agentpalmer
I don’t know if I should be amused, bemused, or depressed now that I’ve finished reading Friendly Fire by C.D.B. Byran. The death of any young person is a tragedy, in war or peace. But the story of Michael Mullen, his death and the plight and anguish of his parents, as well as that of a nation...
73pctgeek
High Queen of Faerie, yet exiled to the mortal realm, Jude is determined to reclaim what is hers. I liked this even less than the previous one. The protagonist continues to be annoyingly overwrought, and her decisions continue to be tediously unsurprising. This wasn’t a particularly satisfying...
CLM
Eve Travis has always admired Jeff Kilburn and is worried that his heart is broken when her cousin Moya dumps him for a British peer. After the wedding, she impulsively offers to marry him instead so he is not alone and vulnerable when he leaves for a business trip to South America. Jeff is...
CLM
Captain Harry Phillips, a British officer, is a prisoner of war in a German-controlled hospital in Romania. It’s 1918 and while Germany has gone from near-victory to an unsuccessful Spring Offensive on the Western Front leading to eventual defeat, its army and military intelligence are still...
agentpalmer
Are you looking for a thrilling book? One that has action, style, philosophy, and perhaps gods? Keanu Reeves, yes, that Keanu, and China Miéville have written The Book of Elsewhere: A Novel. It may be just what you need to escape the day-to-day.
CLM
Kendal Carter is at a playground on the outskirts of Zurich with her four-year-old, Rosie, when she notices two men in suits lurking nearby who appear very out of place. She is instantly wary, especially because if the men are a threat, they are between her and the apartment where she has a “go...
CLM
April in Paris, and a sprinkle of rain, a sudden whip of cool breeze, a greying sky to end the bright promise of the evening. John Craig decided that his saunter along Boulevard Sant-Germain might come to a quick end any moment now, and began looking in earnest for a place of retreat.Read more »
Justin Bowers
** This book was provided to me by Random House Worlds in exchange for a fair and honest review ** I’m just going to cut to the chase, right off the bat, and say that this was a hard one to read that I almost DNF’d about a dozen times. The premise was plenty intriguing. Five students...
agentpalmer
Marty Neumeier attempts to bridge “The Brand Gap,” but does he succeed? Two decades on from its publishing, I think there is more in The Brand Gap that is still relevant than some of the more dated material that’s just fun to reminisce as you read. The book attempts to explain and educate the...
CLM
I have always enjoyed the type of fantasy where strange things start happening to ordinary people, and there were some series like Narnia or the Edward Eager books that I reread multiple times. But when I discovered a new author at the library – especially one who had written more than one book,...
CLM
There is nothing like an intrepid and self-aware heroine to take us lands away. Sabriel has attended Wyverley College, a boarding school for young ladies in Ancelstierre, since she was five and is now a graduating Sixth Form prefect, having excelled in all the expected coursework along with the...
CLM
I remember what a tear-jerker The Light Between Oceans was so I was not expecting an easy read in A Far-flung Life but it took nearly all of the 430 pages to get from tragedy to the promised resilience. This epic novel beginning on an Australian sheep station in 1958 features a small but...
CLM
This historical novel, set in 1952, begins dramatically with a dead or nearly dead body. Honor Wilson, a seemingly respectable widow, inherited a large Victorian house in London after her much-older husband died but little in the way of other assets. She takes in lodgers: George (Georgina),...
agentpalmer
An asteroid, Perses, is on a collision course with earth. It’s the size of Texas, and you’ve been hearing about it and seeing it coming for many months. Survival is doubtful at best, and humanity is coping by collapsing - as you would expect.
CLM
Alas, A Murder in Marylebone barely mentions Marylebone and is too obviously written by an American, although it began promisingly. Minerva Harper, a widow with two children, has returned to London after some 15 years in Greece. Her husband, Oliver, was a diplomat but left the British Embassy...
CLM
The villagers do not know what to make of Muffler, a foundling named after the white scarf he was wrapped in when discovered in a hen’s nest. Brought up by a childless couple, Simon and Meg, he is a goatherd (but not a lonely one), talking to his herd, composing rhymes and telling stories. Read...
CLM
It takes a lot of confidence in these days of NIL and the NCAA transfer portal to write a book called The Locker Room Is Not for Sale – given many of us are very skeptical indeed of such a claim. However, this book is different: for the past 40 years, Brian White, a former Harvard quarterback I...
CLM
Moira Redmond recently wrote about fortune tellers in her Clothes in Books blog, and that got me thinking about a two-book series by Dorothy Gilman that begins with The Clairvoyant Countess. I couldn’t remember if I had read it so I requested it from the library and included it in my 20 Books of...
agentpalmer
I’ve been reading about Stranger in a Strange Land for a few years now. I don’t mean I’ve been reading in-depth breakdowns or anything, but the novel has been referenced on more than a few occasions throughout the last few years in books or other media I’ve been consuming.
CLM
Elizabeth Chadwick is an author I have enjoyed in the past but somehow I had not read any of her books since moving back to Boston, so she seemed a good candidate for the 20 Days of Summer. I gather her books about William Marshal are her most acclaimed so I meant to start with one of them but...
CLM
An unexpected trip becomes a way to take control of her life 18-year-old Finley in this new book by bestseller Dessen. Finley has just finished high school when her world (at least, her small piece of it) falls apart. One minute she is planning to go to college with her boyfriend, Colin, after a...
CLM
When she was at her lowest emotionally, Skye saw a competition to win a cottage in Greece for one euro, and entered. How she won and how the paperwork was completed quickly and without publicity requires some suspension of disbelief but, why not, every book needs a plot, and apparently this is an...
ian holloway
KEK-WBicameral PressSinister secrets, maple syrup and dark, unrequited desire.Meet the Shrivelwoods - Vermont's strangest, most eccentric denizens! A once-powerful dynasty that grew wealthy and decadent through their control of the state maple syrup monopoly.Now their freakish inbred descendants...
ian holloway
Liam HigginsonPicadorCarwyn and Rhian – the last in a long line of sheep farmers – are living out a brutal year on their hillside farm, deep in the mountains of North Wales.When Carwyn discovers a buried prehistoric ruin in one of the fields on their land, his curiosity quickly descends into...
ian holloway
Rosalie & Edward SyntonBritish LibraryJohn Travers has been hanged for the murder of his mother-in-law Helga, but to those who knew him something is amiss. Driven by justice and a sense of uncanny forces at work, John’s friend Doctor Toogood recounts a haunting tale of love and jealousy under...
ian holloway
KEK-WThe Bicameral PressWELCOME TO THE NEW ABNORMAL! Award-nominated writer, KEK-W, presents a sextet of weird tales that blend Horror and Absurdism with the banal strangeness of Post-War British Science Fiction, summoning up a future-past that is fantastical and disturbing, yet oddly...
ian holloway
Dan AbnettMark Harrison2000AD / RebellionThe furthest edge of the universe, far into the future. Cyd Finlea is photojournalist working for the publishers Global Neographic, travelling deep into outer space — otherwise known as THE OUT — and cataloguing the sights and alien societies that she...
Meg Elison
First off, and it has to be said: I love Lindy West. She’s a funny, inspiring, wonderful writer, and this book is no exception to those things despite how difficult I found it to read. I’ve been a fan of hers since the internet was a different place. We’ve performed together and she was lovely and...
Justin Bowers
** This book was provided to me by St. Martin’s Press in exchange for a fair and honest review ** When I got the opportunity to read Lightfall after reading the very intriguing synopsis, I was pretty happy. What I didn’t know was what a whirlwind adventure Mr. Crocker was going to be taking...
ian holloway
The British Library“Come tonight,” I heard the old man say, “come to me tonight into the Wood of the Dead.” Join Weird Walk for a new journey into the ghostly and bizarre, striking out from the shelter of the inn for the places where the path begins to fade, from the sublime wilderness of...
Justin Bowers
Where to even start with this roller coaster. Arthur Oakes is trapped in a situation where he is being forced to steal rare books from the library at Rackham College, where he works and is a student, by a local drug dealer and her partner in order to protect the life of Arthur’s mother, who...
Jennifer Lang
I’ve just published my annual reading list for 2025 here, (a little late, but its still January!) as I’ve done for over a decade. Do check out the whole thing, but here are a few of my particular highlights from this year’s books, which, as always, are a bit of an eclectic mixture. Everything is...
Justin Bowers
** This book was provided to me by NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review ** I’m always fascinated to pick up an author’s first novel. Of course, I applaud any individual who undertakes the huge undertaking of creating a world(s) and then nakedly sharing it with people who can,...
Justin Bowers
So this is it. The end of the saga of Gabriel de León and Dior Lachance. This series has had be utterly captivated for the past four years, and I just knew that the conclusion was going to smack me in the face. What I wasn’t expecting, however, was how damn hard it hit me in the feels. If...
Justin Bowers
So I get this email from a rep at Tor saying “Hey, we are about to release this novella from an author you like, and we’d really like you to give it a read.” Seeing that it was Dr. Jones, I knew it would be a bit twisty, and very enjoyable. What the hell did I just read? Sawyer and his four...
Justin Bowers
The future is now! Denizens of near future Los Angeles now have automations and robots helping with all aspects of public life. So, when Dr. Deidra Cranston steps into to her fully automated Hum Around ride, mind heavy with questions of the future, she doesn’t think twice about seeing where she...
Justin Bowers
Mr. Chapman abhors normalcy, and this is a very very good thing. Over the past few years he’s managed make me terrified of crabs, be very wary of mushrooms, and have some serious PTSD from the Satanic Panic insanity. What he does in Shiny Happy People appears to be, on the surface, just a...
Justin Bowers
I have a favorite Halloween song, and it’s pretty atypical. Back in 2003, Austin band Li’l Cap’n Travis put out a single called “To All the Trick-Or-Treaters” (you can listen to it here). Perhaps, unknowingly (though it would be fantastic if he was familiar with the track), Mr. Golden has,...
Justin Bowers
It is the Summer of 1970, and, in St. Augustine, Florida, exists the Wellwood House, a home for wayward girls to be tucked away from public view so they can have their babies and then return to a “normal” life. Run by the very very stern Miss Wellwood, each girl is stripped of her identity and,...
Gary Schroeder
Peter Thiel, Jeff Bezos, and Elon Musk. “More Everything Forever” by Adam Becker is a deep dive into the philosophical foundations upon which modern techno utopians sit, providing insight into why today's tech bros seem bent on...
Justin Bowers
I’m a big fan of short fiction. Short horror, even better. I remember, as a child, devouring Stephen King’s Skeleton Crew, Night Shift and Nightmares & Dreamscapes. There is just something about an author’s ability to convey a sense of terror in just a handful of pages that is magical. Mr....
Justin Bowers
The year is 1942 and June “Hoss” Hudson is the general manager of the luxurious Avallon Hotel & Spa: playground of the most aristocratic of families in West Virginia. June, a very unlikely candidate for the role she holds runs the Avallon like a well oiled machine is suddenly met with the...
Gary Schroeder
“Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman's OpenAI” by Karen Hao is an exhaustively researched look into one of the most important AI companies in Silicon Valley. Here's what I learned by reading it.1. Altman is not to be trusted. Sam Altman, one of the most important founders of what was...
Justin Bowers
It’s been a very good time for new creative slants on vampire novels, recently, and The Buffalo Hunter Hunter is a prime example. The setup is pretty atypical for a horror read. In 2012, a diary written by a Lutheran pastor back in 1912 is discovered in the walls of Montana church. The majority...
Justin Bowers
I adore Ms. Schwab’s writing, and she has proven to surprise me again and again with her ability to shift gears, and styles, with each release. Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil is no different. Queer vampire stories are definitely not new, but Ms. Schwab introduces some new twists that make...
Groundblue
This 80's book of espionage story still brings attention to modern cybersecurity professionals, and remains surprisingly relevant to today’s world. The book is made up of many easy-to-read short to medium-sized chapters, and things start to get really thrilling around chapter 29. I could be biased...
Justin Bowers
It’s taken me quite a while to sit down and put my thoughts to electrons on this one. Yeah, I liked it a lot, but Big Swiss is a very very heavy book to digest. Greta, I guess we will call her the protagonist of this novel, is a quintessential fuckup living with her similarly odd friend,...
Justin Bowers
If you have been reading my reviews, you know that I absolutely love this series, and book three doesn’t disappoint. The Emily Wilde series isn’t my normal fare. Yes, it’s about the Fae, and yes, it does have some degree of mayhem and danger, but it falls dangerously close to historical...
Gary Schroeder
You've felt it. That mental itch...to pick up the smart phone, check the news feed, check your social media performance, check something. Sometimes you think you should be able to resist it, but...nah, I want to look. I can quit any time I want! You know though, that you don't have nearly as much...
Justin Bowers
** This book was provided to me by NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review ** It’s the end of the year, and I’m looking for something amusing and Fantasy to pick up to get me into the first bit of 2025. I was perusing synopses, and one caught my eye: pirate goblin with a ragtag...