Reviews of novels, movies and writing events.
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…
So, New Year’s Eve, and I found myself alone in the house. I ask you, what better way to ring in the new year than to immerse oneself in a ghost movie? Maybe the ghost can be a metaphor for the death of the old year. Or maybe that’s reaching. At any rate, I rented Haunted, a 1995 movie with a starring cast including Sir John Gielgud, Kate Beckinsale, and Aidan Quinn. Professor Ash, a ghost debunker, journeys to the…
Grave Peril by Jim Butcher I read the first in the Dresden File series as part of the Goodreads October read-a-long. If you’re like me, and you want to start at the beginning of any series, you can access the non-spoiler discussion of the first book, Storm Front, here. I love the premise of a hard-boiled wizard detective though I felt the first book was a little uneven—vacillating in tone between noir and ribald. There is no such unevenness in the…
This House Is Haunted by John Boyne This House Is Haunted is sort of like Jane Eyre meets Turn of the Screw. The author John Boyne writes 19th century sensibilities with the absolute authority of a waistcoat-wearing, mutton chopped Victorian. So much so, I was surprised to see his other books include The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. In fact, these two works are so different, I actually researched the author on Wikipedia! I thought there might be two John…
(image credit) Sadly, it’s time to wrap up Readers Imbibing.Peril VIII. It’s fitting that our cloaked heroine appears to be fleeing the scene, don’t you think? I had fun participating for my third time over at Stainless Steel Droppings and even surpassed past attempts. During the challenge, I viewed one movie and read six books. If you missed them, here they are: Ghost Town the movie with Ricky Gervais, Tea Leoni, and Greg Kinnear Notes from Ghost Town by Kate Ellison The…
Blog Tour and Review: Phantom Summer Welcome to the book review and blog tour stop for Amy Sparling’s Phantom Summer. First, I’d like to thank Dianne from Oops I Read a Book Again for making this process so easy. What a gift it is for authors to have a blog tour coordinator. It is my pleasure to host a blog stop (my first!), so I just hope I’m doing it correctly. Without further ado, here are the details: Title: Phantom…
Notes from Ghost Town by Kate Ellison Olivia will always regret not confessing her undying love to best friend Lucas, for just as she begins to tell him, fate intervenes. The next time Olivia sees Lucas, he’s a ghost. So begins Notes from Ghost Town by Kate Ellison that I read as part of the RIP challenge at Stainless Steel Droppings. Olivia, a promising artist, faces multiple problems for one so young. Someone killed Lucas, and she must discover who…
Celebrate Banned Books Week. I’m going to shock you. This year I am in favor of book banning. Yes, I want to ban. I know, I know, you were expecting my usual response to Banned Books Week: a review of a banned ghost novel and an exhortation to be subversive and read something banned. In the past I extolled the virtues of Beloved, The Lovely Bones, and The Headless Cupid. All banned books. But today, I want to jump on the…
For my next selection of the R.I.P. challenge, I read The Ghost Bride by Yangsze Choo. This reading ended up as a serendipitous survey of literature based in Malaya (present day Malaysia). In the last two years, quite unplanned, I’ve read three works set in this country, all as different as they can be. The first novel I read is Old Filth by Jane Gardam about a cynical octogenarian barrister of British ancestry; the second was The Garden of Evening…
This is my second selection for Carl’s R.I.P. at Stainless Steel Droppings. I file The Search under the mystery/thriller category. The Search by Nora Roberts is a romantic thriller; i.e., heroine in peril narrative. I’m expanding my review categories from ghost novels to include young adult novels and dog fiction. The Search is of the latter variety. Simon isn’t Fiona’s type. And she’s definitely not his. But Simon is in desperate need of a dog whisperer/trainer for his recalcitrant canine…
Thank you, Carl at Stainless Steel Droppings, for once again hosting R.I.P! Ghost Town with Ricky Gervais, Tea Leoni and Greg Kinnear, directed by David Koepp. I was visiting my daughter and son-in-law in Seattle, and we decided to watch a scifi movie. Of all things, our search netted Ghost Town. (Such is the difficulty with the ghost genre—there is no ghost genre; you find ghosts when you least expect them.) Anyhow, ghost aficionado that I am, I jumped at…
I read Richard Matheson’s A Stir of Echoes as one of my selections for Bout of Books. It’s been on my list for a long time, so it felt good to put it behind me, and the Bout of Books read-a-thon provided the perfect opportunity. Finding A Stir of Echoes, however, proved a challenge as I searched one library and three bookstores and finally had to order it. When a party stunt awakens Tom Wallace’s psychic abilities, he must learn…
The Maze Runner by James Dashner is another in a long list of dystopian YA novels. When Thomas arrives in a community of lost boys, he must literally climb out of a “box” and, despite lacking all memory of his former life, engage in a life or death struggle with an unseen enemy. The “runners” must seek clues in the maze that will lead to their escape, and time is running out. I can’t help comparing the recent triumvirate of…