en-US Mon, 28 Apr 2025 10:11:14 -0700 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg 54508798
So when tragedy strikes and Maisie and Grant lose their mother and Patrick’s brother has a health crisis of his own, Patrick finds himself suddenly taking on the role of primary guardian. Despite having a set of “Guncle Rules�� ready to go, Patrick has no idea what to expect, having spent years barely holding on after the loss of his great love, a somewhat-stalled career, and a lifestyle not-so-suited to a six- and a nine-year-old. Quickly realizing that parenting—even if temporary—isn’t solved with treats and jokes, Patrick’s eyes are opened to a new sense of responsibility, and the realization that, sometimes, even being larger than life means you’re unfailingly human.]]> 326 Steven Rowley 0525542280 Don 5 4.09 2021
author: Steven Rowley
name: Don
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2025/04/28
date added: 2025/04/28
shelves:
review:
A charming take on Mary Poppins. Reluctant hermit and former Hollywood star Patrick is serene in his insular Palm Springs “retirement�� when he is recruited to tend to his niblings for the summer. Hilarity ensues as they learn the importance of being your true self while GUP receives a long overdue lesson in letting go and moving forward. Fun to read and even more fun to listen to (the author narrates the audiobook). I can’t wait to read more by this talented author.
]]> 56783258 When everything is lost, it’s our stories that survive.

How do we weather the end of things? Cloud Cuckoo Land brings together an unforgettable cast of dreamers and outsiders from past, present and future to offer a vision of survival against all odds.

Constantinople, 1453:
An orphaned seamstress and a cursed boy with a love for animals risk everything on opposite sides of a city wall to protect the people they love.

Idaho, 2020:
An impoverished, idealistic kid seeks revenge on a world that’s crumbling around him. Can he go through with it when a gentle old man stands between him and his plans?

Unknown, Sometime in the Future:
With her tiny community in peril, Konstance is the last hope for the human race. To find a way forward, she must look to the oldest stories of all for guidance.

Bound together by a single ancient text, these tales interweave to form a tapestry of solace and resilience and a celebration of storytelling itself. Like its predecessor All the Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr’s new novel is a tale of hope and of profound human connection.]]> 626 Anthony Doerr 1982168439 Don 0 to-read 4.24 2021
author: Anthony Doerr
name: Don
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 62039166 From the author of Skippy Dies comes Paul Murray's The Bee Sting, an irresistibly funny, wise, and thought-provoking tour de force about family, fortune, and the struggle to be a good person when the world is falling apart.

The Barnes family is in trouble. Dickie’s once-lucrative car business is going under―but rather than face the music, he’s spending his days in the woods, building an apocalypse-proof bunker with a renegade handyman. His wife Imelda is selling off her jewelry on eBay, while their teenage daughter Cass, formerly top of her class, seems determined to binge-drink her way through her final exams. And twelve-year-old PJ is putting the final touches to his grand plan to run away from home.

Where did it all go wrong? A patch of ice on the tarmac, a casual favor to a charming stranger, a bee caught beneath a bridal veil―can a single moment of bad luck change the direction of a life? And if the story has already been written―is there still time to find a happy ending?]]> 645 Paul Murray 0374600309 Don 0 to-read 3.92 2023
author: Paul Murray
name: Don
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 43587154 JADE CITY is a gripping Godfather-esque saga of intergenerational blood feuds, vicious politics, magic, and kungfu.

The Kaul family is one of two crime syndicates that control the island of Kekon. It's the only place in the world that produces rare magical jade, which grants those with the right training and heritage superhuman abilities.

The Green Bone clans of honorable jade-wearing warriors once protected the island from foreign invasion--but nowadays, in a bustling post-war metropolis full of fast cars and foreign money, Green Bone families like the Kauls are primarily involved in commerce, construction, and the everyday upkeep of the districts under their protection.

When the simmering tension between the Kauls and their greatest rivals erupts into open violence in the streets, the outcome of this clan war will determine the fate of all Green Bones and the future of Kekon itself.]]> 540 Fonda Lee 0316440884 Don 0 to-read 4.06 2017
author: Fonda Lee
name: Don
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 150247395
Called in to investigate this mystery is Ana Dolabra, an investigator whose reputation for brilliance is matched only by her eccentricities.

At her side is her new assistant, Dinios Kol. Din is an engraver, magically altered to possess a perfect memory. His job is to observe and report, and act as his superior’s eyes and ears--quite literally, in this case, as among Ana’s quirks are her insistence on wearing a blindfold at all times, and her refusal to step outside the walls of her home.

Din is most perplexed by Ana’s ravenous appetite for information and her mind’s frenzied leaps—not to mention her cheerful disregard for propriety and the apparent joy she takes in scandalizing her young counterpart. Yet as the case unfolds and Ana makes one startling deduction after the next, he finds it hard to deny that she is, indeed, the Empire’s greatest detective.

As the two close in on a mastermind and uncover a scheme that threatens the safety of the Empire itself, Din realizes he’s barely begun to assemble the puzzle that is Ana Dolabra—and wonders how long he’ll be able to keep his own secrets safe from her piercing intellect.

Featuring an unforgettable Holmes-and-Watson style pairing, a gloriously labyrinthine plot, and a haunting and wholly original fantasy world, The Tainted Cup brilliantly reinvents the classic mystery tale.]]> 410 Robert Jackson Bennett 1984820702 Don 0 to-read 4.28 2024
author: Robert Jackson Bennett
name: Don
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 228202 1141 Stephen King 0451169530 Don 5 horror 4.32 1978
author: Stephen King
name: Don
average rating: 4.32
book published: 1978
rating: 5
read at: 1994/01/01
date added: 2025/04/12
shelves: horror
review:
I first read "The Stand" in high school, and jumped at the chance to re-read it in an expanded format. Hard to believe an 1100 page book could re-engage me all over again, but this one did it. This is the perfect Stephen King novel and does not suffer one bit from the lack of editing. Unfortunately, the success of this re-release set the stage for future overly-long King novels.
]]> 201242757 From legendary storyteller and master of short fiction Stephen King comes an extraordinary new collection of twelve short stories, many never-before-published, and some of his best EVER.

“You like it darker? Fine, so do I,�� writes Stephen King in the afterword to this magnificent new collection of twelve stories that delve into the darker part of life—both metaphorical and literal. King has, for half a century, been a master of the form, and these stories, about fate, mortality, luck, and the folds in reality where anything can happen, are as rich and riveting as his novels, both weighty in theme and a huge pleasure to read. King writes to feel “the exhilaration of leaving ordinary day-to-day life behind,�� and in You Like It Darker, readers will feel that exhilaration too, again and again.

“Two Talented Bastids�� explores the long-hidden secret of how the eponymous gentlemen got their skills. In “Danny Coughlin’s Bad Dream,�� a brief and unprecedented psychic flash upends dozens of lives, Danny’s most catastrophically. In “Rattlesnakes,�� a sequel to Cujo, a grieving widower travels to Florida for respite and instead receives an unexpected inheritance—with major strings attached. In “The Dreamers,�� a taciturn Vietnam vet answers a job ad and learns that there are some corners of the universe best left unexplored. “The Answer Man�� asks if prescience is good luck or bad and reminds us that a life marked by unbearable tragedy can still be meaningful.

King’s ability to surprise, amaze, and bring us both terror and solace remains unsurpassed. Each of these stories holds its own thrills, joys, and mysteries; each feels iconic. You like it darker? You got it.]]> 512 Stephen King 1668037718 Don 3 4.16 2024
author: Stephen King
name: Don
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2025/03/09
shelves:
review:

]]> 61884781 A Bram Stoker and Splatterpunk Award Nominee!
One of Esquire's Best Horror Books of the Year!
An Indie Next Pick!

"This is gory and brutal and beautiful and painful and terrifying and a pure delight."—Stephen Graham Jones

A provocative and unforgettable debut that is both a blood-soaked love letter to Los Angeles and a gleeful send-up to iconic horror villains, Maeve Fly will thrill fans of slashers and the macabre.

By day, Maeve Fly works at the happiest place in the world as every child’s favorite ice princess.

By the neon night glow of the Sunset Strip, Maeve haunts the dive bars with a drink in one hand and a book in the other, imitating her misanthropic literary heroes.

But when Gideon Green - her best friend’s brother - moves to town, he awakens something dangerous within her, and the world she knows suddenly shifts beneath her feet.

Untethered, Maeve ditches her discontented act and tries on a new persona. A bolder, bloodier one, inspired by the pages of American Psycho. Step aside Patrick Bateman, it’s Maeve’s turn with the knife.

"An apocalyptic Anaheim Psycho." —Grady Hendrix, New York Times bestselling author of How to Sell a Haunted House]]> 288 C.J. Leede 1250857856 Don 2 3.72 2023
author: C.J. Leede
name: Don
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2023
rating: 2
read at: 2025/03/09
date added: 2025/03/09
shelves:
review:

]]> 46147319
The world has stopped turning. The hunt has just begun.

It is 2059, and the world has crashed. Forty years ago, a solar catastrophe began to slow the planet's rotation to a stop. Now one half of the globe is permanently sunlit, the other half trapped in an endless night. The United States has colonized the southern half of Great Britain--lucky enough to find itself in the narrow habitable region left between frozen darkness and scorching sunlight--where both nations have managed to survive the ensuing chaos by isolating themselves from the rest of the world.

Ellen Hopper is a scientist living on a frostbitten rig in the cold Atlantic. She wants nothing more to do with her country after its slide into casual violence and brutal authoritarianism. Yet when two government officials arrive, demanding she return to London to see her dying college mentor, she accepts--and begins to unravel a secret that threatens not only the nation's fragile balance, but the future of the whole human race.]]> 384 Andrew Hunter Murray 1524745812 Don 0 to-read 3.54 2020
author: Andrew Hunter Murray
name: Don
average rating: 3.54
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 32510570 An unnamed defendant stands accused of murder. Just before the Closing Speeches, the young man sacks his lawyer, and decides to give his own defence speech.

He tells us that his barrister told him to leave some things out. Sometimes, the truth can be too difficult to explain, or believe. But he thinks that if he's going to go down for life, he might as well go down telling the truth.

There are eight pieces of evidence against him. As he talks us through them one by one, his life is in our hands. We, the reader - member of the jury - must keep an open mind till we hear the end of his story. His defence raises many questions... but at the end of the speeches, only one matters:

Did he do it? ]]> 400 Imran Mahmood 0718184254 Don 0 to-read 3.70 2017
author: Imran Mahmood
name: Don
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 222163948 An American mathematician’s assignment in Russia spirals into a high-stakes maze of shifting loyalties and intrigue in a propulsive short thriller by #1 New York Times bestselling author Lee Child.

Nathan Tyler is an unassuming professor at a middling American university with a rather obscure specialty in mathematics—in short, a nobody from nowhere. So why is the White House calling? Summoned to Washington, DC, for a top-secret briefing, Nathan discovers that he’s the key to a massive foreign intelligence breakthrough. Reading between the lines of a cryptic series of equations, he could open a door straight into the heart of the Kremlin and change the global balance of power forever. All he has to do is get to a meeting with the renowned Russian mathematician who created it. But when Nathan crashes headlong into a dangerous new game, the odds against him suddenly look a lot steeper.]]> 50 Lee Child 1662526202 Don 0 to-read 4.09 2025
author: Lee Child
name: Don
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 195790870 From Chuck Tingle, author of the USA Today bestselling Camp Damascus, comes a new heart-pounding story about what it takes to succeed in a world that wants you dead.

Misha is a jaded scriptwriter who has been working in Hollywood for years, and has just been nominated for his first Oscar. But when he's pressured by his producers to kill off a gay character in the upcoming season finale��"for the algorithm"―Misha discovers that it's not that simple.

As he is haunted by his past, and past mistakes, Misha must risk everything to find a way to do what's right―before it's too late.]]> 295 Chuck Tingle 1250874653 Don 3 horror 4.13 2024
author: Chuck Tingle
name: Don
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/10
date added: 2025/02/10
shelves: horror
review:
A clever take on a familiar horror theme. It’s difficult to say more without revealing spoilers so if gore is your thing just dive in and enjoy.
]]> 203579244 370 C.J. Leede 1250857929 Don 4 horror 4.05 2024
author: C.J. Leede
name: Don
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/29
date added: 2025/01/30
shelves: horror
review:
A teenager battered by religious subjugation ventures into the world only to discover it really IS full of rapists and murderers. At least the zombies have a valid excuse; the members of her congregation turn out to be the real monsters.
]]> 8596624 368 Lee Child 0440422981 Don 0 to-read 4.00 2003
author: Lee Child
name: Don
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2003
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 220969 Alternate cover for this ISBN can be found here

In a Chicago suburb, a dentist is met in his office parking lot by three men and ordered into the trunk of his Lexus. On a downtown sidewalk, Jack Reacher and an unknown woman are abducted in broad daylight by two men - practiced and confident - who stop them at gunpoint and hustle them into the same sedan. Then Reacher and the woman are switched into a second vehicle and hauled away, leaving the dentist bound and gagged inside his car with the woman's abandoned possessions, two gallons of gasoline. . . and a burning match. The FBI is desperate to rescue the woman, a Special Agent from the Chicago office, because the FBI always - always - takes care of its own, and because this woman is not just another agent. Reacher and the woman join forces, against seemingly hopeless odds, to outwit their captors and escape. But the FBI thinks Jack is one of the kidnappers - and when they close in, the Bureau snipers will be shooting to kill.]]> 567 Lee Child 0515142247 Don 4 4.04 1998
author: Lee Child
name: Don
average rating: 4.04
book published: 1998
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2025/01/14
shelves:
review:

]]> 12287209
Or you'll get what you wish for.]]> 56 Hugh Howey Don 0 to-read 4.14 2012
author: Hugh Howey
name: Don
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 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 Don 0 to-read 3.66 2024
author: Marcus Kliewer
name: Don
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/30
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 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 Don 0 to-read 3.81 2024
author: Monika Kim
name: Don
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/30
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 66087060 A small-time criminal. A has-been rock star. A shadowy government agency. And a severed hand whose dark powers threaten to destroy them all.

When leg-breaker Hutch Holtz rolls up to a rundown apartment complex in Portland, Oregon, to collect overdue drug money, a severed hand is the last thing he expects to find stashed in the client’s refrigerator. Hutch quickly realizes that the hand induces uncontrollable madness: Anyone in its proximity is overcome with a boundless compulsion for violence. Within hours, catastrophic forces are set into motion: Dark-op government agents who have been desperately hunting for the hand are on Hutch’s tail, more of the city’s residents fall under its brutal influence, and suddenly all of Portland stands at the precipice of disaster. . . .

But it’s all the same for Katherine Moriarty, a singer whose sudden fame and precipitous downfall were followed by the mysterious death of her estranged husband—suicide, allegedly. Her trauma has made her agoraphobic, shackled within the confines of her apartment. Her son, Nick, has moved home to care for her, quietly making his living working for Hutch’s boss.

When Hutch calls Nick in distress, looking for someone else to take the hand, Katherine and Nick are plunged into a global struggle that will decimate the walls of the carefully arranged life they’ve built. Mother and son must evade both crazed, bloodthirsty masses and deceitful government agents while exorcising family secrets that have risen from the dead—secrets, they soon discover, that might hold the very key to humanity’s survival.

Can you resist the hand? Find an excerpt from the next Fever House novel at the end of the book.]]> 417 Keith Rosson 0593595750 Don 0 to-read 4.02 2023
author: Keith Rosson
name: Don
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/30
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 216875430
Bram Stoker Award-winning author Laird Barron returns to the dark and dreadful with his fifth horror collection, which weaves sixteen weird tales into a mosaic of the bloody and the macabre.

Bring a flashlight and a book of matches.

Where we’re going, there’s not a speck of light.]]> 372 Laird Barron Don 0 to-read 4.12 2024
author: Laird Barron
name: Don
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/30
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 199757490 A chilling horror novel about a haunting told from the perspective of a young girl whose troubled family is targeted by an entity she calls “Other Mommy,�� from the New York Times bestselling author of Bird Box
��
To eight-year-old Bela, her family is her world. There’s��Mommy,��Daddo,��and Grandma Ruth.��But there is also Other Mommy, a malevolent entity who asks her every day: “Can I go inside your heart?”����
��
When horrifying incidents around the house signal that Other Mommy is growing tired of asking Bela the same question, over and over . . . Bela understands that unless she says yes, soon her family must pay.��
��
Other Mommy is getting restless, stronger, bolder. Only the bonds of family can keep Bela safe but other incidents show cracks in her parents' marriage. The safety Bela relies on is on the brink of unraveling.����
��
But Other Mommy needs an answer.��
��
Incidents Around the House is a chilling, wholly unique tale of true horror told by the child Bela. A story about a family as haunted as their home.]]> 367 Josh Malerman 0593723120 Don 0 to-read 3.61 2024
author: Josh Malerman
name: Don
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/30
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 58724626
What they find there is a nightmare of fungal growths and possessed wildlife, surrounding a dark, pulsing lake. Madeline sleepwalks and speaks in strange voices at night, and her brother Roderick is consumed with a mysterious malady of the nerves.

Aided by a redoubtable British mycologist and a baffled American doctor, Alex must unravel the secret of the House of Usher before it consumes them all.]]> 165 T. Kingfisher 1250830753 Don 0 to-read 3.86 2022
author: T. Kingfisher
name: Don
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/30
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 52838315 From the Academy Award®–winning actor, an unconventional memoir filled with raucous stories, outlaw wisdom, and lessons learned the hard way about living with greater satisfaction.

I’ve been in this life for fifty years, been trying to work out its riddle for forty-two, and been keeping diaries of clues to that riddle for the last thirty-five. Notes about successes and failures, joys and sorrows, things that made me marvel, and things that made me laugh out loud. How to be fair. How to have less stress. How to have fun. How to hurt people less. How to get hurt less. How to be a good man. How to have meaning in life. How to be more me.

Recently, I worked up the courage to sit down with those diaries. I found stories I experienced, lessons I learned and forgot, poems, prayers, prescriptions, beliefs about what matters, some great photographs, and a whole bunch of bumper stickers. I found a reliable theme, an approach to living that gave me more satisfaction, at the time, and still: If you know how, and when, to deal with life’s challenges - how to get relative with the inevitable - you can enjoy a state of success I call “catching greenlights.��

So I took a one-way ticket to the desert and wrote this book: an album, a record, a story of my life so far. This is fifty years of my sights and seens, felts and figured-outs, cools and shamefuls. Graces, truths, and beauties of brutality. Getting away withs, getting caughts, and getting wets while trying to dance between the raindrops.

Hopefully, it’s medicine that tastes good, a couple of aspirin instead of the infirmary, a spaceship to Mars without needing your pilot’s license, going to church without having to be born again, and laughing through the tears.

It’s a love letter. To life.

It’s also a guide to catching more greenlights - and to realizing that the yellows and reds eventually turn green too.

Good luck.]]> 289 Matthew McConaughey 0593139135 Don 4 4.21 2020
author: Matthew McConaughey
name: Don
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/12/08
shelves:
review:

]]> 28220985
Given to Armand Gamache as a gift the first day of his new job, the map eventually leads him to shattering secrets. To an old friend and older adversary. It leads the former Chief of Homicide for the Sûreté du Québec to places even he is afraid to go. But must.

And there he finds four young cadets in the Sûreté academy, and a dead professor. And, with the body, a copy of the old, odd map.

Everywhere Gamache turns, he sees Amelia Choquet, one of the cadets. Tattooed and pierced. Guarded and angry. Amelia is more likely to be found on the other side of a police line-up. And yet she is in the academy. A protégée of the murdered professor.

The focus of the investigation soon turns to Gamache himself and his mysterious relationship with Amelia, and his possible involvement in the crime. The frantic search for answers takes the investigators back to Three Pines and a stained glass window with its own horrific secrets.

For both Amelia Choquet and Armand Gamache, the time has come for a great reckoning.

Number-one New York Times bestselling author Louise Penny pulls back the layers to reveal a brilliant and emotionally powerful truth in her latest spellbinding novel.]]> 389 Louise Penny 1250022134 Don 4 4.36 2016
author: Louise Penny
name: Don
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/23
date added: 2024/11/23
shelves:
review:

]]> 62919162 327 Daniel Kraus 1665918160 Don 1 3.66 2023
author: Daniel Kraus
name: Don
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2023
rating: 1
read at: 2024/11/07
date added: 2024/11/07
shelves:
review:

]]> 106291410 From the internationally best-selling author, a twisted, multi-layered spin on the classic horror novel

In the wake of his parents' tragic deaths in a house fire, fourteen-year-old Richard Elauved has been sent to live with his aunt and uncle in the remote, insular town of Ballantyne. Richard quickly earns a reputation as an outcast, and when a classmate named Tom goes missing, everyone suspects the new, angry boy is responsible for his disappearance. No one believes him when he says the telephone booth out by the edge of the woods sucked Tom into the receiver like something out of a horror movie. No one, that is, except Karen, a beguiling fellow outsider who encourages Richard to pursue clues the police refuse to investigate. He traces the number that Tom prank called from the phone booth to an abandoned house in the Black Mirror Wood. There he catches a glimpse of a terrifying face in the window. And then the voices begin to whisper in his ear . . .

You know who I am. She's going to burn. The one you love is going to burn. There's not a thing you can do about it.

When another classmate disappears, Richard must find a way to prove his innocence--and preserve his sanity--as he grapples with the dark magic that is possessing Ballantyne and pursuing his destruction.

Then again, Richard may not be the most reliable narrator of his own story . . .]]> 245 Jo Nesbø 0593537165 Don 3 horror 3.23 2023
author: Jo Nesbø
name: Don
average rating: 3.23
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2024/11/05
shelves: horror
review:

]]> 199698485 When a teenager vanishes from her Adirondack summer camp, two worlds collide

Early morning, August 1975: a camp counselor discovers an empty bunk. Its occupant, Barbara Van Laar, has gone missing. Barbara isn’t just any thirteen-year-old: she’s the daughter of the family that owns the summer camp and employs most of the region’s residents. And this isn’t the first time a Van Laar child has disappeared. Barbara’s older brother similarly vanished fourteen years ago, never to be found.

As a panicked search begins, a thrilling drama unfolds. Chasing down the layered secrets of the Van Laar family and the blue-collar community working in its shadow, Moore’s multi-threaded story invites readers into a rich and gripping dynasty of secrets and second chances. It is Liz Moore’s most ambitious and wide-reaching novel yet.]]> 490 Liz Moore Don 0 to-read 4.15 2024
author: Liz Moore
name: Don
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 182506465
Four devastating tales from a master of modern horror...

This Skin Was Once Mine
When her father dies under mysterious circumstances, Jillian Finch finds herself grieving the man she idolized while struggling to feel comfortable in the childhood home she was sent away from nearly twenty years ago by her venomous mother. Then Jillian discovers a dark secret in her family's past--a secret that will threaten to undo everything she has ever known to be true about her beloved father and, more importantly, herself. It's only natural to hurt the things we love the most...

Seedling��
A young man’s father calls him early in the morning to say that his mother has passed away. He arrives home to find his mother's body still in the house. Struggling to process what has happened he notices a small black wound appear on his wrist—the inside of the wound as black as onyx and as seemingly limitless as the cosmos. He is even more unsettled when he discovers his father is cursed with the same affliction. The young man becomes obsessed with his father’s new wounds, exploring the boundless insides and tethering himself to the black threads that curl from inside his poor father...

Prickle
Two old men revive a cruel game with devastating consequences...

All the Parts of You That Won't Easily Burn
Enoch Leadbetter goes to buy a knife for his husband to use at a forthcoming dinner party. He encounters a strange shopkeeper who draws him into an intoxicating new obsession and sets him on a path towards mutilation and destruction...]]> 240 Eric LaRocca 1803366648 Don 5 horror 3.51 2024
author: Eric LaRocca
name: Don
average rating: 3.51
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/09/11
date added: 2024/09/11
shelves: horror
review:

]]> 129117
Part Nancy Drew, part Dirty Harry, Izzy walks an indistinguishable line between Spellman family member and Spellman employee. Duties include: completing assignments from the bosses, aka Mom and Dad (preferably without scrutiny); appeasing her chronically perfect lawyer brother (often under duress); setting an example for her fourteen-year-old sister, Rae (who's become addicted to "recreational surveillance"); and tracking down her uncle (who randomly disappears on benders dubbed "Lost Weekends").

But when Izzy's parents hire Rae to follow her (for the purpose of ascertaining the identity of Izzy's new boyfriend), Izzy snaps and decides that the only way she will ever be normal is if she gets out of the family business. But there's a hitch: she must take one last job before they'll let her go -- a fifteen-year-old, ice-cold missing person case. She accepts, only to experience a disappearance far closer to home, which becomes the most important case of her life.]]> 6 Lisa Lutz 0743571355 Don 3 3.88 2007
author: Lisa Lutz
name: Don
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2007
rating: 3
read at: 2024/09/09
date added: 2024/09/09
shelves:
review:
If you miss the family dysfunction of Arrested Development then this book (and presumably the series) should give you the fix you crave. The author does a fine job of developing the characters and hopefully future installments bring even more nuanced developments.
]]> 847860 202 Ellis Peters 0446404284 Don 3 mystery 4.13 1982
author: Ellis Peters
name: Don
average rating: 4.13
book published: 1982
rating: 3
read at: 2005/07/01
date added: 2024/09/06
shelves: mystery
review:

]]> 498082
When a student bearing a striking resemblance to artists' renderings of Jesus Christ is found murdered -- by crucifixion -- in London's Jewish ghetto, 19th-century private detective Barker must hire an assistant to help him solve the sinister case. Out of all who answer an ad for a position with "some danger involved," the eccentric and enigmatic Barker chooses downtrodden Llewelyn, a gutsy young man whose murky past includes recent stints at both an Oxford college and an Oxford prison.
As Llewelyn learns the ropes of his position, he is drawn deeper and deeper into Barker's peculiar world of vigilante detective work, as well as the dark heart of London's teeming underworld. Together they pass through chophouses, stables, and clandestine tea rooms, tangling with the early Italian mafia, a mad professor of eugenics, and other shadowy figures, inching ever closer to the shocking truth behind the murder.]]> 290 Will Thomas 0743256190 Don 0 to-read 3.91 2004
author: Will Thomas
name: Don
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2004
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 199798179 A time travel romance, a spy thriller, a workplace comedy, and an ingenious exploration of the nature of power and the potential for love to change it all: Welcome to The Ministry of Time, the exhilarating debut novel by Kaliane Bradley.

In the near future, a civil servant is offered the salary of her dreams and is, shortly afterward, told what project she’ll be working on. A recently established government ministry is gathering “expats�� from across history to establish whether time travel is feasible—for the body, but also for the fabric of space-time.

She is tasked with working as a “bridge��: living with, assisting, and monitoring the expat known as ��1847�� or Commander Graham Gore. As far as history is concerned, Commander Gore died on Sir John Franklin’s doomed 1845 expedition to the Arctic, so he’s a little disoriented to be living with an unmarried woman who regularly shows her calves, surrounded by outlandish concepts such as “washing machines,�� “Spotify,�� and “the collapse of the British Empire.�� But with an appetite for discovery, a seven-a-day cigarette habit, and the support of a charming and chaotic cast of fellow expats, he soon adjusts.

Over the next year, what the bridge initially thought would be, at best, a horrifically uncomfortable roommate dynamic, evolves into something much deeper. By the time the true shape of the Ministry’s project comes to light, the bridge has fallen haphazardly, fervently in love, with consequences she never could have imagined. Forced to confront the choices that brought them together, the bridge must finally reckon with how—and whether she believes—what she does next can change the future.

An exquisitely original and feverishly fun fusion of genres and ideas, The Ministry of Time asks: What does it mean to defy history, when history is living in your house? Kaliane Bradley’s answer is a blazing, unforgettable testament to what we owe each other in a changing world.]]> 339 Kaliane Bradley 1668045141 Don 2 sci-fi 3.54 2024
author: Kaliane Bradley
name: Don
average rating: 3.54
book published: 2024
rating: 2
read at: 2024/08/27
date added: 2024/08/27
shelves: sci-fi
review:
I can’t add anything here that @Maxwell hasn’t already said. This one started out interestingly enough but just fizzled out for me. Happy to be done with it.
]]> 60194162 "Anyone will tell you the born of this world are marked from the get-out, win or lose."

Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, this is the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father's good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. In a plot that never pauses for breath, relayed in his own unsparing voice, he braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses. Through all of it, he reckons with his own invisibility in a popular culture where even the superheroes have abandoned rural people in favor of cities.

Many generations ago, Charles Dickens wrote David Copperfield from his experience as a survivor of institutional poverty and its damages to children in his society. Those problems have yet to be solved in ours. Dickens is not a prerequisite for readers of this novel, but he provided its inspiration. In transposing a Victorian epic novel to the contemporary American South, Barbara Kingsolver enlists Dickens' anger and compassion, and above all, his faith in the transformative powers of a good story. Demon Copperhead speaks for a new generation of lost boys, and all those born into beautiful, cursed places they can't imagine leaving behind.]]> 560 Barbara Kingsolver 0063251922 Don 4 4.46 2022
author: Barbara Kingsolver
name: Don
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/10
date added: 2024/08/10
shelves:
review:

]]> 48484 Two months since the stars fell...

Two months since sixty-five thousand alien objects clenched around the Earth like a luminous fist, screaming to the heavens as the atmosphere burned them to ash. Two months since that moment of brief, bright surveillance by agents unknown.

Two months of silence while a world holds its breath.

Now some half-derelict space probe, sparking fitfully past Neptune’s orbit, hears a whisper from the edge of the solar system: a faint signal sweeping the cosmos like a lighthouse beam. Whatever’s out there isn’t talking to us. It’s talking to some distant star, perhaps. Or perhaps to something closer, something en route.

So who do you send to force introductions on an intelligence with motives unknown, maybe unknowable? Who do you send to meet the alien when the alien doesn’t want to meet?

You send a linguist with multiple personalities, her brain surgically partitioned into separate, sentient processing cores. You send a biologist so radically interfaced with machinery that he sees X-rays and tastes ultrasound, so compromised by grafts and splices he no longer feels his own flesh. You send a pacifist warrior in the faint hope she won’t be needed, and a fainter hope she’ll do any good if she is needed. You send a monster to command them all, an extinct hominid predator once called “vampire,�� recalled from the grave with the voodoo of recombinant genetics and the blood of sociopaths. And you send a synthesist �� an informational topologist with half his mind gone �� as an interface between here and there, a conduit through which the Dead Center might hope to understand the Bleeding Edge.

You send them all to the edge of interstellar space, praying you can trust such freaks and retrofits with the fate of a world. You fear they may be more alien than the thing they’ve been sent to find.

But you’d give anything for that to be true, if you only knew what was waiting for them…]]> 384 Peter Watts 0765312182 Don 0 to-read 4.01 2006
author: Peter Watts
name: Don
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2006
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 37781 Things Fall Apart is written with remarkable economy and subtle irony. Uniquely and richly African, at the same time it reveals Achebe's keen awareness of the human qualities common to men of all times and places.]]> 215 Chinua Achebe Don 1 abandoned 3.73 1958
author: Chinua Achebe
name: Don
average rating: 3.73
book published: 1958
rating: 1
read at: 2011/02/21
date added: 2024/07/29
shelves: abandoned
review:
I would gladly trade this book for a bucket of yams.
]]> 150779189 368 Anthony Bale 1324064579 Don 0 to-read 3.67 2024
author: Anthony Bale
name: Don
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 61609871 From the New York Times bestselling author of Cold Mountain and Varina, a stunning new novel that paints a vivid portrait of life in the Great Depression

Hurtling past the downtrodden communities of Depression-era America, painter Val Welch travels westward to the rural town of Dawes, Wyoming. Through a stroke of luck, he's landed a New Deal assignment to create a mural representing the region for their new Post Office.

A wealthy art lover named John Long and his wife Eve have agreed to host Val at their sprawling ranch. Rumors and intrigue surround the couple: Eve left behind an itinerant life riding the rails and singing in a western swing band. Long holds shady political aspirations, but was once a WWI sniper--and his right hand is a mysterious elder cowboy, a vestige of the violent old west. Val quickly finds himself entranced by their lives.

One day, Eve flees home with a valuable painting in tow, and Long recruits Val to hit the road with a mission of tracking her down. Journeying from ramshackle Hoovervilles to San Francisco nightclubs to the swamps of Florida, Val's search for Eve narrows, and he soon turns up secrets that could spark formidable changes for all of them.

In The Trackers, singular American writer Charles Frazier conjures up the lives of everyday people during an extraordinary period of history that bears uncanny resemblance to our own. With the keen perceptions of humanity and transcendent storytelling that have made him beloved for decades, Frazier has created a powerful and timeless new classic.]]> 320 Charles Frazier 0062948083 Don 0 to-read 3.57 2023
author: Charles Frazier
name: Don
average rating: 3.57
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 60556912
Every day I clean the Winchesters�� beautiful house top to bottom. I collect their daughter from school. And I cook a delicious meal for the whole family before heading up to eat alone in my tiny room on the top floor.

I try to ignore how Nina makes a mess just to watch me clean it up. How she tells strange lies about her own daughter. And how her husband Andrew seems more broken every day. But as I look into Andrew’s handsome brown eyes, so full of pain, it’s hard not to imagine what it would be like to live Nina’s life. The walk-in closet, the fancy car, the perfect husband.

I only try on one of Nina’s pristine white dresses once. Just to see what it’s like. But she soon finds out�� and by the time I realize my attic bedroom door only locks from the outside, it’s far too late.

But I reassure myself: the Winchesters don’t know who I really am.

They don’t know what I’m capable of��

An unbelievably twisty read that will have you glued to the pages late into the night. Anyone who loves The Woman in the Window, The Wife Between Us and The Girl on the Train won’t be able to put this down!]]> 329 Freida McFadden 1803144378 Don 0 to-read 4.31 2022
author: Freida McFadden
name: Don
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 8008928
When they refuse to back down, the cartel escalates its threat, kidnapping Ophelia, the boys' playmate and confidante. O's abduction sets off a dizzying array of ingenious negotiations and gripping plot twists that will captivate readers eager to learn the costs of freedom and the price of one amazing high.]]> 302 Don Winslow 1439183368 Don 4 3.84 2010
author: Don Winslow
name: Don
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2010
rating: 4
read at: 2024/06/28
date added: 2024/06/28
shelves:
review:
Written in a very cinematic way �� 290 chapters in 302 pages, this is more a series of takes than a narrative, yet it works fine. There are times it seems too clever for itself and the ending is nothing new but it was a fun read nonetheless.
]]> 199798522
It’s the summer before senior year for best friends Tolly Driver and Amber Dennison. They’re not in the marching band, they’re not in the FFA �� they don’t really count. Amber’s the only Native student in town, and Tolly’s only on the radar due to his father’s recent death.

This is all about to change.

Bodies are going to be dropping fast in this small West Texas town. For a few unbearably hot days that will resonate through the decades and even get made into a TV movie, Tolly and Amber will be famous. Notorious even. Finally, everyone will know their names.

This is Stephen Graham Jones x-raying the slasher genre, interrogating its motivations over the shoulder and in the voice of the killer itself �� from a town he did some growing up in, in a year he was also seventeen.

The kills will be poignant, the jokes will hurt, and the violence will be endearing. Everything’s turned around for Tolly, for Amber �� for all of Lamesa, Texas.

Be happy you weren’t there.

Be happy you’re only reading about it.]]> 373 Stephen Graham Jones 1668022249 Don 0 to-read 3.54 2024
author: Stephen Graham Jones
name: Don
average rating: 3.54
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/06/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 195790821 The Silent Patient meets Gone Girl in this sharp psychological thriller about a psychiatrist with a shocking past and her dangerous new patient.

Brooklyn psychiatrist Dr. Caroline Strange is certain she knows what's best for her patients, her family, and pretty much everyone else, but that all changes when a troubled young man arrives for his appointment and makes a pair of alarming confessions: I am going to kill someone, and I know who you really are.

Dr. Caroline is accustomed to hearing her patients�� deepest, darkest secrets, but it seems Nelson Schack may be one step ahead when detectives show up later that day, inquiring about a missing woman. It looks like Nelson has made good on his threat—yet somehow it’s Dr. Caroline who becomes the prime suspect.

Convinced the police are incompetent, Dr. Caroline takes matters into her own hands, chasing down the elusive Nelson and running headlong into a past she has spent her entire life trying to forget. As she closes in on her target, all the polished pieces of her manicured life splinter when people begin to question who she really is.

Harrowing, unpredictable, and compulsively readable, award-winning author Louisa Luna’s Tell Me Who You Are is an utterly gripping psychological thriller that begs the question: Can a person ever really outrun their past?]]> 352 Louisa Luna 037461279X Don 0 to-read 3.50 2024
author: Louisa Luna
name: Don
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/06/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 24586590
But when the boy disappears, the villagers are faced with the possibility that one of his tall tales might have been true.

And so begins a frantic search for the boy and the truth. What they uncover deep in the forest sets off a sequence of events that leads to murder, leads to an old crime, leads to an old betrayal. Leads right to the door of an old poet.

And now it is now, writes Ruth Zardo. And the dark thing is here.

A monster once visited Three Pines. And put down deep roots. And now, Ruth knows, it is back.

Armand Gamache, the former head of homicide for the Sûreté du Québec, must face the possibility that, in not believing the boy, he himself played a terrible part in what happens next.]]> 376 Louise Penny 1250022088 Don 5
I’m not sure what made me think of this, but I’m wondering if Three Pines is an allegory for purgatory. Perhaps this entire series is a construct of Gamache coming to terms with his own past as he sorts things out on his journey through the afterlife.]]> 4.17 2015
author: Louise Penny
name: Don
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2015
rating: 5
read at: 2024/06/16
date added: 2024/06/16
shelves:
review:
The Gamache series continues to amaze me, with characters that contain multitudes and continue to develop throughout each novel. Inspired by the story of a true individual, this installment sees Gamache, retired in Three Pines, become embroiled in a case after a particularly egregious death. What follows is an exploration of art vs artist, action vs intent and a unique take on the trolley problem.

I’m not sure what made me think of this, but I’m wondering if Three Pines is an allegory for purgatory. Perhaps this entire series is a construct of Gamache coming to terms with his own past as he sorts things out on his journey through the afterlife.
]]> 195790684 272 Madeline Ashby 076538292X Don 0 to-read 3.24 2024
author: Madeline Ashby
name: Don
average rating: 3.24
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/06/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 75302296 256 Isle McElroy 0063283751 Don 4
This is not Metamorphosis. This is not Freaky Friday. It’s something altogether more introspective. Certainly room for more exploration of some of the themes touched upon but to do so skirts with the danger of preachiness.]]> 3.53 2023
author: Isle McElroy
name: Don
average rating: 3.53
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/06/06
date added: 2024/06/06
shelves:
review:
This compelling novel explores our relationships with our bodies and how gender informs our experiences. As the author says I. Their last chapter “I think that’s the point of all writing. To show people things they can’t see on their own, everything right in front of their faces.��

This is not Metamorphosis. This is not Freaky Friday. It’s something altogether more introspective. Certainly room for more exploration of some of the themes touched upon but to do so skirts with the danger of preachiness.
]]> 19561922 The Balm in Gilead, in his large hands. "There is a balm in Gilead," his neighbor Clara Morrow reads from the dust jacket, "to make the wounded whole."

While Gamache doesn’t talk about his wounds and his balm, Clara tells him about hers. Peter, her artist husband, has failed to come home. Failed to show up as promised on the first anniversary of their separation. She wants Gamache’s help to find him. Having finally found sanctuary, Gamache feels a near revulsion at the thought of leaving Three Pines. "There’s power enough in Heaven," he finishes the quote as he contemplates the quiet village, "to cure a sin-sick soul." And then he gets up. And joins her.

Together with his former second-in-command, Jean-Guy Beauvoir, and Myrna Landers, they journey deeper and deeper into Québec. And deeper and deeper into the soul of Peter Morrow. A man so desperate to recapture his fame as an artist, he would sell that soul. And may have. The journey takes them further and further from Three Pines, to the very mouth of the great St. Lawrence River. To an area so desolate, so damned, the first mariners called it "the land God gave to Cain." And there they discover the terrible damage done by a sin-sick soul.]]> 373 Louise Penny 1250022061 Don 3 mystery 3.99 2014
author: Louise Penny
name: Don
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2014
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2024/06/02
shelves: mystery
review:

]]> 126133776
Then, in the summer of 2020, he’s assigned to a grotesque murder case that brings national media focus to rural Patrick County, Virginia—Alicia Benson, the wife of a wealthy businessman, is murdered in her home. The accused killer, Damian Bullins, is a cunning felon with a long history of violence, and he confesses to the police. He even admits his guilt to Andy. But a simple typographical error and a shocking discovery begin to complicate the state’s case, making it possible Bullins might escape punishment.

Duty-bound to give his client a thorough defense, Andy—despite his misgivings—agrees to fight for a not-guilty verdict, a decision that will ultimately force him to make profound, life-and-death choices, both inside and��outside��the courtroom.

With its unforgettable characters, insider’s blueprint of the justice system, intricate plotting, and provocative, no-holds-barred ending, The Plinko Bounce ��demonstrates once again why Martin Clark has been called “the thinking man’s John Grisham�� by The New York Times and praised as “hands down, our finest legal-thriller writer�� by�� Entertainment Weekly .]]> 356 Martin Clark 1644283778 Don 3 3.55 2023
author: Martin Clark
name: Don
average rating: 3.55
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2024/05/31
date added: 2024/05/31
shelves:
review:
Mostly listened to this one on Spotify. It was fine and somewhat interesting given my recent three week stint as a juror. I always approach legal thrillers with some trepidation for reasons I’m not really sure of myself. This one flowed along nicely and kept me company on my commutes. So thank you Mr. Clark for a pleasant time.
]]> 21418013
A quarter of a century later, in a world shaped by what's now known as "Haden's syndrome," rookie FBI agent Chris Shane is paired with veteran agent Leslie Vann. The two of them are assigned what appears to be a Haden-related murder at the Watergate Hotel, with a suspect who is an "integrator" - someone who can let the locked in borrow their bodies for a time. If the Integrator was carrying a Haden client, then naming the suspect for the murder becomes that much more complicated.

But "complicated" doesn't begin to describe it. As Shane and Vann began to unravel the threads of the murder, it becomes clear that the real mystery - and the real crime - is bigger than anyone could have imagined. The world of the locked in is changing, and with the change comes opportunities that the ambitious will seize at any cost. The investigation that began as a murder case takes Shane and Vann from the halls of corporate power to the virtual spaces of the locked in, and to the very heart of an emerging, surprising new human culture. It's nothing you could have expected.]]> 336 John Scalzi 0765375869 Don 4 sci-fi 3.89 2014
author: John Scalzi
name: Don
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at: 2024/05/31
date added: 2024/05/31
shelves: sci-fi
review:

]]> 197144545 A forbidden affair erupts dramatically amid a decadent Hawaiian wedding in this hilarious, sophisticated, and thrillingly plotted story of love, money, murder, sex—and the lies we tell about them all.
��
Rufus Leung Gresham, future Earl of Greshambury and son of a former Hong Kong supermodel, has a problem: his family fortune, the legendary Gresham Trust, has been depleted by decades of profligate spending. While magazine covers and Instagram stories display impeccably designed manors and shiny new yachts, the secret reality holds nothing more than a gargantuan mountain of debt. The only solution, put forth by Rufus’s scheming mother, is for Rufus to seduce a woman with money, thereby securing the family's precarious financial future.

Should he marry Solène de Courcy, a French hotel heiress with honey-blond tresses and a royal bloodline? Should he pursue Martha Dung, the tattooed venture capital genius who passes out billions like lollipops? Or should he follow his heart, betray his family, squander his legacy, and finally confess his love to the literal girl next door, the humble daughter of a doctor, Eden Tong?

When the Gresham family descends on the Big Island of Hawaii to host a veritable who's who of sultans, barons, and oligarchs for the wedding of the decade, Rufus must merely flex his famous abs to bewitch the heiress of his choice. But instead a hot mic exposes a secret tryst, a volcanic eruption burns through the nuptials, and the Gresham family's plans—and their reputation—go up in flames.

Can the once-great earldom rise from the ashes? Or will a secret tragedy, hidden for two decades, reveal a shocking twist? Spanning the black sand beaches of Hawaii, the red city of Marrakech, the Los Angeles bachelor pad of a billionaire playboy, and the inner sanctum of England’s oldest family estate, Lies and Weddings reveals an enthralling family saga that is as scandalous and satirical as it is full of heart.]]> 437 Kevin Kwan 0385546297 Don 0 to-read 3.69 2024
author: Kevin Kwan
name: Don
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/05/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 43532531
The Defendants: Four handsome teenagers from hard-working immigrant families, all with corroborating stories.

The Savior: Zara Kaleel, a former lawyer, one of London's brightest legal minds, takes on this case. She believes her client, even though those closest to her do not.

Together, they enter the most explosive criminal trial of the year, where the only thing that matters is justice for Jodie. But this time justice comes at a devastating cost.

A shocking, twisting courtroom thriller that keeps you guessing until the last page is turned.]]> 384 Kia Abdullah 0008314675 Don 5 mystery 3.90 2019
author: Kia Abdullah
name: Don
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at: 2024/05/16
date added: 2024/05/16
shelves: mystery
review:
This is so much more than a legal drama or a courtroom thriller. It is both of those but it is so much more, tackling themes of race, religion, misogyny, culture and so much more. Kia Abdullah is such a skilled writer �� I can’t wait to read more from this amazing talent.
]]> 53842203
Powerful, explosive and important, Truth Be Told is a contemporary courtroom drama that vividly captures today’s society. You will not stop thinking about it for a long time to come.]]> 384 Kia Abdullah 0008314748 Don 0 to-read 4.14 2020
author: Kia Abdullah
name: Don
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/05/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 196968157
Danny Ryan is rich. Beyond his wildest dreams rich.

The former dock worker, Irish mob soldier and fugitive from the law is now a respected businessman �� a Las Vegas casino mogul and billionaire silent partner in a group that owns two lavish hotels. Finally, Danny has it all: a beautiful house, a child he adores, a woman he might even fall in love with.

Life is good. But then Danny reaches too far.

When he tries to buy an old hotel on a prime piece of real estate with plans to build his dream resort, he triggers a war against Las Vegas power brokers, a powerful FBI agent bent on revenge and a rival casino owner with dark connections of his own.

Danny thought he had buried his past, but now it reaches up to him from the grave to pull him down. Old enemies surface, and when they come for Danny they vow to take everything �� not only his empire, not just his life, but all that he holds dear, including his son.

To save his life and everything he loves, Danny must become the ruthless fighter he once was �� and never wanted to be again.]]> 400 Don Winslow 006307947X Don 4 mystery 4.28 2024
author: Don Winslow
name: Don
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/05/07
date added: 2024/05/09
shelves: mystery
review:
A satisfying ending to the Danny Ryan trilogy. Truly enjoyed the ride of all three books. This one was probably the quickest read due to the 1-2 page chapters near the end. It all works very well.
]]> 50666983
It’s 1942 and Willowjean “Will�� Parker is a scrappy circus runaway whose knife-throwing skills have just saved the life of New York’s best, and most unorthodox, private investigator, Lillian Pentecost. When the dapper detective summons Will a few days later, she doesn’t expect to be offered a life-changing proposition: Lillian’s multiple sclerosis means she can’t keep up with her old case load alone, so she wants to hire Will to be her right-hand woman. In return, Will is to receive a salary, room and board, and training in Lillian’s very particular art of investigation.

Three years later, Will and Lillian are on the Collins case: Abigail Collins was found bludgeoned to death with a crystal ball following a big, boozy Halloween party at her home—her body slumped in the same chair where her steel magnate husband shot himself the year before. With rumors flying that Abigail was bumped off by the vengeful spirit of her husband (who else could have gotten inside the locked room?), the family has tasked the detectives with finding answers where the police have failed.

But that’s easier said than done in a case that involves messages from the dead, a seductive spiritualist, and Becca Collins—the beautiful daughter of the deceased, who Will quickly starts falling for. When Will and Becca’s relationship dances beyond the professional, Will finds herself in dangerous territory, and discovers she may have become the murderer’s next target.]]> 321 Stephen Spotswood 0385546556 Don 3 mystery 3.96 2020
author: Stephen Spotswood
name: Don
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2024/05/02
date added: 2024/05/02
shelves: mystery
review:
I see a lot of 5-star reviews of this one and I don’t get it. It was fine. The dialogue was hardboiled lite. The case was dull. Loved Willowjean as a character but felt something was just missing.
]]> 1851568
It was all nonsense, of course, but thousands of paying customers quickly turned “Dr.�� Brinkley into America’s richest and most famous surgeon. His notoriety captured the attention of the great quackbuster Morris Fishbein, who vowed to put the country’s “most daring and dangerous�� charlatan out of business.

Their cat-and-mouse game lasted throughout the 1920s and ��30s, but despite Fishbein’s efforts Brinkley prospered wildly. When he ran for governor of Kansas, he invented campaigning techniques still used in modern politics. Thumbing his nose at American regulators, he built the world’s most powerful radio transmitter just across the Rio Grande to offer sundry cures, and killed or maimed patients by the score, yet his warped genius produced innovations in broadcasting that endure to this day. By introducing country music and blues to the nation, Brinkley also became a seminal force in rock ’n�� roll. In short, he is the most creative criminal this country has ever produced.

Culminating in a decisive courtroom confrontation that pit Brinkley against his nemesis Fishbein, Charlatan is a marvelous portrait of a boundlessly audacious rogue on the loose in an America that was ripe for the bamboozling.]]> 336 Pope Brock 0307339882 Don 4 non-fiction
An amusing bit of history, though difficult to stomach in this election year as we see the theme play out again. Further proof that those who do not study history are doomed to repeat it.]]> 3.81 2008
author: Pope Brock
name: Don
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2008
rating: 4
read at: 2024/04/30
date added: 2024/05/02
shelves: non-fiction
review:
A smooth talker cons a town, a city, a nation into believing his lies, strong arms them into paying more than they can afford, hides behind foreign law and unwittingly advances the popularity of early country music. Oh, and he’s the subject of a fairly popular ZZ Top song (Heard It on the X).

An amusing bit of history, though difficult to stomach in this election year as we see the theme play out again. Further proof that those who do not study history are doomed to repeat it.
]]> 28186322
But fate has other plans, as Veronica discovers when she thwarts her own abduction with the help of an enigmatic German baron who has ties to her mysterious past. Promising to reveal in time what he knows of the plot against her, the baron offers her temporary sanctuary in the care of his friend Stoker, a reclusive natural historian as intriguing as he is bad-tempered. But before the baron can deliver on his tantalizing vow to reveal the secrets he has concealed for decades, he is found murdered. Suddenly Veronica and Stoker are forced to go on the run from an elusive assailant as wary partners in search of the villainous truth.]]> 357 Deanna Raybourn 0451476026 Don 0 to-read 3.94 2015
author: Deanna Raybourn
name: Don
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/30
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 59656215 From the acclaimed author of The Town, an epic thriller about the secret right‑hand man of one of the most infamous unprosecuted mob bosses in American history, and the hidden crime that will bring down an empire.

In the late 1970s, The Outfit has the entire city of Chicago in its hands. Tony Accardo is its fearless leader. Nicky Passero is his loyal soldier, though no one knows he has a direct line in to the boss of bosses. When the Christmas gift Accardo got for his wife, an inscribed bracelet with gold and diamond inlay, is stolen along with other items in a jewelry heist, Nicky is charged with tracking down and returning all of the items—by whatever means necessary.

Forced into an impossible situation, Nicky must find a way to carry out Accardo's increasingly unhinged instructions and survive the battle for control of Chicago. What Accardo doesn't know: Nicky has a secret which has made his life impossible and has put him in the pocket of the FBI.

Based on the true story of Tony Accardo, the longest‑reigning mob capo in history, Gangland is a Shakespearean-esque drama of integrity, lost honor, and revenge. Gritty and action‑packed, it is the ultimate gangster tale and Chuck Hogan's most thrilling novel yet.]]> 352 Chuck Hogan 1538751755 Don 4 mystery 3.98 2022
author: Chuck Hogan
name: Don
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2024/04/28
date added: 2024/04/29
shelves: mystery
review:
Well plotted fiction based on true events and figures. Held my interest throughout for a pleasant quick read.
]]> 33413556 Inception meets True Detective in this science fiction thriller of spellbinding tension and staggering scope that follows a special agent into a savage murder case with grave implications for the fate of mankind...

Shannon Moss is part of a clandestine division within the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. In western Pennsylvania, 1997, she is assigned to solve the murder of a Navy SEAL's family--and to locate his vanished teenage daughter. Though she can't share the information with conventional law enforcement, Moss discovers that the missing SEAL was an astronaut aboard the spaceship U.S.S. Libra—a ship assumed lost to the currents of Deep Time. Moss knows first-hand the mental trauma of time-travel and believes the SEAL's experience with the future has triggered this violence.

Determined to find the missing girl and driven by a troubling connection from her own past, Moss travels ahead in time to explore possible versions of the future, seeking evidence to crack the present-day case. To her horror, the future reveals that it's not only the fate of a family that hinges on her work, for what she witnesses rising over time's horizon and hurtling toward the present is the Terminus: the terrifying and cataclysmic end of humanity itself.

Luminous and unsettling, The Gone World bristles with world-shattering ideas yet remains at its heart an intensely human story.]]> 400 Tom Sweterlitsch 0399167501 Don 3 mystery, sci-fi 3.90 2018
author: Tom Sweterlitsch
name: Don
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2018
rating: 3
read at: 2024/04/18
date added: 2024/04/18
shelves: mystery, sci-fi
review:

]]> 200285620
Adelaide Henry carries an enormous steamer trunk with her wherever she goes. It’s locked at all times. Because when the trunk opens, people around Adelaide start to disappear.

The year is 1915, and Adelaide is in trouble. Her secret sin killed her parents, forcing her to flee California in a hellfire rush and make her way to Montana as a homesteader. Dragging the trunk with her at every stop, she will become one of the “lone women�� taking advantage of the government’s offer of free land for those who can tame it—except that Adelaide isn’t alone. And the secret she’s tried so desperately to lock away might be the only thing that will help her survive the harsh territory.

Crafted by a modern master of magical suspense, Lone Women blends shimmering prose, an unforgettable cast of adventurers who find horror and sisterhood in a brutal landscape, and a portrait of early-twentieth-century America like you’ve never seen. And at its heart is the gripping story of a woman desperate to bury her past—or redeem it.]]> 304 Victor LaValle 0525512101 Don 4 3.80 2023
author: Victor LaValle
name: Don
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/04/11
date added: 2024/04/11
shelves:
review:

]]> 58438515 In her quickly gentrifying rural lake town Jade sees recent events only her encyclopedic knowledge of horror films could have prepared her for

Jade Daniels is an angry, half-Indian outcast with an abusive father, an absent mother, and an entire town that wants nothing to do with her. She lives in her own world, a world in which protection comes from an unusual source: horror movies�� especially the ones where a masked killer seeks revenge on a world that wronged them. And Jade narrates the quirky history of Proofrock as if it is one of those movies. But when blood actually starts to spill into the waters of Indian Lake, she pulls us into her dizzying, encyclopedic mind of blood and masked murderers, and predicts exactly how the plot will unfold.

Yet, even as Jade drags us into her dark fever dream, a surprising and intimate portrait emerges�� a portrait of the scared and traumatized little girl beneath the Jason Voorhees mask: angry, yes, but also a girl who easily cries, fiercely loves, and desperately wants a home. A girl whose feelings are too big for her body.

My Heart Is a Chainsaw is her story, her homage to horror and revenge and triumph.]]> 432 Stephen Graham Jones 1982137649 Don 5 horror
The writing is very cinematic and I look forward to both the film adaptation and what I hope will be an excellent two-note musical theme. My free casting advice is to use some of the lesser-known victims from previous slashers as the townspeople, prior final girls as some of the main characters and then pulling a Pulp Fiction to resurrect an aging star's career as Jade's dad. Extra points for working in Bruce.]]> 3.52 2021
author: Stephen Graham Jones
name: Don
average rating: 3.52
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2022/07/18
date added: 2024/04/11
shelves: horror
review:
Simply amazing. Excellent literary horror accentuated immensely by a fairly deep knowledge of slashers (yes, including Jaws). Also works well for the less initiated by interspersing the main story with Slasher 101 - explaining the progress of slasher films from the Italian giallo films, on through the golden age of Friday the 13th and Halloween, to the self-aware Scream era and beyond. The author does an excellent job of both sticking to the "rules" of slasher films while simultaneously subverting those rules and leaving the reader guessing until the end.

The writing is very cinematic and I look forward to both the film adaptation and what I hope will be an excellent two-note musical theme. My free casting advice is to use some of the lesser-known victims from previous slashers as the townspeople, prior final girls as some of the main characters and then pulling a Pulp Fiction to resurrect an aging star's career as Jade's dad. Extra points for working in Bruce.
]]> 61713802
The city where dreams are made.

On the losing side of a bloody East Coast crime war, Danny Ryan is now on the run. The Mafia, the cops, the FBI all want him dead or in prison. With his little boy, his elderly father and the tattered remnants of his loyal crew of soldiers, he makes the classic American migration to California to start a new life.

A quiet, peaceful existence.

But the Feds track him down and want Danny to do them a favor that could make him a fortune or kill him.

And when Hollywood starts shooting a film based on his former life, Danny demands a piece of the action and begins to rebuild his criminal empire.

Then he falls in love.

With a beautiful movie star who has a dark past of her own.

As their worlds collide in an explosion that could destroy them both, Danny Ryan has to fight for his life in a city where dreams are born.

Or where they go to die.

From the shores of Rhode Island to the deserts of California where bodies disappear, from the power corridors of Washington where the real criminals operate to the fabled movie studios of Hollywood where the real money is made, City of Dreams is a sweeping saga of family, love, revenge, survival and the fierce reality behind the dream.]]> 352 Don Winslow 0062851233 Don 4 3.97 2023
author: Don Winslow
name: Don
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/03/22
date added: 2024/03/22
shelves:
review:

]]> 57558287 New York Times Bestseller!

From the #1 internationally bestselling author of the Cartel Trilogy (The Power of the Dog, The Cartel, and The Border), The Force, and Broken comes the first novel in an epic new trilogy.

“Superb. City on Fire is exhilarating.�� �� Stephen King

"Epic, ambitious, majestic, City on Fire is The Godfather for our generation.�� �� Adrian McKinty, New York Times bestselling author of The Chain

Two criminal empires together control all of New England.

Until a beautiful woman comes between the Irish and the Italians, launching a war that will see them kill each other, destroy an alliance, and set a city on fire.

Danny Ryan yearns for a more “legit�� life and a place in the sun. But as the bloody conflict stacks body on body and brother turns against brother, Danny has to rise above himself. To save the friends he loves like family and the family he has sworn to protect, he becomes a leader, a ruthless strategist, and a master of a treacherous game in which the winners live and the losers die.

From the gritty streets of Providence to the glittering screens of Hollywood to the golden casinos of Las Vegas, two rival crime families ignite a war that will leave only one standing. The winner will forge a dynasty.

Exploring the classic themes of loyalty, betrayal, and honor, City on Fire is a contemporary masterpiece in the tradition of The Godfather, Casino, and Goodfellas—a thrilling saga from Don Winslow, “America’s greatest living crime writer�� (Jon Land, Providence Journal).]]> 384 Don Winslow 0062851195 Don 4 mystery 4.02 2021
author: Don Winslow
name: Don
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2024/03/06
date added: 2024/03/06
shelves: mystery
review:
A brilliant page turner. Can’t wait to read the next one, right after I binge The Sopranos.
]]> 61273860
Cold People follows the perilous journeys of a handful of those who endure the frantic exodus to the most extreme environment on the planet. But their goal is not merely to survive the present. Because as they cling to life on the ice, the remnants of their past swept away, they must also confront the urgent challenge: can they change and evolve rapidly enough to ensure humanity’s future? Can they build a new society in the sub-zero cold?

Original and imaginative, as profoundly intimate as it is grand in scope, is a masterful and unforgettable epic.]]> 354 Tom Rob Smith 1982198400 Don 4 sci-fi
I still think this concept would make a fantastic extended series with separate novels each focusing on one of the major plot points. There is ample material here to explore the themes of nationalism, human nature, family, creation of societies, the ethics of genetic research, etc.]]> 3.47 2023
author: Tom Rob Smith
name: Don
average rating: 3.47
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/03/02
date added: 2024/03/02
shelves: sci-fi
review:
Took me a little time to warm up to this one - it was pretty light on character development with mediocre dialogue and a disappointing explanation of the events leading up to the mass human exodus to Antarctica. After the first section it jumped forward 20 years and I was afraid it would continue in this vein leading to a mere sketch of what could be a dense series of books. Thankfully this was not the case and I soon warmed (see what I did there?) to the format and the stories if not necessarily the characters, with the lone exception being Echo. The story progresses quickly and takes a number of turns, some of which I expected and others I did not. Overall, it was an exciting journey that kept me engaged throughout.

I still think this concept would make a fantastic extended series with separate novels each focusing on one of the major plot points. There is ample material here to explore the themes of nationalism, human nature, family, creation of societies, the ethics of genetic research, etc.
]]> 61812308 The acclaimed New York Times bestselling writer returns with a masterpiece to rival Mystic River —an all-consuming tale of revenge, family love, festering hate, and insidious power, set against one of the most tumultuous episodes in Boston’s history.

In the summer of 1974 a heatwave blankets Boston and Mary Pat Fennessy is trying to stay one step ahead of the bill collectors. Mary Pat has lived her entire life in the housing projects of “Southie,�� the Irish American enclave that stubbornly adheres to old tradition and stands proudly apart.

One night Mary Pat’s teenage daughter Jules stays out late and doesn’t come home. That same evening, a young Black man is found dead, struck by a subway train under mysterious circumstances. The two events seem unconnected. But Mary Pat, propelled by a desperate search for her missing daughter, begins turning over stones best left untouched—asking questions that bother Marty Butler, chieftain of the Irish mob, and the men who work for him, men who don’t take kindly to any threat to their business.

Set against the hot, tumultuous months when the city’s desegregation of its public schools exploded in violence, Small Mercies is a superb thriller, a brutal depiction of criminality and power, and an unflinching portrait of the dark heart of American racism. It is a mesmerizing and wrenching work that only Dennis Lehane could write.]]> 303 Dennis Lehane 0062129481 Don 4 mystery 4.22 2023
author: Dennis Lehane
name: Don
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/01/20
date added: 2024/03/02
shelves: mystery
review:

]]> 61885029
Charlie's life is going nowhere fast. A divorced substitute teacher living with his cat in a house his siblings want to sell, all he wants is to open a pub downtown, if only the bank will approve his loan.

Then his long-lost uncle Jake dies and leaves his supervillain business (complete with island volcano lair) to Charlie.

But becoming a supervillain isn't all giant laser death rays and lava pits. Jake had enemies, and now they're coming after Charlie. His uncle might have been a stand-up, old-fashioned kind of villain, but these are the real thing: rich, soulless predators backed by multinational corporations and venture capital.

It's up to Charlie to win the war his uncle started against a league of supervillains. But with unionized dolphins, hyperintelligent talking spy cats, and a terrifying henchperson at his side, going bad is starting to look pretty good.

In a dog-eat-dog world...be a cat.]]> 264 John Scalzi 0765389223 Don 5
My first Scalzi but definitely not my last.]]> 4.09 2023
author: John Scalzi
name: Don
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2024/02/25
date added: 2024/02/25
shelves:
review:
Ripped through this one simply because it was so fun. All you need to know going into it is what’s written on the inside jacket; to say more would spoil the fun.

My first Scalzi but definitely not my last.
]]> 176443045
Paris, 1885: Aubry Tourvel, a spoiled and stubborn nine-year-old girl, comes across a wooden puzzle ball on her walk home from school. She tosses it over the fence, only to find it in her backpack that evening. Days later, at the family dinner table, she starts to bleed to death.

When medical treatment only makes her worse, she flees to the outskirts of the city, where she realizes that it is this very act of movement that keeps her alive. So begins her lifelong journey on the run from her condition, which won’t allow her to stay anywhere for longer than a few days nor return to a place where she’s already been.

From the scorched dunes of the Calashino Sand Sea to the snow-packed peaks of the Himalayas; from a bottomless well in a Parisian courtyard, to the shelves of an infinite underground library, we follow Aubry as she learns what it takes to survive and ultimately, to truly live. But the longer Aubry wanders and the more desperate she is to share her life with others, the clearer it becomes that the world she travels through may not be quite the same as everyone else’s...

Fiercely independent and hopeful, yet full of longing, Aubry Tourvel is an unforgettable character fighting her way through a world of wonders to find a place she can call home. A spellbinding and inspiring story about discovering meaning in a life that seems otherwise impossible, A Short Walk Through a Wide World reminds us that it’s not the destination, but rather the journey—no matter how long it lasts—that makes us who we are.]]> 400 Douglas Westerbeke 1668026066 Don 0 to-read 3.48 2024
author: Douglas Westerbeke
name: Don
average rating: 3.48
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 133286777 From the New York Times bestselling author of Ninth House, Hell Bent, and creator of the Grishaverse series comes a highly anticipated historical fantasy set during the Spanish Golden Age

In a shabby house, on a shabby street, in the new capital of Madrid, Luzia Cotado uses scraps of magic to get through her days of endless toil as a scullion. But when her scheming mistress discovers the lump of a servant cowering in the kitchen is actually hiding a talent for little miracles, she demands Luzia use those gifts to better the family's social position.

What begins as simple amusement for the bored nobility takes a perilous turn when Luzia garners the notice of Antonio Pérez, the disgraced secretary to Spain's king. Still reeling from the defeat of his armada, the king is desperate for any advantage in the war against England's heretic queen—and Pérez will stop at nothing to regain the king's favor.

Determined to seize this one chance to better her fortunes, Luzia plunges into a world of seers and alchemists, holy men and hucksters, where the line between magic, science, and fraud is never certain. But as her notoriety grows, so does the danger that her Jewish blood will doom her to the Inquisition's wrath. She will have to use every bit of her wit and will to survive—even if that means enlisting the help of Guillén Santangel, an embittered immortal familiar whose own secrets could prove deadly for them both.]]> 387 Leigh Bardugo 125088425X Don 0 to-read 3.74 2024
author: Leigh Bardugo
name: Don
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 54812 Streets of Laredo is classic Texas and Western literature at its finest.

Captain Woodrow Call, August McCrae's old partner, is now a bounty hunter hired to track down a brutal young Mexican bandit. Riding with Call are an Eastern city slicker, a witless deputy, and one of the last members of the Hat Creek outfit, Pea Eye Parker. This long chase leads them across the last wild stretches of the West into a hellhole known as Crow Town and, finally, into the vast, relentless plains of the Texas frontier.]]> 547 Larry McMurtry 0684857537 Don 4 4.03 1993
author: Larry McMurtry
name: Don
average rating: 4.03
book published: 1993
rating: 4
read at: 2024/02/07
date added: 2024/02/08
shelves:
review:

]]> 65916344 Holly Gibney, one of Stephen King’s most compelling and ingeniously resourceful characters, returns in this thrilling novel to solve the gruesome truth behind multiple disappearances in a midwestern town.

“Sometimes the universe throws you a rope.�� �� BILL HODGES

Stephen King’s Holly marks the triumphant return of beloved King character Holly Gibney. Readers have witnessed Holly’s gradual transformation from a shy (but also brave and ethical) recluse in Mr. Mercedes to Bill Hodges’s partner in Finders Keepers to a full-fledged, smart, and occasionally tough private detective in The Outsider. In King’s new novel, Holly is on her own, and up against a pair of unimaginably depraved and brilliantly disguised adversaries.

When Penny Dahl calls the Finders Keepers detective agency hoping for help locating her missing daughter, Holly is reluctant to accept the case. Her partner, Pete, has Covid. Her (very complicated) mother has just died. And Holly is meant to be on leave. But something in Penny Dahl’s desperate voice makes it impossible for Holly to turn her down.

Mere blocks from where Bonnie Dahl disappeared live Professors Rodney and Emily Harris. They are the picture of bourgeois respectability: married octogenarians, devoted to each other, and semi-retired lifelong academics. But they are harboring an unholy secret in the basement of their well-kept, book-lined home, one that may be related to Bonnie’s disappearance. And it will prove nearly impossible to discover what they are up to: they are savvy, they are patient, and they are ruthless.

Holly must summon all her formidable talents to outthink and outmaneuver the shockingly twisted professors in this chilling new masterwork from Stephen King.]]> 449 Stephen King 1668016133 Don 3 horror
As it is set mostly in 2021-2022, this book will one day serve as a reminder of all things COVID-era. Elbow bumps, BLM, zoom parties, vaccinations, masks, gloves and the baffling scorn of science deniers are repeatedly mentioned (perhaps a bit too much).

This is my second venture into a story featuring the characters that started with Mr. Mercedes; it will probably also be my last.]]> 4.01 2023
author: Stephen King
name: Don
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2024/01/11
date added: 2024/01/11
shelves: horror
review:
Took in this one as an audiobook and was pleased with the reader. The story itself was definitely King’s style but I am just not as fascinated with the title character at King himself seems to be. A lot of backstory, which was fine but not all that interesting to me. The story itself was OK but never really went to the next level horror-wise.

As it is set mostly in 2021-2022, this book will one day serve as a reminder of all things COVID-era. Elbow bumps, BLM, zoom parties, vaccinations, masks, gloves and the baffling scorn of science deniers are repeatedly mentioned (perhaps a bit too much).

This is my second venture into a story featuring the characters that started with Mr. Mercedes; it will probably also be my last.
]]> 6611809
Giordano Bruno was a monk, poet, scientist, and magician on the run from the Roman Inquisition on charges of heresy for his belief that the Earth orbits the sun and that the universe is infinite. This alone could have got him burned at the stake, but he was also a student of occult philosophies and magic.

In S.J. Parris's gripping novel, Bruno's pursuit of this rare knowledge brings him to London, where he is unexpectedly recruited by Queen Elizabeth I and is sent undercover to Oxford University on the pretext of a royal visitation. Officially Bruno is to take part in a debate on the Copernican theory of the universe; unofficially, he is to find out whatever he can about a Catholic plot to overthrow the queen.

His mission is dramatically thrown off course by a series of grisly murders and a spirited and beautiful young woman. As Bruno begins to discover a pattern in these killings, he realizes that no one at Oxford is who he seems to be. Bruno must attempt to outwit a killer who appears obsessed with the boundary between truth and heresy.

Like The Dante Club and The Alienist, this clever, sophisticated, exceptionally enjoyable novel is written with the unstoppable narrative propulsion and stylistic flair of the very best historical thrillers.]]> 435 S.J. Parris 0385531281 Don 0 to-read 3.74 2010
author: S.J. Parris
name: Don
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/12/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 61294937 Shannon Chakraborty, the bestselling author of The City of Brass, spins a new trilogy of magic and mayhem on the high seas in this tale of pirates and sorcerers, forbidden artifacts and ancient mysteries, in one woman’s determined quest to seize a final chance at glory—and write her own legend.

Amina al-Sirafi should be content. After a storied and scandalous career as one of the Indian Ocean’s most notorious pirates, she’s survived backstabbing rogues, vengeful merchant princes, several husbands, and one actual demon to retire peacefully with her family to a life of piety, motherhood, and absolutely nothing that hints of the supernatural.

But when she’s tracked down by the obscenely wealthy mother of a former crewman, she’s offered a job no bandit could refuse: retrieve her comrade’s kidnapped daughter for a kingly sum. The chance to have one last adventure with her crew, do right by an old friend, and win a fortune that will secure her family’s future forever? It seems like such an obvious choice that it must be God’s will.

Yet the deeper Amina dives, the more it becomes alarmingly clear there’s more to this job, and the girl’s disappearance, than she was led to believe. For there’s always risk in wanting to become a legend, to seize one last chance at glory, to savor just a bit more power…and the price might be your very soul.]]> 483 Shannon Chakraborty Don 0 to-read 4.25 2023
author: Shannon Chakraborty
name: Don
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/12/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 60564318
In the summer of 1855, Sarah Brinton abandons her husband and child to make the long and difficult journey to Minnesota, where she will meet a childhood friend. Arriving at a small frontier post on the edge of the prairie, she discovers that her friend has died of cholera. Without work or money or friends, she quickly finds a husband who will become the resident physician at an Indian agency on the Yellow Medicine River. As one of the earliest settlers in the area, Sarah anticipates unease and hardship, but instead finds acceptance and kinship with the Sioux women who live on the nearby reservation. She learns to speak their language, nourishing a companionship with them which far exceeds that which she shares with her strange and distant husband.

An endless flow of White settlers are clearing the forests and claiming land. The government has yet to pay the Sioux the annuities awarded them each July for the sale of the land, and starvation and disease begin to decimate the Sioux community. What inevitably and tragically follows is the Sioux Uprising of 1862. While seeking safety at a nearby fort, Sarah and her two young children are abducted by Sioux warriors. They are unexpectedly kept safe by one of the men, who protects them until their rescue six weeks later by federal troops. Because of her sympathy for the Sioux, Sarah has become an outcast, falsely accused of marriage with her Native American captor. Vilified by the whites and despised by her husband, she is lost to both worlds.

Intimate, raw, compelling, and brilliantly subversive, Susanna Moore explores the history of Native American suffering and the rapacious settlement of the Western frontier.]]> 192 Susanna Moore 0385351437 Don 0 to-read 3.44 2023
author: Susanna Moore
name: Don
average rating: 3.44
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/12/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 60833953
In the name of national security, the CIA in partnership with Silicon Valley wunderkind Cy Baxter have created the ultimate surveillance program known as FUSION. Ahead of its roll out, ten Americans have been carefully selected to Beta test the groundbreaking system.

At the appointed hour, each of the ten will have two hours to “Go Zero”—to turn their cellphones off, cut ties with friends and family, and use any means possible to disappear. They will then have 30 days to evade detection and elude the highly sophisticated Capture Teams tasked to find them using the most cutting-edge technology. The goal is to see if it is possible to successfully go “off the grid�� and escape detection.

The stakes are immense. If FUSION is a success, Cy Baxter will secure a coveted 10-year, $100 billion dollar government contract and access to intelligence resources he truly believes will save lives. For any participant who beats the massive surveillance, it means a $3 million cash prize.

Among the contestants is an unassuming Boston librarian named Kaitlyn Day. She’s been chosen as the gimme, the easy target expected to be found first. But Kaitlyn excels at confounding expectations. Her talents at this particular game are far more effective than all the security experts suspect, and her reasons for playing far more personal than anyone can imagine. . . .]]> 304 Anthony McCarten 006322707X Don 0 to-read 3.84 2023
author: Anthony McCarten
name: Don
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/12/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 29243630 AN EXTRAORDINARILY RESONANT AND PROPHETIC COLLECTION OF SPECULATIVE SHORT FICTION FOR OUR TECH-SAVVY ERA BY DEBUT AUTHOR ALEXANDER WEINSTEIN

Children of the New World introduces readers to a near-future world of social media implants, memory manufacturers, dangerously immersive virtual reality games, and alarmingly intuitive robots. Many of these characters live in a utopian future of instant connection and technological gratification that belies an unbridgeable human distance, while others inhabit a post-collapse landscape made primitive by disaster, which they must work to rebuild as we once did millennia ago.

In “The Cartographers,�� the main character works for a company that creates and sells virtual memories, while struggling to maintain a real-world relationship sabotaged by an addiction to his own creations. In “Saying Goodbye to Yang,�� the robotic brother of an adopted Chinese child malfunctions, and only in his absence does the family realize how real a son he has become.

Children of the New World grapples with our unease in this modern world and how our ever-growing dependence on new technologies has changed the shape of our society. Alexander Weinstein is a visionary new voice in speculative fiction for all of us who are fascinated by and terrified of what we might find on the horizon.]]> 229 Alexander Weinstein 1250099005 Don 5 sci-fi 3.74 2016
author: Alexander Weinstein
name: Don
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2016
rating: 5
read at: 2023/12/02
date added: 2023/12/02
shelves: sci-fi
review:
A wonderful collection of dystopian speculative short stories set in the not too distant future. As with most collections some are more impactful than others. All, though, are perfect fodder for further imagination and development, whether by the author’s own hand or fully within the mind of the reader.
]]> 17167084
When Gamache receives a message from Myrna Landers, in the village of Three Pines, he welcomes the chance to get away from the city for a few hours. Myrna's longtime friend, who was due to spend Christmas in the village, has failed to arrive. When Chief Inspector Gamache presses for information, Myrna is reluctant to reveal her friend's name. Mystified, Gamache soon discovers the missing woman was once one of the most famous people not just in North America but in the world, and now goes unrecognized by virtually everyone except the mad, brilliant poet Ruth Zardo.

As events come to a head at the Sûreté, Gamache is drawn ever deeper into the world of Three Pines. Increasingly, he is not only investigating the disappearance of Myrna's friend but also seeking a safe place for himself and his still-loyal colleagues—if such a refuge exists amid mounting danger. Is there peace to be found even in Three Pines, and at what cost to Gamache and the people he holds dear?]]> 405 Louise Penny 0312655479 Don 4 4.43 2013
author: Louise Penny
name: Don
average rating: 4.43
book published: 2013
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2023/11/26
shelves:
review:

]]> 6093438
England, 1916. Independent-minded Bess Crawford's upbringing was far different from that of the usual upper-middle class British gentlewoman. Growing up in India, she learned the importance of responsibility, honor, and duty from her officer father. At the outbreak of World War I, Bess volunteered for the nursing corps, serving from the battlefields of France to the doomed hospital ship Britannic.

On one voyage, Bess grows fond of the young, gravely wounded Lieutenant Arthur Graham. Something rests heavily on his conscience, and to give him a bit of peace as he dies, she promises to deliver a message to his brother. It is some months before she can carry out this duty, and when she's next in England, she herself is recovering from a wound.

When Bess arrives at the Graham house in Kent, Jonathan Graham listens to his brother's last wishes with surprising indifference. Neither his mother nor his brother Timothy seems to think it has any significance, either. Unsettled by this, Bess is about to take her leave when sudden tragedy envelops her. She quickly discovers that fulfilling this duty to the dead has thrust her into a maelstrom of intrigue and murder that will endanger her own life and test her courage as not even war has.]]> 336 Charles Todd 0061791768 Don 0 to-read 3.90 2009
author: Charles Todd
name: Don
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/11/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 211146 259 Deborah Crombie 0060534389 Don 0 to-read 3.72 1993
author: Deborah Crombie
name: Don
average rating: 3.72
book published: 1993
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/11/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 18373 Winner of both the Hugo and Nebula Awards, the powerful, classic story about a man who receives an operation that turns him into a genius...and introduces him to heartache.
��
Charlie Gordon is about to embark upon an unprecedented journey. Born with an unusually low IQ, he has been chosen as the perfect subject for an experimental surgery that researchers hope will increase his intelligence �� a procedure that has already been highly successful when tested on a lab mouse named Algernon.

As the treatment takes effect, Charlie's intelligence expands until it surpasses that of the doctors who engineered his metamorphosis. The experiment appears to be a scientific breakthrough of paramount importance, until Algernon suddenly deteriorates. Will the same happen to Charlie?]]> 311 Daniel Keyes 015603008X Don 5 4.19 1966
author: Daniel Keyes
name: Don
average rating: 4.19
book published: 1966
rating: 5
read at: 2018/03/02
date added: 2023/08/24
shelves:
review:

]]> 13061
"Hysterically funny...Hiaasen at his satirical best." - USA Today

Two honeymooners wake up early, make love twice, and brace themselves for a spectacle they won't be watching from the sidelines. A seductive con artiste stumbles into a scam that promises more cool cash than the lottery. A shotgun-toting mobile home salesman is about to close a deal with disaster. A law school dropout will be chasing one Gaboon viper, a troop of storm-shocked monkeys, and a newfound love life, while tourists by the thousands bail from the Florida Keys. We're now entering the hurricane zone, where hell and hilarity rule. And in the hands of the masterful, merciless Carl Hiaasen, we're going to have some weather.]]> 388 Carl Hiaasen 0446677167 Don 4 3.95 1995
author: Carl Hiaasen
name: Don
average rating: 3.95
book published: 1995
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2023/07/29
shelves:
review:

]]> 22571556
The unspoken secrets and buried lies of one family rise to the surface in Elizabeth George’s newest novel of crime, passion, and tragic history. As Inspector Thomas Lynley investigates the London angle of an ever more darkly disturbing case, his partner, Barbara Havers, is looking behind the peaceful façade of country life to discover a twisted world of desire and deceit.

The suicide of William Goldacre is devastating to those left behind who will have to deal with its unintended consequences—could there be a link between the young man’s leap from a Dorset cliff and a horrific poisoning in Cambridge?

After various issues with her department, Barbara Havers is desperate to redeem herself. So when a past encounter gives her a connection to the unsolved Cambridge murder, Barbara begs Thomas Lynley to let her pursue the crime, knowing one mistake could mean the end of her career.

Full of shocks, intensity, and suspense from the first page to the last, A Banquet of Consequences reveals both Lynley and Havers under mounting pressure to solve a case both complicated and deeply disturbing.]]> 576 Elizabeth George 0525954333 Don 4 3.86 2015
author: Elizabeth George
name: Don
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2015
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2023/07/10
shelves:
review:

]]> 16045144
But when the renowned choir director is murdered, the lock on the monastery's massive wooden door is drawn back to admit Chief Inspector Armand Gamache and Jean-Guy Beauvoir of the Sûreté du Québec. There they discover disquiet beneath the silence, discord in the apparent harmony. But before finding the killer, before restoring peace, the Chief must first consider the divine, the human, and the cracks in between.]]> 373 Louise Penny 1250031125 Don 3 4.14 2012
author: Louise Penny
name: Don
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2012
rating: 3
read at: 2023/06/30
date added: 2023/06/30
shelves:
review:
A departure from Three Pines and the residents of that village, this outing finds Gamache and Beauvoir investigating a murder among Gilbertine monks on a remote and untamed island. Chants, Gregorian, plain and otherwise play a strong role and the the backstory of our main detectives is fleshed out further. It’s a fine read, but not necessarily what I come to this series for. I missed the other residents of Three Pines and in the end really didn’t have a lot of investment in the shenanigans of religious zealots.
]]> 40914164
There are eight days, and eight witnesses for you to inhabit.

We will only let you escape once you tell us the name of the killer.

Understood? Then let's begin . . .

Evelyn Hardcastle will die. Every day until Aiden Bishop can identify her killer and break the cycle. But every time the day begins again, Aiden wakes up in the body of a different guest. And some of his hosts are more helpful than others . . .

The most inventive debut of the year twists together a mystery of such unexpected creativity it will leave listeners guessing until the very last second.]]> 458 Stuart Turton 149267012X Don 0 to-read 3.75 2018
author: Stuart Turton
name: Don
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/06/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 5211
The time is 1975. The place is an unnamed city by the sea. The government has just declared a State of Emergency, in whose upheavals four strangers--a spirited widow, a young student uprooted from his idyllic hill station, and two tailors who have fled the caste violence of their native village--will be thrust together, forced to share one cramped apartment and an uncertain future.

As the characters move from distrust to friendship and from friendship to love, A Fine Balance creates an enduring panorama of the human spirit in an inhuman state.]]> 603 Rohinton Mistry 140003065X Don 5


]]> 4.38 1995
author: Rohinton Mistry
name: Don
average rating: 4.38
book published: 1995
rating: 5
read at: 2023/06/06
date added: 2023/06/07
shelves:
review:
Simply amazing. At once an insight into cultural norms and an education in the personal impacts of the systematic trampling of civil and personal liberties. Opened my eyes to an era of Indian history of which I was previously ignorant.




]]> 5947099
Tender, knowing, and slyly comic, Memories of My Melancholy Whores is an exquisite addition to the master’s work.
--back cover]]> 115 Gabriel García Márquez 1400095948 Don 0 to-read 3.59 2004
author: Gabriel García Márquez
name: Don
average rating: 3.59
book published: 2004
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/04/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 23878
Yet if everyone knew the murder was going to happen, why did no one intervene to try and stop it? The more that is learned, the less is understood, and as the story races to its inexplicable conclusion, an entire society--not just a pair of murderers—is put on trial.]]> 120 Gabriel García Márquez 140003471X Don 0 to-read 3.98 1981
author: Gabriel García Márquez
name: Don
average rating: 3.98
book published: 1981
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/04/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 23884
Gabriel García Márquez's most political novel is the tragic story of General Simón Bolívar, the man who tried to unite a continent.

Bolívar, known in six Latin American countries as the Liberator, is one of the most revered heroes of the western hemisphere; in García Márquez's brilliant reimagining he is magnificently flawed as well. The novel follows Bolívar as he takes his final journey in 1830 down the Magdalena River toward the sea, revisiting the scenes of his former glory and lamenting his lost dream of an alliance of American nations. Forced from power, dogged by assassins, and prematurely aged and wasted by a fatal illness, the General is still a remarkably vital and mercurial man. He seems to remain alive by the sheer force of will that led him to so many victories in the battlefields and love affairs of his past. As he wanders in the labyrinth of his failing powers-and still-powerful memories-he defies his impending death until the last.

The General in His Labyrinth is an unforgettable portrait of a visionary from one of the greatest writers of our time.]]> 248 Gabriel García Márquez 1400043336 Don 0 to-read 3.74 1989
author: Gabriel García Márquez
name: Don
average rating: 3.74
book published: 1989
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/04/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 22175
In these twelve masterful short stories about the lives of Latin Americans in Europe, García Márquez conveys the peculiar amalgam of melancholy, tenacity, sorrow, and aspiration that is the émigré experience.

Bon voyage, Mr. President --
The saint --
Sleeping beauty and the Airplane --
I sell my dreams --
"I only came to use the phone" --
The ghosts of August --
Maria dos Prazeres --
Seventeen poisoned Englishmen --
Tramontana --
Miss Forbes's summer of happiness --
Light is like water --
The trail of your blood in the snow]]> 188 Gabriel García Márquez 1400034698 Don 0 to-read 4.08 1992
author: Gabriel García Márquez
name: Don
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1992
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/04/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 50269327
Now Natsuki is grown. She lives a quiet life with her asexual husband, surviving as best she can by pretending to be normal. But the demands of Natsuki's family are increasing, her friends wonder why she's still not pregnant, and dark shadows from Natsuki's childhood are pursuing her. Fleeing the suburbs for the mountains of her childhood, Natsuki prepares herself with a reunion with Yuu. Will he still remember their promise? And will he help her keep it?]]> 247 Sayaka Murata 1783785675 Don 1 3.59 2018
author: Sayaka Murata
name: Don
average rating: 3.59
book published: 2018
rating: 1
read at: 2023/04/01
date added: 2023/04/01
shelves:
review:
Having read the reviews I approached this with some trepidation. I recognized halfway through chapter 2, as the mother was smacking her daughter’s head with a slipper for disclosing abuse at school, that this is not the book for me.
]]> 63236505
Also getting noticed is The Six, a band led by the brooding Billy Dunne. On the eve of their first tour, his girlfriend Camila finds out she's pregnant, and with the pressure of impending fatherhood and fame, Billy goes a little wild on the road.

Daisy and Billy cross paths when a producer realizes that the key to supercharged success is to put the two together. What happens next will become the stuff of legend.

The making of that legend is chronicled in this riveting and unforgettable novel, written as an oral history of one of the biggest bands of the seventies. Taylor Jenkins Reid is a talented writer who takes her work to a new level with Daisy Jones & The Six, brilliantly capturing a place and time in an utterly distinctive voice.]]> 375 Taylor Jenkins Reid 0593598423 Don 0 to-read 4.18 2019
author: Taylor Jenkins Reid
name: Don
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/04/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 10680329 "Hearts are broken," Lillian Dyson carefully underlined in a book. "Sweet relationships are dead."

But now Lillian herself is dead. Found among the bleeding hearts and lilacs of Clara Morrow's garden in Three Pines, shattering the celebrations of Clara's solo show at the famed Musée in Montréal. Chief Inspector Gamache, the head of homicide at the Sûreté du Québec, is called to the tiny Québec village and there he finds the art world gathered, and with it a world of shading and nuance, a world of shadow and light. Where nothing is as it seems. Behind every smile there lurks a sneer. Inside every sweet relationship there hides a broken heart. And even when facts are slowly exposed, it is no longer clear to Gamache and his team if what they've found is the truth, or simply a trick of the light.]]> 339 Louise Penny 0312655452 Don 5 mystery After completing the book last night I read an interview with Louise Penny in which she indicated she intends on writing this series until she is no longer able. I wish her a long and healthy life.]]> 4.26 2011
author: Louise Penny
name: Don
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2011
rating: 5
read at: 2023/03/30
date added: 2023/03/31
shelves: mystery
review:
Always a pleasure to return to Three Pines and catch up with some truly intriguing characters. I truly admire Penny's ability to meticulously plot each single novel as well as the ongoing development of the main and secondary characters. She's displayed this deftness throughout the first 6 installments but for me it really hit home in this one as it reaches way back to that first novel in one character story arc, expands on a strained relationship that developed a few novels back and continues to flesh out the career history and trauma of Inspector Gamache. This is all done while maintaining brisk pacing amongst characters with complex emotions while applying psychological reasoning to solve the central crime.
After completing the book last night I read an interview with Louise Penny in which she indicated she intends on writing this series until she is no longer able. I wish her a long and healthy life.
]]> 27276249
But what the actor doesn’t realize is that the greatest threat might be the town itself, and the mysterious shadow economy that powers this remote jungle outpost. Entrepreneurial Americans, international drug traffickers, and M-19 guerrillas are all fighting for South America’s future—and the groups aren’t as distinct as one might think. The actor thought this would be a role that would change his life. Now he’s worried he won't survive it.

Inspired by a true story from the annals of 1970's Italian horror film, We Eat Our Own is a journey behind the scenes of a shocking film and a thoughtful commentary on violence and its repercussions.]]> 320 Kea Wilson 1501128310 Don 0 to-read 3.29 2016
author: Kea Wilson
name: Don
average rating: 3.29
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/03/30
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 61272810
Since Anabelle’s mother left for Earth to care for her own ailing mother, her days in New Galveston have been spent at school and her nights at her laconic father’s diner with Watson, the family Kitchen Engine and dishwasher as her only companion. When the Silence came, and communication and shipments from Earth to its colonies on Mars stopped, life seemed stuck in foreboding stasis until the night Silas Mundt and his gang attacked.

At once evoking the dreams of an America explored in Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles and the harder realities of frontier life in Charles Portis True Grit , Ballingrud’s novel is haunting in its evocation of Anabelle’s quest for revenge amidst a spent and angry world accompanied by a domestic Engine, a drunken space pilot, and the toughest woman on Mars.

Nathan Ballingrud’s stories have been adapted into the film Wounds and the Hulu series Monsterland , The Strange is his first novel.]]> 304 Nathan Ballingrud 1534449957 Don 0 to-read 3.76 2023
author: Nathan Ballingrud
name: Don
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/03/30
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 8700022 289 Slavomir Rawicz Don 0 currently-reading 4.42 1956
author: Slavomir Rawicz
name: Don
average rating: 4.42
book published: 1956
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/03/20
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> 33297829 This is an alternate cover edition for ASIN B00DGZKHRC.

Without warning, the world comes to an end for Hannah and Amanda Given. The sky looms frigid white. The electricity falters. Airplanes everywhere crash to the ground. But the Givens are saved by mysterious strangers, three fearsome and beautiful beings who force a plain silver bracelet onto each sister’s wrist. Within moments, the sky comes down in a crushing sheet of light and everything around them is gone.

Shielded from the devastation by their silver adornments, the Givens suddenly find themselves elsewhere, a strange new Earth where restaurants move through the air like flying saucers and the fabric of time is manipulated by common household appliances.

Soon Hannah and Amanda are joined by four other survivors from their world—a mordant cartoonist, a shy teenage girl, a brilliant young Australian, and a troubled ex-prodigy. Hunted by enemies they never knew they had and afflicted with temporal abilities they never wanted, the sisters and their companions begin a cross-country journey to find the one man who can save them—before time runs out.]]> 626 Daniel Price Don 4 sci-fi
Got home and read the GR review by thefourthvine. Ugh. Did I really want to delve into this?

Then I found the author's response to that review. Brilliant.

In the end I dove into this book primarily because I appreciated Mr. Price's ability to see the review for the trolling that it was and respond so humorously. thefourthvine was not incorrect . . . Mr. Price does seem fixated on Hannah's physical form, though I'm not sure whether I noticed this more because of the review. I can only hope that this is a "Chekhov's gun" type of scenario with the payoff coming in the third installment.

As for the story itself - it was an imaginative, well-paced bit of world building and I look forward to what comes next. ]]> 3.87 2014
author: Daniel Price
name: Don
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at: 2023/03/19
date added: 2023/03/20
shelves: sci-fi
review:
Picked this one up on a whim at a library used book sale. Seemed somewhat interesting and figured it was worth a try.

Got home and read the GR review by thefourthvine. Ugh. Did I really want to delve into this?

Then I found the author's response to that review. Brilliant.

In the end I dove into this book primarily because I appreciated Mr. Price's ability to see the review for the trolling that it was and respond so humorously. thefourthvine was not incorrect . . . Mr. Price does seem fixated on Hannah's physical form, though I'm not sure whether I noticed this more because of the review. I can only hope that this is a "Chekhov's gun" type of scenario with the payoff coming in the third installment.

As for the story itself - it was an imaginative, well-paced bit of world building and I look forward to what comes next.
]]> 51931
The basis of an upcoming motion picture, Jungle is the story of friendship and the teachings of nature, and a terrifying true account that you won’t be able to put down.]]> 241 Yossi Ghinsberg 0977171906 Don 4 non-fiction, travel 3.94 1985
author: Yossi Ghinsberg
name: Don
average rating: 3.94
book published: 1985
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2023/02/26
shelves: non-fiction, travel
review:

]]> 34376766 Blood, Sweat, and Pixels, Jason Schreier takes readers on a fascinating odyssey behind the scenes of video game development, where the creator may be a team of 600 overworked underdogs or a solitary geek genius. Exploring the artistic challenges, technical impossibilities, marketplace demands, and Donkey Kong-sized monkey wrenches thrown into the works by corporate, Blood, Sweat, and Pixels reveals how bringing any game to completion is more than Sisyphean—it's nothing short of miraculous.

Taking some of the most popular, bestselling recent games, Schreier immerses readers in the hellfire of the development process, whether it's RPG studio Bioware's challenge to beat an impossible schedule and overcome countless technical nightmares to build Dragon Inquisition; indie developer Eric Barone's single-handed efforts to grow country-life RPG Stardew Valley from one man's vision into a multi-million-dollar franchise; or Bungie spinning out from their corporate overlords at Microsoft to create Destiny, a brand new universe that they hoped would become as iconic as Star Wars and Lord of the Rings—even as it nearly ripped their studio apart.

Documenting the round-the-clock crunches, buggy-eyed burnout, and last-minute saves, Blood, Sweat, and Pixels is a journey through development hell—and ultimately a tribute to the dedicated diehards and unsung heroes who scale mountains of obstacles in their quests to create the best games imaginable.]]> 353 Jason Schreier 0062651242 Don 4 non-fiction 4.21 2017
author: Jason Schreier
name: Don
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2023/02/09
date added: 2023/02/09
shelves: non-fiction
review:
An enjoyable oral history of how 9 highly acclaimed video games came to be, and how 1 notoriously tanked. What I took from this book is that there is no standard or even preferred method for creating a video game. This book covers large production studios, a one-man project and everything in between. From backing by major investors to Kickstarter campaigns . . . if you have a dream there should be some way to pursue it. The one constant is obsessive devotion to and belief in your project, long, long hours and some degree of good fortune.
]]> 9221521
The man might have been looking for peace and quiet, but something else found him. Something horrible. Did the man take his own life? Or was he murdered? Chief Inspector Armand Gamache is called to the crime scene. As Gamache follows the trail of clues, he opens a door into the past. And he learns the true reason why the man came to Three Pines.

—�Ĕ�Ĕ���
THE HANGMAN is written as part of a programme called GoodReads Canada, which was created by national literacy organizations to publish books aimed at emerging adult readers. So, THE HANGMAN is written at a grade 3 level, for adults. Very clear, very simple. Not really the most complex plot or style, for obvious reasons.

—�Ĕ�Ĕ���

Librarian's note: "The Hangman" is a short story and a one-off; it is not part of a larger collection of short stories.]]> 87 Louise Penny 1926583248 Don 3 mystery 3.65 2010
author: Louise Penny
name: Don
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2010
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2023/02/01
shelves: mystery
review:

]]> 45304101 A dazzling new novel of friendship and redemption in the face of tragedy and loss set in 1980s Chicago and contemporary Paris

In 1985, Yale Tishman, the development director for an art gallery in Chicago, is about to pull off an amazing coup, bringing in an extraordinary collection of 1920s paintings as a gift to the gallery. Yet as his career begins to flourish, the carnage of the AIDS epidemic grows around him. One by one, his friends are dying and after his friend Nico's funeral, the virus circles closer and closer to Yale himself. Soon the only person he has left is Fiona, Nico's little sister.

Thirty years later, Fiona is in Paris tracking down her estranged daughter who disappeared into a cult. While staying with an old friend, a famous photographer who documented the Chicago crisis, she finds herself finally grappling with the devastating ways AIDS affected her life and her relationship with her daughter. The two intertwining stories take us through the heartbreak of the eighties and the chaos of the modern world, as both Yale and Fiona struggle to find goodness in the midst of disaster.

The Great Believers has become a critically acclaimed, indelible piece of literature; it was selected as one of New York Times Best 10 Books of the Year, a Washington Post Notable Book, a Buzzfeed Book of the Year, a Skimm Reads pick, and a pick for the New York Public Library's Best Books of the year.]]> 421 Rebecca Makkai 073522353X Don 5
This book was put into my hands following a conversation I had with the owner and proprietor of Sidetrack Bookshop in Royal Oak, MI. I had made a comment that her store reminded me of a book store in Chicago, which led us to compare notes on the city and realize that we both lived in the Lakeview/Boystown area in the early 90s. "This book perfectly captures that area during that time period" said Jen.

It's not a book I may have found my way to otherwise. I was instantly transported back to the neighborhood where I spent the majority of my 20s and introduced to characters that I could easily recall as real individuals who I'd encountered during those years. I know the locations, the establishments, the Chicago winter and even the travels to and from Door County. Admittedly, my one day in Paris back in 1986 did not leave me with a similar sense of place.

Given that background, I probably enjoyed this novel more than I would have otherwise. That's not in any way meant to dismiss the storytelling and artistry of the author; it's a stunning work that could certainly be classified as historical fiction due to the exhaustive research and interviews that guided Makkai's writing. It's led me to You Tube to check out videos of the 1990 AMA demonstrations and will undoubtedly lead me to other historical works on the AIDS crisis.

So thank you Jen. Who knew that a recommendation based on a 5 minute conversation could be so spot on?]]> 4.26 2018
author: Rebecca Makkai
name: Don
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at: 2023/01/31
date added: 2023/01/31
shelves:
review:
“This �� was a town where good things would happen. Chicago would unfurl it’s map to him one promising street, one intoxicating space, at a time. It would weave him into it’s grid, pour beer in his mouth and music in his ears. It would keep him.�� P. 34

This book was put into my hands following a conversation I had with the owner and proprietor of Sidetrack Bookshop in Royal Oak, MI. I had made a comment that her store reminded me of a book store in Chicago, which led us to compare notes on the city and realize that we both lived in the Lakeview/Boystown area in the early 90s. "This book perfectly captures that area during that time period" said Jen.

It's not a book I may have found my way to otherwise. I was instantly transported back to the neighborhood where I spent the majority of my 20s and introduced to characters that I could easily recall as real individuals who I'd encountered during those years. I know the locations, the establishments, the Chicago winter and even the travels to and from Door County. Admittedly, my one day in Paris back in 1986 did not leave me with a similar sense of place.

Given that background, I probably enjoyed this novel more than I would have otherwise. That's not in any way meant to dismiss the storytelling and artistry of the author; it's a stunning work that could certainly be classified as historical fiction due to the exhaustive research and interviews that guided Makkai's writing. It's led me to You Tube to check out videos of the 1990 AMA demonstrations and will undoubtedly lead me to other historical works on the AIDS crisis.

So thank you Jen. Who knew that a recommendation based on a 5 minute conversation could be so spot on?
]]> 62100609 Dive into the #1 best-selling mystery series readers are comparing to Connelly, Patterson, and Baldacci.

How do you catch a killer who's already behind bars?

Thomas Austin was once a star NYPD detective, known for locking up a psychopathic serial The Holiday Baby Butcher. Now retired in a small beach town, Austin runs a little café, trying to overcome the loss of his wife, a district attorney who was gunned down only one year ago.

But when a mysterious bag of bones appears on a nearby beach, Austin is dragged back into law enforcement for one last job. The Holiday Baby Butcher is behind bars, so it has to be a copycat. But with each new clue, the killer seems closer and closer to the real thing.

Now Austin must overcome the darkness of his past to chase a killer as twisted as any America has ever seen. And when Austin finally learns the truth, it's a twist so shocking it shakes him to his core, and threatens his life.

The Bones of Point No Point is the mesmerizing debut crime thriller from D.D. Black, perfect for fans of James Patterson, Lisa Regan, Michael Connelly, and David Baldacci.

"⭐⭐⭐⭐�� Amazing Pacific Northwest setting, characters I actually liked, and a twist so deranged I had to start the book over from the beginning the second I finished."

"⭐⭐⭐⭐�� A serial killer as sick as any I've seen. Highly recommended."

"⭐⭐⭐⭐�� A great mystery! I loved the Pacific Northwest setting, loved the occasional bits of humor mixed in with this chilling story of a retired detective pulled back into the fray for one more job. I only hope Austin can find love again."

Series List (can be read in any order):

Book 1: The Bones at Point No PointBook 2: The Shadows of Pike PlaceBook 3: The Fallen of Foulweather BluffBook 4: The Horror at Murden CoveBook 5: The Terror in the Emerald CityBook 6: The Drowning at Dyes InletBook 7: The Nightmare at Manhattan Beach]]> 264 D.D. Black Don 0 to-read 4.27
author: D.D. Black
name: Don
average rating: 4.27
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/01/31
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 2459785
Twenty years later, the found boy, Rob Ryan, is a detective on the Dublin Murder Squad and keeps his past a secret. But when a 12-year-old girl is found murdered in the same woods, he and Detective Cassie Maddox (his partner and closest friend) find themselves investigating a case chillingly similar to the previous unsolved mystery. Now, with only snippets of long-buried memories to guide him, Ryan has the chance to uncover both the mystery of the case before him and that of his own shadowy past.

A gorgeously written novel that marks the debut of an astonishing new voice in psychological suspense.]]> 448 Tana French Don 4 3.82 2007
author: Tana French
name: Don
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2007
rating: 4
read at: 2022/12/31
date added: 2022/12/31
shelves:
review:
The narrator did tell us up front that he lies. He’s no Hercule Poirot and everything is not tidily wrapped up by the end. It’s messy and confusing, just like life, and in the end is similarly unpredictable.
]]> 7945049
Although he is supposed to be on leave, Gamache cannot walk away from a crime that threatens to ignite long-smoldering tensions between the English and the French. Meanwhile, he is receiving disquieting letters from the village of Three Pines, where beloved Bistro owner Olivier was recently convicted of murder. "It doesn't make sense," Olivier’s partner writes every day. "He didn't do it, you know." As past and present collide in this astonishing novel, Gamache must relive the terrible event of his own past before he can bury his dead.]]> 371 Louise Penny 0312377045 Don 3 mystery 4.31 2010
author: Louise Penny
name: Don
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2010
rating: 3
read at: 2022/12/04
date added: 2022/12/04
shelves: mystery
review:
Louise Penny tackles a lot in this one and certainly succeeds. I have no issues whatsoever with this installment of the Gamache series but my preference is to remain in Three Pines and feel the slow burn of a mystery being solved. This one is three, perhaps even four (depending on your point of view) stories interweaving as one. The common thread, of course, is a variation on burying your dead in both the real and metaphorical sense. Quite an accomplished work, but I missed hanging out with the residents of Three Pines.
]]> 32446949 Departure... Arrival... Delight!

Joel Byram, our smartass protagonist, is an everyday twenty-second century guy. He spends his days training artificial intelligence engines to act more human, jamming out to 1980's new wave—an extremely obscure genre, and trying to salvage his deteriorating marriage. Joel is pretty much an everyday guy with everyday problems—until he's accidentally duplicated while teleporting.

Now Joel must outsmart the shadowy organization that controls teleportation, outrun the religious sect out to destroy it, and find a way to get back to the woman he loves in a world that now has two of him.]]> 319 Tal M. Klein 1942645589 Don 4 sci-fi 3.58 2017
author: Tal M. Klein
name: Don
average rating: 3.58
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2022/11/19
shelves: sci-fi
review:

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