it’s the way that it makes you care about its cranky heroine that makes it interesting. Twenty-three year old Vesper Wright escaped her bizarre family years…
Kirsten White admits in her author’s notes that she wrote Mister Magic as a way to come to terms with her childhood lived within the Mormon church. White is not kind about religious bigotry (or sexism or racism) in the book, as well she shouldn’t be, but sometimes her attempt at painting them accurately results…
The second book in Gregory Ashe’s DuPage Parish series of paranormal-with-a-horror-vibe mysteries, Cascade Hunger catches up with Elien Martel (who has reverted to going by his real name of Eli Martins) and Dagobert LeBlanc around a year after the events of Stray Fears. In that book, Eli and Dag discovered the existence of a supernatural…
Within These Wicked Walls is a fascinating transposition of Jane Eyre to Ethiopia with good world-building and lovely prose. But a sour male lead took this one down a notch or two for me. Andromeda, called Andi, is a debtera – which, in the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, is an itinerant figure who performs white…
Certain Dark Things is a re-released 2016 novel by best-selling author Silvia Moreno-Garcia. Part noir and part horror story, this vampire tale takes place in an alternate reality Mexico City where two lonely souls try to survive the dangerous streets of a town riddled with trouble. Domingo doesn’t mean to start a conversation with the…
Stray Fears is another compelling story from the pen of Gregory Ashe that once again showcases his talent for creating strong, clever plots and engaging but flawed characters who exhibit considerable growth as individuals throughout the course of the story. As in most of his output, we’ve got an intriguing mystery and a central romance,…
Baby Teeth is a cross between a thriller and a horror novel. I’m not normally a horror fan, but the synopsis for this caught my eye, and I decided to take a chance on the book. Unfortunately, the story leaned a bit too heavily toward the horror side of things, and I found myself pretty…
Stories about reincarnation have both fascinated and terrified me ever since I read The Mirror by Marlys Millhiser in high school. Therefore, it was with equal parts trepidation and excitement that I picked up Cat Winter’s Yesternight, a book about a child psychologist investigating claims of reincarnation in post-WWI Oregon. The story is an effective…
This was my most anticipated book of 2015 and I am so pleased to say that it lived up to my excitement. Ee created a wonderful and terrifying angel apocalypse and then used it to show how humanity – both the good and bad of it- continue on after a catastrophe. Since neither of the…
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