Book Review: Moon of the Crusted Snow by Waubgeshig Rice

Fantasy, Fiction, Literature

My Rating: 5 stars
Publisher: ECW Press
Narrator: Billy Merasty
Media: Audiobook
Length: Unabridged 7 hours (approx.)
Genre: General Content, Fantasy, Literature, Fiction

With winter looming, a small northern Anishinaabe community goes dark. Cut off, people become passive and confused. Panic builds as the food supply dwindles. While the band council and a pocket of community members struggle to maintain order, an unexpected visitor arrives, escaping the crumbling society to the south. Soon after, others follow.

The community leadership loses its grip on power as the visitors manipulate the tired and hungry to take control of the reserve. Tensions rise and, as the months pass, so does the death toll due to sickness and despair. Frustrated by the building chaos, a group of young friends and their families turn to the land and Anishinaabe tradition in hopes of helping their community thrive again. Guided through the chaos by an unlikely leader named Evan Whitesky, they endeavor to restore order while grappling with a grave decision. (Goodreads)

This was a pleasant surprise.  My group on Goodreads listed this book as the Native American horror book to read for the month.  As I read the back cover I didn’t feel that my group had categorized this book correctly as horror, I thought someone had made a mistake.  As I began to read this book however and talk about the situation of the tribe to the other members of our group, I realized it could be considered horror.

This story takes place in a small village of Native Americans during a harsh winter.  We are quickly introduced to Evan Whitesky who could be considered your average guy.  He has a wife and two small kids and provides for them the way a proud father and husband would.  Everything seems fine until one day the power is out in the small community and it doesn’t come back on.  There is a location where people can go and pick up a box of food for the week, there is a generator that helps run the community although it is suggested for families to use their woodburning stoves to warm their homes.  There is also a storehouse where the bodies are kept in case people don’t make it through the winter and in a community where the resources are breaking down, there are bound to be some that don’t make it.

One day two young men show up.  They are from the village but have been attending college in a nearby town.  Things start getting crazy at the college and the young men have to flee because they feel that destruction is imminent.  With them, they bring a tale of fear and dread.  Soon after a stranger appears, a white man, and gently pushes himself into the village. After the food gets low and many began to die some of the villagers begin to put things together because the food is getting low, but there are fewer bodies in the storehouse morgue than when the crisis began.  What is going on? Will this stranger wreak havoc on the village?  How desperate will you get when there is no more food?

Have you read this book?  If you haven’t, you need to read this book.  It is the perfect book to read during the Pandemic. Do you think this could be considered horror, why or why not? Let me know in the comments below.

Book Review: In A Dark, Dark Wood by Ruth Ware

My Rating: 3.5 Stars
Publisher: Simon and Schuster Audio
Narrator: Imogen Church
Media: Audiobook
Length: 10 Hours Unabridged
Genre: Fiction, General Content, Suspense, Thriller

What should be a cozy and fun-filled weekend deep in the English countryside takes a sinister turn in Ruth Ware’s suspenseful, compulsive, and darkly twisted psychological thriller.

Leonora, known to some as Lee and others as Nora, is a reclusive crime writer, unwilling to leave her “nest” of an apartment unless it is absolutely necessary. When a friend she hasn’t seen or spoken to in years unexpectedly invites Nora (Lee?) to a weekend away in an eerie glass house deep in the English countryside, she reluctantly agrees to make the trip. Forty-eight hours later, she wakes up in a hospital bed injured but alive, with the knowledge that someone is dead. Wondering not “what happened?” but “what have I done?”, Nora (Lee?) tries to piece together the events of the past weekend. Working to uncover secrets, reveal motives, and find answers, Nora (Lee?) must revisit parts of herself that she would much rather leave buried where they belong: in the past. (Goodreads)

This was a great story.  I read this book because I enjoyed another book by this author  “The Woman In Cabin 10” (You can read the review HERE).  I am not a fan of stories told in first person, especially first-person present tense, the stories are full of the word “I”, I walk outside, I feel the light spray on my arm and I wonder what I should do about my problem.”  “I, I, I, I see this, I make this” honestly, it seems that it takes away from the story.

Part of this story was written in first person but the author did a great job going back and forth so it wasn’t as bad as other books.  It was actually really good like I stated earlier, it was a great story.  

Nora lost contact with an old friend who has invited her to a “hen” which is the equivalent to a bachelorette weekend, the only thing is she wasn’t invited to the actual wedding.  Nora finds herself in awkward positions, and asking herself, “Why am I here?”  When she finds out the reason her old friend invited her, things begin to take a turn and then spiral out of control that ends in murder.

Have you read any Ruth Ware books?  What do you think about first-person books and what did you think about this one? Let me know in the comments below.

Book Review: Rolling In The Deep by Mira Grant

Horror

My Rating: 5 Stars
Series Title: Rolling In The Deep
Number in Series: #0.5
Publisher: Tantor Audio
Narrator:  Teri Schinaubelt
Media: Audiobook 
Length: 3 hours 6 minutes Unabridged
Genre: Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror, Creature Feature, Short Story

When the Imagine Network commissioned a documentary on mermaids, to be filmed from the cruise ship Atargatis, they expected what they had always received before: an assortment of eyewitness reports that proved nothing, some footage that proved even less, and the kind of ratings that only came from peddling imaginary creatures to the masses.

They didn’t expect actual mermaids. They certainly didn’t expect those mermaids to have teeth.

This is the story of the Atargatis, lost at sea with all hands. Some have called it a hoax; others have called it a maritime tragedy. Whatever the truth may be, it will only be found below the bathypelagic zone in the Mariana Trench…and the depths are very good at keeping secrets. (Goodreads)

Oh my gosh, how horrible!!!! This was insane!  I loved it! I usually don’t even bother with short stories because I feel it isn’t enough time to get to know the characters much less have a good scare (for horror) and satisfying ending.  I have realized that I have gotten it all wrong.  In the case of Rolling in the Deep, it is a backstory for book #1 Drowning in the Deep which is 17 hours of audio.  This story, Rolling in the Deep is a mini horror story.  

I read this book while doing laundry and cleaning my house, or I listened to it.  The story starts off with a ship casting off in search of mermaids.  Stories from centuries past have intrigued scientists enough to believe mermaids really exist.  There was nothing left to do but board a ship and sail out to prove themselves right.

This story only takes about 3 to 4 hours to read depending on how fast you read.  And in that time you learn enough about the story to want to go out and get Book 1.  The creatures encountered in this story are terrifying, I can’t stress that enough.  Just reading the encounters was enough for me to stop folding laundry and sit down. 

Check this story out, it is #0.5 and is short enough to read in one sitting, and if you like horror, terror, or new concepts in those genres, you will go out and get book #1.  I have already read book #1 so stay tuned and I’ll post a link for you to check out the review. 

Do you like stories that take place out in the ocean? Why? Because there is nowhere else to run? Did you read this story?  How many books have you read by Mira Grant? Will you read Book #1?  Why or Why not?  Let me know in the comments below.

 

Book Review: Asylum by Ambrose Ibsen

My Rating: 5 Stars
Series Title: Afterlife Investigations
Number in Series: Book #1
Publisher: Ambrose Ibsen
Narrator: Joe Hempel
Media: Audible
Length: 6 hours 42 minutes Unabridged
Genre: Horror, Supernatural, General Fiction

What lurks within Chaythe Asylum?

College professor Stephen Barlow needs cash. Badly. When a student asks him to head a new campus organization that centers around paranormal research, he puts his skepticism aside, and signs on in the hopes of scoring a fat bonus.

Enter Chaythe Asylum – a long-shuttered and controversial institution where patients were allegedly subjected to unethical experiments. Stephen deems the old building, closed in 1989 after a series of grisly murders, as good a place as any to explore the possibility of the supernatural, and arranges to take a tour with his students.

But it turns out that the asylum is not as abandoned as it seems. There is something sinister in the building. It has watched and waited for nearly three decades, and when Stephen and his students enter, they find themselves at the center of a nightmare 28 years in the making. (Publisher’s Summary)

This was a fantastic terror!  I love the supernatural, “It wanted to wear me” OMG this was a great scare and a really good story.  I couldn’t put this book down, it was a real page-turner, I read it in one day!

I was doing laundry in my basement and as I was reading about the experiment, I started hearing things around me,  I quickly stopped what I was doing and ran upstairs.

I love the beginning of this story, it is totally believable in that teachers don’t make enough to live on and this instructor with 1 class to teach was living paycheck to mouth. I get it.  The whole idea of how the professor got sucked into this experiment was believable, I could see it happening.  I really enjoyed the descriptions as well especially in the asylum and the.  I don’t want to say too much to give anything away, but if you like horror, and supernatural as in ghosts, spirits, hauntings you’ll like this.

Have you read any Ambrose Ibsen lately? What have you read and was it good? Let me know in the comments below.  Should I read the second book in the series?  If you know me, most times I don’t make it through the second book of any series, but there have been a few.  Let me know in the comments below.

Book Review: The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware

Mystery Crime, Suspense

My Rating: 5 Stars
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Length: 340 pages
Media: Paperback
Genre: Mystery, General Fiction, Suspense

Lo Blacklock, a journalist who writes for a travel magazine, has just been given the assignment of a lifetime: a week on a luxury cruise with only a handful of cabins. The sky is clear, the waters calm, and the veneered, select guests jovial as the exclusive cruise ship, the Aurora, begins her voyage in the picturesque North Sea. At first, Lo’s stay is nothing but pleasant: the cabins are plush, the dinner parties are sparkling, and the guests are elegant. But as the week wears on, frigid winds whip the deck, gray skies fall, and Lo witnesses what she can only describe as a dark and terrifying nightmare: a woman being thrown overboard. The problem? All passengers remain accounted for and so, the ship sails on as if nothing has happened, despite Lo’s desperate attempts to convey that something (or someone) has gone terribly, terribly wrong. (Goodreads)

Wow, I really enjoyed this train wreck!  It was awesome!  Laura Blacklock, a journalist of all people which can mean only one thing: Leave no stone unturned.  If there is a problem, a good journalist will follow the story to the very end.  The problem with that? It could get them killed.  Yeah, it was that kinda book. 

I’m not a huge fan of Ruth Ware, I’ve read her before and it was in first person present tense which is very limited, you know nothing except what the narrator is experiencing at the moment.  It was horrible.  (Always read the first couple of pages before you buy a book, don’t always go on reviews of others… lesson learned) But this little gem kept me turning the pages.  So many things were against Laura and there were times I shook my head and thought “just stop, stop now.”  But when you have a character who a little bit too humane they feel the need to save everyone, even if what they could have seen wasn’t really wasn’t what they saw.  

Anyway, I’m glad she persued her curiosities or there wouldn’t have been a story to tell and must say I was so nervous for her and the ending, oh well, all I can say is it ended better than I thought it would.  I found myself praying for her in the end and boy, she needed it!  Awesome book, I actually put it on my favorites shelf on Goodreads because Ruth hit all the right spots for this genre for me and kept me guessing, hoping and wishing.  Nice job.

Have you read any Ruth Ware novels?  What did you think of this book?  Are there any you would like to recommend to me? To our readers? Leave a comment in the section below.

 

Book Review: City of Masks by Daniel Hecht

My Rating: 3.5 Stars
Series Title: Cree Black
Number in Series: Book #1
Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
Narrator: Anna Fields
Media: Audiobook
Length: 16 hours
Genre: Fiction, Thriller, Supernatural

In City of Masks, the first Cree Black novel, parapsychologist Cree and her partner take a case in New Orleans’s Garden District that leaves them fearing for their own lives. The 150-year-old Beauforte House has long stood empty, until Lila Beauforte resumes residence and starts to see some of the house’s secrets literally come to life. Tormented by an insidious and violent presence, Lila finds herself trapped in a life increasingly filled with childhood terrors. It takes Cree’s unconventional take on psychology and her powerful natural empathy with Lila to navigate the dangerous worlds of spirit and memory, as they clash in a terrifying tale of mistaken identity and murder. (Goodreads)

I can’t say I really liked this book, especially the ending, but it was very well written.  When I typed in the search engine “Ghost Hunter” this is not what I expected.  The way things were explained, was that Lila somehow made a ghost manifest out of thin air.  There was a lot of talk about mental illness and that she needed lots of tests done.  Most of her family including her husband thought she was crazy.  When Cree, the parapsychologist shows up, she experiences some of what Lila experiences but still they believe the ghost came about because of trauma Lila experienced in her youth and is now trying to remember which is making the ghosts appear.

I don’t buy that.

This story was too cold, too scientific with too many straight lines, “I’s” dotted and “T’s” crossed. Too many reasons why this happens, and why that happens.  I understand it is a good concept but not the way I would’ve gone… especially the ending.  The only thing I did enjoy was finding out how the persons died, that kept me reading.  I didn’t care for Joyce at all.

I just didn’t like it.  This isn’t the kind of paranormal story I like but again, it was well written.  There is a love interest, a triangle of sorts and the ending just plain stinks.  I am considering getting the second book, just to give the series another chance because if you all know me, I rarely make it past the second book in a series (for different reasons depending on the writing, plot, characters or whatever) they usually don’t hold my attention.  I wanted so badly to like this one, maybe the first one was bad and they get better after this one. We will see. 

Anna Fields has talent!  She has an amazing skill for southern accents, southern men accents, country accents, southern belle accents, New Jersey accents, Oh my!  I will be looking for more books narrated by Anna Fields.  She did a fantastic job, she made all the characters come to life.  Without her, I would’ve put this book down a long time ago.

Stay tuned.

Did you like this book?  What did you like or didn’t like? Let me know in the comments below. 

Book Review: The Late Show by Michael Connelly

My Rating: 4 Stars
Series Title: Renee Ballard
Number in Series:  Book #1
Publisher: Hachette Book Review
Narrator: Katherine Moennig
Media: Audiobook
Length: 9 hours Unabridged
Genre: General Content, Crime, Mystery

Renée Ballard works the night shift in Hollywood, beginning many investigations but finishing none as each morning she turns her cases over to day shift detectives. A once up-and-coming detective, she’s been given this beat as punishment after filing a sexual harassment complaint against a supervisor.

But one night she catches two cases she doesn’t want to part with: the brutal beating of a prostitute left for dead in a parking lot and the killing of a young woman in a nightclub shooting. Ballard is determined not to give up at dawn. Against orders and her own partner’s wishes, she works both cases by day while maintaining her shift by night. As the cases entwine they pull her closer to her own demons and the reason she won’t give up her job no matter what the department throws at her. (Goodreads)

I really enjoyed this book. I liked how Connelly tied up all the loose ends, except one and hopefully, that one will be fulfilled in a later book.  I will continue reading the Renée Ballard mysteries to see if she actually does leave the Late Show and return to the day shift. 

This book, I think, is a good example of how women are sometimes treated in a predominately male career field and how the men stick together to protect one another.  Ballard showed her expertise and won the respect she deserved by using her wits and experience.

This was a great read, and like I said, I will go ahead and pick up the next book “Dark Sacred Night” and let you know what I think in a review.

Have you read any of Michael Connelly’s books?  What did you think of this one?  Leave a comment in the section below.  

 

Book Review: Final Girls by Riley Sager

My Rating: 5 Stars
Publisher: Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group
Narrator: Erin Bennett, Hillary Huber
Media: Audiobook
Length: 12 Hours Unabridged
Genre: General Content, Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

Ten years ago, college student Quincy Carpenter went on vacation with five friends and came back alone, the only survivor of a horror movie–scale massacre. In an instant, she became a member of a club no one wants to belong to—a group of similar survivors known in the press as the Final Girls. Lisa, who lost nine sorority sisters to a college dropout’s knife; Sam, who went up against the Sack Man during her shift at the Nightlight Inn; and now Quincy, who ran bleeding through the woods to escape Pine Cottage and the man she refers to only as Him. The three girls are all attempting to put their nightmares behind them, and, with that, one another. Despite the media’s attempts, they never meet.

Now, Quincy is doing well—maybe even great, thanks to her Xanax prescription. She has a caring almost-fiancé, Jeff; a popular baking blog; a beautiful apartment; and a therapeutic presence in Coop, the police officer who saved her life all those years ago. Her memory won’t even allow her to recall the events of that night; the past is in the past.

That is, until Lisa, the first Final Girl, is found dead in her bathtub, wrists slit, and Sam, the second, appears on Quincy’s doorstep. Blowing through Quincy’s life like a whirlwind, Sam seems intent on making Quincy relive the past, with increasingly dire consequences, all of which makes Quincy question why Sam is really seeking her out. And when new details about Lisa’s death come to light, Quincy’s life becomes a race against time as she tries to unravel Sam’s truths from her lies, evade the police and hungry reporters, and, most crucially, remember what really happened at Pine Cottage, before what was started ten years ago is finished. (Goodreads)

I have to say, this book went on my favorites list.  There were no supernatural elements in it, but boy it kept me hooked and the ending was so unexpected.  As I read it, it seemed like a familiar mystery book like many others, but there were twists and turns that I just didn’t expect and were so satisfying.  I was afraid of how this book was going, I felt that Quincy was walking into a nightmare with a blindfold on.  I loved the suspense and I was holding on to the bitter end… or awesome end.

This is about a woman who has experienced a horrific event and after about ten years of pretending nothing happened to her and trying to live a normal life, her seemingly perfect life takes a dangerous turn and begins to spiral out of control forcing her to remember everything she wanted to forget.

Did you read this book?  What did you think?  Have you read any other books from Riley Sager?  Let me know what you thought in the comments below.