2 Book Lovers Reviews
Week of Oct. 11/21
Week of Oct. 11/21
Book Review:
and love from her books.
Effie is heartbroken when
October's Anticipated Reads!
This is reading weather! Okay, I say that nearly every month, but October is the ideal month to curl up with a blanket, a hot beverage, and a book. With the leaves falling, the air getting crisper, and Halloween right around the corner, it’s the month that I enjoy reading creepier, mysterious, suspenseful novels.
Just "click" on the book title to read the synopsis.
- October 5 – The Violent Season – By Sara Walters
This was a page-turner! Read my review.
There is something terribly wrong in Wolf Ridge. Every November, every teen is overwhelmed with a hunger for violence...at least, that's the urban legend...
- October 5 – Cackle – By Rachel Harrison – This sounds like the perfect read for October!
All her life, Annie has played it nice and safe. After being unceremoniously dumped by her longtime boyfriend, Annie seeks a fresh start. She accepts a teaching position that moves her from Manhattan to a small village upstate. She’s stunned by how perfect and picturesque the town is. The people are all friendly and warm. Her new apartment is dreamy too, minus the oddly persistent spider infestation...
- October 12 – The Party Crasher – By Sophie Kinsella
In my opinion, you can never go wrong with a book by Sophie Kinsella. A party mixed with a good dose of family dysfunction? Yes!
- October 12 – Always in December – By Emily Stone
I do love a serendipitous story.
It started with a letter. It ended with a love story.
Every December, Josie posts a letter from her home in London to the parents she lost on Christmas night many years ago. Each year, she writes the same three words: Missing you, always. But this year, her annual trip to the postbox is knocked off course by a bicycle collision with a handsome stranger--a stranger who will change the course of Josie's life...
- October 12 – The Brightest Star in Paris – By Diana Biller - Historical romance with a dash of mystery!
Amelie St. James is a fraud. After the Siege of Paris, she became “St. Amie,” the sweet, virtuous prima ballerina the Paris Opera Ballet needed to restore its scandalous reputation, all to protect the safe life she has struggled to build for her and her sister. But when her first love reappears looking as devastatingly handsome as ever, and the ghosts of her past quite literally come back to haunt her, her hard-fought safety is thrown into chaos...
- October 14 - The Lost Fisherman – By Jewel E. Ann
The continuation of the story that began in The Naked Fisherman.
- October 19 – Well Matched – By Jen DeLuca - I read Well Met earlier this year and I loved it. I am more than a little excited about this return trip to Willow Creek and the beloved Renaissance Faire. A fake relationship between a woman who guards her heart and a fun-loving, kilt-wearing gym teacher sounds like a lot of fun to me!
- October 29 – Nightshade – By Keri Lake - Gothic romance!
This peculiar place is where I first met the cold and callous recluse living in a decaying cliffside cathedral. Jericho Van Croix is the epitome of everything I’ve been told to fear.
Chilling Book Recommendations!
There's nothing better than curling up with a scary, thrilling, chilling book during the month of October. If you're looking for a few recommendations, you've come to the right place!
- The Whisper Man - By Alex North
I was instantly entranced by this novel. It was everything eerie and frightening that I was looking for. While reading in bed one night, the end-of-cycle chime on my dishwasher sounded and I nearly jumped out of my skin. That can only mean that I chose wisely.
- Brother - By Ania Ahlborn
I almost feel guilty for admitting that I enjoyed this book as much as I did. I mean, there must be something wrong with me for being so into a story that is as twisted and horrific as this one, right?
- Layla - By Colleen Hoover
Layla is Colleen Hoover’s first foray into the paranormal genre, and, in my opinion, it can be summed up with one word: success! This just goes to prove that she can write the heck out of anything and still stay true to her style and ability of creating unique characters and storylines. It still screamed one hundred percent Colleen Hoover, but with an eerie paranormal story and a generous side order of creep factor.
- Don't Look For Me - By Wendy Walker
I started reading this novel right at bedtime. I’ll admit that this wasn’t one of my wisest decisions. This is definitely not the type of story to relax your mind and bring you down a few notches in anticipation of a much-needed slumber. I read this book late into the night, deciding to read one more chapter, which quickly turned into another…and another. I love a good thriller, but what I wasn’t expecting was the high level of creep factor that this novel had (I loved it even more). My heart was pounding, I was chilled to the bone, and I was glued to the pages. Who needs sleep?
*Read my review.
Happy Reading!
Heard It in a Love Song
By Tracey Garvis Graves
Eruption
By Brad Tolinski &
Chris Gill
October's Anticipated Reads!
October truly is the season for horror, this is when autumn really begins. With Halloween on its way, we know that the ghosts and goblins will soon be knocking on our doors. I can’t think of a better time to curl up with a warm cider and a terrifying book. And there are some great ones on the way.
- October 5 – The Death of Jane Lawrence – By Caitlin Starling - Gothic horror!
...on their wedding night, an accident strands her at his door in a pitch-black rainstorm, and she finds him changed. Gone is the bold, courageous surgeon, and in his place is a terrified, paranoid man—one who cannot tell reality from nightmare, and fears Jane is an apparition, come to haunt him. By morning, Augustine is himself again, but Jane knows something is deeply wrong at Lindridge Hall, and with the man she has so hastily bound her safety to...
- October 5 – The Jealousy Man and Other Stories – By Jo Nesbo
Nordic Noir is one of my bags. I love how the atmosphere and the stories reflect one another. I’ve read a few of Nesbo’s books, and he is certainly among the elite of the genre. With the days getting shorter, the leaves turning colors, and the inevitable flurries and frost on the horizon, it could be a perfect time to delve into some stories that set the season.
- October 5 – Eruption: Conversations with Eddie Van Halen – By Brad Tolinski & Chris Gill
I’m not normally a big reader of non-fiction, but I’ve had a couple of really great experiences with I am C-3PO and Nothin’ but a Good Time, and if I’m being honest, Van Halen was the soundtrack of my youth. I followed Eddie’s incredible guitar playing from “You Really Got Me” to “Can’t Stop Lovin’ You.” I did not follow them into the Gary Whatshisname era (what the hell was that all about). I am stoked to run with that devil and get all of the dirt; to finally answer that age-old question: David or Sammy?
- October 19 – Nothing But Blackened Teeth – By Cassandra Khaw
Yes please! If this cover doesn’t creep the hell out of you, I don’t know what will.
“Cassandra Khaw's Nothing But Blackened Teeth is a gorgeously creepy haunted house tale, steeped in Japanese folklore and full of devastating twists. A Heian-era mansion stands abandoned, its foundations resting on the bones of a bride and its walls packed with the remains of the girls sacrificed to keep her company. It’s the perfect wedding venue for a group of thrill-seeking friends. But a night of food, drinks, and games quickly spirals into a nightmare. For lurking in the shadows is the ghost bride with a black smile and a hungry heart. And she gets lonely down there in the dirt.”
- October 19 – Faithless – By Hunter Shea
Over the years, Hunter Shea has become one of my go-to authors. He has a talent for using some fabulous techniques, paired with inventive plots, or twisting traditional myths to cultivate engrossing stories. There is nothing I find scarier that religious horror, Faithless seems poised to go there.
Horror Recommendations!
With Halloween fast approaching, here are a few stories that go bump in the night and will make you check the closet as well as under your bed before you go to sleep.
For years now, the werewolf has been hijacked by the shifter romance genre. Well, Jonathan Janz has claimed a bloody morsel back for the horror genre!
Wolf Land – Jonathan Janz - Read my review.
The story takes on a bit of an unfiltered rambling, and first-person look back at the shit hitting the fan.
Zombie Fallout – Mark Tufo - Read my review.
Like zombies, vampires have been done so many times in so many different ways. The key to making it work for me is the author’s approach: make the monster new, unique, something I’ve never seen before or make it about the people and how the monster makes them act and react.
The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires – Grady Hendrix - Read my review.
If you don’t know the story of the Jersey Devil, here is your invitation. The Devil has a home – it’s in Jersey.
The Jersey Devil – Hunter Shea - Read my review.
The Hellbound Heart is a well-balanced tale. It is written for an audience ready for the darker side of life…and what comes next. The Hellbound Heart – Clive Barker - Read my review.
What he's reading!
What she's reading!