LadyCalico2 Member

Monstrilio by Gerardo Sámano Córdova--This was a very weird story, some Pet Cemetary, some Frankenstein, that deserves credit for creativity and being the author's debut novel, but it was a poor novel/reader fit. A couple's only son is born with one inadequate lung and cannot survive beyond 11. The mother keeps a bit of…

Moving forward with my annual Halloween Literary Spookfest, I read the two books published by a new young horror writer, Isabel Cañas. The Hacienda, a haunted house ghost story set in 1820s Mexico and Vampires of El Norte, a vampire story set in 1840's Mexico. Both were really good, but I liked the second book a bit…

Maeve Fly by C.J. Leede--Absolutely ugh. It read like a D- movie that would be titled Fifty Shades of an American Girl Psycho. Feel free to miss this one; you won't miss much.

Tarzan Forever: The Life of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Creator of Tarzan by John Taliaferro This wasn't a Tarzan story but a biography of one of my favorite writers, Edgar Rice Burroughs. I always pictured EGR churning out books, raking in the dough, and living in luxury at Tarzana, so it was both surprising and sad to learn…

Moved on to two Manga. The Girl from the Other Side, Vol. 1-12 by Nagabe--The first 11 volumes completed the story, and the 12th was a collection of unused vignettes from the happy times in the early volumes. The story grows more serious, but all the mysteries are eventually explained when we learn about the main…

Regretting You by Colleen Hoover. This was overall a good novel but unevenly paced with some well-done engrossing parts but some dragged-out repetitive boring sections as well. The weakest part of the novel was the main character who constantly wallowed in self-pity. Her name was Morgan, so I dubbed her Morgan Moaner,…

Hurricane Season by Fernanda Melchor Ugly tale about ugly people. If you skip this one, you aren't missing much. Glad it's finished and tossed in the garbage.

So sorry you are in pain. You never know how important the back is to every movement you make, until it acts up. Been meaning to try Adrian Tchaikovsky but he is one of so many I never get to in my mountainous TBR list. Someday!

I've been working in some graphic novels in my puny attempts to be a more eclectic reader. I read My Favorite Thing Is Monsters by Emil Ferris. It is an engrossing story about a pariah kid, who lives for monster comics, investigating the murder of her upstairs neighbor. Then, after 400+ pages, the story just stops at no…

Getting a jumpstart on my Halloween reading, but sadly my first attempt, Howliday Inn, turned out less spooky and somewhat less fun than its predecessor, Bunnicula. This was certainly an entertaining kid's book but lacked something--it really could have used a celery sucking vegetarian vampire rabbit. The human criminals…

For those having difficulties finding a good X, I can recommend Xinran's Sky Burial. It is a heartbreaker, but if you want a book by an author with the ability to move you to another time and another place, this one's for you. There are a lot of good Q writers, but if you want a fun book, I can recommend Spencer Quinn's…

Starter Villain by John Scalzi is another book that I checked out because of the cover and then proceeded to stay up until 2:00 in the morning to finish it. It was more humorous than I expected, being sardonically narrated by the hapless protagonist. When things are about as low as they can go for poor Charlie, he is…

Read Agatha Christie's The Secret Adversary in which two broke friends desperate for income accept a job that runs them afoul of a Moriarty-like master criminal. This was a very early book and meant to be a fun one with lots of mess-ups, near death escapes, cute repartee, and a little romance.

I like that series but there are a lot of books, I think that I am up to about book 14 or 15 so far. It has been a while since I last read one. It doesn’t help me that all of the older audiobooks are published by Brilliance and only for sale by Amazon through Audible, therefore expensive, and not available at libraries…

Finished Payback in Death by J.D. Robb (Norah Roberts) #57 in the series. This was one of the better plotted books in the series with the crime having scads of potential suspects, none of which are panning out. Right from the beginning Detective Eve is sure she knows whodunnit, but feeling someone is guilty is not the same…

Finished Airs Above the Ground by Mary Stewart. An English woman is married to a dashing man who cancels the trip planned for their First Anniversary because he was called by his company to handle an important matter in Stockholm. Then she sees him, and a beautiful younger woman, in a movie newsreel at the scene of a…

The Last Devil to Die by Richard Osman--At last the fourth volume of the Thursday Murder Club has arrived, and they keep getting better and better as the personalities keep developing and showing deeper dimensions. This time they are on the trail of heroin smugglers as the body count keeps climbing. This story had more…

Finished Keturah and Lord Death by Martine Leavitt--the story is like Beauty and the Beast meets Scheherazade. A teen girl gets lost in the forest and Lord Death comes for her, but she keeps bargaining with him by telling him a story but refusing to finish until he lets her go back for a day to tie up loose ends. This was…

My yearly goals involve being an eclectic reader, so every year I try to get in a Sci-fi, a non-fiction, a Pulitzer winner, a western, a horror, a play, a YA, a graphic novel, and a romance.

Miracle Creek by Angie Kim--this is a court procedural and whodunnit about a deadly fire in a barometric chamber that has been sabotaged. It has a very original plot with well-done court scenes involving two very smart opposing attorneys. The talky/thinky chapters in between gradually tell the reader what really happened,…

Read two Debbie Tung graphic novels. The first, Quiet Girl in a Noisy World: An Introvert's Story is autobiographical and kind of sad until the end as she comes to accept that her introversion as how she was born and who she is and not something broken or pathological. This book would probably not appeal to everyone unless…

The book (longish short story actually) is great as is the 1947 movie version, but both are more philosophical and cerebral. The screenplay of the 2004 TV movie was written by a woman and goes straight to the heart. If you only have time for one, head to YouTube. You can get the book for free at Internetarchive.com, but…

I am addicted to the 2004 French TV-movie of the Vercors (Henri Bruller) novel Le Silence de la Mer (The Silence of the Sea). I read the book then immediately watched the movie on YouTube a few years ago and have watched it several times since, and again yesterday. The subtitling tends to be faulty, but understandable and…

I Begin September with a non-fiction, Agatha Christie: A Very Elusive Woman by Lucy Worsley. I spent about three times longer than I should have getting through this book because I kept googling the various intriguing, cars, towns, houses, etc. mentioned. Ms. Worsley wrote a well-researched book that cuts through the muck…

Finished off August with None of This is True by Lisa Jewell, which I thought to be a skillfully built and clever thriller about a woman podcaster who gets sucked into a clingy subject's web of pretense and deceit. Then Five Little Pigs by Agatha Christie, a carefully crafted but rather sad story of a cold case the…

Finished The Devil Rides Out by Dennis Wheatley. I've been trying to read some of the old time pioneers of horror. I thought it was a hoot; Wheatley threw about every occult practice he could think of into that tale in a rush of lovely 1930's melodrama. Then I read Five Little Pigs by Agatha Christie. At the request of a…

Pleased to meet another crazy cat lady bookworm.

Oops, Correction! my "W" entry is Hang the Moon.

A. Abouet, Marguerite-Aya, Life in Yop City B. Bradbury, Ray-Dandelion Wine C. Christie, Agatha-Crooked House D. Diaz, Hernan-Trust E. Eames, Nicholas-Kings of the Wyld F. Feeney, Alice-Rock, Paper, Scissors G. Grann, David-Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder H. Hendrix, Grady-How to Sell a Haunted House I.…

Got two more Pulitzers under my belt--48 down and 46 (+ 4 not yet awarded) to go! Less by Andrew Sean Greer (5*) This is the prize winner that book snobs are most likely to put down as not worthy of a Pulitzer, but I loved it. It is a story about a middle-aged, close-to-broke, less-than-successful gay author whose ex-lover…