Book reviews of new and old, local, national and international books. Anything goes.
Abandoned by the Vatican: My Clandestine Journey to Support Secret Priests Behind the Iron Curtain is the little known but true tale of the “Book Priest” and his project to secretly ship Catholic books to illegal priests in Czechoslovakia, Poland, Yugoslavia, and Romania during the Cold War. You would think a tale such as this…
Dark Matter is the high-concept and dizzying brainchild of award-winning author Blake Crouch. In this scifi thriller, a once prominent physicist-turned-professor finds himself lost in the multiverse, trying to find his way back to his original reality. Similar to the 90’s television show Sliders, Dark Matter gives a peak into strange and dangerous parallel realities, but with…
The Not-Where, the second installment in the Dark Lands series, seems to be (whether intended or not) a homage to Harry Potter which differs dramatically from your standard fanfiction fare. In this dark supernatural fantasy for young adults, the author seems to be paying tribute to some of our most beloved characters and moments in…
The first in the Dark Lands series, Requiem is a supernatural dark fantasy for young adults. It is high fantasy that takes place in a realm between the living and the dead, or between life and heaven/hell – but not quite purgatory. The Dark Lands, ruled over by skies of rumbling black clouds and lightning…
Recently released, The Lost Girls by Heather Young is a novel that switches between past and present and one that provides characters marked by disturbed minds rivaling those in Gone Girl or The Girl on the Train but with the added satisfaction of actually being believable. This is the story of a young six-year-old girl who vanished without a trace…
The Winner’s Trilogy comes to a close with The Winner’s Kiss as Kestrel and Arin play for keeps in a high-stakes battle between regions within a high fantasy world. We get relief from the romantic frustrations that owned the second book before the real battle commences. But who will win? Will author Rutkoski give us the ending we…
The Winner’s Crime is the second in The Winner’s Trilogy by Marie Rutkoski, a young adult high fantasy based on a world similar to this one but steeped in the past with traditions of imperialism, conquering lands, colonization, and the taking of slaves. Imbued with a romance between the highest and the lowest of societal standings, this second…
Am I late to the party? The Winner’s Trilogy has been a young adult favorite for a while, but I like to wait until at least three books in the series are out (usually) for a back-to-back read. The first two books were GoodReads Choice Award Nominees for Young Adult Fantasy & Science Fiction in…
I didn’t know about this book (even with my all-things-zombie obsession) until I saw the movie trailer. Only published in 2014, The Girl with All the Gifts is already a major motion picture set to debut in the UK at the end of this month. I have to admit, when I saw the trailer, I…
Responding to the literary howl of Jack London, author Dr. A. W. Sibley’s new novel is a crossbreed between White Fang and The Call of the Wild. When I first requested A Wolf Called Ring, I was under the impression that it was a children’s novel and had intended to read it with my son. To my delight,…