Month: July 2021

Book Haul – July 2021

Hey book nerds!

This month I’ve been going back to some of my early NetGalley approvals to try to increase my feedback ratio and finally give feedback to the publishers who gave me a chance when I was just starting out in the reviewing world. Back in the early days I was so excited about the idea of reviewing that I gave little thought to how many books I could get through in a reasonable time. It feels good to be chipping away at some books I’ve wanted to read for years.

I’m also looking forward to some future reads. In particular, I can’t wait to read my first Stephen Graham Jones book.

I’m currently keeping the people I know in Sydney in my thoughts as they face at least another four weeks in lockdown. I know some really incredible people who are all doing the right thing, like most people, but whose efforts are being undermined by the minority. My heart hurts for them.

I’d also like to personally thank our premier, Gladys, for the cancellation of my COVID vaccination appointments, which I’ve been waiting for for two months. There are plenty of angry people in regional NSW today; our vaccines are being given to Sydney Year 12 students. I could rant about how if the powers that be had acted decisively at the very beginning of this current outbreak, we would not be in this position now. But NSW doesn’t have Victoria’s premier … and that has made all the difference.

I found this YouTube video today that explains the situation here in Australia perfectly. Heads up: there’s plenty of swearing. It’s too good not to share, though.

Until next month, happy reading!

July Reads

Book Mail

A hilarious new adventure from the mega-bestselling author of Wolf Girl and Ninja Kid.

Hi there! I’m Pow Pow Pig!

Me and my friends didn’t make the A team … or the B team … or the C, D or E teams ….

We made the Z team!

How are we going to save the world when we were the last ones picked?!

Young reporter-in-training Kate and her mouse-accomplice Rupert are on board a train, to visit Kate’s mum in the Arctic.

But as soon as the train departs, mysterious things start happening.

A packet of ginger nuts goes missing…
A collection of gymnastics trophies are stolen…
And some ancient scrolls disappear…

Fellow passenger Madame Maude seems the most likely culprit, until a surprising – and delicious – twist turns the whole investigation on its head.

Come with Ollie and Bea on a HARE-raising adventure with a HOPPY ending!

Ollie is an owl who wears glasses. And Bea is a bunny with very big feet. They don’t know it yet, but they are about to be best friends. Can they help each other to find their OTTER-LY awesome inner superhero?

Join Ollie and Bea in this charming, funny, cute story about the joys of making friends and having fun. The perfect book for young readers who love to laugh. 

Q. What’s the hardest part of learning to skate?
A. THE GROUND!

Ollie is having a HOOT on his rollerskates, but Bea is full of excuses for why she can’t join in. Will she realise that sometimes it’s okay to look silly, and that real friends don’t CARROT all if you have very big feet?

Ollie and Bea continue to charm in this super-cute series about the joys of friends and fun and lots of puns. The perfect book for young readers who love to laugh.

NetGalley

How do you survive hearing your family being brutally murdered over the phone? For Father Raul Figeuroa, all faith and hope are lost. Turning away from the priesthood behind, he retreats to his aunt’s empty farmhouse in upstate New York, hoping to drink himself to oblivion. But he’s not alone in the house. Something is trying to reach out to him. Or is he losing his grip on reality? When his childhood friend Felix comes to visit, things take a darker turn. The deeper they dig into the mystery, the closer they get to hell literally breaking loose. 

They thought the island was the end. It was only the beginning…

Having survived the horrors of Savage Island, Grady is now stuck working for Gold, the psychopath who masterminded the gruesome competition. Sent on a “team-building exercise” in a remote castle, he starts to plot his escape.

Ben and Lizzie are in hiding, presumed dead after escaping the island. If they’re ever to return to their families, they need to bring Gold down. So they secretly join Grady in the castle. But as the doors slam shut and the series of deadly challenges between them and freedom are revealed, it looks like history is going to repeat itself…

A collection of new and exclusive short stories inspired by, and in tribute to, Shirley Jackson.

Shirley Jackson is a seminal writer of horror and mystery fiction, whose legacy resonates globally today. Chilling, human, poignant and strange, her stories have inspired a generation of writers and readers.

This anthology, edited by legendary horror editor Ellen Datlow, will bring together today’s leading horror writers to offer their own personal tribute to the work of Shirley Jackson.

Featuring Joyce Carol Oates, Josh Malerman, Paul Tremblay, Richard Kadrey, Stephen Graham Jones, Elizabeth Hand, Cassandra Khaw, Karen Heuler, Benjamin Percy, John Langan, Laird Barron, M. Rickert, Seanan McGuire, and Genevieve Valentine.

When Tess and Eliot stumble upon an ancient book hidden in a secret tunnel beneath their school library, they accidentally release a devil from his book-bound prison, and he’ll stop at nothing to stay free. He’ll manipulate all the ink in the library books to do his bidding, he’ll murder in the stacks, and he’ll bleed into every inch of Tess’s life until his freedom is permanent.

Forced to work together, Tess and Eliot have to find a way to re-trap the devil before he kills everyone they know and love, including, increasingly, each other. And compared to what the devil has in store for them, school stress suddenly doesn’t seem so bad after all.

Jade is one class away from graduating high school, but that’s one class she keeps failing local history. Dragged down by her past, her father and being an outsider, she’s composing her epic essay series to save her high school diploma.

Jade’s topic? The unifying theory of slasher films. In her rapidly gentrifying rural lake town, Jade sees the pattern in recent events that only her encyclopaedic knowledge of horror cinema could have prepared her for. And with the arrival of the Final Girl, Letha Mondragon, she’s convinced an irreversible sequence of events has been set into motion.

As tourists start to go missing, and the tension grows between her community and the celebrity newcomers building their mansions the other side of the Indian Lake, Jade prepares for the killer to rise. She dives deep into the town’s history, the tragic deaths that occurred at camp years ago, the missing tourists no one is even sure exist, and the murders starting to happen, searching for the answer.

As the small and peaceful town heads towards catastrophe, it all must come to a head on 4th July, when the town all gathers on the water, where luxury yachts compete with canoes and inflatables, and the final showdown between rich and poor, past and present, townsfolk and celebrities slasher and Final Girl.

I never wanted to be a vampire queen.

But on the bright (if not sunny) side of the debacle, I’ve got a super-hot new boyfriend. And he just might be the perfect guy.

Well, if the perfect guy ghosts you for a month and then comes back to school with a new look, a pack of friends, and a secret. But we have bigger problems.

The Drainers are back. They’re singing a different song, but have they really changed?

Even worse, werewolves’ hearts are being ripped from their bodies – which is putting the people I love in danger. I need to figure out who is behind the murders before there’s an all-out vampire-werewolf war.

No one is going to mess with my friends, even the ones who like to get wild and howl at the moon.

Sometimes, all a girl can do is grab her tiara and start kicking some supernatural ass… 

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The 22 Murders of Madison May – Max Barry

“You know, I love you, Madison. In every world. Even when you don’t love me back.”

For Clay, it was love at first sight. The Madison May he fell for was the character she played in a movie, although Clay is certain that Maddie, the person, is the woman for him. He’s so sure that he’s been stalking her travelling across multiple parallel dimensions for their happily ever after.

The only pesky problem is that he hasn’t found a Maddie yet who meets his expectations and what’s a loved up guy supposed to do when that happens? Kill that Maddie and move on to the next one. Yeah, our Clay isn’t exactly the poster child for optimal mental health.

Along for the ride is Felicity Staples, a newspaper reporter who doesn’t usually report on murders. Felicity saw firsthand what Clay’s ‘love’ is capable of in the life where Maddie was a real estate agent. Now she’s trying to stop Clay from murdering other Maddies but Clay always seems to be one step ahead.

“The details are different. But it’s her. It’s the same person, murdered in a different place.”

When I read the blurb for this book, my immediate thought was, ‘Oh, so it’s like Lauren Beukes’ The Shining Girls.’ No, I haven’t read that one yet so I can’t say for sure but it seems I’m not the only reader to pick up on the similarities.

Parallel universes are one of the things I love to read about. They raise so many questions that my brain enjoys teasing out. Things like, if you travel from one parallel universe to another, what happens to the you that lives there? Does You #1 erase You #2 by showing up in world #2? Does You #2 wind up in the world you left, trying to make sense of subtle or not so subtle differences? Are you now a missing person in your world? If you travel to a third world, does You #2 get to resume their life in world #2? I could go on forever like this.

This book come up with its own answers for how parallel universes work. It made sense, although it was a sadder concept than what I’d like to believe. I did enjoy the idea of moorings, although I would have liked more explanations for how everything worked, including how the first person to ever travel between universes figured out how to do it.

Clay’s obsession with Maddie is downright creepy and I expected to feel something every time I watched her get murdered. However, I never formed an emotional connection with any of the characters so while I was interested in seeing how it would all pan out, I felt like more of a casual observer than someone who was invested in the lives of Maddie, Felicity, Clay, etc.

“You’re the reason for everything.”

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Once Upon a Blurb

I love you. In every world.

Young real estate agent Madison May is shocked when a client at an open house says these words to her. The man, a stranger, seems to know far too much about her, and professes his love – shortly before he murders her. 

Felicity Staples hates reporting on murders. As a journalist for a midsize New York City paper, she knows she must take on the assignment to research Madison May’s shocking murder, but the crime seems random and the suspect is in the wind. That is, until Felicity spots the killer on the subway, right before he vanishes.

Soon, Felicity senses her entire universe has shifted. No one remembers Madison May, or Felicity’s encounter with the mysterious man. And her cat is missing. Felicity realises that in her pursuit of Madison’s killer, she followed him into a different dimension – one where everything about her existence is slightly altered. At first, she is determined to return to the reality she knows, but when Madison May – in this world, a struggling actress – is murdered again, Felicity decides she must find the killer – and learns that she is not the only one hunting him. 

Traveling through different realities, Felicity uncovers the opportunity – and danger – of living more than one life.

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Skydragon #2: Fly Free – Anh Do

Illustrations – James Hart

Picking up where the first book ended (you need to read this series in order), Fly Free continues to follow Amber (Skydragon) and her brother, Reggie, who is Firefighter. Reggie still has amnesia so he doesn’t know the National Service want him to apprehend his sister and Amber suspects Firefighter is Reggie but doesn’t know for sure.

The stakes are raised for Amber in this book and Reggie begins to question whether the National Service are the good guys or the baddies. Readers already know they’re not trustworthy.

It turns out that Firefighter isn’t the only person with powers that the National Service have recruited; we’re introduced to Senseless (Stefan, Anna and Nic). I’m hoping at some stage all of the people with powers will band together against the National Service, who are probably even more nefarious than I currently suspect they are.

I wasn’t especially comfortable with Amber ordering insects to do her bidding in the first novel. Fortunately in this book, Amber realises that the insects are her allies, not her servants. So many haven’t survived the first two books, though. Given how much Amber loves insects I would have thought this would be devastating for her but so far it appears I’m more upset about their demise than she is. Granted, she’s busy trying to stay alive herself, but still…

There’s mention of E-Boy in this book. I haven’t read any of the E-Boy series yet so I’m not sure if Agent Ferris and the rest of the National Service goons feature in those but it appears we’re building towards a crossover.

There remains plenty of action in this book. Thankfully Justin, Amber’s friend from the first book, has a part to play in the second book. I’m not sure how long they’re going to be able to communicate by phone as I’m pretty sure the cabin Amber stays at is off the grid. Right now, though, that’s the least of Amber’s worries. She’s got a cliffhanger to contend with and things aren’t exactly going in her favour.

To be continued in Ride the Wind…

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Once Upon a Blurb

Amber is back! The second book in the high-flying adventure series from Anh Do.

Amber held her arms out. Surround me. Locusts, beetles, bees and all manner of flying insects nestled together tightly. Shapes formed. Horns on her head, claws on her hands and feet. A thick, long tail. She was a dragon!

Amber is on the run. What will happen when she and the Firefighter finally come face to face?

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Skydragon #1: Take to the Skies – Anh Do

Illustrations – James Hart

All superheroes need an origin story. Usually this involves surviving significant trauma. Amber is no different. She was only nine years old when both of her parents died and her thirteen year old brother, Reggie, became comatose as a result of a meteorite falling on their home.

Years later, Amber remains scarred both emotionally and physically.

Every day she caught someone eyeballing the twisted vortex of dark red lines that covered her right cheek.

Although the meteorite took almost everything from Amber, it didn’t steal her love of insects.

‘They’re the closest thing we have to dragons,’ she said.

Amber is bullied by the mean girls at school but finds a friend in Justin.

It was nice that Justin also liked bugs. Perhaps they could be weirdos together?

description

The purple goo from the meteorite that seeped into Amber’s skin has changed her in ways she’s only just beginning to understand. Now she’s attracted the attention of people who definitely don’t have her best interests at heart.

The first in a new series, Skydragon provides readers with information about Amber’s life before and after the meteorite. She deals with bullies, loneliness and grief as she starts to figure out her new powers.

description

James Hart’s illustrations bring the wonder, danger, grief and action to life. There were a couple of times when the pictures didn’t line up with the text, e.g., the fallen beam that traps Liz isn’t shown in the illustration and a couple of times the expressions pictured don’t match those described in the text, but overall I really enjoyed them. I particularly liked the detailed illustrations of insects and when Amber has become Skydragon.

I can see some parallels between Skydragon and Firefighter in this book and Nelson and his father in the Ninja Kid series.

I’m looking forward to watching events unfold as Amber learns some critical information readers already know.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Once Upon a Blurb

Amber knew she’d been given an incredible power, but was it a freak accident, or was there something she was supposed to do with it?

Controlling her new ability might be the hardest thing Amber has ever done. Especially when she is running for her life.

Who is her mysterious enemy? What connection does he have to Amber’s past? And, most importantly, does Amber have what it takes to truly become … Skydragon?

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The Astonishing Future of Alex Nobody – Kate Gilby Smith

Spoilers Ahead! (marked in purple)

It’s always just been Alex and her Uncle Henry. That is, if you don’t count the consistent groups of strangers who have been trying to sneak a peek at Alex her entire life. There are actual coaches full of them. But, hey, maybe this is normal. It’s not like Alex has any friends to compare notes with.

Until she meets Jasper on her twelfth birthday. We love Jasper, although we don’t really know a lot about him for the longest time.

For a boy who loved asking other people questions, he was an expert at avoiding them himself.

We do know he’s a sweetheart, though, and he’s a really good best (and first) friend to have. We adore him, even after he suddenly disappears before Alex’s eyes. Fortunately, Alex likes Jasper as much as we do so she’s determined to find him. No matter what.

‘And this time I don’t think logic is the answer.’

I spent the entire book trying to figure out what I could possibly say about it that didn’t give away the whole time travel component, which is one of my all time favourite things to read about. I needn’t have worried; one look at the book’s blurb and I discovered that what I thought was a secret is well and truly out of the bag. I probably would have read this book sooner had I known. All I had to go by when I decided this was the book for me was the title and Thy Bui’s incredible cover illustration.

Speaking of design, something so simple yet so appropriate accompanied the chapter titles. Remember how I mentioned the literal coaches full of people who want to catch a glimpse of Alex? A coach starts appearing in the first chapter and slowly makes its way across the page, chapter by chapter. Brilliant!

Besides loving Alex and Jasper, I also wanted to get to know Uncle Henry, whose ideas on learning were all I needed to know to want to hang out with him forever. I also really liked Gerty, who Alex meets when she’s searching for her missing friend.

I adored the way time travel is explored in this book. There were a couple of time travel related head-scratchers, though. The Laws of Time all made sense to me but I had trouble believing, based on my extensive time travel experience with Marty McFly, that a Time Tourist hadn’t inadvertently rewritten history by now. Although, if Timeless is to be taken as time travel gospel, then maybe only the people personally involved in the rewrite would remember how things used to play out.

The time travel quandary that remains for me is why the bazillion Time Tourists who not so secretly spied on Alex as she was growing up didn’t immediately recognise her in the future. Sure, it’s not like she was expected to show up there unannounced and oftentimes we don’t recognise the obvious right before our very eyes when we don’t expect them to be there, but … someone should have been pointing at her and whispering to the person next to them, ‘Hey, look! Doesn’t that girl look like Alex when she was young?’

I figured out fairly early on who future Alex was going to be and why she became famous. If kid me had read this book, though, it would have been your job to pick me up off the floor once I’d made it to the reveal.

Although the time travel is absolutely wonderful and it made me want to do it even more, my take away from this book is going to be the friendship between Alex and Jasper. It made me feel all warm and squishy inside. In a good way.

‘Never underestimate the power of a best friend. A friend who loves you for who you are, who believes in the person you will become even when you don’t. Who believes you are stronger, smarter, better than you believe yourself to be. A friend who can put you in your place when you need it. More than talent, more than success, friendship is what matters most.’

Book in a book: Jasper gives Alex a copy of The Secret Garden, one of the many reasons I loved him.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

Once Upon a Blurb

On the day Alex was born, crowds surrounded the hospital. On her first day of school, people spied from the gates. And recently, strangers came to watch her perform in her school play … as the llama.

But why? Alex has always been a nobody.

Then a mysterious boy named Jasper starts at school and he alone seems to know the answer. But before he can tell Alex, he disappears … into the future. Can Alex brave traveling into the future to discover what’s happened to him and to unravel the secret of her own astonishing destiny … before time runs out?

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Faithless – Hunter Shea

Father Raul Figeuroa, an Episcopalian priest, had it all. Bella, his loving wife. Abel, his son. Lizzy, his daughter. A happy life. Until his family are brutally murdered.

“It’s better you don’t go in there.”

Raul’s faith dies with his family. He gives up the priesthood, planning to live out his days in seclusion on his aunt’s farm. His only company will be the alcohol and pills which, if he does it right, will reunite him with his family soon.

Except Raul’s not alone on the farm.

This was a different book than what I was expecting. Hunter Shea has made an urban legend come to life. He’s shown me what New York rats are capable of. He’s even given me a final girl to hang out with. I thought I knew where this book was going. I was so wrong.

Prayers would not be answered here.

Much of this book highlights the way grief haunts you and some of the ways we self destruct in our attempts to numb pain, but because it’s a Hunter Shea book there’s more to the story than that.

I loved Raul’s childhood friend, Felix, and was ready to adopt Bruiser, the Maine Coon that scratched its way into my heart. I really enjoyed getting to know Raul and Felix and following them down some pretty dark paths.

I didn’t completely buy into the explanation for what was really going on and the ending raised some theological question marks in my brain but I was still hooked for the entire ride.

I can’t wait to find out what will be causing the bloodshed in the author’s next book.

It was time to poke around the dark places.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Flame Tree Press for the opportunity to read this book.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Once Upon a Blurb

How do you survive hearing your family being brutally murdered over the phone? For Father Raul Figeuroa, all faith and hope are lost. Turning away from the priesthood behind, he retreats to his aunt’s empty farmhouse in upstate New York, hoping to drink himself to oblivion. But he’s not alone in the house. Something is trying to reach out to him. Or is he losing his grip on reality? When his childhood friend Felix comes to visit, things take a darker turn. The deeper they dig into the mystery, the closer they get to hell literally breaking loose. 

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Me Mam. Me Dad. Me. – Malcolm Duffy

It’s always been just Danny and his Mam, Kim. When Kim begins dating Callum, everything seems fine. Callum’s nice to Danny and Kim. But things quickly change. Soon, Callum begins hitting Danny’s Mam, as well as verbally and emotionally abusing her.

Never quite knew what would come out of his mouth. Or what he’d do next.

Danny discovers that what’s happening is called domestic violence and when he reads about it online he becomes scared that Callum will eventually kill his Mam. Danny doesn’t know what to do so he asks his friends what they’d do if someone was hitting their Mam. Almost all of them say they’d tell their Dad, who’d sort it out.

Danny has never met his Dad and doesn’t know anything about him, not even his name. He’s determined to find him, though. Danny will do anything to try to protect his Mam.

Danny speaks Geordie. It didn’t take me as long as I expected it would to get used to his voice, although there are some words he used that I still don’t know the meaning of. Danny is thirteen at the beginning of this book and fifteen at the end. A lot of the time it felt like he was younger.

This book tackles a difficult topic but, for the most part, it was done well. Danny initially doesn’t have words to describe what’s happening at home but once he does he learns about domestic violence. The helplessness of a child in that situation was explored well, with Danny desperate to help his Mam but at the same time he’s powerless to intervene.

I didn’t really buy the resolution of this story. There were a number of scenarios I would have found more likely than what actually happened but it wasn’t outside the realm of possibility.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Zephyr, an imprint of Head of Zeus, for the opportunity to read this book.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Once Upon a Blurb

Humorous and heartbreaking debut novel with the fresh, funny, honest voice of a 14-year-old Geordie lad recounting the trials and tribulations of family life and finding first love. 

Danny’s mam has a new boyfriend. Initially, all is good – Callum seems nice enough, and Danny can’t deny he’s got a cool set up; big house, fast car, massive TV, and Mam seems to really like him. 

But cracks begin to show, and they’re not the sort that can be easily repaired. As Danny witnesses Mam suffer and Callum spiral out of control he goes in search of his dad. 

The Dad he’s never met. 

Set in Newcastle and Edinburgh, this supremely readable coming-of-age drama tackles domestic violence head on, but finds humour and hope in the most unlikely of­ places. 

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The Ugly Stepsister #1: The Ugly Stepsister Strikes Back – Sariah Wilson

Spoilers Ahead! (marked in purple)

You probably know me well enough by now to realise that while I’m more than happy to wander between genres, I’m a romantiphobe. The only books that I voluntarily sign up for knowing upfront that they will involve kissing are by Chris Cannon, who sucked me in with talk of bookstores and food and a liberal sprinkling of banter, and Melissa McShane, who upped the ante by giving me a magical bookstore!

So, how did this book wind up on my TBR pile? Your guess is as good as mine. It probably had something to do with the fact that this story is told from the perspective of the ugly stepsister, and you know how much I love a good underdog story.

“So come here, Cinderella. You need to see this.”

“I think you’re confused as to which one of us is which girl in that story.”

Mattie’s stepsister, Ella, is practically perfect in every way. She’s gorgeous, kind and loved by everyone. She’s a cheerleader, she volunteers, she fundraises and she is happy to clean their home, even though they’re super rich and have staff employed to do that for them. Mattie’s father is so rich their home comes with its own part of the beach!

Mattie, despite being everything that Ella is not, can’t hate her. Ella is too adorable to hate. Although, the fact that she’s dating the boy Mattie has been in love with for half of her life isn’t exactly helping.

I went from raging mad to helplessly in love to totally confused to completely embarrassed in the space of a few seconds when I was with him.

This was a light read but I enjoyed it much more than I expected I would. Sure, the requisite romance novel eye rolls were there, my favourite of which happened when Mattie did the whole superhero thing. She changed her clothes and donned a mask and hey, presto! She was unrecognisable to the boy she’d been spending so much time with. He didn’t even recognise her voice.

Despite this, I liked the main characters. Mattie was a good underdog, even though she needed some self esteem. Ella was loveable, even though she was too perfect. Jake, who was almost too perfect himself, had vulnerabilities that endeared him to me. Though, I did want to punch him every time he thought of Mattie’s best friend as a “poor man’s Jon Snow”, “wannabe Edward Scissorhands” or “Guyliner”.

I wanted to get to know Trent, said best friend, better because he was sidelined for most of the book. I also wanted Mercedes Bentley to have more page time. Surely a girl who is not embarrassed to be named after two cars is worth getting to know. Come to think of it, maybe she is mortified by her name and that’s the reason she feels called to be a mean girl.

There’s drama and what ifs and that really irritating lack of communication that I’ve come to expect from my limited experience reading romance novels. If the lovey dovey teenagers actually communicated, their story could be all about the HEA by chapter two.

I’ve got to give Jake credit for summing up the plot of pretty much any romance story for me (change the pronouns where appropriate):

“He likes her. She likes him. They find out.”

Now, this is probably going to be the most unexpected thing you’ll hear me say in the near future: I’m planning on reading the sequel.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Kindle Press for the opportunity to read this book.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Once Upon a Blurb

Everyone knows how those fairy tales go. The princess gets beautiful, nabs her prince and leaves her evil stepsisters in the dust.

But what happens when you’re the ugly stepsister and your obnoxiously perfect – pretty, smart, and, worst of all, nice – stepsister is dating the charming, devastatingly handsome guy you’ve had a thing for since you were nine?

Quirky, artistic and snarky Mattie Lowe does not lead a charmed life. Her mother is constantly belittling her online. The school mean girl has made it her mission to torment Mattie. But worst of all? Her stepsister is the most popular girl in school and is dating Mattie’s secret crush, Jake Kingston.

Tired of being left out and done with waiting for her own fairy godmother to show up, Mattie decides to change her life. She’ll start by running for senior class president against Jake.

Ella can keep her Prince Annoying. Mattie’s going to rule the school.

And no one, not even a cute and suddenly flirty Jake, is going to stop her.

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The Right Amount of Panic – F. Vera-Gray

I’ve never thought that much about the amount of time and energy I’ve spent trying to keep myself safe, and that lies at the heart of this book. As women, we grow up internalising the messages we are given about how to be a ‘good girl’, what it means to be a girl and what our place is in the world. Along the way, we make adjustments to how we look, behave and take up space.

We make sure our friends text us when they get home so we know they’re safe. We don’t walk alone on certain streets at night. We are hyperaware of who might be following us. We get our keys out early and hold them as though they are weapons. We do these and so many other things that this book calls ‘safety work’ to try to prevent sexual violence and we’ve done it for so long that we don’t even really think about it anymore.

Safety work refers to the range of modifications, adaptations, decisions that women take often habitually in order to maintain a sense of safety in public spaces.

We know we’re in a Catch-22: if we are successful in our safety work and nothing happens then we’re seen to be overreacting and paranoid but if we are victimised then we’re blamed for not doing enough to protect ourselves. It seems there’s no right amount of panic, hence the title of this book.

We are scared because we’ve been made responsible for preventing rape at the same time as being told it’s inevitable.

The author examines the choices and changes we make to “maintain a sense of safety in public space”, categorised as actions relating to moving, clothing and being. As well as drawing on previous research, they conducted their own study.

Fifty women in the United Kingdom of different ages and backgrounds participated, speaking to the author about their experiences of men in public. They then recorded what they experienced from unknown men over a two week to two month period before meeting with the author again to reflect on the “work of being a woman in public”. Much of the book consists of quotes from these interviews.

I found this book interesting, albeit quite repetitive. Some potential solutions are offered.

Although the author addresses stereotypes related to gender, race, class, age and disability, I noted that the majority of the women included in her study were white (43), heterosexual (37) women.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Policy Press for the opportunity to read this book.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Once Upon a Blurb

Have you ever thought about how much energy goes into avoiding sexual violence? The work that goes into feeling safe goes largely unnoticed by the women doing it and by the wider world, and yet women and girls are the first to be blamed the inevitable times when it fails. We need to change the story on rape prevention and ‘well-meaning’ safety advice, because this makes it harder for women and girls to speak out, and hides the amount of work they are already doing trying to decipher ‘the right amount of panic’. With real-life accounts of women’s experiences, and based on the author’s original research on the impact of sexual harassment in public, this book challenges victim-blaming and highlights the need to show women as capable, powerful and skilful in their everyday resistance to harassment and sexual violence.

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The Haunted Heart of America – Logan Corelli

Between you and I, I thought Peter Venkman was telling a furphy when he said he had a PhD in parapsychology, but that’s the exact qualification the author has. I knew from watching American TV growing up that American colleges and universities have much more interesting subjects than we do in Australia, but parapsychology? I definitely would have studied at least one subject in that field if it had been on offer.

So, besides his PhD in parapsychology, the author has a doctorate in metaphysics and is also an ordained reverend (yes, his bio confirms he’s performed exorcisms, although there are none in this book).

This books provides some basic historical background for some well known American haunted locations, including Waverly Hills Sanitarium and the Myrtle Plantation. Then the author gives their impressions of each time they’ve investigated them.

If you were to ask me if I’m a Mulder or Scully, I’d tell you I’m both. I want to believe but I also want the science to back it up. Considering that to label something paranormal means that current scientific knowledge doesn’t have an answer for it, I’m fully aware that I want to have my cake and eat it too, but I’m okay with that.

Without fail, I wanted to scream, ‘Have you not studied Horror 101?’ every time the group of investigators decided to split up. I also may have groaned each time someone got an impression, a “feeling of unease” or “a strange sensation”.

I got a playful, innocent feeling at times and a scared, threatened feeling at others.

Vibes weren’t exactly the kind of evidence I was looking for.

Speaking of evidence, there were some times the author said they recorded voices and said what they heard. At other times, though, it was claimed they recorded … something, but never specified what. Then there were the times someone heard a voice but no one else did, or someone heard a voice but it wasn’t picked up by the recorder. I would have loved to have been given a link so I could listen to these recordings myself.

There were some photographs included in the book that were said to be showing a ghostly face or other spooky occurrences. The quality of the photos in the copy of the book I read weren’t good enough for me to decide one way or the other. The photo I most wanted to see but was not included was the one that showed a disembodied eye.

I never felt like I knew anything significant about any of the other investigators. Most were only introduced by name, although some of the early introductions included a brief description. We had an “experienced and innovative” investigator and a “mysterious” one, but “talented” Michelle was also “the most beautiful investigator I had met at the time”. I didn’t know whether to be offended on Michelle’s behalf for having a label attached to her that had nothing to do with her skills. I also wondered, yet at the same time didn’t care, who now holds the title of most beautiful as it’s implied Michelle has been demoted.

I did appreciate that the author was willing to say that at times nothing happened or, if something did happen, there was no way to prove that it was supernatural. The writing style, though, was very dry. There was a lot of ‘this happened, then this happened, then this happened and then we went to bed’. The emotion that you’d expect to accompany occurrences like feeling someone was tugging on your shirt or voices coming from nowhere weren’t evident in the writing.

It was frustrating when the author said they saw or heard something significant but they didn’t have any equipment with them to record it, or when they witnessed something while in a group but decided for whatever reason not to mention it to anyone at the time.

If it was me, I’d be asking everyone around me if they saw or heard it too. I’d want the confirmation that I wasn’t hallucinating. I’d also want someone to freak out with. Believe me, if I ever witness something supernatural, no one will be able to accuse me of being casual about the experience.

Because everything was written in such a matter of fact way, it was difficult to become invested in each suspected haunting. At no time was I caught up in the atmosphere, so I was comfortable reading late at night in the dark. I never felt the need to look over my shoulder or turn the lights on.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Llewellyn Publications for the opportunity to read this book.

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Once Upon a Blurb

An ironing board jumps off the wall and flies straight toward an investigator’s head at the famous Villisca Axe Murder House. Shadow figures rise out of the ground and run between the gravestones of a haunted cemetery. The mischievous spirit of a deceased child pulls the blankets off an investigator, humming a song from the other side the whole time.

Featuring investigations of famous paranormal hotspots like Waverly Hills, Myrtles Plantation, and The St. James Hotel – as well as many lesser-known though equally fascinating locations – this riveting book details years of creepy stories, hair-raising experiences, and intriguing physical evidence from one of the heartland’s most experienced investigators.

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