Phantom Pains The Arcadia Project, Book 2 Mishell Baker Saga Press Release Date: March 21, 2017 ISBN 978-1-4814-8017-8 Millie Roper, the central character in Mishell Baker’s Arcadia Project urban fantasy series, is a very intriguing hero, not because of her virtues, but because she perseveres despite her challenges. In the […]
Shadowshaper Daniel José Older Arthur A. Levine Books Release Date: June 30, 2015 ISBN 978-0-545-59161-4 I am not a teenager (nowhere near). I am not Puerto Rican (or even a person of color). I am not a native New Yorker (been there quite a few times, but never longer than […]
All the Birds in the Sky Charlie Jane Anders Tor Books Release Date: January 26, 2016 ISBN 978-0-7653-7994-8 A young girl who talks to birds; a young boy who builds a two second time machine in his room. Two hideously awful middle school experiences. A member of the Nameless Order […]
The Coldest Girl in Coldtown Holly Black Little, Brown Books Release Date: September 3, 2013 ISBN: 978-0-31621-310-3 In honor of the upcoming Halloween holiday, here is a slightly updated review of one of our favorite spooky novels. Enjoy! Now THIS is what a vampire tale should be like. […]
Nightwise R. S. Belcher Tor Books Release Date: August 18, 2015 ISBN 978-0-7653-7460-8 Wow. What a difference a bit of experience makes. I read R. S. Belcher’s debut novel, The Six Gun Tarot, shortly after it came out, and was very impressed with this supernatural Western thriller/morality tale, and especially […]
Lock In John Scalzi Tor Books Release Date: August 26, 2014 ISBN 978-0-7653-7586-5 It just isn’t right. Every time I read a synopsis of a new John Scalzi book, I think to myself, this just ain’t gonna work. It’s either too simplistic of a premise (Redshirts), or too convoluted of […]
Owl and the Japanese Circus Kristi Charish Simon & Schuster Release Date: January 13, 2015 ISBN 978-1-4767-9499-0 Alix Hiboux is a thief, specializing in antiquities. Well, thief is a somewhat suggestive term, but she has built a reputation for acquiring ancient artifacts for discerning (and wealthy) clients. It wasn’t always […]
The Witch With No Name Kim Harrison Harper Voyager (September 9, 2014) ISBN-10: 006195795X ISBN-13: 978-0061957956 I imagine meeting Rachel Morgan would leave me frightened, fascinated and overwhelmed. It would likely have to happen in the Hollows, where the Inderlanders are. Maybe at a coffee shop where she’d sip on […]
The Given Vicki Pettersson Harper Voyager ISBN-10: 006206620X After learning his wife survived the attack that killed him fifty years earlier, angel/PI Griffin Shaw is determined to find Evelyn Shaw, no matter the cost. Yet his obsession comes at a price. Grif has had to give up his burgeoning love […]
The Lost (Celestial Blues, Book 2) Vicki Pettersson Harper Voyager ISBN-10: 0062064657 Griffin Shaw and his wife were both murdered fifty years ago. Now a minor angel, Grif’s been granted permission to solve the mystery of his own death… if he helps the Pure angels guide those souls who might […]
On this day, December 3, in 1857, Joseph Conrad was born in Berdichev, Imperial Russia (modern
Ukraine, then a part of Poland). While he settled in England and wrote in English, he always considered himself a Pole. Heart of Darkness, one of the most famous of his 20 novels (which explores colonialism and the attitudes regarding what constitutes a barbarian versus civilized society) is considered one of the best English novels of the 20th century, as is his novel Lord Jim, which chronicles a crew’s abandonment of its disabled ship. Conrad died in England in 1924 at age 66.