Bookworm's bookshelf: all en-US Wed, 14 May 2025 03:01:05 -0700 60 Bookworm's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg How to Survive a Horror Story 219743467 Seven authors enter the manor

Can they survive the story within?

When legendary horror author Mortimer Queen passes, a group of writers find themselves invited to his last will and testament reading expecting a piece of his massive fortune. Each have their own unique connection to the literary icon, some known, some soon to be discovered, and they've been waiting for their chance to step into the author's shoes for some time.

Instead, they arrive at his grand manor and are invited to play a game. The rules are simple, solve the riddle and progress to the next room. If they don't, the manor will take one of them for itself.

You see, the Queen estate was built on the bones of Mortimer's family, and like any true horror story, the house is still very, very hungry.

With the clever, locked-room thrills of Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone with the ghostly horror of The Fall of the House of Usher, How to Survive a Horror Story is a bright, biting, thrill-ride that begs us to contemplate how the best horror stories come to be.]]> 368 Mallory Arnold 1464227411 Bookworm 3 B-

Digital ARC provided by NetGalley. I requested this months ago and then they got back to me. God knows why.

Have you ever wanted 80s horror to return, felt like the Mystery Gang should make a comback, or that Escape Room (2019) was tapping into something great? If so, then the book to read to relive those emotions is How to Survive a Horror Story by Mallory Arnold.

Seven people are invited to the mysterious Mortimer Queen's mansion after his death for the reading of his will. Each one came in contact with him in life, but not in the best way, which is why the visitors remain confused and on-edge the entire time. Each is a horror author in their own right and together with their wits and drive to live, they must solve riddles to escape the manor.

"OMG, are these real? Winnie, this is so castle-core in here. You should see."


What I enjoyed about this book was that it was a return to the pulpy horror of old. Despite the lack of flourish and detail, the characters being quite flat, stereotypical and comical, it reminded me somewhat of Walkers by Graham Masterton. It was a quick read, and really easy to follow. I think as far as novels go...it was quite unique, but that's where my enjoyment ends.

I felt myself just following this book along, not really attached to anyone, not excited for anything and not anticipating any big twists. As soon as the book starts, you can practically tell who is going to survive. The group of characters are so one-dimensional - I just have this intense feeling of the villains from Scooby Doo or the kind of hijinx you'd see in Looney Toons. The dialogue is so stilted, it feels like two people reading lines at each other and never once did I feel like anyone had any agency. Not to mention the riddles and puzzles...there's basically nothing there, there's no mystery or intrigue.

I felt the meme-y dialogue was awful and will date the book incredibly hard.

"I'm Gen Z. It's what we do. A freaking newborn baby could get fifth thousand subscribers in a day. Half my friends have reached a million, and they don't even care. None of us do."


The book also has inconsistent italicising (recorded dialogue is italicised once and then not, the reading of the will is sometimes italicised and then not) and the wrong word used (tussle?? instead of tousel?) - please fix this for the final copy. This one was not a hit with me and as such a prolific horror reader, it's much more campy than scary or gory. I thought that some of the traps were interesting and the house itself was a different villain than other monsters I had come across...

I wish the author success and hope they find their niche; if people like Grady Hendrix can drop weird comedic horror, why not other people?]]> 3.55 2025 How to Survive a Horror Story
author: Mallory Arnold
name: Bookworm
average rating: 3.55
book published: 2025
rating: 3
read at: 2025/05/14
date added: 2025/05/14
shelves: 2025-reads, e-book, review-copy
review:
Rating: B-

Digital ARC provided by NetGalley. I requested this months ago and then they got back to me. God knows why.

Have you ever wanted 80s horror to return, felt like the Mystery Gang should make a comback, or that Escape Room (2019) was tapping into something great? If so, then the book to read to relive those emotions is How to Survive a Horror Story by Mallory Arnold.

Seven people are invited to the mysterious Mortimer Queen's mansion after his death for the reading of his will. Each one came in contact with him in life, but not in the best way, which is why the visitors remain confused and on-edge the entire time. Each is a horror author in their own right and together with their wits and drive to live, they must solve riddles to escape the manor.

"OMG, are these real? Winnie, this is so castle-core in here. You should see."


What I enjoyed about this book was that it was a return to the pulpy horror of old. Despite the lack of flourish and detail, the characters being quite flat, stereotypical and comical, it reminded me somewhat of Walkers by Graham Masterton. It was a quick read, and really easy to follow. I think as far as novels go...it was quite unique, but that's where my enjoyment ends.

I felt myself just following this book along, not really attached to anyone, not excited for anything and not anticipating any big twists. As soon as the book starts, you can practically tell who is going to survive. The group of characters are so one-dimensional - I just have this intense feeling of the villains from Scooby Doo or the kind of hijinx you'd see in Looney Toons. The dialogue is so stilted, it feels like two people reading lines at each other and never once did I feel like anyone had any agency. Not to mention the riddles and puzzles...there's basically nothing there, there's no mystery or intrigue.

I felt the meme-y dialogue was awful and will date the book incredibly hard.

"I'm Gen Z. It's what we do. A freaking newborn baby could get fifth thousand subscribers in a day. Half my friends have reached a million, and they don't even care. None of us do."


The book also has inconsistent italicising (recorded dialogue is italicised once and then not, the reading of the will is sometimes italicised and then not) and the wrong word used (tussle?? instead of tousel?) - please fix this for the final copy. This one was not a hit with me and as such a prolific horror reader, it's much more campy than scary or gory. I thought that some of the traps were interesting and the house itself was a different villain than other monsters I had come across...

I wish the author success and hope they find their niche; if people like Grady Hendrix can drop weird comedic horror, why not other people?
]]> Still Born 95696897
When complications arise in Alina’s pregnancy and Laura becomes attached to her neighbour’s son, both women are forced to reckon with the complexity of their emotions, in Nettel’s sensitive and surgically precise exploration of maternal ambivalence.

Still Born was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize 2023, announced on April 18, 2023.

In prose that is as gripping as it is insightful, Guadalupe Nettel explores maternal ambivalence with a surgeon's touch, carefully dissecting the contradictions that make up the lived experiences of women.]]> 224 Guadalupe Nettel 1639730044 Bookworm 0 to-read 4.09 2020 Still Born
author: Guadalupe Nettel
name: Bookworm
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Dealing with Dragons (Enchanted Forest Chronicles, #1)]]> 8438711 Princess by Birth. Adventurer by Choice.

Meet Princess Cimorene —a princess who refuses to be proper. She is everything a princess is not supposed to be: headstrong, tomboyish, smart....

And bored.

So bored that she runs away to live with a dragon. And not just any dragon, but Kazul—one of the most powerful and dangerous dragons around. Of course, Cimorene has a way of hooking up with dangerous characters, and soon she's coping with a witch, a jinn, a death-dealing talking bird, a stone prince, and some very oily wizards.

If this princess ran away to find some excitement, it looks like she's found plenty!
From the back cover of ISBN 015204566X / 9780152045661

Length 04:57:47]]> 5 Patricia C. Wrede 0739330667 Bookworm 4 2025-reads, audio, library A

Please listen to the audio production, it is multi-cast.]]> 4.01 1990 Dealing with Dragons (Enchanted Forest Chronicles, #1)
author: Patricia C. Wrede
name: Bookworm
average rating: 4.01
book published: 1990
rating: 4
read at: 2025/05/13
date added: 2025/05/12
shelves: 2025-reads, audio, library
review:
Rating: A

Please listen to the audio production, it is multi-cast.
]]> <![CDATA[Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass]]> 43554866 The highly anticipated spoken word poetry collection from Lana Del Rey, Violet Bent Backwards over the Grass

�'Violet Bent Backwards over the Grass' is the title poem of the book and the first poem I wrote of many. Some of which came to me in their entirety, which I dictated and then typed out, and some that I worked laboriously picking apart each word to make the perfect poem. They are eclectic and honest and not trying to be anything other than what they are and for that reason I’m proud of them, especially because the spirit in which they were written was very authentic.� (Lana Del Rey)

Lana Del Rey brings her breathtaking poetry to life in an unprecedented audiobook. In this stunning spoken word performance, Lana Del Rey reads 14 poems from her debut book Violet Bent Backwards over the Grass accompanied by music from Grammy Award-winning musician Jack Antonoff. Lana’s debut book solidifies her further as “the essential writer of her times� (The Atlantic). This audiobook features Lana reading select poems from the book, including "LA Who Am I to Love You?", "The Land of 1,000 Fires", "Past the Bushes Cypress Thriving", "Never to Heaven", "Tessa DiPietro", "Happy", and several others. The result is an extraordinary poetic landscape that reflects the unguarded spirit of its creator.]]> 1 Lana Del Rey Bookworm 2 2025-reads, library 4.04 2020 Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass
author: Lana Del Rey
name: Bookworm
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2020
rating: 2
read at: 2025/05/13
date added: 2025/05/12
shelves: 2025-reads, library
review:

]]> The Animals in That Country 58300662 Out on the road, no one speaks, everything talks.

Hard-drinking, foul-mouthed, and allergic to bullshit, Jean is not your usual grandma. She’s never been good at getting on with other humans, apart from her beloved granddaughter, Kimberly. Instead, she surrounds herself with animals, working as a guide in an outback wildlife park. And although Jean talks to all her charges, she has a particular soft spot for a young dingo called Sue.

As disturbing news arrives of a pandemic sweeping the country, Jean realises this is no ordinary flu: its chief symptom is that its victims begin to understand the language of animals � first mammals, then birds and insects, too. As the flu progresses, the unstoppable voices become overwhelming, and many people begin to lose their minds, including Jean’s infected son, Lee. When he takes off with Kimberly, heading south, Jean feels the pull to follow her kin.

Setting off on their trail, with Sue the dingo riding shotgun, they find themselves in a stark, strange world in which the animal apocalypse has only further isolated people from other species. Bold, exhilarating, and wholly original, The Animals in That Country asks what would happen if - for better or worse - we finally understood what animals were saying.]]> 9 Laura Jean McKay 100400043X Bookworm 0 3.06 2020 The Animals in That Country
author: Laura Jean McKay
name: Bookworm
average rating: 3.06
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/12
shelves: currently-reading, 2025-reads, audio, library
review:

]]> Helpmeet 60050233 69 Naben Ruthnum Bookworm 4 2025-reads, library, e-book B+

Enjoyed this one. It was creepy and unsettling. I've grown fond of rituals in books and unsettling imagery.

When he'd still had eyelids, the cotton hadn't been necessary. They would have tried dark glasses, but without a nose to balance them on, and with the skin of his ears as dry as an over-roasted chicken's, there was nowhere to balance a pair.


Louise is a home nurse to her husband, Dr. Wilk, a man who often committed adultery in their marriage. From one of his trysts, he has developed some flesh-eating condition and none can determine its cause. People claim it's a venereal disease but even doctors who are experts in those say it is not. As Dr Wilk's body breaks down, Louise comes to know more about her husband as they transfer him to their peaceful home in an isolated area.

"Someone is coming. She was going to return to us in the city, but I begged her not to. She did come, once, after midnight when I lay awake and alone, with you sleeping upstairs. She knelt at my side, took my hand. She put her arm within me. I know she only agreed to wait because what was happening in there wasn't finished. But it will be finished soon. She is coming here and we must be ready to meet her."


I loved the imagery and weirdness of this book. It kind of reminded me of the Upside Down in Stranger Things and what can be found there. It was strange and so sombre. The historical setting really added to it. Just this weekend, I finished The Excavation of Hob's Barrow and in that game there's one scene where a character begs another to slice his arm open and bleed him so he can heal from his ailment. I was reminded of this in the type of medicine they turn to in this book; somewhat more informed but the image of Dr Wilk cutting off his own nose in front of the mirror sits with me.

It doesn't seem fair that you have been inside my body but I haven't been inside yours.


This book doesn't overstay its welcome and perfectly unravels the mystery of the tale. Read it.]]> 3.48 2022 Helpmeet
author: Naben Ruthnum
name: Bookworm
average rating: 3.48
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2025/05/12
date added: 2025/05/12
shelves: 2025-reads, library, e-book
review:
Rating: B+

Enjoyed this one. It was creepy and unsettling. I've grown fond of rituals in books and unsettling imagery.

When he'd still had eyelids, the cotton hadn't been necessary. They would have tried dark glasses, but without a nose to balance them on, and with the skin of his ears as dry as an over-roasted chicken's, there was nowhere to balance a pair.


Louise is a home nurse to her husband, Dr. Wilk, a man who often committed adultery in their marriage. From one of his trysts, he has developed some flesh-eating condition and none can determine its cause. People claim it's a venereal disease but even doctors who are experts in those say it is not. As Dr Wilk's body breaks down, Louise comes to know more about her husband as they transfer him to their peaceful home in an isolated area.

"Someone is coming. She was going to return to us in the city, but I begged her not to. She did come, once, after midnight when I lay awake and alone, with you sleeping upstairs. She knelt at my side, took my hand. She put her arm within me. I know she only agreed to wait because what was happening in there wasn't finished. But it will be finished soon. She is coming here and we must be ready to meet her."


I loved the imagery and weirdness of this book. It kind of reminded me of the Upside Down in Stranger Things and what can be found there. It was strange and so sombre. The historical setting really added to it. Just this weekend, I finished The Excavation of Hob's Barrow and in that game there's one scene where a character begs another to slice his arm open and bleed him so he can heal from his ailment. I was reminded of this in the type of medicine they turn to in this book; somewhat more informed but the image of Dr Wilk cutting off his own nose in front of the mirror sits with me.

It doesn't seem fair that you have been inside my body but I haven't been inside yours.


This book doesn't overstay its welcome and perfectly unravels the mystery of the tale. Read it.
]]> <![CDATA[Daddy Issues: A Novel (Dial Delights)]]> 227912786 Sometimes love shows up where you least expect it—right next door.

A jaded twenty-something is stuck living at home, her life on pause, when a single dad becomes her new neighbor, and unexpectedly sets her life—and her heart—into motion in this modern love story from the bestselling author of You, Again.

At 26, Sam Pulaski expected to be thriving in her academic career, living on her own in some exciting city. Expectations, meet reality. She has massive student loans from studying art history, a dead-end service industry job, a situationship that’s equal parts intoxicating and toxic. And she’s been crashing in her mom’s condo—at least it’s not a basement?—for the last five years. If she can finally get accepted into a PhD program and get out of Ohio, the adult life that’s been on hold for half her twenties will finally begin.

Her mom’s new neighbor, Nick, is the ultimate grownup. His adult life began the moment his nine-year-old daughter, Kira, was born. Her happiness is Nick’s only priority, especially in the wake of divorce. There’s nothing he won’t do for Kira–including giving up his globetrotting career for something more stable…like managing a chain restaurant.

Sam has zero interest in an ultra-dependable guy pushing forty; frankly, she’s a little afraid of kids. But with just one thin wall separating the two condos, Nick proves difficult to avoid. His quiet confidence forces Sam to grapple with the other men in her her emotionally derelict friend-with-benefits and her actually-derelict father. As her unexpected connection with Nick heats up (and steams up his minivan windows), Sam finds herself falling fast for a man whose life is steady and settled–while hers is anything but.]]> 352 Kate Goldbeck 059373081X Bookworm 0 to-read 3.88 2025 Daddy Issues: A Novel (Dial Delights)
author: Kate Goldbeck
name: Bookworm
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> You, Again 116352446
'An enemies-to-lovers, New York-set romcom inspired by When Harry Met Sally ? Yes, please! There are not enough superlatives for how much I adored You, Again ' Sarra Manning, Red Magazine, Top 10 Books of September 2023

'This is a romance sung in perfect pitch! A spectacular debut!' Christina Lauren , The Unhoneymooners

'Every character is as sexy as they are gloriously messy... a masterclass in banter' Rosie Danan, The Roommate

----

Ari , a free-spirited struggling comedian, likes to keep things casual, and never sleeps over after hooking up. Josh , born-and-bred Manhattanite, has ambitious plans to take the culinary world by storm, to find The One and live happily-ever-after.

After a confrontational first meeting (at the apartment of the woman they are both sleeping with), Ari and Josh never expect their paths to cross again, but years later, as they're both reeling from ego-bruising breakups, a chance encounter leads to a surprising friendship. Turns out, spending time with your former nemesis can be fun when you're both too sad and miserable to hate each other.

And as odd as it seems, they become friends-without-benefits, finding comfort in late night Netflix binges, swiping through each other's online dating profiles, and bickering endlessly on their phones across boroughs. It's better than romance. Until one night, the unspoken boundaries of their platonic relationship begin to blur...

With sharp observations and sizzling chemistry, YOU, AGAIN explores the dynamics of co-ed friendship in this sparkling romantic comedy of modern love in all its forms.]]> 448 Kate Goldbeck 1529915465 Bookworm 4 2025-reads, e-book B+

I did enjoy this one quite a bit, but having marathoned it I do see the weaknesses in the story.

Neurotic and orderly Josh, a chef and heir to the Brodsky fortune lol, meets Arianne (Ari), comedian and detached bisexual, one day while visiting his "girlfriend's" apartment. The two are immediately enemies. You'd think in a city as big as New York, one wouldn't keep running into this person, but they do. In a One Day style montage, the two run into each other every few years until a friendship develops...a friendship that may lead to more?

I didn't know this was based on a fanfiction but it is a ReyLo fic on top of a When Harry Met Sally fic with Ben Solo being Sally and Rey being Harry - well I haven't seen that film so at least that couldn't ruin the story for me.

I really enjoyed most of the romantic development and I liked the depiction of Ari as this chaotic whirlwind who is just really out of touch with her own emotions and scared of commitment - I mean even before she got married to her ex-wife she was like that - but what I think the story really needed was more put into the life of Ari and why she is that way and her family history; we get constant discussions of Josh who is rich, put-together and handsome/fit. His mother is a real estate agent, his sister is an influencer and his dad owned a famous sandwich store. He is so well to do that after his dream collapses, he can still be jobless for more than a year. We don't hear about Ari's parents or family just one throwaway line about how they didn't really care about her. Heck, even Josh gets dreams about his dad berating him and chats with his mum about his father's attitude.

The controversial third act was very frustrating and I didn't really understand the need for it - you'd think after 9 years someone would've grown even just a little bit. However, the story did end well and I think particularly the depiction of bisexual women was done respectfully. I really liked that (major romance spoiler) [spoilers removed] Her total dysfunctionality when it comes to emotions (bottling everything up) and big sobbing/cry seshes (bubbling over), were some really great reading experiences - I think the author wrote sobbing/crying/while trying to talk quite realistically.

He touches her face and she can see his eyes moving across everything--like he's taking it all in again from this closer angle. There's a little burst of tenderness warming her chest, smoothing over sharp, painful edges. There aren't many more layers to strip away. Just the slightest push and she'll bruise.


As an aside I don't mind when the stories have dialogue during "the scenes" because the silence/lack of quotes sometimes feels a bit weird. It's all "description" instead of feeling. It read like a real story and I liked how the two characters spoke to each other.

It was fun, mature and well-written and I enjoyed reading about two adults. ]]> 3.70 2023 You, Again
author: Kate Goldbeck
name: Bookworm
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2025/05/08
date added: 2025/05/08
shelves: 2025-reads, e-book
review:
Rating: B+

I did enjoy this one quite a bit, but having marathoned it I do see the weaknesses in the story.

Neurotic and orderly Josh, a chef and heir to the Brodsky fortune lol, meets Arianne (Ari), comedian and detached bisexual, one day while visiting his "girlfriend's" apartment. The two are immediately enemies. You'd think in a city as big as New York, one wouldn't keep running into this person, but they do. In a One Day style montage, the two run into each other every few years until a friendship develops...a friendship that may lead to more?

I didn't know this was based on a fanfiction but it is a ReyLo fic on top of a When Harry Met Sally fic with Ben Solo being Sally and Rey being Harry - well I haven't seen that film so at least that couldn't ruin the story for me.

I really enjoyed most of the romantic development and I liked the depiction of Ari as this chaotic whirlwind who is just really out of touch with her own emotions and scared of commitment - I mean even before she got married to her ex-wife she was like that - but what I think the story really needed was more put into the life of Ari and why she is that way and her family history; we get constant discussions of Josh who is rich, put-together and handsome/fit. His mother is a real estate agent, his sister is an influencer and his dad owned a famous sandwich store. He is so well to do that after his dream collapses, he can still be jobless for more than a year. We don't hear about Ari's parents or family just one throwaway line about how they didn't really care about her. Heck, even Josh gets dreams about his dad berating him and chats with his mum about his father's attitude.

The controversial third act was very frustrating and I didn't really understand the need for it - you'd think after 9 years someone would've grown even just a little bit. However, the story did end well and I think particularly the depiction of bisexual women was done respectfully. I really liked that (major romance spoiler) [spoilers removed] Her total dysfunctionality when it comes to emotions (bottling everything up) and big sobbing/cry seshes (bubbling over), were some really great reading experiences - I think the author wrote sobbing/crying/while trying to talk quite realistically.

He touches her face and she can see his eyes moving across everything--like he's taking it all in again from this closer angle. There's a little burst of tenderness warming her chest, smoothing over sharp, painful edges. There aren't many more layers to strip away. Just the slightest push and she'll bruise.


As an aside I don't mind when the stories have dialogue during "the scenes" because the silence/lack of quotes sometimes feels a bit weird. It's all "description" instead of feeling. It read like a real story and I liked how the two characters spoke to each other.

It was fun, mature and well-written and I enjoyed reading about two adults.
]]> Phantom Limb 206990107 Phantom Limb is the Scottish novel I have been waiting on for so long' Alan Warner

One evening, Gillis - a young Scottish minister who technically doesn't believe in god - falls into a hole left by a recently dug up elm tree and discovers an ancient disembodied hand in the soil. He's about to rebury it when the hand... beckons to him. He spirits it back to his manse and gives it pen and paper, whereupon it begins to doodle scratchy and anarchic visions. Somewhere, in the hand's deep history, there lies a story of the Scottish reformation, of art and violence, and of its owner long since dead. But for Gillis, there lies only to reinvent himself as a prophet, proclaim the hand a miracle and use it for reasons both sacred and profane... to impress his ex-girlfriend, and to lead himself and his country out of inertia and into a dynamic, glorious future.]]> 379 Chris Kohler Bookworm 0 to-read 3.55 Phantom Limb
author: Chris Kohler
name: Bookworm
average rating: 3.55
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Birthday (Ring, #4) 25794
Birthday is Ring -master Koji Suzuki’s return to the Ring universe, a collection of short stories focusing on the female characters with a theme of birth. An exploration of extraordinary circumstances from the perspective of memorable women, this expansion of the Ring , Spiral , and Loop world was adapted into a hit movie less than a year after the book’s publication.

Thirty years before the tragic events of Ring , Sadako Yamamura was an aspiring stage actress on the verge of her theatrical debut. The beautiful and ravishing Sadako was the object of every male’s desire involved with the company including n the director. There was one thespian she was interested in, but�

Fast forward past the events of Ring , Ryuji Takayama’s distraught lover, Mai Takano is struggling in the wake of the professor’s mysterious demise. Mai visits Ryuji’s parents� house to find the missing pages of his soon-to-be published article. There she is drawn to a curious videotape and a fate more terrifying than Ryuji or Kazuyuki Asakawa’s.

Reiko Sugiura questioned the purpose of bringing a child into a world where there was only death. She already lost one son, and the father of her unborn child, Kaoru Futami, had disappeared in search of a cure to the deadly disease that threatened all life. Despite Kaoru’s to meet again in two months, he has not returned. Despondent but driven for answers Reiko is led to the Loop project, where she will discover the final truths of the Ring virus.]]> 224 Kōji Suzuki 1932234292 Bookworm 0 to-read 3.67 1999 Birthday (Ring, #4)
author: Kōji Suzuki
name: Bookworm
average rating: 3.67
book published: 1999
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Staircase in the Woods 216971219 A group of friends investigates the mystery of a strange staircase in the woods in this mesmerizing horror novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Book of Accidents.

Five high school friends are bonded by an oath to protect one another no matter what.

Then, on a camping trip in the middle of the forest, they find something a mysterious staircase to nowhere.

One friend walks up—and never comes back down. Then the staircase disappears.

Twenty years later, the staircase has reappeared. Now the group returns to find the lost boy—and what lies beyond the staircase in the woods. . . .]]> 388 Chuck Wendig 0593156560 Bookworm 0 to-read 3.75 2025 The Staircase in the Woods
author: Chuck Wendig
name: Bookworm
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> When We Walked in Memory 199341959
Frauke is determined to help Kaourintin remain safe and free while he does the same for her. For both of their sakes, she must unravel their king’s mysterious schemes by delving into the vast, strange realm of memory. The realm is full of forgotten knowledge, lost wonders and solitary ghosts, each with their own story of loss, and Frauke will contend with them all in her search for the truth. As their fledgling friendship blossoms into something more, Frauke and Kaourintin will have to learn to stand together and confront the cruelty they have endured, the enemies who still pursue them, and the ancient dangers they have unearthed.�

When We Walked in Memory explores an ethereal magical realm’s deepest mysteries, spins a delicate, vulnerable romance full of slow-building trust, and remains grounded in its dedication to depicting the extraordinary emergence of survivorhood, solidarity, and healing.]]> 374 Charlotte Kersten Bookworm 0 4.03 2023 When We Walked in Memory
author: Charlotte Kersten
name: Bookworm
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/05
shelves: currently-reading, 2025-reads, e-book
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West]]> 28193549
(From the list.)]]> 364 Cormac McCarthy 1447289455 Bookworm 3 4.03 1985 Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West
author: Cormac McCarthy
name: Bookworm
average rating: 4.03
book published: 1985
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/25
date added: 2025/05/05
shelves: library, 2019-reads, audio, 2025-reads
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Scythe & Sparrow (The Ruinous Love Trilogy, #3)]]> 215098003 God, I want to kiss her. I want to feel the heat of her lips against mine. Would she want that? Would she melt against me if she did? Or would the tension I feel between us snap and release something feral inside her? Inside me?

From the #1 New York TimesԻUSA TODAY bestselling author of the genre-breaking international TikTok sensation Butcher & Blackbird and Leather & Lark comes the final book in the Ruinous Love Trilogy—a friends-with-benefits dark romantic comedy packed with murder, mayhem, and spice.

Doctor Fionn Kane is running from a broken heart, one he hopes to mend in small-town Nebraska, far away from his almost-fiancé and his derailed surgical career. It’s a simpler head down, hard work, and absolutely no romantic relationships. He wants none of the circus he left behind in Boston.

But then the 𲹱circus finds him.

Motorcycle performer Rose Evans has spent a decade on the road with the Silveria Circus, and it suits her just fine, especially when she has the urge to indulge in a little murder when she’s not in the spotlight. But when a kill goes awry and she ends up with an injured leg, Rose finds herself stuck in Nebraska, at the home of the adorably nerdy town doctor.

The problem is, not every broken heart can be sewn back together.

. . . And the longer you stay in one place, the more likely your ghosts are to catch up.


Friends with benefits
Small town romance
Fish out of water
Forced proximity
Hurt/care
Touch her and die]]> 416 Brynne Weaver Bookworm 2 2025-reads, e-book C

Hi, it's me. I've come...to write the review. It won't be long. Sorry.

So much of this story I spent wondering how the characters voices sounded any different than the protagonists in the other two books; Mayhem and Dr McSpicy...we return with nicknames, awful dialogue and discussions about one's inner darkness and how it's okay to surrender to it; a part of me had hoped they'd be different and whilst they are the 'lightest' of the trio, it was also just much of the same.

Regret twists like a hot pin lodged deep in a cavern of my heart, a feeling I learned to shut away a long time ago so I can do my job. But somehow, when her eyes fuse to mine, that long-forgotten piece of me comes alive in the dark.


Awful. Just so heavy handed. The author was loving on herself writing like this.

What I didn't realise was that each story had been happening concurrently. So whilst you have Sloane and Rowan falling in love...you have Lark and Lachlan falling in love and Rose and Fionn falling in love...so great swathes of this story are taken over by the stuff we've seen in the previous book...and the previous book. Rolling my eyes wondering why we're spending our time developing a POV of an event that happened in another book...when this could have been completely removed and at another time...

They exchange whispers, things only the two of them are meant to hear, but words I catch anyway. Words about regret and choices. About time and promises. About how some vows are never meant to be made, because they are not in our hands to keep.


Gagging.

There was one scene that had me cackling where [spoilers removed] Ah...anyway.

Please spare yourself.]]> 4.19 2025 Scythe & Sparrow (The Ruinous Love Trilogy, #3)
author: Brynne Weaver
name: Bookworm
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2025
rating: 2
read at: 2025/05/05
date added: 2025/05/05
shelves: 2025-reads, e-book
review:
Rating: C

Hi, it's me. I've come...to write the review. It won't be long. Sorry.

So much of this story I spent wondering how the characters voices sounded any different than the protagonists in the other two books; Mayhem and Dr McSpicy...we return with nicknames, awful dialogue and discussions about one's inner darkness and how it's okay to surrender to it; a part of me had hoped they'd be different and whilst they are the 'lightest' of the trio, it was also just much of the same.

Regret twists like a hot pin lodged deep in a cavern of my heart, a feeling I learned to shut away a long time ago so I can do my job. But somehow, when her eyes fuse to mine, that long-forgotten piece of me comes alive in the dark.


Awful. Just so heavy handed. The author was loving on herself writing like this.

What I didn't realise was that each story had been happening concurrently. So whilst you have Sloane and Rowan falling in love...you have Lark and Lachlan falling in love and Rose and Fionn falling in love...so great swathes of this story are taken over by the stuff we've seen in the previous book...and the previous book. Rolling my eyes wondering why we're spending our time developing a POV of an event that happened in another book...when this could have been completely removed and at another time...

They exchange whispers, things only the two of them are meant to hear, but words I catch anyway. Words about regret and choices. About time and promises. About how some vows are never meant to be made, because they are not in our hands to keep.


Gagging.

There was one scene that had me cackling where [spoilers removed] Ah...anyway.

Please spare yourself.
]]> <![CDATA[The Wisteria Society of Lady Scoundrels (Dangerous Damsels, #1)]]> 55502861
Cecilia Bassingwaite is the ideal Victorian lady. She's also a thief. Like the other members of the Wisteria Society crime sorority, she flies around England drinking tea, blackmailing friends, and acquiring treasure by interesting means. Sure, she has a dark and traumatic past and an overbearing aunt, but all things considered, it's a pleasant existence. Until the men show up.

Ned Lightbourne is a sometimes assassin who is smitten with Cecilia from the moment they meet. Unfortunately, that happens to be while he's under direct orders to kill her. His employer, Captain Morvath, who possesses a gothic abbey bristling with cannons and an unbridled hate for the world, intends to rid England of all its presumptuous women, starting with the Wisteria Society. Ned has plans of his own. But both men have made one grave mistake. Never underestimate a woman.

When Morvath imperils the Wisteria Society, Cecilia is forced to team up with her handsome would-be assassin to save the women who raised her--hopefully proving, once and for all, that she's as much of a scoundrel as the rest of them.]]> 336 India Holton 0593200160 Bookworm 0 to-read 3.64 2021 The Wisteria Society of Lady Scoundrels (Dangerous Damsels, #1)
author: India Holton
name: Bookworm
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/04
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Witch's Guide to Fake Dating a Demon (Glimmer Falls, #1)]]> 59441717 Mariel Spark knows not to trust a demon, especially one that wants her soul, but what’s a witch to do when he won’t leave her side—and she kind of doesn’t want him to?

Mariel Spark is prophesied to be the most powerful witch seen in centuries of the famed Spark family, but to the displeasure of her mother, she prefers baking to brewing potions and gardening to casting hexes. When a spell to summon flour goes very wrong, Mariel finds herself staring down a demon—one she inadvertently summoned for a soul bargain.

Ozroth the Ruthless is a legend among demons. Powerful and merciless, he drives hard bargains to collect mortal souls. But his reputation has suffered ever since a bargain went awry—if he can strike a bargain with Mariel, he will earn back his deadly reputation. Ozroth can’t leave Mariel’s side until they complete a bargain, which she refuses to do (turns out some humans are attached to their souls).

But the witch is funny. And curvy. And disgustingly yet endearingly cheerful. Becoming awkward roommates quickly escalates when Mariel, terrified to confess the inadvertent summoning to her mother, blurts out that she’s dating Ozroth. As Ozroth and Mariel struggle with their opposing goals and maintaining a fake relationship, real attraction blooms between them. But Ozroth has a limited amount of time to strike the deal, and if Mariel gives up her soul, she’ll lose all her emotions—including love—which will only spell disaster for them both.]]> 367 Sarah Hawley 0593547926 Bookworm 0 to-read 3.64 2023 A Witch's Guide to Fake Dating a Demon (Glimmer Falls, #1)
author: Sarah Hawley
name: Bookworm
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/04
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Wizard's First Rule (Sword of Truth, #1)]]> 43889
His world, his very beliefs, are shattered when ancient debts come due with thundering violence. In a dark age it takes courage to live, and more than mere courage to challenge those who hold dominion, Richard and Kahlan must take up that challenge or become the next victims. Beyond awaits a bewitching land where even the best of their hearts could betray them. Yet, Richard fears nothing so much as what secrets his sword might reveal about his own soul. Falling in love would destroy them—for reasons Richard can't imagine and Kahlan dare not say.

In their darkest hour, hunted relentlessly, tormented by treachery and loss, Kahlan calls upon Richard to reach beyond his sword—to invoke within himself something more noble. Neither knows that the rules of battle have just changed . . . or that their time has run out.

This is the beginning. One book. One Rule. Witness the birth of a legend.]]> 836 Terry Goodkind 0765346524 Bookworm 0 to-read 4.12 1994 Wizard's First Rule (Sword of Truth, #1)
author: Terry Goodkind
name: Bookworm
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1994
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/04
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Jawbone 44074748
When Fernanda, Annelise, and their friends from the Delta Bilingual Academy convene after school, Annelise leads them in thrilling but increasingly dangerous rituals to a rhinestoned, Dior-scented, drag-queen god of her own invention. Even more perilous is the secret Annelise and Fernanda share, rooted in a dare in which violence meets love. Meanwhile, their literature teacher Miss Clara, who is obsessed with imitating her dead mother, struggles to preserve her deteriorating sanity. Each day she edges nearer to a total break with reality.

Interweaving pop culture references and horror concepts drawn from from Herman Melville, H.P. Lovecraft, and anonymous 'creepypastas', Jawbone is an ominous, multivocal novel that explores the terror inherent in the pure potentiality of adolescence and the fine line between desire and fear.]]> 264 Mónica Ojeda 1566896215 Bookworm 0 to-read 3.56 2018 Jawbone
author: Mónica Ojeda
name: Bookworm
average rating: 3.56
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Rabbit Skin Glue 58872294 94 Elizabeth Bedlam Bookworm 0 to-read 3.98 2021 Rabbit Skin Glue
author: Elizabeth Bedlam
name: Bookworm
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Shy Girl 224070664
For fans of Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder and Lisa Taddeo's Animal, Shy Girl is a harrowing tale of girlhood, survival, autonomy, and revenge.]]> 247 Mia Ballard Bookworm 0 to-read 3.96 2025 Shy Girl
author: Mia Ballard
name: Bookworm
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[My Vampire Plus-One (My Vampires, #2)]]> 204640539
Amelia Collins is by definition successful. She would even go so far as to say successfully single. But not according to her family, and she’s tired of the constant questions about her nonexistent dating life. When an invitation to yet another family wedding arrives, she decides to get everyone off her back once and for all by finding someone–anyone–to pose as her date.

After a chance encounter with Reginald Cleaves, Amelia decides he’s perfect for her purposes. He’s a bit strange, but that’s fine; it’ll discourage tough questions from her family. (And it certainly doesn’t hurt that he’s very handsome.) For centuries-old vampire Reggie, posing as her plus-one sounds like the ultimate fun. And if it helps his ruse of pretending to be human, so much the better.

As Amelia and Reggie practice their fauxmance, it becomes clear that Reggie is as loyal to her as the day is long, and that Amelia’s first impressions could not have been more wrong. Suddenly, being in a real relationship with Reggie sounds pretty fang-tastic.]]> 372 Jenna Levine 0593548930 Bookworm 4 2025-reads, library B+

Yeah...this one was way better than the first one...

The author's jokes that she made the characters make were not funny at all, I think her sense of humour sucks. But it was pretty good for building a relationship between two characters. I also thought the first 100 pages were awful. Like just the most terrible tropey one-liners. Like if Marvel made a romance movie. So bad. It was only better after that. The interactions the characters had were so funny and scandalous. I loved it. Ate it up like I'd never had a balanced meal.

Romance novels always kind of bend the timelines of relationships so the ending was kinda hard to buy but if another somehow comes out in this series, I will definitely read it.]]> 3.73 2024 My Vampire Plus-One (My Vampires, #2)
author: Jenna Levine
name: Bookworm
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/05/01
date added: 2025/05/01
shelves: 2025-reads, library
review:
Rating: B+

Yeah...this one was way better than the first one...

The author's jokes that she made the characters make were not funny at all, I think her sense of humour sucks. But it was pretty good for building a relationship between two characters. I also thought the first 100 pages were awful. Like just the most terrible tropey one-liners. Like if Marvel made a romance movie. So bad. It was only better after that. The interactions the characters had were so funny and scandalous. I loved it. Ate it up like I'd never had a balanced meal.

Romance novels always kind of bend the timelines of relationships so the ending was kinda hard to buy but if another somehow comes out in this series, I will definitely read it.
]]> <![CDATA[The Blighted Stars (The Devoured Worlds, #1)]]> 58340705
She’s a revolutionary. Humanity is running out of options. Habitable planets are being destroyed as quickly as they’re found and Naira Sharp knows the reason why. The all-powerful Mercator family has been controlling the exploration of the universe for decades, and exploiting any materials they find along the way under the guise of helping humanity’s expansion. But Naira knows the truth, and she plans to bring the whole family down from the inside.

He’s the heir to the dynasty. Tarquin Mercator never wanted to run a galaxy-spanning business empire. He just wanted to study rocks and read books. But Tarquin’s father has tasked him with monitoring the mining of a new planet, and he doesn’t really have a choice in the matter.

Disguised as Tarquin’s new bodyguard, Naira plans to destroy his ship before it lands. But neither of them expects to end up stranded on a dead planet. To survive and keep her secret, Naira will have to join forces with the man she’s sworn to hate. And together they will uncover a plot that’s bigger than both of them.]]> 491 Megan E. O'Keefe 0316290793 Bookworm 0 to-read 4.08 2023 The Blighted Stars (The Devoured Worlds, #1)
author: Megan E. O'Keefe
name: Bookworm
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Witchmark (The Kingston Cycle, #1)]]> 36187110
Magic marked Miles Singer for suffering the day he was born, doomed either to be enslaved to his family's interest or to be committed to a witches' asylum. He went to war to escape his destiny and came home a different man, but he couldn’t leave his past behind. The war between Aeland and Laneer leaves men changed, strangers to their friends and family, but even after faking his own death and reinventing himself as a doctor at a cash-strapped veterans' hospital, Miles can’t hide what he truly is.

When a fatally poisoned patient exposes Miles� healing gift and his witchmark, he must put his anonymity and freedom at risk to investigate his patient’s murder. To find the truth he’ll need to rely on the family he despises, and on the kindness of the most gorgeous man he’s ever seen.

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.]]> 318 C.L. Polk 0765398974 Bookworm 0 3.86 2018 Witchmark (The Kingston Cycle, #1)
author: C.L. Polk
name: Bookworm
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/23
shelves: e-book, currently-reading, 2025-reads
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Mad Hatter: Crazy, Colorful Crochet Designs to Hook and Show Off]]> 195660542
Artist Aynsley Grealis is the creator of the popular Instagram @KnottedNeon, and her fanciful balaclavas, handbags, sweaters, and bucket hats are sensations that attract eager buyers (who pay one hundred dollars—and up—for each custom piece) and a growing audience of crocheters seeking to replicate these brilliant patterns.

In Mad Hatter , her first book, Grealis shares her designs and patterns (unpublished until now) to teach readers how to make three simple bases (a balaclava, a pull-on hat, and a handbag) and then how to decorate each by incorporating layers of whimsical appliques. The patterns look complicated, but crochet with ease—the secret is in the Patterns for crocheted flowers, bees, stars, clouds, an entire coral reef of fish and sea creatures, and a field of mushrooms, veggies, and exotic greenery, are included, enabling readers to hook wonderful hats and bags with lots of flair (or just a little!).

Grealis’s approach inspires crocheters to innovate and playfully reinvent by using her easy-to-follow instructions as a springboard. Suitable for beginners and adaptable to all skill levels, these fun and fabulous designs open a world of imagination to readers.

Includes Color Illustrations]]> 144 Aynsley Grealis 1419770578 Bookworm 5 2025-reads, bought-new A

An incredibly creative yet small collection by Aynsley Grealis, an online crochet creator.

It basically includes 3 patterns: balaclava, clutch and bucket hat, and several easy-to-understand patterns on how to make themed items to make your object 1,000,000x more extra.

She does discuss a couple of hook sizes but my advice is to just measure against your head, you might be surprised about fabric stretch and how much you'll need to complete a project. ]]> 3.73 Mad Hatter: Crazy, Colorful Crochet Designs to Hook and Show Off
author: Aynsley Grealis
name: Bookworm
average rating: 3.73
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2025/04/24
date added: 2025/04/23
shelves: 2025-reads, bought-new
review:
Rating: A

An incredibly creative yet small collection by Aynsley Grealis, an online crochet creator.

It basically includes 3 patterns: balaclava, clutch and bucket hat, and several easy-to-understand patterns on how to make themed items to make your object 1,000,000x more extra.

She does discuss a couple of hook sizes but my advice is to just measure against your head, you might be surprised about fabric stretch and how much you'll need to complete a project.
]]> We Used to Live Here 199798006
As a young, queer couple who flip houses, Charlie and Eve can’t believe the killer deal they’ve just gotten on an old house in a picturesque neighborhood. As they’re working in the house one day, there’s a knock on the door. A man stands there with his family, claiming to have lived there years before and asking if it would be alright if he showed his kids around. People pleaser to a fault, Eve lets them in.

As soon as the strangers enter their home, inexplicable things start happening, including the family’s youngest child going missing and a ghostly presence materializing in the basement. Even more weird, the family can’t seem to take the hint that their visit should be over. And when Charlie suddenly vanishes, Eve slowly loses her grip on reality. Something is terribly wrong with the house and with the visiting family—or is Eve just imagining things?

This unputdownable and spine-tingling novel “is like quicksand: the further you delve into its pages, the more immobilized you become by a spiral of terror. We Used to Live Here will haunt you even after you have finished it� (Agustina Bazterrica, author of Tender Is the Flesh).]]> 312 Marcus Kliewer 1982198788 Bookworm 0 tbr-digitalcopy 3.66 2024 We Used to Live Here
author: Marcus Kliewer
name: Bookworm
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/23
shelves: tbr-digitalcopy
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Trauma Cleaner: One Woman's Extraordinary Life in the Business of Death, Decay, and Disaster]]> 34964868 The Trauma Cleaner is a love letter to an extraordinary ordinary life. In Sandra Pankhurst she discovered a woman capable of taking a lifetime of hostility and transphobic abuse and using it to care for some of society's most in-need people.

Sandra Pankhurst founded her trauma cleaning business to help people whose emotional scars are written on their houses. From the forgotten flat of a drug addict to the infested home of a hoarder, Sandra enters properties and lives at the same time. But few of the people she looks after know anything of the complexity of Sandra's own life. Raised in an uncaring home, Sandra's miraculous gift for warmth and humour in the face of unspeakable personal tragedy mark her out as a one-off.]]> 291 Sarah Krasnostein 1250101204 Bookworm 0 tbr-digitalcopy 3.88 2017 The Trauma Cleaner: One Woman's Extraordinary Life in the Business of Death, Decay, and Disaster
author: Sarah Krasnostein
name: Bookworm
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/23
shelves: tbr-digitalcopy
review:

]]> Manhunt 53329296
Robbie lives by his gun and one hard-learned other people aren't safe.

After a brutal accident entwines the three of them, this found family of survivors must navigate murderous TERFs, a sociopathic billionaire bunker brat, and awkward relationship dynamics―all while outrunning packs of feral men, and their own demons.]]> 296 Gretchen Felker-Martin 1250794641 Bookworm 0 tbr-digitalcopy 3.52 2022 Manhunt
author: Gretchen Felker-Martin
name: Bookworm
average rating: 3.52
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/23
shelves: tbr-digitalcopy
review:

]]> Swallow 50542447 Revenge is a dish best served cold.

The students at Roanoke High School have created a soundtrack that runs constantly in Mildred Waco’s mind . . .

Change your hair, Mildred.
Change your face, Mildred.
Change your body, Mildred.
Everyone hates you, Mildred.
Are you really going to wear that, Mildred?

The stares, the snickers, the constant teasing—combined with Mildred’s own self-doubt and absentee parents—takes its toll. Stumbling upon the Crossroads Magicks shop, Mildred decides she will no longer simply endure the bullying and skeptically buys a revenge curse.

But when she begins to lose her memory and Roanoke students are found brutally murdered, Mildred realizes that she may have bought more than she bargained for. With time running out, Mildred will have to stop the terrible forces she’s unleashed or lose her soul forever.]]> 296 Sam Schill 1989365345 Bookworm 0 tbr-digitalcopy 3.14 2021 Swallow
author: Sam Schill
name: Bookworm
average rating: 3.14
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/23
shelves: tbr-digitalcopy
review:

]]> A Certain Hunger 44294655
But there is something within Dorothy that's different from everyone else, and having suppressed it long enough, she starts to embrace what makes Dorothy uniquely, terrifyingly herself. Recounting her life from a seemingly idyllic farm-to-table childhood, the heights of her career, to the moment she plunges an ice pick into a man's neck on Fire Island, Dorothy Daniels show us what happens when a woman finally embraces her superiority.

A satire of early foodieism, a critique of how gender is defined, and a showcase of virtuoso storytelling, Chelsea G. Summers' A Certain Hunger introduces us to the food world's most charming psychopath and an exciting new voice in fiction.]]> 250 Chelsea G. Summers Bookworm 0 tbr-digitalcopy 3.73 2019 A Certain Hunger
author: Chelsea G. Summers
name: Bookworm
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/23
shelves: tbr-digitalcopy
review:

]]> Salticidae 18526628
"Thomas builds and drives tension like a screaming nightmare in broad daylight!" - Cody Goodfellow, author of All-Monster Action!]]> 220 Ryan C. Thomas 149227139X Bookworm 0 tbr-digitalcopy 3.42 2013 Salticidae
author: Ryan C. Thomas
name: Bookworm
average rating: 3.42
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/23
shelves: tbr-digitalcopy
review:

]]> The Fungus 2385266
At first, doctors are puzzled when deformed men and women start appearing in hospital emergency rooms. One patient seems covered in thick brown fur; another finds his body sprouting growths like giant toadstools. Soon a pattern emerges from the preliminary data: a man-made microbe is loose, accelerating and amplifying the normal growth of molds and fungi. No one is safe from infection, as microscopic spores carry the plague even into caves deep underground. And those who fall victim to the fantastic range of fungus infections find their minds taken over and their bodies transformed into creatures never before seen on this planet, haunted by dark obsessions and inhuman desires.

As millions fight to escape disease zones and European nations threaten to fight the fungi with nuclear weapons, a team of two men and a woman embark on a suicide mission to penetrate the London laboratory which spawned the plague. Hoping to recover the research notes that may help scientists to synthesize an antidote, they find instead something infinitely more sinister and horrific.]]> 218 Harry Adam Knight 0531151034 Bookworm 0 tbr-digitalcopy 3.52 1985 The Fungus
author: Harry Adam Knight
name: Bookworm
average rating: 3.52
book published: 1985
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/23
shelves: tbr-digitalcopy
review:

]]> Follow Me to Ground 52220595 A haunted, surreal debut novel about an otherworldly young woman, her father, and her lover that culminates in a shocking moment of betrayal - one that upends our understanding of power, predation, and agency.

Ada and her father, touched by the power to heal illness, live on the edge of a village where they help sick locals—or “Cures”—by cracking open their damaged bodies or temporarily burying them in the reviving, dangerous Ground nearby. Ada, a being both more and less than human, is mostly uninterested in the Cures, until she meets a man named Samson. When they strike up an affair, to the displeasure of her father and Samson’s widowed, pregnant sister, Ada is torn between her old way of life and new possibilities with her lover—and eventually comes to a decision that will forever change Samson, the town, and the Ground itself.

Follow Me to Ground is fascinating and frightening, urgent and propulsive. In Ada, award-winning author Sue Rainsford has created an utterly bewitching heroine, one who challenges conventional ideas of womanhood and the secrets of the body. Slim but authoritative, Follow Me to Ground lingers long after its final page, pulling the reader into a dream between fairytale and nightmare, desire and delusion, folktale and warning.]]> 208 Sue Rainsford 1982133635 Bookworm 0 tbr-digitalcopy 3.52 2018 Follow Me to Ground
author: Sue Rainsford
name: Bookworm
average rating: 3.52
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/23
shelves: tbr-digitalcopy
review:

]]> Ritualistic Human Sacrifice 26239168
Nick is a spiteful man. He purchases his dream home in an ideal location far away from family, friends, and coworkers. It’s a life changing decision he’s chosen to make without Eve’s consultation.

Nick is a terrified man. He quickly realizes the residents of his new hometown are a bit eccentric. After a trip to the local doctor’s office Eve begins to behave strangely. And once Nick finds out what’s really going on he’ll never be able to look at Eve the same way.]]> 208 C.V. Hunt 1941918115 Bookworm 0 tbr-digitalcopy 3.07 2015 Ritualistic Human Sacrifice
author: C.V. Hunt
name: Bookworm
average rating: 3.07
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/23
shelves: tbr-digitalcopy
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Kamogawa Food Detectives (Kamogawa Food Detectives, #1)]]> 154488299 The Kamogawa Food Detectives is the first book in the bestselling, mouth-watering Japanese series for fans of Before the Coffee Gets Cold.

What’s the one dish you’d do anything to taste just one more time?

Down a quiet backstreet in Kyoto exists a very special restaurant. Run by Koishi Kamogawa and her father Nagare, the Kamogawa Diner serves up deliciously extravagant meals. But that’s not the main reason customers stop by . . .

The father-daughter duo are ‘food detectives�. Through ingenious investigations, they are able to recreate dishes from a person’s treasured memories � dishes that may well hold the keys to their forgotten past and future happiness. The restaurant of lost recipes provides a link to vanished moments, creating a present full of possibility.

A bestseller in Japan, The Kamogawa Food Detectives is a celebration of good company and the power of a delicious meal.]]> 201 Hisashi Kashiwai 0593717716 Bookworm 0 tbr-digitalcopy 3.70 2013 The Kamogawa Food Detectives (Kamogawa Food Detectives, #1)
author: Hisashi Kashiwai
name: Bookworm
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/23
shelves: tbr-digitalcopy
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Morbid Taste for Bones (Chronicles of Brother Cadfael, #1)]]> 321545
The leading opponent to moving the grave has been shot dead with a mysterious arrow, and some say Winifred herself held the bow. Brother Cadfael knows a carnal hand did the killing. But he doesn't know that his plan to unearth a murderer may dig up a case of love and justice...where the wages of sin may be scandal or Cadfael's own ruin.]]> 197 Ellis Peters 0446400157 Bookworm 0 tbr-digitalcopy 3.97 1977 A Morbid Taste for Bones (Chronicles of Brother Cadfael, #1)
author: Ellis Peters
name: Bookworm
average rating: 3.97
book published: 1977
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/23
shelves: tbr-digitalcopy
review:

]]> Fat Vampire (Fat Vampire, #1) 16067851
When overweight treadmill salesman Reginald Baskin finally meets a co-worker who doesn't make fun of him, it's just his own bad luck that tech guy Maurice turns out to be a thousand-year-old vampire.

And when Maurice turns Reginald to save his life, it's just Reginald's own further bad luck that he wakes up to discover he's become the slowest, weakest, most out-of-shape vampire ever born, doomed to "heal" to his corpulent self for all of eternity.

As Reginald struggles with the downsides of being a fat vampire -- too slow to catch people to feed on, mocked by those he tries to glamour, assaulted by his intended prey and left for undead -- he discovers in himself rare powers that few vampires have� and just in time too, because the Vampire Council might just want his head for being an inferior representative of their race.

Fat Vampire is the story of an unlikely hero who, after having an imperfect eternity shoved into his grease-stained hands, must learn to turn the afterlife's lemons into tasty lemon danishes.]]> 196 Johnny B. Truant Bookworm 0 tbr-digitalcopy 3.75 2012 Fat Vampire (Fat Vampire, #1)
author: Johnny B. Truant
name: Bookworm
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/23
shelves: tbr-digitalcopy
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Dinosaurs to Crochet: Playful Patterns for Crafting Cuddly Prehistoric Wonders]]> 42940905 From Triassic to Cretaceous periods, Dinosaurs to Crochet features a wide variety of the most popular prehistoric dinosaurs and reptiles- including the fearsome Tyrannosaurus, the spiky Ankylosaurus, and the three-horned Triceratops-all made from quick-to-hook chunky yarn. With just a few basic crochet stitches and the imaginative designs of Megan Kreiner, author of the best-selling Christmas Ornaments to Crochet , crafters can create an entire herd of cuddly Stegosauruses, a flock of flying Pteranodons, or a pod of swimming Plesiosaurs.
The extensive how-to section of Dinosaurs to Crochet provides a robust overview with beautifully illustrated step-by-step crochet stitches, helpful construction techniques, and finishing tips to ensure each and every project will please even the most discerning paleontologist-in-training.]]> 126 Megan Kreiner 1940611903 Bookworm 0 to-read 4.38 Dinosaurs to Crochet: Playful Patterns for Crafting Cuddly Prehistoric Wonders
author: Megan Kreiner
name: Bookworm
average rating: 4.38
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Days at the Morisaki Bookshop (Days at the Morisaki Bookshop, #1)]]> 62047992 The moving international sensation about new beginnings, human connection, and the joy of reading.

Hidden in Jimbocho, Tokyo, is a booklover's paradise. On a quiet corner in an old wooden building lies a shop filled with hundreds of second-hand books.

Twenty-five-year-old Takako has never liked reading, although the Morisaki bookshop has been in her family for three generations. It is the pride and joy of her uncle Satoru, who has devoted his life to the bookshop since his wife Momoko left him five years earlier.

When Takako's boyfriend reveals he's marrying someone else, she reluctantly accepts her eccentric uncle's offer to live rent-free in the tiny room above the shop. Hoping to nurse her broken heart in peace, Takako is surprised to encounter new worlds within the stacks of books lining the Morisaki bookshop.

As summer fades to autumn, Satoru and Takako discover they have more in common than they first thought. The Morisaki bookshop has something to teach them both about life, love, and the healing power of books.]]> 150 Satoshi Yagisawa 0063278677 Bookworm 0 to-read 3.66 2010 Days at the Morisaki Bookshop (Days at the Morisaki Bookshop, #1)
author: Satoshi Yagisawa
name: Bookworm
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Spellshop 217206125 The Spellshop is Sarah Beth Durst’s romantasy debut–a lush cottagecore tale full of stolen spellbooks, unexpected friendships, sweet jams, and even sweeter love.

Kiela has always had trouble dealing with people. Thankfully, as a librarian at the Great Library of Alyssium, she and her assistant, Caz—a magically sentient spider plant—have spent the last decade sequestered among the empire’s most precious spellbooks, preserving their magic for the city’s elite.

When a revolution begins and the library goes up in flames, she and Caz flee with all the spellbooks they can carry and head to a remote island Kiela never thought she’d see again: her childhood home. Taking refuge there, Kiela discovers, much to her dismay, a nosy—and very handsome—neighbor who can’t take a hint and keeps showing up day after day to make sure she’s fed and to help fix up her new home.

In need of income, Kiela identifies something that even the bakery in town doesn’t have: jam. With the help of an old recipe book her parents left her and a bit of illegal magic, her cottage garden is soon covered in ripe berries.

But magic can do more than make life a little sweeter, so Kiela risks the consequences of using unsanctioned spells and opens the island’s first-ever and much needed secret spellshop.

Like a Hallmark rom-com full of mythical creatures and fueled by cinnamon rolls and magic, The Spellshop will heal your heart and feed your soul.]]> 377 Sarah Beth Durst 1250333970 Bookworm 0 to-read 3.97 2024 The Spellshop
author: Sarah Beth Durst
name: Bookworm
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Instructions for Heartbreak 214997861 A beautiful, razor-sharp novel by Sarah Handyside, Instructions for Heartbreak is a life-affirming story about female friendship, self-love and how to survive a broken heart.

What if heartbreak came with a manual?

It starts with a late-night knock on the door. Dee, Liv and Rosa share a flat in south London, while Katie lives close by with her boyfriend. But, when Katie’s nine-year relationship ends � suddenly and brutally � she turns up on their doorstep with no idea what to do next, or how to do anything after spending so long with her life entwined with someone else’s.

Out comes the martini shaker (an old, well-washed gherkin jar) and, with an unused sketchbook, an idea. They’ll make Katie the handbook that she needs to process her heartbreak and start rebuilding her life. There are notes on tears, hangovers and roast chicken, scribblings about music, new bedding and pure, white-hot rage.

But Katie is not the only one nursing a broken heart. Rosa is a hopeless romantic, despite still reeling from her ex’s infidelity. Scarred by her ex’s parting words, Dee is committed to being commitment-free. And while Liv knows that breaking up with her girlfriend was what she wanted, she can’t help but wonder if she did the right thing.

Tested by big life changes, even the closest friendships can fray � could the heartbreak handbook they intended for Katie contain the words they all need to hear?

* * * *

Readers are loving Instructions for Heartbreak:

‘I love a novel filled with amazing female friendships. I flew through this book . . . a MUST read�

‘A wonderfully nuanced, emotionally intelligent and insightful story of female friendships, relationships, growing up and finding your family�

‘There is nothing better than the power of female friendships and women coming together to help one another. This book delivers that message and more! I loved every minute’]> 414 Sarah Handyside 1035032775 Bookworm 0 to-read 3.71 Instructions for Heartbreak
author: Sarah Handyside
name: Bookworm
average rating: 3.71
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Black Hawks (Articles of Faith, #1)]]> 44428186
An epic fantasy adventure perfect for fans of Scott Lynch and Nicholas Eames.

Vedren Chel holds every oath of service sacred � except his own.


His father’s sermons on the nobility of duty left him ill-prepared for the grind of service to his indolent step-uncle. Chel’s wretched oath has dragged him from home and family across a war-splintered kingdom; he craves an escape from this life.


When foreign invaders heave into port, Chel finds opportunity in the chaos � a bargain with a stranded prince. Escort the prince to safety, and in return: release from his oath, a chance to go home. A solemn duty at last.


But a bargain with a prince is never a simple thing, and greater forces are at play than Chel realises. Heavy wheels are turning. Assassins and mercenaries lurk in every shadow, many bearing smiles as sharp as their knives.


As a kingdom’s dark conspiracy turns its gaze towards him, Chel must decide just how much he will sacrifice in duty’s name.

Prepare to join the Black Hawk Company.]]> 425 David Wragg 0008331413 Bookworm 3 bought-new, 2025-reads C

Another generic fantasy. This isn't the book that'll get me back into reading fantasy.]]> 3.71 2019 The Black Hawks (Articles of Faith, #1)
author: David Wragg
name: Bookworm
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2019
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/23
date added: 2025/04/22
shelves: bought-new, 2025-reads
review:
Rating: C

Another generic fantasy. This isn't the book that'll get me back into reading fantasy.
]]> Let's Talk About Love 31625039
But then Alice meets Takumi and she can’t stop thinking about him or the rom com-grade romance feels she did not ask for (uncertainty, butterflies, and swoons, oh my!).

When her blissful summer takes an unexpected turn, and Takumi becomes her knight with a shiny library employee badge (close enough), Alice has to decide if she’s willing to risk their friendship for a love that might not be reciprocated—or understood.]]> 304 Claire Kann 1250138825 Bookworm 0 to-read 3.69 2018 Let's Talk About Love
author: Claire Kann
name: Bookworm
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[How to Be Ace: A Memoir of Growing Up Asexual]]> 54403237 Brave, witty and empowering, this graphic memoir follows Rebecca as she navigates her asexual identity and mental health in a world obsessed with sex. From school to work to relationships, this book offers an unparalleled insight into asexuality.

'When I was in school, everyone got to a certain age where they became interested in talking about only one thing: boys, girls and sex. Me though? I was only interested in comics.'

Growing up, Rebecca assumes sex is just a scary new thing they will 'grow into' as they get older, but when they leave school, start working and do grow up, they start to wonder why they don't want to have sex with other people.

In this brave, hilarious and empowering graphic memoir, we follow Rebecca as they navigate a culture obsessed with sex—from being bullied at school and trying to fit in with friends, to forcing themself into relationships and experiencing anxiety and OCD—before coming to understand and embrace their asexual identity.]]> 208 Rebecca Burgess 1787752151 Bookworm 5 2025-reads, e-book A

A really touching comic about a young woman (late teens to early 20s) learning about her sexuality, feeling like a weird outcast and eventually figuring it out.

I could empathise with some of it as someone on the ace spectrum myself, but I was nowhere near as lucky to learn about it in my early 20s. I wish I had known. I only learn about asexuality four years ago, and only recently have felt like maybe I'm demi-romantic, but I'm not the only person who's been here.

I love the art style and have a soft spot for watercolours.

This comic touches on so many topics, not just the asexuality of the protagonist, but the world being hyper-sexual, accessing therapy and the lack of education amongst therapists, the reaction of peers, aphobia in queer spaces and communities and even briefly, the life of someone who pursues artistic interests and yet still needs to subscribe to a society that demands we work for 40 years.

When the human is fulfilled, they always turn to art. ]]> 4.14 2020 How to Be Ace: A Memoir of Growing Up Asexual
author: Rebecca Burgess
name: Bookworm
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2025/04/23
date added: 2025/04/22
shelves: 2025-reads, e-book
review:
Rating: A

A really touching comic about a young woman (late teens to early 20s) learning about her sexuality, feeling like a weird outcast and eventually figuring it out.

I could empathise with some of it as someone on the ace spectrum myself, but I was nowhere near as lucky to learn about it in my early 20s. I wish I had known. I only learn about asexuality four years ago, and only recently have felt like maybe I'm demi-romantic, but I'm not the only person who's been here.

I love the art style and have a soft spot for watercolours.

This comic touches on so many topics, not just the asexuality of the protagonist, but the world being hyper-sexual, accessing therapy and the lack of education amongst therapists, the reaction of peers, aphobia in queer spaces and communities and even briefly, the life of someone who pursues artistic interests and yet still needs to subscribe to a society that demands we work for 40 years.

When the human is fulfilled, they always turn to art.
]]> <![CDATA[Senlin Ascends (The Books of Babel, #1)]]> 35271523
Soon after arriving for his honeymoon at the Tower, the mild-mannered headmaster of a small village school, Thomas Senlin, gets separated from his wife, Marya, in the overwhelming swarm of tourists, residents, and miscreants.

Senlin is determined to find Marya, but to do so he'll have to navigate madhouses, ballrooms, and burlesque theaters. He must survive betrayal, assassins, and the long guns of a flying fortress. But if he hopes to find his wife, he will have to do more than just endure.

This quiet man of letters must become a man of action.

The first book in the stunning and strange debut fantasy series that's receiving major praise from some of fantasy's biggest authors such as Mark Lawrence and Django Wexler.]]> 448 Josiah Bancroft 0316517917 Bookworm 0 4.08 2013 Senlin Ascends (The Books of Babel, #1)
author: Josiah Bancroft
name: Bookworm
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/22
shelves: bought-new, currently-reading, 2025-reads
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Grief Is the Thing with Feathers]]> 25334576
In this moment of despair they are visited by Crow - antagonist, trickster, healer, babysitter. This self-described sentimental bird is attracted to the grieving family and threatens to stay until they no longer need him. As weeks turn to months and physical pain of loss gives way to memories, this little unit of three begin to heal.

In this extraordinary debut - part novella, part polyphonic fable, part essay on grief, Max Porter's compassion and bravura style combine to dazzling effect. Full of unexpected humour and profound emotional truth, Grief is the Thing with Feathers marks the arrival of a thrilling new talent.]]> 114 Max Porter 0571323766 Bookworm 0 to-read 3.85 2015 Grief Is the Thing with Feathers
author: Max Porter
name: Bookworm
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Coup de Grâce 204642427 A mindbending and visceral experimental horror about a young man trapped in an infinite Montreal subway station, perfect for readers of Mark Z. Danielewski and Susanna Clarke.

Vicken has a plan: throw himself into the Saint Lawrence River in Montreal and end it all for good, believing it to be the only way out for him after a lifetime of depression and pain. But, stepping off the subway, he finds himself in an endless, looping station.

Determined to find a way out again, he starts to explore the rooms and corridors ahead of him. But no matter how many claustrophobic hallways or vast cathedral-esque rooms he passes through, the exit is nowhere in sight.

The more he explores his strange new prison, the more he becomes convinced that he hasn’t been trapped there accidentally, and amongst the shadows and concrete, he comes to realise that he almost certainly is not alone.

A terrifying psychological nightmare from a powerful new voice in horror.]]> 139 Sofia Ajram 1803369620 Bookworm 0 to-read 3.07 2024 Coup de Grâce
author: Sofia Ajram
name: Bookworm
average rating: 3.07
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Dead Girl Blues 52404972
A mysterious video is the only clue, but as Willow digs deeper into the murky world of snuff movies, those closest to her start turning up dead. Someone out there will stop at nothing to silence her.

After all, when killing is business, what’s one more dead body?

Part noir mystery, part violent slasher, Dead Girl Blues is the latest twisted shocker from David Sodergren, author of The Forgotten Island and Night Shoot.]]> 254 David Sodergren Bookworm 0 to-read 3.95 2020 Dead Girl Blues
author: David Sodergren
name: Bookworm
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Full Brutal 36426220
In search of something to pull her out of suicidal thoughts, she decides to lose her virginity, having heard it’s a life-changing event. But Kim doesn’t want to do it the same way the other girls do. She seduces one of her teachers, hoping to ruin his life just for the fun of it. This starts Kim on a runaway train of sadism as she makes every effort to destroy the lives of those around her. But soon simple backstabbing is not enough to keep her excited, and she nosedives into sabotage, violence and even murder.

When Kim finds out she’s pregnant with her teacher’s child, a new madness overtakes her, and she realizes there’s only one thing that will satisfy her baby’s hunger . . .]]> 206 Kristopher Triana 1941918263 Bookworm 0 to-read 3.96 2018 Full Brutal
author: Kristopher Triana
name: Bookworm
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Stable Strategies and Others 20490387 225 Eileen Gunn Bookworm 4 2025-reads, e-book A

The individual stories were all quite creative and I liked the author note at the end of each.]]> 3.90 2004 Stable Strategies and Others
author: Eileen Gunn
name: Bookworm
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2004
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/18
date added: 2025/04/18
shelves: 2025-reads, e-book
review:
Rating: A

The individual stories were all quite creative and I liked the author note at the end of each.
]]> <![CDATA[I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (Maya Angelou's Autobiography, #1)]]> 13214
Here is a book as joyous and painful, as mysterious and memorable, as childhood itself. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings captures the longing of lonely children, the brute insult of bigotry, and the wonder of words that can make the world right. Maya Angelou’s debut memoir is a modern American classic beloved worldwide.

Sent by their mother to live with their devout, self-sufficient grandmother in a small Southern town, Maya and her brother, Bailey, endure the ache of abandonment and the prejudice of the local “powhitetrash.� At eight years old and back at her mother’s side in St. Louis, Maya is attacked by a man many times her age—and has to live with the consequences for a lifetime. Years later, in San Francisco, Maya learns that love for herself, the kindness of others, her own strong spirit, and the ideas of great authors (“I met and fell in love with William Shakespeare�) will allow her to be free instead of imprisoned.

Poetic and powerful, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings will touch hearts and change minds for as long as people read.]]> 289 Maya Angelou 0553279378 Bookworm 4 2025-reads, audio, library 4.30 1969 I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (Maya Angelou's Autobiography, #1)
author: Maya Angelou
name: Bookworm
average rating: 4.30
book published: 1969
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/15
date added: 2025/04/16
shelves: 2025-reads, audio, library
review:
Gonna need to reread this IDK if the audiobook I listened to was the actual right story lol.
]]> Wavewalker: Breaking Free 153405042
Aged just seven, Suzanne Heywood set sail with her parents and brother on a three-year voyage around the world. What followed turned instead into a decade-long way of life, through storms, shipwrecks, reefs and isolation, with little formal schooling. No one else knew where they were most of the time and no state showed any interest in what was happening to the children.

Suzanne fought her parents, longing to return to England and to education and stability. This memoir covers her astonishing upbringing, a survival story of a child deprived of safety, friendships, schooling and occasionally drinking water� At seventeen Suzanne earned an interview at Oxford University and returned to the UK.

From the bestselling author of What Does Jeremy Think?, Wavewalker is the incredible true story of how the adventure of a lifetime became one child’s worst nightmare � and how her determination to educate herself enabled her to escape.]]> 14 Suzanne Heywood Bookworm 4 2025-reads, audio, library 3.89 2023 Wavewalker: Breaking Free
author: Suzanne Heywood
name: Bookworm
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/14
date added: 2025/04/13
shelves: 2025-reads, audio, library
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Secret Lives of Country Gentlemen (The Doomsday Books, #1)]]> 57102663 Bridgerton meets Poldark in this sweeping LGBTQIA+ Regency romance from award-winning author KJ Charles

Abandoned by his father as a small child, Sir Gareth Inglis has grown up prickly, cold, and well-used to disappointment. Even so, he longs for a connection, falling headfirst into a passionate anonymous affair that's over almost as quickly as it began. Bitter at the sudden rejection, Gareth has little time to lick his wounds: his father has died, leaving him the family title, a rambling manor on the remote Romney Marsh...and the den of cutthroats and thieves that make its intricate waterways their home.

Joss Doomsday has run the Doomsday smuggling clan since he was a boy. His family is his life...which is why when the all-too-familiar new baronet testifies against Joss's sister for a hanging offense, Joss acts fast, blackmailing Gareth with the secret of their relationship to force him to recant. Their reunion is anything but happy and the path forward everything but smooth, yet after the dust settles, neither can stay away. It's a long road from there—full of danger and mysteries to be solved—yet somehow, along the way, this well-mannered gentleman may at last find true love with the least likely of scoundrels.]]> 331 K.J. Charles 1728255856 Bookworm 0 to-read 4.08 2023 The Secret Lives of Country Gentlemen (The Doomsday Books, #1)
author: K.J. Charles
name: Bookworm
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Cursed Bunny 56648660 Cursed Bunny is a genre-defying collection of short stories by Korean author Bora Chung. Blurring the lines between magical realism, horror, and science-fiction, Chung uses elements of the fantastic and surreal to address the very real horrors and cruelties of patriarchy and capitalism in modern society.

Anton Hur’s translation skilfully captures the way Chung’s prose effortlessly glides from being terrifying to wryly humorous. Winner of a PEN/Heim Grant.]]> 251 Bora Chung 1916277187 Bookworm 4 2025-reads, e-book B+

Stories:
The Head - 4/5
The Embodiment - 2/5
Cursed Bunny - 3/5
The Frozen Finger - 3/5
Snare - 4/5
Goodbye, My Love - 3.5/5
Scars - 3.5/5
Home Sweet Home - 3/5
Ruler of Winds and Sands - 3/5
Reunion - 3.5/5]]> 3.76 2017 Cursed Bunny
author: Bora Chung
name: Bookworm
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/09
date added: 2025/04/08
shelves: 2025-reads, e-book
review:
Rating: B+

Stories:
The Head - 4/5
The Embodiment - 2/5
Cursed Bunny - 3/5
The Frozen Finger - 3/5
Snare - 4/5
Goodbye, My Love - 3.5/5
Scars - 3.5/5
Home Sweet Home - 3/5
Ruler of Winds and Sands - 3/5
Reunion - 3.5/5
]]> <![CDATA[Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead]]> 40879488
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead takes place in a remote Polish village, where Janina, an eccentric woman in her sixties, recounts the events surrounding the disappearance of her two dogs. When members of a local hunting club are found murdered, she becomes involved in the investigation. Janina is reclusive, preferring the company of animals to people; she’s unconventional, believing in the stars, and she is fond of the poetry of William Blake, from whose work the title of the book is taken.

Filled with wonderful characters like Maladroit, Big Foot, Black Coat, Dizzy and Boros, this subversive, entertaining noir novel offers thought-provoking ideas on our perceptions of madness, injustice against marginalised people, animal rights, the hypocrisy of traditional religion, belief in predestination—and getting away with murder.]]> 247 Olga Tokarczuk 1925773086 Bookworm 4 3.82 2009 Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead
author: Olga Tokarczuk
name: Bookworm
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2009
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/08
date added: 2025/04/07
shelves: bought-used, 2025-reads, books-in-brisbane-reads
review:

]]> When I Fell From the Sky 11931498
Juliane ultimately survived and went on to live an inspiring life as a scientist continually drawn back to the terrain that threatened to take her. On the 40th anniversary, she shares not only the private moments of her survival and rescue but her life in the wake of the dramatic true story.]]> 227 Juliane Koepcke 0983754705 Bookworm 0 to-read 3.59 2011 When I Fell From the Sky
author: Juliane Koepcke
name: Bookworm
average rating: 3.59
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Night of the Living Rez 56648158 How do the living come back to life? 

Set in a Native community in Maine, Night of the Living Rez is a riveting debut collection about what it means to be Penobscot in the twenty-first century and what it means to live, to survive, and to persevere after tragedy.

In twelve striking, luminescent stories, author Morgan Talty—with searing humor, abiding compassion, and deep insight—breathes life into tales of family and community bonds as they struggle with a painful past and an uncertain future. A boy unearths a jar that holds an old curse, which sets into motion his family’s unraveling; a man, while trying to swindle some pot from a dealer, discovers a friend passed out in the woods, his hair frozen into the snow; a grandmother suffering from Alzheimer’s projects the past onto her grandson, and thinks he is her dead brother come back to life; and two friends, inspired by Antiques Roadshow, attempt to rob the tribal museum for valuable root clubs.

In a collection that examines the consequences and merits of inheritance, Night of the Living Rez is an unforgettable portrayal of a Native community and marks the arrival of a standout talent in contemporary fiction.

Burn
In a jar
Get me some medicine
Food for the common cold
In a field of stray caterpillars
The blessing tobacco
Safe harbor
Smokes last
Half-life
Earth, speak
Night of the living rez
The name means thunder]]> 285 Morgan Talty 195353418X Bookworm 0 to-read 3.89 2022 Night of the Living Rez
author: Morgan Talty
name: Bookworm
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> White Horse 60652964 White Horse is a gritty, vibrant debut from Erika T. Wurth about an Indigenous woman who must face her past when she discovers a bracelet haunted by her mother’s spirit.

Some people are haunted in more ways than one.

Heavy metal, ripped jeans, Stephen King novels, and the occasional beer at the White Horse have defined urban Indian Kari James’s life so far. But when her cousin Debby finds an old family bracelet that once belonged to Kari’s mother, it inadvertently calls up both her mother’s ghost and a monstrous entity, and her willful ignorance about her past is no longer sustainable�

Haunted by visions of her mother and hunted by this mysterious creature, Kari must search for what happened to her mother all those years ago. Her father, permanently disabled from a car crash, can’t help her. Her Auntie Squeaker seems to know something but isn’t eager to give it all up at once. Debby’s anxious to help, but her controlling husband keeps getting in the way. Kari’s journey toward a truth long denied by both her family and law enforcement forces her to confront her dysfunctional relationships, thoughts about a friend she lost in childhood, and her desire for the one thing she’s always wanted but could never have.]]> 320 Erika T. Wurth 1250847656 Bookworm 0 to-read 3.47 2022 White Horse
author: Erika T. Wurth
name: Bookworm
average rating: 3.47
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Buffalo Hunter Hunter 214565614 A chilling historical horror novel set in the American west in 1912 following a Lutheran priest who transcribes the life of a vampire who haunts the fields of the Blackfeet reservation looking for justice.

A diary, written in 1912 by a Lutheran pastor is discovered within a wall. What it unveils is a slow massacre, a chain of events that go back to 217 Blackfeet dead in the snow. Told in transcribed interviews by a Blackfeet named Good Stab, who shares the narrative of his peculiar life over a series of confessional visits. This is an American Indian revenge story written by one of the new masters of horror, Stephen Graham Jones.]]> 448 Stephen Graham Jones 1668075083 Bookworm 0 to-read 4.19 2025 The Buffalo Hunter Hunter
author: Stephen Graham Jones
name: Bookworm
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Black Prism (Lightbringer, #1)]]> 7165300
When Guile discovers he has a son, born in a far kingdom after the war that put him in power, he must decide how much he's willing to pay to protect a secret that could tear his world apart.]]> 629 Brent Weeks 0316075558 Bookworm 0 to-read 4.23 2010 The Black Prism (Lightbringer, #1)
author: Brent Weeks
name: Bookworm
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/04
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Chilco: A Novel 217872664
Chilco is the name of Pascale’s home island. It is also the Mapudungun word for a word that evokes tropical lushness, wetness, the deep greenness of the forest. Pascale's partner, Marina, grew up in the vertical slums of Capital City, a place scarred by centuries of colonialism and now the ravages of feckless developers. Every day the two women fear a sinkhole will open up and take with it another poor neighborhood, another raft of desperate refugees from the the indigenous, the poor, who are toiling for an all-consuming machine that is devouring the earth from beneath their feet.

When the two women finally flee the collapsing city to live in Chilco, are they escaping from the crushing weight of centuries of colonial repression that have eroded indigenous memories, language, and culture, or are they merely stepping into a twisted, lush new version of it? From her first days in this place where she’s supposed to feel safe and at home, Marina can’t avoid the feeling that everything is decaying around her—there is a smell of putrefaction in the air that no one except her can detect; there are seismic rifts that the political cruelties of the times have opened up in her own relationship with Pascale; and she is haunted by insistent memories of her past.

In Chilco, Daniela Catrileo’s baroque, tropical jeremiad, the wounds of capitalism and empire inflict themselves on the person and on the land, but linger most devastatingly in language and memory. Indigenous Mapudungun and Quechua words, history, and cosmology form the chorus to this tropical fever dream of life, love, death, and friendship.]]> Daniela Catrileo 0374616515 Bookworm 0 to-read 4.25 Chilco: A Novel
author: Daniela Catrileo
name: Bookworm
average rating: 4.25
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[One Day We'll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter]]> 30658435 A collection of essays about growing up the daughter of Indian immigrants in Canada, "a land of ice and casual racism," by the cultural observer, Scaachi Koul.

In One Day We'll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter, Scaachi deploys her razor-sharp humour to share her fears, outrages and mortifying experiences as an outsider growing up in Canada. Her subjects range from shaving her knuckles in grade school, to a shopping trip gone horribly awry, to dealing with internet trolls, to feeling out of place at an Indian wedding (as an Indian woman), to parsing the trajectory of fears and anxieties that pressed upon her immigrant parents and bled down a generation. Alongside these personal stories are pointed observations about life as a woman of colour, where every aspect of her appearance is open for critique, derision or outright scorn. Where strict gender rules bind in both Western and Indian cultures, forcing her to confront questions about gender dynamics, racial tensions, ethnic stereotypes and her father's creeping mortality--all as she tries to find her feet in the world.]]> 241 Scaachi Koul 0385685351 Bookworm 0 to-read 3.72 2017 One Day We'll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter
author: Scaachi Koul
name: Bookworm
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Bookbinder 63946934 A young British woman working in a book bindery gets a chance to pursue knowledge and love when World War I upends her life in this new novel from the New York Times bestselling author of the Reese’s Book Club pick The Dictionary of Lost Words.

“Williams spins an immersive and compelling tale, sweeping us back to the Oxford she painted so expertly in The Dictionary of Lost Words.”—Paula McLain, author of The Paris Wife

It is 1914, and as the war draws the young men of Britain away to fight, women must keep the nation running. Two of those women are Peggy and Maude, twin sisters who live on a narrow boat in Oxford and work in the bindery at the university press.

Ambitious, intelligent Peggy has been told for most of her life that her job is to bind the books, not read them—but as she folds and gathers pages, her mind wanders to the opposite side of Walton Street, where the female students of Oxford’s Somerville College have a whole library at their fingertips. Maude, meanwhile, wants nothing more than what she has: to spend her days folding the pages of books in the company of the other bindery girls. She is extraordinary but vulnerable, and Peggy feels compelled to watch over her.

Then refugees arrive from the war-torn cities of Belgium, sending ripples through the Oxford community and the sisters� lives. Peggy begins to see the possibility of another future where she can educate herself and use her intellect, not just her hands. But as war and illness reshape her world, her love for a Belgian soldier—and the responsibility that comes with it—threaten to hold her back.

The Bookbinder is a story about knowledge—who creates it, who can access it, and what truths get lost in the process. Much as she did in the international bestseller The Dictionary of Lost Words, Pip Williams thoughtfully explores another rarely seen slice of history through women’s eyes.]]> 437 Pip Williams 0593600444 Bookworm 0 to-read 3.94 2023 The Bookbinder
author: Pip Williams
name: Bookworm
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Haar 60840449
Muriel McAuley has lived in the Scottish fishing village of Witchaven all her life. She was born there, and she intends to die there.

But when an overseas property developer threatens to evict the residents from their homes and raze Witchaven to the ground in the name of progress, all seems lost� until the day a mysterious fog bank creeps inland.

The Haar.

To some it brings redemption� to others, it brings only madness and death. What macabre secrets lie within� The Haar.

Romantic and deranged, The Haar is a gore-soaked folk horror fairy tale from David Sodergren, author of The Forgotten Island and Maggie’s Grave.]]> 206 David Sodergren Bookworm 3 2025-reads, e-book Rating: <b>B</b> 4.08 2022 The Haar
author: David Sodergren
name: Bookworm
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/31
date added: 2025/03/31
shelves: 2025-reads, e-book
review:
Rating: B
]]> A Little Life 29408433 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER � A stunning “portrait of the enduring grace of friendship� (NPR) about the families we are born into, and those that we make for ourselves. A masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century.

NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST � MAN BOOKER PRIZE FINALIST � WINNER OF THE KIRKUS PRIZE �

A Little Life follows four college classmates—broke, adrift, and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition—as they move to New York in search of fame and fortune. While their relationships, which are tinged by addiction, success, and pride, deepen over the decades, the men are held together by their devotion to the brilliant, enigmatic Jude, a man scarred by an unspeakable childhood trauma. A hymn to brotherly bonds and a masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century, Hanya Yanagihara’s stunning novel is about the families we are born into, and those that we make for ourselves.]]> 723 Hanya Yanagihara 1447294831 Bookworm 3 bought-new, 2025-reads B-?

A Little Life is a long and detailed character study so full of despair that nothing surprised me, and two events that even I was able to predict; that Harold was speaking to a dead Jude and that Willem, the shining light of goodness, aiming to love and protect Jude, would die horribly in a car crash of some kind. What tragedy is complete without a car crash? Furthermore, does every person Jude meets have to be an abuser? Can't there just be one good person in the world? Unbelievable.

I don't think I could rate it high at all because I couldn't connect to any of the characters and by the end of the novel they were so incredibly rich that they were able to access everything they needed in their lives.

Scene change, to quotes:

P156: My life, he will think, me life. But he won't be able to think beyond this, and he will keep repeating the words to himself - part chant, part curse, part reassurance - as he slips into that other world that he visits when he is in such pain, that world he knows is never far from his own but that he can never remember after: My life.

P235: The entire passage about friendship. Lately, he had been wondering if codependence was such a bad thing. He took pleasure in friendships, and it didn't hurt anyone, so who cared if it was codependent or not? And anyway, how was a friendship any more codependent than a relationship? Why wasn't it even better? It was two people who remained together, day after day, bound not by sex or physical attraction or money or children or property, but only by the shared agreement to keep going, the mutual dedication to a union that could never be codified. Friendship was witnessing another's slow drip of miseries, and long bouts of boredom, and occasional triumphs. It was feeling honoured by the privilege of getting to be present for another person's most dismal moments, and knowing that you could be dismal around him in return.

p304: Either way, being single at forty is different from being single at thirty, and with every year it becomes less understandable, less enviable, and more pathetic, more inappropriate.

p486: It was as if he was back in college, his peers once again his unwitting teachers: always, he was alert for information, for lessons on how to be. He watched talk shows on television, which seem to be about how couples eventually stop having sex; the guesrs were married people who hadn't had sex in months, occasionally in years. He would study these shows, but none of them ever gave him the information he wanted: How long into the relationship did the sex last? How much longer would you have to wait until this happened to him and Willem, too? He looked at the couples: Were they happy? (obviously not; they were on talk shows telling strangers about their sex lives and asking for help.) But they seemed happy, didn't they, or a version of happy at least, that man and woman who hadn't had sex in three years and yet, through the touch of the man's hand on the woman's arm, obviously had affection for each other, obviously stayed together for reasons more important than sex.

p569: The word "friend" was so vague, so undescriptive and unsatisfying - how could he use the same term to describe what Jude was to him that he used for India or the Henry Youngs? And so they had chosen another, more familiar form of relationship, one that hadn't worked. But now they were inventing their own type of relationship, one that wasn't officially recognised by history or immortalised in poetry or song, but which felt truer and less constraining. (Two people and the author discover asexual relationships.)]]> 4.36 2015 A Little Life
author: Hanya Yanagihara
name: Bookworm
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2015
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/30
date added: 2025/03/30
shelves: bought-new, 2025-reads
review:
Rating: B-?

A Little Life is a long and detailed character study so full of despair that nothing surprised me, and two events that even I was able to predict; that Harold was speaking to a dead Jude and that Willem, the shining light of goodness, aiming to love and protect Jude, would die horribly in a car crash of some kind. What tragedy is complete without a car crash? Furthermore, does every person Jude meets have to be an abuser? Can't there just be one good person in the world? Unbelievable.

I don't think I could rate it high at all because I couldn't connect to any of the characters and by the end of the novel they were so incredibly rich that they were able to access everything they needed in their lives.

Scene change, to quotes:

P156: My life, he will think, me life. But he won't be able to think beyond this, and he will keep repeating the words to himself - part chant, part curse, part reassurance - as he slips into that other world that he visits when he is in such pain, that world he knows is never far from his own but that he can never remember after: My life.

P235: The entire passage about friendship. Lately, he had been wondering if codependence was such a bad thing. He took pleasure in friendships, and it didn't hurt anyone, so who cared if it was codependent or not? And anyway, how was a friendship any more codependent than a relationship? Why wasn't it even better? It was two people who remained together, day after day, bound not by sex or physical attraction or money or children or property, but only by the shared agreement to keep going, the mutual dedication to a union that could never be codified. Friendship was witnessing another's slow drip of miseries, and long bouts of boredom, and occasional triumphs. It was feeling honoured by the privilege of getting to be present for another person's most dismal moments, and knowing that you could be dismal around him in return.

p304: Either way, being single at forty is different from being single at thirty, and with every year it becomes less understandable, less enviable, and more pathetic, more inappropriate.

p486: It was as if he was back in college, his peers once again his unwitting teachers: always, he was alert for information, for lessons on how to be. He watched talk shows on television, which seem to be about how couples eventually stop having sex; the guesrs were married people who hadn't had sex in months, occasionally in years. He would study these shows, but none of them ever gave him the information he wanted: How long into the relationship did the sex last? How much longer would you have to wait until this happened to him and Willem, too? He looked at the couples: Were they happy? (obviously not; they were on talk shows telling strangers about their sex lives and asking for help.) But they seemed happy, didn't they, or a version of happy at least, that man and woman who hadn't had sex in three years and yet, through the touch of the man's hand on the woman's arm, obviously had affection for each other, obviously stayed together for reasons more important than sex.

p569: The word "friend" was so vague, so undescriptive and unsatisfying - how could he use the same term to describe what Jude was to him that he used for India or the Henry Youngs? And so they had chosen another, more familiar form of relationship, one that hadn't worked. But now they were inventing their own type of relationship, one that wasn't officially recognised by history or immortalised in poetry or song, but which felt truer and less constraining. (Two people and the author discover asexual relationships.)
]]> Prey 83763
It has been programmed as a predator. It is evolving swiftly, becoming more deadly with each passing hour.

Every attempt to destroy it has failed.

And we are the prey.]]> 507 Michael Crichton 0061015725 Bookworm 0 to-read 3.78 2002 Prey
author: Michael Crichton
name: Bookworm
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2002
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Death and Life of the Great Lakes]]> 35187180
The Death and Life of the Great Lakes is prize-winning reporter Dan Egan’s compulsively readable portrait of an ecological catastrophe happening right before our eyes, blending the epic story of the lakes with an examination of the perils they face and the ways we can restore and preserve them for generations to come.]]> 364 Dan Egan 0393355551 Bookworm 0 to-read 4.32 2017 The Death and Life of the Great Lakes
author: Dan Egan
name: Bookworm
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Devil All the Time 11976361 The Devil All the Time follows a cast of characters from the end of World War II to the 1960s. There’s Willard Russell, tormented veteran of the carnage in the South Pacific, who can’t save his beautiful wife, Charlotte, from an agonizing death by cancer no matter how much sacrifi­cial blood he pours on his “prayer log.� There’s Carl and Sandy Henderson, a husband-and-wife team of serial kill­ers, who troll America’s highways searching for suitable models to photograph and exterminate. There’s the spider-handling preacher Roy and his crippled virtuoso-guitar-playing sidekick, Theodore, running from the law. And caught in the middle of all this is Arvin Eugene Russell, Willard and Charlotte’s orphaned son, who grows up to be a good but also violent man in his own right.]]> 261 Donald Ray Pollock 1846555418 Bookworm 4 2020-reads, library Rating: <b>A</b> 4.01 2011 The Devil All the Time
author: Donald Ray Pollock
name: Bookworm
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at: 2020/12/01
date added: 2025/03/26
shelves: 2020-reads, library
review:
Rating: A
]]> <![CDATA[Listen to Your Sister: A Novel]]> 226365038 This program features multicast narration.

For fans of Jordan Peele’s films, Stranger Things , and The Other Black Girl , Listen To Your Sister is a laugh-out-loud, deeply terrifying, and big-hearted speculative horror novel from electrifying debut talent Neena Viel.

Twenty-five year old Calla Williams is struggling since becoming guardian to her brother, Jamie. Calla is overwhelmed and tired of being the one who makes sacrifices to keep the family together. Jamie, full of good-natured sixteen-year-old recklessness, is usually off fighting for what matters to him or getting into mischief, often at the same time. Dre, their brother, promised he would help raise Jamie–but now the ink is dry on the paperwork and in classic middle-child fashion, he’s off doing his own thing. And through it all, The Nightmare never stops haunting recurring images of her brothers dying that she is powerless to stop.

When Jamie’s actions at a protest spiral out of control, the siblings must go on the run. Taking refuge in a remote cabin that looks like it belongs on a slasher movie poster rather than an AirBNB, the siblings now face a new threat where their lives–and reality–hang in the balance. Their sister always warned them about her nightmares. They really should have listened.

“A knockout debut."–Ashley Winstead

“Incredibly original and seriously scary.”–Nick Medina

“A brilliant fever-dream of a novel that effortlessly dances between horror, literary, and family saga—sure to appeal to fans of Grady Hendrix, Tananarive Due, Mona Awad, and Stephen King."–Maria Dong

A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin’s Press.]]> 12 Neena Viel Bookworm 0 3.19 2025 Listen to Your Sister: A Novel
author: Neena Viel
name: Bookworm
average rating: 3.19
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/24
shelves: 2025-reads, audio, library, dropped
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days (Revelation Space Book 5)]]> 9343347 Alastair Reynolds returns to his bestselling Revelation Space universe with two novellas of interstellar exploration. “Diamond Dogs”The planet Golgotha—supposedly lifeless—resides in a remote star system, far from those inhabited by human colonists. It is home to an enigmatic machine-like structure called the Blood Spire, which has already brutally and systematically claimed the lives of one starship crew that attempted to uncover its secrets. But nothing will deter Richard Swift from exploring this object of alien origin...“Turquoise Days”In the seas of Turquoise live the Pattern Jugglers, the amorphous, aquatic organisms capable of preserving the memories of any human swimmer who joins their collective consciousness. Naqi Okpik devoted her life to studying these creatures—and paid a high price for swimming among them. Now, she may be the only hope for the survival of the species—and of every person living on Turquoise...]]> 183 Alastair Reynolds 1440622000 Bookworm 0 tbr-physicalcopy 4.03 2001 Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days (Revelation Space Book 5)
author: Alastair Reynolds
name: Bookworm
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2001
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/22
shelves: tbr-physicalcopy
review:

]]> Last Days 4309446 Last Days is a down-the-rabbit-hole detective novel set in an underground religious cult. The story follows Kline, a brutally dismembered detective forcibly recruited to solve a murder inside the cult. As Kline becomes more deeply involved with the group, he begins to realize the stakes are higher than he previously thought. Attempting to find his way through a maze of lies, threats, and misinformation, Kline discovers that his survival depends on an act of sheer will.

Last Days was first published in 2003 as a limited edition novella titled The Brotherhood of Mutilation. Its success led Evenson to expand the story into a full-length novel. In doing so, he has created a work that’s disturbing, deeply satisfying, and completely original.]]> 201 Brian Evenson 0980226007 Bookworm 0 tbr-digitalcopy 3.70 2009 Last Days
author: Brian Evenson
name: Bookworm
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/22
shelves: tbr-digitalcopy
review:

]]> Fluids 75523735
The content within this book will shock you and it is not for the faint of heart or stomach.]]> 191 May Leitz Bookworm 0 tbr-digitalcopy 3.41 2022 Fluids
author: May Leitz
name: Bookworm
average rating: 3.41
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/22
shelves: tbr-digitalcopy
review:

]]> Cuckoo 61884778 Cuckoo is a vicious new novel about a group of teens who must stay true to themselves while in a conversion camp from hell.

Something evil is buried deep in the desert.
It wants your body. It wears your skin.

In the summer of 1995, seven queer kids abandoned by their parents at a remote conversion camp came face-to-face with it. They survived � but at Camp Resolution, everybody leaves a different person.

Sixteen years later, only the scarred and broken survivors of that terrible summer can put an end to the horror before it’s too late.

The fate of the world depends on it.]]> 342 Gretchen Felker-Martin 1250794668 Bookworm 0 tbr-digitalcopy 3.50 2024 Cuckoo
author: Gretchen Felker-Martin
name: Bookworm
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/22
shelves: tbr-digitalcopy
review:

]]> Bad Brains 341941 367 Kathe Koja 044021114X Bookworm 0 tbr-digitalcopy 3.85 1992 Bad Brains
author: Kathe Koja
name: Bookworm
average rating: 3.85
book published: 1992
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/22
shelves: tbr-digitalcopy
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Vampire Knitting Club (Vampire Knitting Club, #1)]]> 52019336 A troublemaking witch
Who killed Granny � and is she really dead?

At a crossroads between a cringe-worthy past (Todd the Toad) and an uncertain future (she's not exactly homeless, but it's close), Lucy Swift travels to Oxford to visit her grandmother. With Gran's undying love to count on and Cardinal Woolsey's, Gran's knitting shop, to keep her busy, Lucy can catch her breath and figure out what she's going to do.

Except it turns out that Gran is the undying. Or at least, the undead. But there's a death certificate. And a will, leaving the knitting shop to Lucy. And a lot of people going in and out who never use the door—including Gran, who is just as loving as ever, and prone to knitting sweaters at warp speed, late at night. What exactly is going on?

When Lucy discovers that Gran did not die peacefully in her sleep, but was murdered, she has to bring the killer to justice without tipping off the law that there's no body in the grave. Between a hot 600-year-old vampire and a dishy detective inspector, both of whom always seem to be there for her, Lucy finds her life getting more complicated than a triple cable cardigan.
The only one who seems to know what's going on is her cat ... or is it ... her familiar?]]> 6 Nancy Warren Bookworm 2 audio, library, 2025-reads 3.57 2018 The Vampire Knitting Club (Vampire Knitting Club, #1)
author: Nancy Warren
name: Bookworm
average rating: 3.57
book published: 2018
rating: 2
read at: 2025/03/20
date added: 2025/03/19
shelves: audio, library, 2025-reads
review:
This just probably wasnt a book for me.
]]> The Centre 209577624 A darkly comic, boundary-pushing debut following an adrift Pakistani translator in London who attends a mysterious language school which boasts complete fluency in just ten days, but at a secret, sinister cost.

Anisa Ellahi dreams of being a translator of ‘great works of literature�, but instead mostly spends her days subtitling Bollywood films in her flat in London while living off her parents� generous allowance and discussing the ‘underside of life� with her best friend, Naima. Then she meets Adam, who has successfully leveraged his savant-level aptitude for languages into an enviable career. At first, this only adds to her sense of inadequacy, but when Adam learns to speak Urdu with native fluency practically overnight, Anisa forces him to reveal his secret.

Adam tells Anisa about the Centre, an elite, invite-only program that guarantees absolute fluency in any language in just ten days. Sceptical but intrigued, Anisa enrols. Stripped of her belongings and all contact with the outside world, she undergoes the Centre's strange and rigorous processes. But as she enmeshes herself further within the organisation, seduced by all that it’s made possible, she soon realizes the disturbing, hidden cost of its services.

By turns dark, funny, and surreal, and with twists page-turning and shocking, The Centre takes the reader on a journey through Karachi, London, and New Delhi, interrogating the sticky politics of language, translation, and appropriation with biting specificity, and ultimately asking: what price would you be willing to pay for success?]]> 9 Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi 1666634484 Bookworm 3 2025-reads, audio, library 3.38 2023 The Centre
author: Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi
name: Bookworm
average rating: 3.38
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/19
date added: 2025/03/18
shelves: 2025-reads, audio, library
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism]]> 223436601 An explosive memoir charting one woman’s career at the heart of one of the most influential companies on the planet, Careless People gives you a front-row seat to Facebook, the decisions that have shaped world events in recent decades, and the people who made them.

From trips on private jets and encounters with world leaders to shocking accounts of misogyny and double standards behind the scenes, this searing memoir exposes both the personal and the political fallout when unfettered power and a rotten company culture take hold. In a gripping and often absurd narrative where a few people carelessly hold the world in their hands, this eye-opening memoir reveals what really goes on among the global elite.

Sarah Wynn-Williams tells the wrenching but fun story of Facebook, mapping its rise from stumbling encounters with juntas to Mark Zuckerberg’s reaction when he learned of Facebook’s role in Trump’s election. She experiences the challenges and humiliations of working motherhood within a pressure cooker of a workplace, all while Sheryl Sandberg urges her and others to “lean in.�

Careless People is a deeply personal account of why and how things have gone so horribly wrong in the past decade—told in a sharp, candid, and utterly disarming voice. A deep, unflinching look at the role that social media has assumed in our lives, Careless People reveals the truth about the leaders of Facebook: how the more power they grasp, the less responsible they become and the consequences this has for all of us.]]> 382 Sarah Wynn-Williams 1250391237 Bookworm 0 to-read 4.27 2025 Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism
author: Sarah Wynn-Williams
name: Bookworm
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Love, Theoretically 61326735
Honestly, it’s a pretty sweet gig—until her carefully constructed Elsie-verse comes crashing down. Because Jack Smith, the annoyingly attractive and broody older brother of her favorite client, turns out to be the cold-hearted experimental physicist who ruined her mentor’s career and undermined the reputation of theorists everywhere. And that same Jack who now sits on the hiring committee at MIT, right between Elsie and her dream job.

Elsie is prepared for an all-out war of scholarly sabotage but…those long, penetrating looks? Not having to be anything other than her true self when she’s with him? Will falling into an experimentalist’s orbit finally tempt her to put her most guarded theories on love into practice?]]> 389 Ali Hazelwood 1408725797 Bookworm 0 to-read 4.07 2023 Love, Theoretically
author: Ali Hazelwood
name: Bookworm
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Slimer 41482444
But there's something strange about this oil rig. For one thing, it looks more like a scientific research facility. And for another, there are no people - only piles of clothes with no bodies in them.

It soon becomes clear that something is loose on the rig. Something deadly. It's stalking them, one by one, but it's not just a horrible death they have to fear - it's what comes after . . .

The basis for the cult film Proteus, Harry Adam Knight's first novel, Slimer (1983), is a wild thrill ride that mixes creature feature horror, fast-paced action, and a dose of black humor. This long-awaited reissue of this rare novel features a new introduction by the author.]]> 132 Harry Adam Knight Bookworm 3 2025-reads, e-book, library B-

Hm, this is basically The Thing and and the movie Life in a book. It definitely reads like an 80s schlocky horror. Also... CW: [spoilers removed]

I expected it to be way more horrifying but it was just kind of gross, and it was only 100 pages (smallest font size on my phone) but felt twice as long.

I don't think it was even that good.]]> 3.39 1983 Slimer
author: Harry Adam Knight
name: Bookworm
average rating: 3.39
book published: 1983
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/11
date added: 2025/03/11
shelves: 2025-reads, e-book, library
review:
Rating: B-

Hm, this is basically The Thing and and the movie Life in a book. It definitely reads like an 80s schlocky horror. Also... CW: [spoilers removed]

I expected it to be way more horrifying but it was just kind of gross, and it was only 100 pages (smallest font size on my phone) but felt twice as long.

I don't think it was even that good.
]]> Leech 59807968 In an isolated chateau, as far north as north goes, the baron’s doctor has died. The doctor’s replacement has a mystery to solve: discovering how the Institute lost track of one of its many bodies.

For hundreds of years the Interprovincial Medical Institute has grown by taking root in young minds and shaping them into doctors, replacing every human practitioner of medicine. The Institute is here to help humanity, to cure and to cut, to cradle and protect the species from the apocalyptic horrors their ancestors unleashed.

In the frozen north, the Institute's body will discover a competitor for its rung at the top of the evolutionary ladder. A parasite is spreading through the baron's castle, already a dark pit of secrets, lies, violence, and fear. The two will make war on the battlefield of the body. Whichever wins, humanity will lose again.]]> 323 Hiron Ennes 125081118X Bookworm 0 3.56 2022 Leech
author: Hiron Ennes
name: Bookworm
average rating: 3.56
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/11
shelves: currently-reading, 2025-reads, e-book
review:

]]> Carnosaur 3147071
David Pascal is a small-time Journalist who gets his Chance to make it big by cracking the dino story. But the key to the truth carries a high price—it's held by Jane. Before she's through with David, the carnage created by the dinosaurs will spread for miles and climax in an apocalyptic battle between the primal monsters and all the technological forces that modern man can muster.

But can anything stand against the voracious prehistoric hunger of... Carnosaur.]]> 208 Harry Adam Knight 0352314478 Bookworm 0 to-read 3.64 1984 Carnosaur
author: Harry Adam Knight
name: Bookworm
average rating: 3.64
book published: 1984
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Stitches (Darkly Depraved Monsters)]]> 218708819 145 Violet Taylor Bookworm 2 2025-reads, e-book Rating: <b>C-</b> 3.89 Stitches (Darkly Depraved Monsters)
author: Violet Taylor
name: Bookworm
average rating: 3.89
book published:
rating: 2
read at: 2025/03/02
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: 2025-reads, e-book
review:
Rating: C-
]]> A Short Stay in Hell 13456414
In this haunting existential novella, author, philosopher, and ecologist Steven L. Peck explores a subversive vision of eternity, taking the reader on a journey through the afterlife of a world where everything everyone believed in turns out to be wrong.]]> 110 Steven L. Peck 098374842X Bookworm 4 2025-reads, library A

A book that I enjoyed and found depth and thought-provoking ideas in. I just saved a few quotes 'cause I laughed or found them interesting or touching.

My lust seem to have disappeared as she became a real person and not just a red-headed object with a pretty face.
]]> 4.17 2011 A Short Stay in Hell
author: Steven L. Peck
name: Bookworm
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/09
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: 2025-reads, library
review:
Rating: A

A book that I enjoyed and found depth and thought-provoking ideas in. I just saved a few quotes 'cause I laughed or found them interesting or touching.

My lust seem to have disappeared as she became a real person and not just a red-headed object with a pretty face.

]]> <![CDATA[A Sunny Place for Shady People]]> 203956643 A diabolical collection of stories featuring achingly human characters whose lives intertwine with ghosts, goblins, and the macabre, by “one of Latin America’s most exciting authors� (Silvia Moreno-Garcia)

On the shores of this river, all the birds that fly, drink, perch on branches, and disturb siestas with the demonic squawking of the possessed—all those birds were once women.

Welcome to Argentina and the fascinating, frightening, fantastical imagination of Mariana Enriquez. In twelve spellbinding new stories, Enriquez writes about ordinary people, especially women, whose lives turn inside out when they encounter terror, the surreal, and the supernatural. A neighborhood nuisanced by ghosts, a family whose faces melt away, a faded hotel haunted by a girl who dissolved in the water tank on the roof, a riverbank populated by birds that used to be women—these and other tales illuminate the shadows of contemporary life, where the line between good and evil no longer exists.

Lyrical and hypnotic, heart-stopping and deeply moving, Enriquez’s stories never fail to enthrall, entertain, and leave us shaken. Translated by the award-winning Megan McDowell, A Sunny Place for Shady People showcases Enriquez’s unique blend of the literary and the horrific, and underscores why Kazuo Ishiguro, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, calls her “the most exciting discovery I’ve made in fiction for some time.”]]> 257 Mariana Enríquez 0593733258 Bookworm 0 to-read 3.79 2024 A Sunny Place for Shady People
author: Mariana Enríquez
name: Bookworm
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[MIND MGMT Omnibus Part 1: The Mind Management Comprehensive Report 1 of 3]]> 42045920 This globe-spanning tale of espionage explores the adventures of a journalist investigating the mystery of a commercial flight where everyone aboard loses their memories

Meru's obsession with Flight 815 leads her to a much bigger story of a top-secret government Mind MGMT program. Her ensuing journey involves weaponized psychics, hypnotic advertising, talking dolphins, and seemingly immortal pursuers, as she hunts down the flight's missing passenger, the man who was Mind MGMT's greatest success--and its most devastating failure. But in a world where people can rewrite reality itself, can she trust anything she sees?
Collects the first two volumes of the Mind MGMT series from New York Times bestselling and Eisner-nominated creator Matt Kindt--a story that's optioned for film by Ridley Scott (Alien, Blade Runner).]]> 424 Matt Kindt 1506704603 Bookworm 0 to-read 4.26 2019 MIND MGMT Omnibus Part 1: The Mind Management Comprehensive Report 1 of 3
author: Matt Kindt
name: Bookworm
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Bunker Diary 17210598 I can't believe I fell for it.
It was still dark when I woke up this morning.
As soon as my eyes opened I knew where I was.
A low-ceilinged rectangular building made entirely of whitewashed concrete.
There are six little rooms along the main corridor.
There are no windows. No doors. The elevator is the only way in or out.
What's he going to do to me?
What am I going to do?

People are really quite simple, and they have simple needs. Food, water, light, space, privacy. Maybe a small measure of dignity. A bit of freedom. What happens when someone simply takes all that away?]]> 268 Kevin Brooks 0141326123 Bookworm 3 2025-reads, audio, library 3.85 2013 The Bunker Diary
author: Kevin Brooks
name: Bookworm
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2013
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/06
date added: 2025/03/06
shelves: 2025-reads, audio, library
review:

]]> The September House 198763595 A woman is determined to stay in her dream home even after it becomes a haunted nightmare in this compulsively readable, twisty, and layered debut novel.

When Margaret and her husband Hal bought the large Victorian house on Hawthorn Street—for sale at a surprisingly reasonable price—they couldn’t believe they finally had a home of their own. Then they discovered the hauntings. Every September, the walls drip blood. The ghosts of former inhabitants appear, and all of them are terrified of something that lurks in the basement. Most people would flee.

Margaret is not most people.

Margaret is staying. It’s her house. But after four years Hal can’t take it anymore, and he leaves abruptly. Now, he’s not returning calls, and their daughter Katherine—who knows nothing about the hauntings—arrives, intent on looking for her missing father. To make things worse, September has just begun, and with every attempt Margaret and Katherine make at finding Hal, the hauntings grow more harrowing, because there are some secrets the house needs to keep.]]> 13 Carissa Orlando 0593747291 Bookworm 4 2025-reads, audio, library A

The more haunted house books I read, the more I expect them to be cliche and boring. They all end the same. Well this one does end the same, but the first third was so kooky and hilarious that I was hooked! I just really loved so much of this book and how strange and unsettling it was; the relationship between the main characater, Margaret, a woman in her 50s or 60s and her daughter, Catherine, who is 29, was so reflective of my own struggles with communication and also communication with my parent that I felt so anxious listening along.

I had a great time with it, if you want something comedic, scary and also utterly disgusting and full of gore, The September House is it.]]> 3.81 2023 The September House
author: Carissa Orlando
name: Bookworm
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/07
date added: 2025/03/06
shelves: 2025-reads, audio, library
review:
Rating: A

The more haunted house books I read, the more I expect them to be cliche and boring. They all end the same. Well this one does end the same, but the first third was so kooky and hilarious that I was hooked! I just really loved so much of this book and how strange and unsettling it was; the relationship between the main characater, Margaret, a woman in her 50s or 60s and her daughter, Catherine, who is 29, was so reflective of my own struggles with communication and also communication with my parent that I felt so anxious listening along.

I had a great time with it, if you want something comedic, scary and also utterly disgusting and full of gore, The September House is it.
]]> <![CDATA[Briefing for a Descent Into Hell]]> 372392 278 Doris Lessing 1400077265 Bookworm 0 tbr-digitalcopy 3.80 1971 Briefing for a Descent Into Hell
author: Doris Lessing
name: Bookworm
average rating: 3.80
book published: 1971
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/04
shelves: tbr-digitalcopy
review:

]]> The Eyes Are the Best Part 195703882 Crying in H-Mart meets My Sister, the Serial Killer in this feminist psychological horror about the making of a female serial killer from a Korean-American perspective.

Ji-won’s life tumbles into disarray in the wake of her appa’s extramarital affair and subsequent departure. Her mother, distraught. Her younger sister, hurt and confused. Her college freshman grades, failing. Her dreams, horrifying� yet enticing.

In them, Ji-won walks through bloody rooms full of eyes. Succulent blue eyes. Salivatingly blue eyes. Eyes the same shape and shade as George’s, who is Umma’s obnoxious new boyfriend. George has already overstayed his welcome in her family’s claustrophobic apartment. He brags about his puffed-up consulting job, ogles Asian waitresses while dining out, and acts condescending toward Ji-won and her sister as if he deserves all of Umma’s fawning adoration. No, George doesn’t deserve anything from her family. Ji-won will make sure of that.

For no matter how many victims accumulate around her campus or how many people she must deceive and manipulate, Ji-won’s hunger and her rage deserve to be sated.

A brilliantly inventive, subversive novel about a young woman unraveling, Monika Kim’s The Eyes Are the Best Part is a story of a family falling apart and trying to find their way back to each other, marking a bold new voice in horror that will leave readers mesmerized and craving more.]]> 278 Monika Kim 1645661237 Bookworm 0 tbr-digitalcopy 3.81 2024 The Eyes Are the Best Part
author: Monika Kim
name: Bookworm
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/04
shelves: tbr-digitalcopy
review:

]]> Ghost Station 127280445 A crew must try to survive on an ancient, abandoned planet in the latest space horror novel from S.A. Barnes, acclaimed author of Dead Silence.

Space exploration can be lonely and isolating.

Psychologist Dr. Ophelia Bray has dedicated her life to the study and prevention of ERS—a space-based condition most famous for a case that resulted in the brutal murders of twenty-nine people. When she's assigned to a small exploration crew, she's eager to make a difference. But as they begin to establish residency on an abandoned planet, it becomes clear that crew is hiding something.

While Ophelia focuses on her new role, her crewmates are far more interested in investigating the eerie, ancient planet and unraveling the mystery behind the previous colonizer's hasty departure than opening up to her.

That is, until their pilot is discovered gruesomely murdered. Is this Ophelia’s worst nightmare starting—a wave of violence and mental deterioration from ERS? Or is it something more sinister?

Terrified that history will repeat itself, Ophelia and the crew must work together to figure out what’s happening. But trust is hard to come by� and the crew isn’t the only one keeping secrets.]]> 377 S.A. Barnes 1250884926 Bookworm 0 tbr-digitalcopy 3.51 2024 Ghost Station
author: S.A. Barnes
name: Bookworm
average rating: 3.51
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/04
shelves: tbr-digitalcopy
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Keep (Adversary Cycle, #1)]]> 62571
Thus reads the message received from a German commander stationed in a small castle high in the remote Transylvanian Alps. And when an elite Nazi SS extermination squad is dispatched to solve the problem, the men find a something that's both powerful and terrifying. Invisible and silent, the enemy selects one victim per night, leaving the bloodless and mutilated corpses behind to terrify its future victims. Panicked, the Nazis bring in a local expert on folklore--who just happens to be Jewish--to shed some light on the mysterious happenings. And unbeknownst to anyone, there is another visitor on his way--a man who awoke from a nightmare and immediately set out to meet his destiny.

The battle has begun: On one side, the ultimate evil created by man, and on the other... the unthinkable, unstoppable, unknowable terror that man has inevitably awakened.]]> 403 F. Paul Wilson 0765357054 Bookworm 0 tbr-digitalcopy 4.00 1981 The Keep (Adversary Cycle, #1)
author: F. Paul Wilson
name: Bookworm
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1981
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/04
shelves: tbr-digitalcopy
review:

]]> Full Immersion 60052495 A traumatised woman with amnesia finds her own dead body and sets out to uncover the truth of her demise in a race against time, sanity, crumbling realities and the ever-present threat of the Silhouette.

Magpie is out of ideas. She’s desperate enough to try anything. Just when she thinks her life can get no worse, she discovers herself, or rather her own dead body, partially buried in the mudbank of a river. A man stands by, a familiar stranger. What does he want? And why can’t she remember getting here? Why can’t she remember anything?

Unbeknownst to her, two pairs of eyes watch from behind an observation screen, in a room filled with computers and sensors. An experiment is unfolding, but is Magpie the subject, or practitioner? Reality becomes a slippery concept. And beyond the glass is something worse a hint of an outline, shaped in darkness�
Magpie realises all too soon that her journey has transformed from healing to survival. She must become the hunter rather than the hunted, with her missing memories the prey.

In turn brutal, beautiful and absolutely terrifying, Full Immersion is the latest speculative horror from Gemma Amor.]]> 351 Gemma Amor 0857669842 Bookworm 0 tbr-digitalcopy 3.71 2022 Full Immersion
author: Gemma Amor
name: Bookworm
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/04
shelves: tbr-digitalcopy
review:

]]> Salvation Day 39918548
They thought the ship would be their salvation.

Zahra knew every detail of the plan. House of Wisdom, a massive exploration vessel, had been abandoned by the government of Earth a decade earlier, when a deadly virus broke out and killed everyone on board in a matter of hours. But now it could belong to her people if they were bold enough to take it. All they needed to do was kidnap Jaswinder Bhattacharya—the sole survivor of the tragedy, and the last person whose genetic signature would allow entry to the spaceship.

But what Zahra and her crew could not know was what waited for them on the ship—a terrifying secret buried by the government. A threat to all of humanity that lay sleeping alongside the orbiting dead.

And then they woke it up.]]> 320 Kali Wallace 1984803697 Bookworm 0 tbr-digitalcopy 3.68 2019 Salvation Day
author: Kali Wallace
name: Bookworm
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/04
shelves: tbr-digitalcopy
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Season of the Cerulyn (Travalaith Saga #2)]]> 50878728
But when Catrine falls in love with her hapless mark, and and both of them are thrown into a deadly conflict involving Aewyn and her roguish band of Havenari outriders, the lovestruck spy must choose once and for all where her true allegiance lies—and decide whether her heart belongs to the living or the dead.

The Travalaith Saga continues, grows, and takes a darker turn in this moving chronicle of high adventure, civil war, and deadly intrigue.]]> 520 Luke R.J. Maynard Bookworm 0 to-read 5.00 2020 The Season of the Cerulyn (Travalaith Saga #2)
author: Luke R.J. Maynard
name: Bookworm
average rating: 5.00
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Little Prince 57006662 Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's tender and magical classic fable, adapted for picture book readers for the very first time!


Please � draw me a sheep.


I blinked.


The voice belonged to a charming little prince.


The characters of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's classic tale have captured the hearts of generations of readers. Meet the pilot stranded in the desert. Meet the Little Prince who tends his beautiful rose on a planet of his own. Follow him as he embarks on a strange and wonderful journey to puzzling new planets and finally to Earth, where he discovers the nature of love.



‘It’s never too soon to hear that we don’t know what we’ve got till it’s gone, and this pair (and the spirit of Saint-Exupéry) land that message in style.� � Alex O’Connell, The Times


Adapted by award-winning poet Louise Greig, author of the Greenaway-medal-nominated Sweep and The Night Box, with enchanting new artwork from the critically acclaimed illustrator of The Velveteen Rabbit and Star in the Jar.]]> 32 Louise Greig 1405288124 Bookworm 2 C+

This is purely a children's book with the original story censored.]]> 4.19 1943 The Little Prince
author: Louise Greig
name: Bookworm
average rating: 4.19
book published: 1943
rating: 2
read at: 2023/12/30
date added: 2025/03/02
shelves: 2023-reads, library, books-in-brisbane-reads
review:
Rating: C+

This is purely a children's book with the original story censored.
]]> Blood on Her Tongue 213570812 "I'm in your blood, and you are in mine�"

The Netherlands, 1887. Lucy's twin sister Sarah is unwell. She refuses to eat, mumbles nonsensically, and is increasingly obsessed with a centuries-old corpse recently discovered on her husband's grand estate. The doctor has diagnosed her with temporary insanity caused by a fever of the brain. To protect her twin from a terrible fate in a lunatic asylum, Lucy must unravel the mystery surrounding her sister's condition, but it's clear her twin is hiding something. Then again, Lucy is harboring secrets of her own, too.

Then, the worst happens. Sarah's behavior takes a turn for the strange. She becomes angry� and hungry.

Lucy soon comes to suspect that something is trying to possess her beloved sister. Or is it madness? As Sarah changes before her very eyes, Lucy must reckon with the dark, monstrous truth, or risk losing her forever.]]> 368 Johanna van Veen 1728281571 Bookworm 0 to-read 3.97 2025 Blood on Her Tongue
author: Johanna van Veen
name: Bookworm
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> You've Reached Sam 59788090 Dustin Thao's You've Reached Sam is a heartfelt audiobook about love and loss and what it means to say goodbye.

How do you move forward when everything you love is on the line?

Seventeen-year-old Julie has her future all planned out—move out of her small town with her boyfriend Sam, attend college in the city, spend a summer in Japan.

But then Sam dies. And everything changes.

Heartbroken, Julie skips his funeral, throws out his things, and tries everything to forget him and the tragic way he died. But a message Sam left behind in her yearbook forces back memories. Desperate to hear his voice one more time, Julie calls Sam’s cellphone just to listen to his voicemail.

And Sam picks up the phone.

In a miraculous turn of events, Julie’s been given a second chance at goodbye. The connection is temporary. But hearing Sam’s voice makes her fall for him all over again, and with each call it becomes harder to let him go. However, keeping her otherworldly calls with Sam a secret isn’t easy, especially when Julie witnesses the suffering Sam’s family is going through. Unable to stand by the sidelines and watch their shared loved ones in pain, Julie is torn between spilling the truth about her calls with Sam and risking their connection and losing him forever.]]> Dustin Thao 1250820820 Bookworm 0 3.32 2021 You've Reached Sam
author: Dustin Thao
name: Bookworm
average rating: 3.32
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/02
shelves: 2025-reads, audio, library, dropped
review:

]]> Lapvona 59693959 In a village in a medieval fiefdom buffeted by natural disasters, a motherless shepherd boy finds himself the unlikely pivot of a power struggle that puts all manner of faith to a savage test, in a spellbinding novel that represents Ottessa Moshfegh’s most exciting leap yet

Little Marek, the abused and delusional son of the village shepherd, never knew his mother; his father told him she died in childbirth. One of life’s few consolations for Marek is his enduring bond with the blind village midwife, Ina, who suckled him as a baby, as she did so many of the village’s children. Ina’s gifts extend beyond childcare: she possesses a unique ability to communicate with the natural world. Her gift often brings her the transmission of sacred knowledge on levels far beyond those available to other villagers, however religious they might be. For some people, Ina’s home in the woods outside of the village is a place to fear and to avoid, a godless place.

Among their number is Father Barnabas, the town priest and lackey for the depraved lord and governor, Villiam, whose hilltop manor contains a secret embarrassment of riches. The people’s desperate need to believe that there are powers that be who have their best interests at heart is put to a cruel test by Villiam and the priest, especially in this year of record drought and famine. But when fate brings Marek into violent proximity to the lord’s family, new and occult forces upset the old order. By year’s end, the veil between blindness and sight, life and death, the natural world and the spirit world, civility and savagery, will prove to be very thin indeed.]]> 313 Ottessa Moshfegh Bookworm 0 tbr-digitalcopy 3.53 2022 Lapvona
author: Ottessa Moshfegh
name: Bookworm
average rating: 3.53
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/01
shelves: tbr-digitalcopy
review:

]]> Eileen 60540723 So here we are. My name was Eileen Dunlop. Now you know me. I was twenty-four years old then, and had a job that paid fifty-seven dollars a week as a kind of secretary at a private juvenile correctional facility for teenage boys. I think of it now as what it really was for all intents and purposes—a prison for boys. I will call it Moorehead. Delvin Moorehead was a terrible landlord I had years later, and so to use his name for such a place feels appropriate. In a week, I would run away from home and never go back.

This is the story of how I disappeared.

The Christmas season offers little cheer for Eileen Dunlop, an unassuming yet disturbed young woman trapped between her role as her alcoholic father’s caretaker in a home whose squalor is the talk of the neighborhood and a day job as a secretary at the boys� prison, filled with its own quotidian horrors. Consumed by resentment and self-loathing, Eileen tempers her dreary days with perverse fantasies and dreams of escaping to the big city. In the meantime, she fills her nights and weekends with shoplifting, stalking a buff prison guard named Randy, and cleaning up her increasingly deranged father’s messes. When the bright, beautiful, and cheery Rebecca Saint John arrives on the scene as the new counselor at Moorehead, Eileen is enchanted and proves unable to resist what appears at first to be a miraculously budding friendship. In a Hitchcockian twist, her affection for Rebecca ultimately pulls her into complicity in a crime that surpasses her wildest imaginings.

Played out against the snowy landscape of coastal New England in the days leading up to Christmas, young Eileen’s story is told from the gimlet-eyed perspective of the now much older narrator. Creepy, mesmerizing, and sublimely funny, in the tradition of Shirley Jackson and early Vladimir Nabokov, this powerful debut novel enthralls and shocks, and introduces one of the most original new voices in contemporary literature. Ottessa Moshfegh is also the author of My Year of Rest and Relaxation, Homesick for Another World: Stories, and McGlue.]]> Ottessa Moshfegh Bookworm 3 2025-reads, audio, library Rating: <b>C</b> 3.04 2015 Eileen
author: Ottessa Moshfegh
name: Bookworm
average rating: 3.04
book published: 2015
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/01
date added: 2025/03/01
shelves: 2025-reads, audio, library
review:
Rating: C
]]> <![CDATA[All Tomorrows: The Myriad Species and Mixed Fortunes of Man]]> 16143402 111 Nemo Ramjet Bookworm 0 to-read 4.19 2006 All Tomorrows: The Myriad Species and Mixed Fortunes of Man
author: Nemo Ramjet
name: Bookworm
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2006
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Extreme Makeover 28220687
The satirical new suspense about a health and beauty company that accidentally develops a hand lotion that can overwrite your DNA.

Lyle Fontanelle is the chief scientist for NewYew, a health and beauty company experimenting with a new, anti-aging hand lotion. As more and more anomalies crop up in testing, Lyle realizes that the lotion's formula has somehow gone horribly wrong. It is actively overwriting the DNA of anyone who uses it, turning them into physical clones of someone else. Lyle wants to destroy the formula, but NewYew thinks it might be the greatest beauty product ever designed--and the world's governments think it's the greatest weapon.

New York Times bestselling author Dan Wells brings us a gripping corporate satire about a health and beauty company that could destroy the world.]]> 416 Dan Wells 0765385635 Bookworm 0 tbr-digitalcopy 3.63 2016 Extreme Makeover
author: Dan Wells
name: Bookworm
average rating: 3.63
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/28
shelves: tbr-digitalcopy
review:

]]>