Name the last three books you have read...

[Tamstrong]

But Susan Wiggs says Patricia Kay is a "master story teller". Is Susan Wiggs a writer herself & does she have the same writing style if so?




Yeah, I didn't know he had something new out already until it showed up in my Kindle New Release Notices. Luckily I had just finished the Croft & Wesson book so was able to to get & read it when I saw it.

Apparently Susan Wiggs is a moron. lol I'm not familiar wither her writing style since I'm not really into romance novels, but if she's praising Patricia Kay, I wouldn't be surprised if their styles are similar.

I'm glad you noticed it. It's been a while since I've paid any attention to any of my Kindle notices, but I grabbed a copy right after I saw your post.

 

[Tamstrong]

That reminds me, a couple of days after I ordered it they sent me a $5 credit toward any of the Dresden Files books, but I've already bought them all. Lol

 

[Ol'Skool Classic]

That reminds me, a couple of days after I ordered it they sent me a $5 credit toward any of the Dresden Files books, but I've already bought them all. Lol

If it doesn't have an expiration on it just save for when the next full novel comes out. I would think maybe next year? Butcher got the last two out back to back after the years long hiatus & now this (surprise) novella, so hopefully sooner rather than later.

 

[Tamstrong]

If it doesn't have an expiration on it just save for when the next full novel comes out. I would think maybe next year? Butcher got the last two out back to back after the years long hiatus & now this (surprise) novella, so hopefully sooner rather than later.

Unfortunately it came with a 7 day expiration. I hope it is sooner this time around.

 

[Tamstrong]

This investigation into wrongful convictions illustrates the tragic consequences that ensue when the American legal system goes awry. Whether it’s by eyewitness error, jailhouse snitch testimony, corrupt law enforcement, racism, junk science, tainted jury deliberation, prosecutorial misconduct, or incompetent counsel, gross malfeasance is all too possible, and not uncommon. Yet, while many innocent people are put on death row, there’s still an opportunity for justice.

Award-winning journalist Stanley Cohen chronicles more than forty cases of men across the country who were arrested, convicted, sentenced, degraded by prison life, dragged through the appeals system, and finally set free because of evidence proving their innocence. These stories end with vindication, but in a country that has performed nearly a thousand executions since 1976, how many more inmates are suffering injustice at the hands of the justice system?

Beneath the roiling waters of the Arkansas River lie dead men and buried secrets.

When Jane Mooney’s violent stepfather, Warren, disappeared, most folks in Maud Bottoms, Arkansas, assumed he got drunk and drowned. After all, the river had claimed its share over the years.

When Jane confessed to his murder, she should have gone to jail. That’s what she wanted. But without a body, the police didn’t charge her with the crime. So Jane left for Boston—and took her secrets with her.

Twenty-five years later, the river floods and a body surfaces. Talk of Warren’s murder grips the town. Now in her forties, Jane returns to Maud Bottoms to reckon with her past: to do jail time, to face her revenge-bent mother, to make things right.

But though Jane’s homecoming may enlighten some, it could threaten others. Because in this desolate river valley, some secrets are better left undisturbed.

Imagine a world where the ordinary and the extraordinary co-exist, where tall fire-breathing salamanders live alongside men and magic runs in certain bloodlines.
Melke is a wraith, able to walk unseen. Feared by all, hunted and hated, she has lost everything?except her younger brother. Now she is forced to do the unthinkable: in exchange for her brother's freedom, she must use her magical gift to steal.
But Melke's thieving has devastating consequence?and undoing her crime may cost Melke her own life.

Good reads, all three.

 

[fly girl]

The Universal Tone by Carlos Santana, The Great Alone, and Braiding Sweetgrass.

 

[Tamstrong]

They have a dangerous past. They just haven't lived it yet.

"We broke something. How do you break time? Can something so bad happen that you fracture the world?"


Benjamin Travers has been electrocuted. What's worse, he and his friends have woken up in the 1980s.


As the friends search for a way home, they realize they're not alone. There are other time travelers, and some of them are turning up dead.


When Ben meets an enigmatic scientist and his charming, time-traveling daughter, salvation seems at hand, but escaping the dangers of the past may lead to a deadly future.


If he hopes to save his friends, Ben must learn to master space and time, and survive a journey where past and future violently collide.

Pretty enjoyable read. It's the first book of a series, and I like it well enough I'll be reading the rest.

Charlie Reade looks like a regular high school kid, great at baseball and football, a decent student. But he carries a heavy load. His mom was killed in a hit-and-run accident when he was ten, and grief drove his dad to drink. Charlie learned how to take care of himself—and his dad. When Charlie is seventeen, he meets a dog named Radar and her aging master, Howard Bowditch, a recluse in a big house at the top of a big hill, with a locked shed in the backyard. Sometimes strange sounds emerge from it.

Charlie starts doing jobs for Mr. Bowditch and loses his heart to Radar. Then, when Bowditch dies, he leaves Charlie a cassette tape telling a story no one would believe. What Bowditch knows, and has kept secret all his long life, is that inside the shed is a portal to another world.

I liked it. It's not a horror novel, but it's still weird, creepy, and entertaining. A little too slow in the pacing here and there, but I still enjoyed it.

Centuries before the events of A Game of Thrones, House Targaryen—the only family of dragonlords to survive the Doom of Valyria—took up residence on Dragonstone. Fire & Blood begins their tale with the legendary Aegon the Conqueror, creator of the Iron Throne, and goes on to recount the generations of Targaryens who fought to hold that iconic seat, all the way up to the civil war that nearly tore their dynasty apart.

What really happened during the Dance of the Dragons? Why was it so deadly to visit Valyria after the Doom? What were Maegor the Cruel’s worst crimes? What was it like in Westeros when dragons ruled the skies? These are but a few of the questions answered in this essential chronicle, as related by a learned maester of the Citadel and featuring more than eighty black-and-white illustrations by artist Doug Wheatley. Readers have glimpsed small parts of this narrative in such volumes as The World of Ice & Fire, but now, for the first time, the full tapestry of Targaryen history is revealed.

I've had this one a while, but I was too busy being mad at the shithead author for not taking care of business and finishing the last two GOT books to read it. I'd kind of forgotten how much I enjoyed Martin's writing, and I'm glad I finally read it. I'm still mad at him though.

 

[Tamstrong]

Gray Brooks knows all about death. A former Marine, he survived the horrors of war, only to waste his life in a series of drunken nights and misdemeanors. But all that changed the day he was shot in a robbery gone wrong. After being pronounced clinically dead, Gray returns to life in the hospital. And something inside him has changed…

Still tethered to the afterlife, Gray now sees the supernatural beings that stalk humanity. Demons, ghosts, and other creatures that defy logical explanation. And for once in his life, Gray is compelled to do the right thing—to defend innocent lives from the festering evil that plague them.

Joining forces with a practitioner of the occult, Gray sets out to fend off sinister beings. But sensing these hideous forces is one thing and killing them is quite another. And unless Gray can discover these creatures’ weaknesses in time, he may find himself returned to the shadowy realm of death.

And this time, there will be no coming back…

For Gray Brooks, death was only the beginning. Once a Marine, his life took a turn for the worst, and he found himself wrapped up in a robbery gone wrong. Shot and left for dead, Gray was revived in the hospital. But he was forever touched by the land of the dead, cursed to see the sinister spirits stalking this realm…

After surviving yet another deadly supernatural encounter, Gray finds himself contacted by a man who desperately needs his help. The man’s daughter lies in a coma, trapped between life and death. And her condition is caused by something not of this earth…

Gray soon realizes a diabolical creature is using the girl as a source of energy, slowly draining her soul dry. And feeding off her life force is only the beginning.

Can Gray stop it before it’s too late?

Or will he end up being the demon's next victim...

Gray Brooks used to be alone. But that was before he died… Now the former Marine has returned to the land of the living, with supernatural abilities he barely understands. And he is determined to use them for good. Gathering a family of friends and allies, he fights to defend the innocent from sinister spirits stalking the dark corners of our world.

But when a portal linking this realm to the shadowy netherworld of the dead is revealed, Gray realizes he may be in over his head. Malevolent forces of unspeakable power lurk on the other side of the rift. And if it escapes into this world, it will wreck untold destruction.

To close the portal, Gray must locate the spirit that crossed through, and send them back across the veil. But with a possessed mayor hindering his investigation, and a shadowy figure manipulating events in the background, solving this supernatural dilemma may be more dangerous than he thought.

And even if he succeeds, can Gray sentence one life to damnation, in order save others?

This series was meh. I usually like Ron Ripley's work, but evidently the dude he wrote this with did more of the writing than RR did. The idea had potential, but the execution was weak and and the writing was dull. There were also too many plot holes. When it looked like they were setting up for some later conflict with various antagonists, nothing came of them. It's like they forgot the characters even existed and did nothing with them. A disappointing waste of potential.

The night Claire Tanith’s small village is attacked, her mother sends her alone into the cursed forest, the one she’d been forbidden to enter all her life, with these mysterious words: ‘They will protect you.’

On the run from her attackers, she soon finds the forest is not as abandoned as she’d once thought.

Beautiful and elegant, the elves seem to be everything the legends said they would be. But legends sometimes forget the true history of things and Claire’s eyes are soon opened to a world she never knew. One that has been kept from her for most of her life. All Claire wants to do is return home and start looking for her mother, the only family she ever had. But the elves have different plans. The mysterious mark that appeared on her arm isn’t a curse, at least not to them anyway, and before she knows it, she is whisked away on a mission she never agreed to, unless they help her in return.

Now she is stuck on an adventure with the perverted elf, Aeron, and one with an attitude, Farron. But there is more to this adventure than she’d ever hoped for...

After escaping from the elves and the General, Claire is on the run again with the last person she’d thought she’d end up with— Farron. Shadowy forces are nipping at their heels, and soon they are attacked. But they have bigger worries. An old friend of Farron’s shows up: a beautiful woman with a mark shockingly similar to her own.

As it turns out, she is not alone.

And the new woman isn’t exactly on their side. Claire is kidnapped and lands in the middle of Farron’s biggest secret of all. Once again she is a prisoner and the people that surround her want to use her and her powers, people that she doesn’t have the option of refusing. The wolves are circling, but to pick a side means giving up everything she holds dear.

Claire finally has a clue to her mother’s whereabouts, and she won’t let anything stand in her way this time. Not even the Syndicate, the fact that it could be a trap to lure her out of hiding, or the seemingly insurmountable mission she is currently tasked with: to find the other Star Children while she still can.

The mark on her arm is slowly consuming her, body and mind, and it’s a race against time to complete her mission, locate her mother, and hopefully, find a way to stop her magic-- or at least slow its potentially devastating progression.

And to top it all off, a certain silver-haired elf refuses to leave her alone.

Claire’s time is limited. The mark is consuming her. Magic needs to be restored, but will it be worth the cost?

Humans will think of her as a traitor, the elves a savior. If nothing is done, there won’t be anything left at all.

With only a clue on where to go, the journey ahead will push Claire to her limits. Can a simple barmaid really save the world? She’s about to find out.

Short story set two years before the events in Cursed, Entangled follows Claire as she navigates through her seemingly normal life where things are about to get a bit more difficult.

Take a sneak peek into the life of Farron when he was Sin de Reine, The King's Shadow.

Although the protagonist was annoying and silly in many respects and the author made some editing mistakes that irked me, I really enjoyed this series. The story has a good flow that kept me engaged, and I read the whole thing this weekend.

 

[CAKicker]

I got to admire your discipline @Tamstrong I read for a while then take 3 weeks off (ok maybe 4 weeks). I read the benefits of reading, & I'm still not committed. I got to change that since I'm working on going back to college.

 

[Tamstrong]

I got to admire your discipline @Tamstrong I read for a while then take 3 weeks off (ok maybe 4 weeks). I read the benefits of reading, & I'm still not committed. I got to change that since I'm working on going back to college.

I read because I enjoy it, and it helps keep me sane-ish. If I had more discipline, I wouldn't be reading quite as much as I do. lol It does help to be more disciplined when it comes to less enjoyable school reading, but it helps if you enjoy learning. If I had more discipline, I'd be doing more writing than reading. As long as you're reading at a frequency you enjoy, it's all good.

 

[Ol'Skool Classic]

This series was meh. I usually like Ron Ripley's work, but evidently the dude he wrote this with did more of the writing than RR did. The idea had potential, but the execution was weak and and the writing was dull. There were also too many plot holes. When it looked like they were setting up for some later conflict with various antagonists, nothing came of them. It's like they forgot the characters even existed and did nothing with them. A disappointing waste of potential.

Although the protagonist was annoying and silly in many respects and the author made some editing mistakes that irked me, I really enjoyed this series. The story has a good flow that kept me engaged, and I read the whole thing this weekend.

So did all 3 books in the first series you read actually all have that same cover art? If so, that should have been a red flag about the series. They didn't even bother to go with some sort of series cover theme/design for each book (like the Casey Odell books) but lazily just recycled the same art. SMDH.

 

[Tamstrong]

So did all 3 books in the first series you read actually all have that same cover art? If so, that should have been a red flag about the series. They didn't even bother to go with some sort of series cover theme/design for each book (like the Casey Odell books) but lazily just recycled the same art. SMDH.

Yes they did. The only draw for me was Ron Ripley supposedly being one of the writers. Like the lazy cover art, there wasn't much thought or effort put into the story either.

 

[Tamstrong]

Meredith Price is the luckiest woman alive. Her husband, Andrew, is a charming and successful financial broker. She has two lovely stepchildren and is living in affluence in a mountain resort town. After three years of marriage, Meredith’s life has become predictable. Until the day she disappears.

Her car has been discovered in a grocery store parking lot—purse and phone undisturbed on the passenger seat, keys in the ignition, no sign of struggle, and no evidence of foul play. It’s as if she vanished into thin air.

It’s not like Meredith to simply abandon her loved ones. And no one in this town would have reason to harm her. When her desperate sister, Greer, arrives, she must face a disturbing question: What if no one really knows Meredith at all? For Greer, finding her sister isn’t going to be easy—because where she’s looking is going to get very, very dark.

It was alright. It wasn't as surprising or full of plot twists that some of the reviews made it out to be, but it wasn't bad.



The Rose That Grew From Concrete

Tupac Shakur's most intimate and honest thoughts were uncovered only after his death with the instant classic The Rose That Grew from Concrete.

His talent was unbounded a raw force that commanded attention and respect.
His death was tragic—a violent homage to the power of his voice.
His legacy is indomitable—as vibrant and alive today as it has ever been.

For the first time in paperback, this collection of deeply personal poetry is a mirror into the legendary artist's enigmatic world and its many contradictions.

Written in his own hand from the time he was nineteen, these seventy-two poems embrace his spirit, his energy—and his ultimate message of hope.

As a big fan of poetry, I loved this one.

After years in Boston and a year of working for herself as a contract consultant and adjunct professor, Dr. Anne Conner is ready to return home to work in her field as a marine biochemist and research scientist. With money running low, Anne jumps at the chance to interview for her dream job with the world famous Stanford Enterprises research company.

When she makes the final round of interviews, Anne decides to combine her time in Seattle interviewing with a vacation trip to her family's inn on Orcas Island in the San Juan Islands. The last thing she expected was to run in the object of her teenage dreams, Ben Carlson, who is on the island for his sister's wedding. Nor did she plan on the passion that erupts between them. Is their relationship only a vacation romance as they agreed from the beginning, or will it turn into something more when Anne moves back to Seattle?

Just as Anne begins to hope for more, the unthinkable is revealed. Ben is none other than her new boss. Worse yet is that he thinks that she only used him to get the job!

Not really the type of book I'm typically into, but it was okay. Corny but okay. I was stuck someplace with no phone signal, I was bored, and the book was free. Some of the author's mistakes were a bit annoying, especially when she used the wrong word for something. A couple of examples that stuck in my head are shuttered instead of shuddered and sweat instead of sweet. lol Definitely not an author I'd be interested in keeping up with.

 

[CAKicker]

It was alright. It wasn't as surprising or full of plot twists that some of the reviews made it out to be, but it wasn't bad.



The Rose That Grew From Concrete

As a big fan of poetry, I loved this one.

Not really the type of book I'm typically into, but it was okay. Corny but okay. I was stuck someplace with no phone signal, I was bored, and the book was free. Some of the author's mistakes were a bit annoying, especially when she used the wrong word for something. A couple of examples that stuck in my head are shuttered instead of shuddered and sweat instead of sweet. lol Definitely not an author I'd be interested in keeping up with.

No Horror books? Are you feeling ok Tam? Do you have a fever?

 

[Ol'Skool Classic]

Refresher read for a trio of books I first read over a decade ago.

As an evil pair of vampire lords and a deadly lady invade Earth, Harry Keogh, the Necroscope, is dead, and a new, untried Necroscope must overcome conflicting loyalties to lead E-Branch against the vampires.

Jake Cutter is reluctantly learning how to be a Necroscope--how to use the Mobius continuum to travel instantaneously from place to place, how to talk to the dead--but dead humans don't like him much. It seems Jake's got a hitchhiker named Korath. Since Korath holds the key to the Mobius equations, Jake can't just kick him out . . . though he's certainly trying.

Jake's not sure he really wants to be a member of E-Branch, the supersecret ESP-powered organization that's dedicated to eradicating the vampire infestation of Earth. To the freewheeling, passionate Jake, the E-Branchers seem a little stuffy and hidebound--except for the lovely Liz, whom Jake wants to get to know better, body and mind. But Liz is a telepath, and if Jake's not careful, she'll find out about Korath. And that will likely be the end of Jake Cutter.

In Australia, Jake helped E-Branch destroy the aerie of the mind-master , Nephtam Malinari, one of a trio of Great Vampires who came to Earth from the vampire world. Malinari escaped and went to ground with the hideously beautiful Lady Vavara. Vavara has taken over a holy monastary on a beautiful Greek island and turned the nuns into most unholy creature with fearsome appetites for all things carnal.

Jake wants revenge against the Italian mobsters who killed the woman he loved and nearly killed him. As far as he's concerned, E-Branch can search for Malinari, Vavara, and the metamorphic Lord Szwart without him until he's satisfied his own bloodlust. But it seems vampire hunting is truly Jake's job now--the men he's trying to kill aren't men at all, but vampire spawn, hidden for two generations in human guise! To defeat them, Jake will need every weapon in a Necroscope's arsenal, including the power to all the unsleeping dead out of their moldering graves.

The packed cruise ship is a terrific nesting ground for a Lord and Lady of the Wamphyri on the run from E-Branch and the new Necroscope, Jake Cutter. By the time the ship is reported missing, the few beings still living on board will no longer be human . . . and the Wamphyri will be long fled to their next conquest.

Korath, the vampire who lurks in Jake Cutter's mind, is determined to gain control of Jake's life, and Jake is equally determined not to let him have it. But to win this struggle Jake must confide in Ben Trask-and Trask, the head of E-Branch, is likely to want Jake dead the minute he learns of Jake's intrusive passenger!

The spore garden planted under London by the third Wamphyri, Lord Swartz, is bearing bitter fruit indeed as a mysterious sleeping sickness-with a vampiric taint-slowly spreads among the population of Great Britain.

E-Branch action teams have more on their plates than they can handle. They must locate terrorists who threaten the world with nuclear homicide; permanently close the Gate between the Wamphyri world and Earth; analyze the spore plague; and locate and destroy the three Wamphyri.

Even the powers of Harry Keogh, the original Necroscope, summoned from the Great Beyond via the combined powers of E-Branch's strongest agents, may not be enough to defeat the monsters who have brought Earth to the brink of total destruction.



The official end of Brian Lumley's long running Necroscope/Vamiphri series outside of occasional Lost Tales novellas & Necroscope : The Touch (which features a different Necroscope battling a non vampiric but equally horrific alien threat).

 

[fly girl]

Been a while since I waited on a new release, but Cormac McCarthy is releasing 2 new books Tuesday. One is titled The Passenger and has an aviation element. Can't wait. New releases usually hit 12:01 Tuesdays.

Side note, I was sitting in a coffee shop outside Santa Fe NM reading on my Kindle when somebody stopped in front of me, leaned over and whispered, "is that one of my books?" to which I answered, "nope, but it will be next". Notoriously stand offish man, no idea why I got so lucky. Total fan girl vapors.

I sat beside Steven King on an airplane about 30 years ago, had no idea who he was. Knew he was someone because they FA asked him if he preferred she not allow people in FC to speak to him. Later on I was in a bookstore that had a huge poster of him and it hit me.

 

[Tamstrong]

NOTE: This is a work of fiction. It is not intended for the faint of heart. The stories are extreme and the descriptions graphic.


Patients come and go, but some leave behind a memory so intense that it cannot be erased.

Third year medical student Raj Mok quickly learns that patients don’t behave like his beloved medical texts led him to believe.

The seven most outrageous patients of his first year in clinical medicine teach Raj that medicine isn’t always about healing and that killing isn’t always murder.

Okay

Judas Coyne is a collector of the macabre: a cookbook for cannibals . . . a used hangman's noose . . . a snuff film. An aging death-metal rock god, his taste for the unnatural is as widely known to his legions of fans as the notorious excesses of his youth. But nothing he possesses is as unlikely or as dreadful as his latest discovery, an item for sale on the Internet, a thing so terribly strange, Jude can't help but reach for his wallet.

I will "sell" my stepfather's ghost to the highest bidder. . . .

For a thousand dollars, Jude will become the proud owner of a dead man's suit, said to be haunted by a restless spirit. He isn't afraid. He has spent a lifetime coping with ghosts—of an abusive father, of the lovers he callously abandoned, of the bandmates he betrayed. What's one more?

But what UPS delivers to his door in a black heart-shaped box is no imaginary or metaphorical ghost, no benign conversation piece. It's the real thing.

And suddenly the suit's previous owner is everywhere: behind the bedroom door . . . seated in Jude's restored vintage Mustang . . . standing outside his window . . . staring out from his widescreen TV. Waiting—with a gleaming razor blade on a chain dangling from one bony hand. . . .

Good

Originally published in 1926, The Weary Blues is Langston Hughes’s first collection of poetry. Broken into seven thematic sections, the sixty-eight poems capture the heart of a young budding artist and the spirit of the Harlem Renaissance. The work touches on subjects like art, identity, race, class, urban life, music, and the Black experience in 1920s America.

Good

 

[Ol'Skool Classic]

Good

Joe Hill as in Stephen King's son I presume?

 

[Tamstrong]

Joe Hill as in Stephen King's son I presume?

Yep.

 

[Tamstrong]

Don't go in the woods...
For 12-year-old Garrett and his four best friends, the idyllic summer of 1989 crashes to a halt when his older brother vanishes.
Something is very wrong in the town of Sallow Creek. Something is turning their neighbors, their relatives, into unstoppable monstrosities... Monsters that are coming for the them.
Their small town is under siege, but the adults refuse to believe the truth. Can five young misfits and outcasts save the day?

Thirteen years ago someone did something very bad to Anna. Now it’s her turn to get even.

Anna lives a solitary existence, taking solace in order and routine. Her only friend is the lonely old lady next door. She doesn’t like to let people to get too close – she knows how much damage they can do.

Then one ordinary day Anna witnesses a devastating road accident and recognises the driver as Carla, the woman who ruined her life all those years ago. Now it’s Anna’s chance to set things straight but her revenge needs to be executed carefully …

First she needs to get to know Liam, the man injured in the accident. She needs to follow the police investigation. She needs to watch Carla from the shadows…

But as Anna’s obsession with Carla escalates, her own secrets start to unravel. Is Carla really dangerous or does Anna need to worry about someone far closer to home?

Years after escaping her abusive childhood, Harper Mallen has only ever known sleepless nights—or terrifying nightmares. She’s struggling to survive as an artist in a trendy Chicago neighborhood, getting by on freelance gigs, when she’s suddenly confronted with the worst fears from her past.

A young woman is killed outside Harper’s apartment—a woman who chillingly resembles her. As Harper searches for information about the victim, she discovers unsettling links to two other murders. Upon discovering another doppelgänger, Harper realizes her life is not the only one hanging in the balance.

As her obsession and paranoia deepen, everyone is a suspect: the handsome stranger in the café, customers at the painting studio, even the ghosts from her past. The closer she comes to unraveling the truth behind the murders, the more Harper realizes there is no one she can trust—not even herself.

Hiro’s parents rearrange the furniture every December.

They make space in the corner for something tall. They plug in string lights and leave them on the floor. Sometimes, they cut down a tree but don’t know what to do with it. It’s not just Hiro’s parents. Everyone does it. Come January, they all straighten up their living rooms and everything goes back to normal. They do this every year.

No one knows why.

Something’s missing and they all feel it, but they never wonder what it is. And every year that passes, the world becomes colder and grayer. Until Hiro has a dream.

It's a world of magic, where he can taste sounds and hear thoughts, see things that defy the laws of physics and biology. It’s a place where trees are decorated and stockings are hung above the fireplace. Every day is celebrated with gifts.

It's the last place where joy exists.

Someone has stolen the Christmas spirit from the universe and hidden it in the dream. Hiro doesn’t remember a jolly fat man or flying reindeer, or elves on the North Pole. No one in Hiro’s world remembers Christmas at all.

Hiro and others like him need to free the Christmas spirit. This is their one and only chance. If they fail, his world and all others like it will stay cold and gray without Christmas... unless they discover the thief's true identity.

It's closer than they think.

A realistic and emotional look at a woman battling mental illness and societal pressures written by iconic American writer Sylvia Plath.

The Bell Jar chronicles the crack-up of Esther Greenwood: brilliant, beautiful, enormously talented, and successful, but slowly going under—maybe for the last time. Sylvia Plath masterfully draws the reader into Esther’s breakdown with such intensity that Esther’s neurosis becomes completely real and even rational, as probable and accessible an experience as going to the movies. Such deep penetration into the dark and harrowing corners of the psyche is an extraordinary accomplishment and has made The Bell Jar a haunting American classic.

Max van Helsing's father - infamous, angry, brilliant - is a man haunted by the darkest of secrets...secrets which he will, one cold night just after the turn of the century, unfold at last to his oldest son.

I enjoyed them all.