As the title implies, MEXICAN GOTHIC by SILVIA MORENO-GARCIA is an homage to the gothic fiction novels of the 20th century, but one set deep in the mountains of Mexico rather than the English countryside. Noemí Taboada is the strong-willed, somewhat-spoiled daughter of a wealthy family. She spends her free time reveling in the glamor […]
With its brightly colored cover and its strange title, WE RIDE UPON STICKS by QUAN BARRY caught my attention immediately. If I had been more familiar with the plot, it is possible that I would have been more suspicious of the way it instantly grabbed me. In the summer of 1989, the members of a […]
18 TINY DEATHS: the Untold Story of Frances Glessner Lee and the Invention of Modern Forensics by BRUCE GOLDFARB tells the story of a woman whose impact on crime solving cannot be overstated. Lee first learned about the importance of forensic investigation from her friend George Magrath, who was the country’s only medical examiner at […]
Matt Haig’s THE MIDNIGHT LIBRARY is a sliding doors novel about one woman’s search for a fulfilling life. In the course of one day, Nora Seed has been mugged, lost her job, and found out that her cat has died. On top of that, she has been reminded of all of the ways that she […]
Philip Pullman wrote the fantasy trilogy His Dark Materials (beginning with The Golden Compass) back in the late nineties. These books center on a young girl, Lyra Belacqua, living in an alternate reality England where every human is born with a shapeshifting animal companion known as a daemon. In the His Dark Materials trilogy, readers […]
THE LAST AMERICAN VAMPIRE by SETH GRAHAME-SMITH is an alternate history of America, from the colonies to the present, told by a person who experienced it all: Henry Sturges, the last American vampire. Henry Sturges has been a major player in many key moments of American history. He came to America as a newly-married twenty-five-year-old […]
Recently, an item appeared on my cataloging shelves that I needed to read immediately: THE ANNOTATED AMERICAN GODS by NEIL GAIMAN; edited with notes by LESLIE S. KLINGER. I did not know this book even existed before it appeared on my shelf, but I was very familiar with AMERICAN GODS – Gaiman’s epic novel that […]
You know that feeling, when you have been putting off reading a book that a friend recommended to you – and then you read it, and you also need to tell everyone about it? Well, let me tell you about “AN ABSOLUTELY REMARKABLE THING” by HANK GREEN. April May is a twenty-three-year-old graphic designer living […]
In the summer of 2009, I needed a distraction. It was just before my sophomore year of college – I was an English major here at Missouri Southern – and I was looking for new ways to spend my time. I made a list of about 20 things to accomplish over the summer (nothing productive, […]
Teenage sleuths are all well and good, but what becomes of them when they grow up? In Edgar Cantero’s “Meddling Kids” we meet the Blyton Summer Detective Club – a group of grown-ups who spent the summers of their formative years solving mysteries in Blyton Hills, Oregon. Thirteen years ago, they solved their final mystery: […]
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