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Category: Reviews

Reviews of novels, movies and writing events.

Review: The Haunting of Maddy Clare

Review: The Haunting of Maddy Clare

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The Haunting of Maddy Clare by Simone St. James Publisher: New American Library, 330 pages Format: paperback Source: Purchased I don’t know if it’s a coincidence, but many of the ghost novels I’ve been reading lately are set in the 1920’s. The decades that followed the Victorian and Edwardian eras into the Interwar years were filled with mayhem and bloodshed and mustard gas and influenza. If ever there was a time for hurt and bewildered ghosts to wander, this was…

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Film Review: The Awakening

Film Review: The Awakening

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  Peril on the Screen: The Awakening Thanks to a recommendation by reader Joanna over at DanseNoir, I watched the ghost movie The Awakening. The Awakening features a story within a story, so there’s a mystery aspect as well as a supernatural one. As the movie opens, Florence Cathcart (Rebecca Hall) exposes a fraudulent seance followed by the dramatic arrests of the perpetrators. Britain is reeling from the momentous losses of World War I and the flu pandemic, and grieving…

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Book Review: The Haunted House by Charles Dickens

Book Review: The Haunted House by Charles Dickens

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Review: The Haunted House Publisher: Dover Publications Format: Print, 136 pages Source: Purchased The Haunted House is an anthology of connected stories, three of which Charles Dickens wrote, the others penned by writers of his time. The premise is that the narrator, for reasons of health (have you noticed how prominent discussions of health are in Victorian literature?) rents a country house for three months with his sister. They fall in love with the house and decide to invite their…

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Wings of Fire by Charles Todd

Wings of Fire by Charles Todd

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Book Review: Wings of Fire by Charles Todd Publisher: St. Martin’s Format: Print, 323 pages Source: White Elephant Sale at the Oakland Museum In Wings of Fire by Charles Todd, Ian Rutledge is a damaged Scotland Yard inspector, recently returned from the horrific conditions of World War I. He’s something of a pariah in the stuffy bureaucracy, suffering from a debilitating case of “shell shock.” I must confess I did not fully grasp how horrific World War I was until…

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Review: Heartless by Gail Carriger

Review: Heartless by Gail Carriger

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Heartless by Gail Carriger Heartless is the first novel I’m reviewing for the 2014 R.I.P. Challenge at Stainless Steel Droppings. image courtesy of Abigail Larson I made the acquaintance of the Parasol Protectorate series with the first book, Soulless. Alexia Tarabotti, a misunderstood misfit preternatural resides in an alternate, steam punk Victorian England replete with foppish vampires and rustic werewolves. (The werewolves are, after all, from the wilds of Scotland.) Soulless is a delight. Despite the smart beginning to the series, I…

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Review: Life Interrupted by Kristen Kehoe

Review: Life Interrupted by Kristen Kehoe

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  Tour Schedule Life Interrupted by Kristen Kehoe Life Interrupted by Kristen Kehoe Book description: Rachel Reynolds isn’t running from her past, but she wouldn’t mind if it stopped chasing her, either. A senior in high school getting ready to graduate, Rachel is trying to look ahead toward her future, while forgetting the one night two years ago that set events in motion which altered the course of her entire life. Part of the future she’s looking for includes falling…

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Interview: Kristen Kehoe, author of Life Interrupted

Interview: Kristen Kehoe, author of Life Interrupted

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Hello everyone. Today we are interviewing Kristen Kehoe, author of the new novel Life Interrupted as she embarks on her blog tour. Be sure to check out the rest of the blog tour and sign up for the giveaway at the end of the post.   Greetings, Kristen.   It’s a pleasure to (virtually) meet you! I enjoyed reading Life Interrupted and am looking forward to our chat. Hello, and thank you for (virtually) having me.   1. We all know a cover…

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Unholy Ghosts by Stacia Kane

Unholy Ghosts by Stacia Kane

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The departed have arrived in Unholy Ghosts. Summary from Goodreads: The world is not the way it was. The dead have risen, and the living are under attack. The powerful Church of Real Truth, in charge since the government fell, has sworn to reimburse citizens being harassed by the deceased. Enter Chess Putnam, a fully tattooed witch and freewheeling ghost hunter. She’s got a real talent for banishing the wicked dead. But Chess is keeping a dark secret: She owes…

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Tamsin review/Once Upon a Time

Tamsin review/Once Upon a Time

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  One of my fellow readers suggested that I pick up Tamsin by Peter S. Beagle (author of The Last Unicorn). Tamsin is a time slip novel in which the melancholy eponymous ghost takes the reader back 300 years to a foiled rebellion that cost her the love of her life. Here’s the Goodreads blurb (because…well, yes, I’m feeling lazy): Arriving in the English countryside to live with her mother and new stepfather, Jenny has no interest in her surroundings, until she…

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A Soul’s Kiss by Debra Chapoton: Book Review

A Soul’s Kiss by Debra Chapoton: Book Review

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  If you’re like me, you love to make connections when you read. (But maybe you’re not like me? Perish the thought!) I picture authors and their writing swirling around in a kind of collective maelstrom, bumping and expanding and spinning off in new directions. I drive my family a little crazy sometimes with my connection obsession…I mean, who knew the movie Clueless was Jane Austen’s Emma? Except different. Yep, that would be me. As I read A Soul’s Kiss…

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Once Upon a Time Book Review: Life After Life

Once Upon a Time Book Review: Life After Life

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Once Upon a Time Challenge: Life After Life by Kate Atkinson Reincarnation. It’s been around since the Iron Age. The Celts, Norse, Greeks, Indians all entertained beliefs in life after life. I wasn’t going to read this book. In fact, I probably would not have read it except that my book group chose it. Don’t get me wrong. I absolutely adore Kate Atkinson’s writing. If you’ve never read her, I wholly recommend When Will There Be Good News? as your first…

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Once Upon a Time Review: The Wanderers

Once Upon a Time Review: The Wanderers

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The Wanderers by Cheryl Mahoney is the first book I read for the Once Upon a Time challenge. It was fun to wander trippingly through a novel by Cheryl from Tales of the Marvelous, one of the Once Upon a Time challenge participants. The Wanderers proved the perfect beginning for this challenge, and I put The Wanderers into the fairy tale category. The story opens in a magical land and features Jasper, an opportunistic fortune hunter, who puts himself in the right place at the…

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Deb’s Top Ten: 2013 Reading in Review

Deb’s Top Ten: 2013 Reading in Review

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Hey, wait for me! I’m jumping into the fray! (image credit: Dannyphoto80 via Dreamstime) So, I wasn’t going to do this, but I kept seeing these great year-end reading lists so decided to jump into the book fray and satisfy your need to know. Without further ado, here are the ten books I enjoyed the most in 2013 in order of preference. Be forewarned, many (though not all) involve ghosts of one type or another. 1. The Orphan Master’s Son…

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