The weirdest thing happened last week. No new books found their way into my life. I can’t remember the last time that happened. Sure, I have more than enough books to last me for decades already but I always find excuses to adopt more. So there was no need for a book haul post last week. Happily I’ve made some new bookish friends this week.
Word of the Week: nascent, “(especially of a process or organization) just coming into existence and beginning to display signs of future potential.” (from lexico.com)
Bookish Highlight: Book mail! The Perfect World of Miwako Sumida arrived yesterday and I’m loving it! I found a Maya Angelou quote today that seems appropriate given what I have read so far.
Now those closest to her try to piece together the fragments of her life. Ryusei, who has always loved her, follows Miwako’s trail to a remote Japanese village. Chie, Miwako’s best friend, was the only person to know her true identity – but is now the time to reveal it? Meanwhile, Fumi, Ryusei’s sister, is harbouring her own haunting secret.
Together, they realise that the young woman they thought they knew had more going on behind her seemingly perfect façade than they could ever have dreamed.
Kindle Black Hole of Good Intentions
Ren Ishida is nearly finished with graduate school when he receives news of his sister Keiko’s sudden death. She was viciously stabbed one rainy night on her way home, and there are no leads. Ren heads to Akakawa to conclude his sister’s affairs, still failing to understand why she chose to abandon the family and Tokyo for this desolate town years ago.
But Ren soon finds himself picking up where Keiko left off, accepting both her teaching position at a local cram school and the bizarre arrangement of free lodging at a wealthy politician’s mansion in exchange for reading to the man’s catatonic wife.
As he comes to know the figures in Akakawa, from the enigmatic politician to his fellow teachers and a rebellious, alluring student named Rio, Ren delves into his shared childhood with Keiko and what followed, trying to piece together what happened the night of her death. Haunted in his dreams by a young girl who is desperately trying to tell him something, Ren struggles to find solace in the void his sister has left behind.
NetGalley
Illumen Hall is an elite boarding school. Tragedy strikes when the body of a student is discovered at their exclusive summer party – on her back is an elaborate tattoo of a magpie.
When new girl Audrey arrives the following term, running from her own secrets back home in America, she is thrown into solving the case. Despite her best efforts to avoid any drama, her new roommate Ivy was close to the murdered girl, and the two of them can’t help but get pulled in.
The two can’t stand each other, but as they are drawn deeper into the mystery of this strange and terrible murder, they will discover that something dangerous is at the heart of their superficially perfect school.
Welcome to The Magpie Society.
Like any student about to start university, Laurie Katz was excited to see what the year would bring. Little did she know that just three weeks into her first term, her life would come crashing down around her. What had started as a fun night out with friends ended with Laurie, alone with a terrible secret: she had been raped.
Traumatized and confused, she set out to get justice against her attacker. But when the authorities at her university dismissed her case, and warned her that she could be expelled, she was left unsure where to turn. It seemed as though things couldn’t get worse, then her attacker filed his own case.
Laurie’s story is a brave and honest reminder of the injustice still felt in society around sexual abuse. Laurie offers readers her advice, and provides them with the hope that they too can overcome a similar trauma.
Book mail!! A book I won in a giveaway arrived this week. I also had a book nerd dream come true this morning. I received a message from a publisher saying they wanted to send a book that’s on my TBR pile to me and asked if I wanted it. Um, is that a trick question? Of course I want more book mail! Woohoo!
The raven I met last week has gotten a lot braver and has brought a friend to meet me. The first two baby noisy miners of the season have also visited. I can’t believe how brave these birds are. Within 24 hours of them seeing me for the first time they were coming into the front yard with the adults. One of them has even come within six feet of me.
I’m not sure how much reading I’m going to get done in the next two weeks. I order heaps of stuff from my local library. The only problem is that the DVD’s always seem to arrive all at once. Tomorrow I need to collect 11 movies and 8 seasons of various TV series. DVD’s only get a two week loan at my library, which is not usually a problem. This time? It’s going to be a marathon!
Quote I’m loving at the moment: “She overcame everything that was meant to destroy her.”
Word of the Week: frisson, “a sudden feeling of excitement or fear, especially when you think that something is about to happen” (from Cambridge Dictionary)
Bookish Highlight of the Week: Just like last week, this week’s bookish highlight was Alix E. Harrow’s The Once and Future Witches. I finished reading it a couple of days ago and can now say with absolute certainty that it’s my favourite book of 2020. I may love other books before the end of the year (and hope I love them all) but I can’t imagine loving anything more than I love the three Eastwood sisters.
I wake up, and for a few precious seconds I don’t realise there’s anything wrong.
The rumble of tyres on bitumen, and the hiss of air conditioning. The murmur of voices. The smell of air freshener. The cool vibration of glass against my forehead.
A girl wakes up on a self-driving bus. She has no memory of how she got there or who she is. Her nametag reads CECILY. The six other people on the bus are just like her: no memories, only nametags. There’s a screen on each seatback that gives them instructions. A series of tests begin, with simulations projected onto the front window of the bus. The passengers must each choose an outcome; majority wins. But as the testing progresses, deadly secrets are revealed, and the stakes get higher and higher. Soon Cecily is no longer just fighting for her freedom – she’s fighting for her life.
Kindle Black Hole of Good Intentions
The secrets lurking in a rundown roadside motel ensnare a young woman, just as they did her aunt thirty-five years before, in this new atmospheric suspense novel from the national bestselling and award-winning author of The Broken Girls.
Upstate NY, 1982. Every small town like Fell, New York, has a place like the Sun Down Motel. Some customers are from out of town, passing through on their way to someplace better. Some are locals, trying to hide their secrets. Viv Delaney works as the night clerk to pay for her move to New York City. But something isn’t right at the Sun Down, and before long she’s determined to uncover all of the secrets hidden …
Randall Woodfield had it all. He was an award-winning student and star athlete. He was drafted for pro football by the Green Bay Packers, and chosen by Playgirl as a centerfold candidate. Working in the swinging West Coast bar scene, he had his pick of willing sexual prospects.
But Randall Woodfield wanted more than just sex. An appetite for unspeakable violent acts led him to cruise the I-5 highway through California, Oregon, and Washington, leaving a trail of victims along the way. As the list of his victims grew to a total of at least 44, the police faced the awesome challenge of catching and convicting a suspect who seemed to handsome and appealing to have committed such ugly crimes – crimes that filled every woman within his striking range with feat and horror …
In the sequel to the New York Times best-selling novel Hope Never Dies, Obama and Biden reprise their roles as BFFs-turned-detectives as they chase Obama’s stolen cell phone through the streets of Chicago – and right into a vast conspiracy.
Following a long but successful book tour, Joe Biden has one more stop before he can return home: Chicago. His old pal Barack Obama has invited him to meet a wealthy benefactor whose endorsement could turn the tide for Joe if he decides to run for president.
The two friends barely have time to catch up before another mystery lands in their laps: Obama’s prized Blackberry is stolen. When their number-one suspect winds up full of lead on the South Side, the police are content to write it off as just another gangland shooting. But Joe and Obama smell a rat …
Set against the backdrop of a raucous city on St. Patrick’s Day, Joe and Obama race to find the shooter, only to uncover a vast conspiracy that goes deeper than the waters of Lake Michigan – which is exactly where they’ll spend the rest of their retirement if they’re not careful.
I finally finished the report I was working on for the past couple of weeks so I was able to begin my reward book yesterday! It’s my Bookish Highlight of the Week. Knowing I had something I was really looking forward to waiting for me at the end of an emotionally intensive experience was much more helpful than I anticipated. I have another icky report to work on during the next couple of weeks. Because it worked so well the first time I’m going to motivate myself with a bookish reward again. I just need to decide what it’s going to be.
I saw about half a dozen whales when I went to the beach last weekend. They were really close to the shore so it was easy to see them. I looked again today when I went for a walk but it was quite windy so there were too many white horses to spot any whales.
This morning I glanced across the road and saw a duck and six teensy ducklings. They all wandered down a driveway before deciding that wasn’t where they wanted to go. After walking back up the driveway they went down the next driveway instead. I’m not sure if they were heading for the swimming pool in the back yard or the bushland behind the home. I’m definitely going to be keeping an eye out for them. They were so adorable!
We’ve also had a new visitor to our front yard this week – a raven. It’s quite timid but is gradually coming closer to me and getting used to me talking to it. I took this photo of a raven in our back yard a couple of years ago so it’s probably not the same one. Hopefully I’ll get close enough for a photo of my new feathered friend soon.
Word of the Week: grit – “courage and determination despite difficulty” (from Cambridge Dictionary)
Adam is a pretty regular teen, except he’s navigating high school life while living with paranoid schizophrenia. His hallucinations include a cast of characters that range from the good (beautiful Rebecca) to the bad (angry Mob Boss) to the just plain weird (polite naked guy). An experimental drug promises to help him hide his illness from the world. When Adam meets Maya, a fiercely intelligent girl, he desperately wants to be the normal, great guy that she thinks he is. But as the miracle drug begins to fail, how long can he keep this secret from the girl of his dreams?
Ox was twelve when his daddy taught him a very valuable lesson. He said that Ox wasn’t worth anything and people would never understand him. Then he left.
Ox was sixteen when he met the boy on the road. The little boy who talked and talked and talked. Ox found out later the little boy hadn’t spoken in almost two years before that day, and that the little boy belonged to a family who had moved into the house at the end of the lane.
Ox was seventeen when he found out the little boy’s secret and it painted the world around him in colors of red and orange and violet, of Alpha and Beta and Omega.
Ox was twenty-three when murder came to town and tore a hole in his head and heart. The boy chased after the monster with revenge in his bloodred eyes, leaving Ox behind to pick up the pieces.
It’s been three years since that fateful day – and the boy is back. Except now he’s a man, and Ox can no longer ignore the song that howls between them.
NetGalley
Mila is used to being alone. Maybe that’s why she said yes to the opportunity: living in this remote place, among the flowers and the fog and the crash of waves far below.
But she hadn’t known about the ghosts.
Newly graduated from high school, Mila has aged out of the foster care system. So when she’s offered a job and a place to stay at a farm on an isolated part of the Northern California Coast, she immediately accepts. Maybe she will finally find a new home, a real home. The farm is a refuge, but also haunted by the past traumas its young residents have come to escape. And Mila’s own terrible memories are starting to rise to the surface.
The Phantom of the Opera, the iconic gothic romance, is retold with all the spectacle its legend demands in this devoted graphic novel adaptation that marries stunning artwork with Gaston Leroux’s haunting prose.
Everyone has heard the whispered tales of the phantom who lives beneath the opera house, the mysterious trickster behind all the little mishaps and lost things. But no one has ever seen the monster … until now. When the promise of blossoming love lures him out from his intricately constructed hideaways in the labyrinthine building’s walls and cellars, a hideously disfigured artist trains the lovely Christine to be the opera’s next star for a steep price. Does she choose her newfound success or her beloved Count Raoul? This doomed love triangle threatens to combust when a tragic death, a series of betrayals, and increasingly dangerous accidents cast the players of The Palais Garnier into a heart-wrenching horror story that will echo through the ages.
Okay, so I accidentally bought a bunch of Kindle books this week. I’m still working on the reports I was writing last week so I’ve decided that book bingeing is an entirely legitimate stress response and not a problem at all.
I’ve had a couple of beach walks this week and managed to spot some whale blows yesterday. Saying ‘whale blows’ sounds so weird but I looked it up and found out that’s what it’s called when you see puffs of smoke-like water. Blows are fountains of water spouting from a whale’s blowhole each time it breathes. I thought all of the whales were still up north with their babies. Maybe this one is a loner.
We’re three days into the bushfire season here in Australia. The first fire of the season near me that wasn’t a hazard reduction burn happened five days ago. I really hope Australia doesn’t go up in flames like it did last summer. That was the worst bushfire season I’ve ever known.
We were lucky last summer. The nearest fire to us was about half an hour away but the air was still thick with smoke and each time I ventured outside I’d see ash falling around me. Fingers crossed for a better season this year.
Word of the Week: Expergefactor. “Something that wakes you up” (from lifehack.org). The expergefactor in my life right now is the neighbour two doors down. They got a pool a few weeks ago and now they’ve got tradies doing landscaping around it that apparently requires the constant use of hammers. It starts at an ungodly hour. Every weekday. Can’t wait for them to be done!
Bookish Highlight of the Week: I won a copy of Lili Wilkinson’s The Erasure Initiative on Twitter today! Book mail coming soon! I love book mail!
First, the electricity goes – plunging the east coast in darkness after a devastating nuclear attack. Millions panic. Millions die. They are the lucky ones.
AFTER SHOCK …
Next, the chemical weapons take effect – killing or contaminating everything alive. Except a handful of survivors in a bomb shelter. They are the damned.
HELL IS FOR HUMANS
Then, the real nightmare begins. Hordes of rats force two terrified families out of their shelter – and into the savage streets of an apocalytic wasteland. They are not alone. Vicious, chemical-crazed animals hunt in packs. Dogs tear flesh, cats draw blood, horses crush bone. Roaming gangs of the sick and dying are barely recognisable as human. These are the times that try men’s souls. These are the tortures that tear families apart. This is hell on earth. The rules are simple: Kill or die.
Fact: During the night of February 1, 1959, in the remote reaches of Siberia, nine Russian hikers slash open their tent from the inside and flee into a blizzard in subpolar temperatures.
Fact: By morning all are dead, several having suffered gruesome, violent deaths. What happened to them has baffled investigators and researchers to this day.
It has become known as the Dyatlov Pass Incident.
Now, an American true-crime writer seeking answers to the enduring mystery sets out to retrace the hikers steps on their fateful expedition. However, nothing can prepare him for what he is about to discover …
You, dear reader, continue at your own risk. It is not for the faint of heart – no more so than the study of dragons itself. But such study offers rewards beyond compare: to stand in a dragon’s presence, even for the briefest of moments – even at the risk of one’s life – is a delight that, once experienced, can never be forgotten …
All the world, from Scirland to the farthest reaches of Eriga, know Isabella, Lady Trent, to be the world’s preeminent dragon naturalist. She is the remarkable woman who brought the study of dragons out of the misty shadows of myth and misunderstanding into the clear light of modern science. But before she became the illustrious figure we know today, there was a bookish young woman whose passion for learning, natural history, and, yes, dragons defied the stifling conventions of her day.
Here at last, in her own words, is the true story of a pioneering spirit who risked her reputation, her prospects, and her fragile flesh and bone to satisfy her scientific curiosity; of how she sought true love and happiness despite her lamentable eccentricities; and of her thrilling expedition to the perilous mountains of Vystrana, where she made the first of many historic discoveries that would change the world forever.
Attentive readers of Lady Trent’s earlier memoir, A Natural History of Dragons, are already familiar with how a bookish and determined young woman named Isabella first set out on the historic course that would one day lead her to becoming the world’s premier dragon naturalist. Now, in this remarkably candid second volume, Lady Trent looks back at the next stage of her illustrious (and occasionally scandalous) career.
Three years after her fateful journeys through the forbidding mountains of Vystrana, Mrs. Camherst defies family and convention to embark on an expedition to the war-torn continent of Eriga, home of such exotic draconian species as the grass-dwelling snakes of the savannah, arboreal tree snakes, and, most elusive of all, the legendary swamp-wyrms of the tropics.
The expedition is not an easy one. Accompanied by both an old associate and a runaway heiress, Isabella must brave oppressive heat, merciless fevers, palace intrigues, gossip, and other hazards in order to satisfy her boundless fascination with all things draconian, even if it means venturing deep into the forbidden jungle known as the Green Hell … where her courage, resourcefulness, and scientific curiosity will be tested as never before.
Devoted readers of Lady Trent’s earlier memoirs, A Natural History of Dragons and The Tropic of Serpents, may believe themselves already acquainted with the particulars of her historic voyage aboard the Royal Survey Ship Basilisk, but the true story of that illuminating, harrowing, and scandalous journey has never been revealed – until now. Six years after her perilous exploits in Eriga, Isabella embarks on her most ambitious expedition yet: a two-year trip around the world to study all manner of dragons in every place they might be found. From feathered serpents sunning themselves in the ruins of a fallen civilisation to the mighty sea serpents of the tropics, these creatures are a source of both endless fascination and frequent peril. Accompanying her is not only her young son, Jake, but a chivalrous foreign archaeologist whose interests converge with Isabella’s in ways both professional and personal.
Science is, of course, the primary objective of the voyage, but Isabella’s life is rarely so simple. She must cope with storms, shipwrecks, intrigue, and warfare, even as she makes a discovery that offers a revolutionary new insight into the ancient history of dragons.
Even those who take no interest in the field of dragon naturalism have heard of Lady Trent’s expedition to the inhospitable deserts of Akhia. Her discoveries there are the stuff of romantic legend, catapulting her from scholarly obscurity to worldwide fame. The details of her personal life during that time are hardly less private, having provided fodder for gossips in several countries.
As is so often the case in the career of this illustrious woman, the public story is far from complete. In this, the fourth volume of her memoirs, Lady Trent relates how she acquired her position with the Royal Scirling Army; how foreign saboteurs imperiled both her work and her well-being; and how her determined pursuit of knowledge took her into the deepest reaches of the Labyrinth of Drakes, where the chance action of a dragon set the stage for her greatest achievement yet.
Join Sophie, Agatha, Tedros, and the other students as they begin a new era in the Endless Woods – The Camelot Years – where Evers and Nevers alike must move beyond the bounds of school and into the biggest, boldest adventures of their lives.
The students at the School for Good and Evil thought they had found their final Ever After when they vanquished the malevolent School Master. Now, on their required fourth-year quests, the students face obstacles both dangerous and unpredictable, and the stakes are high: success brings eternal adoration, and failure means obscurity forever.
For their quests, Agatha and Tedros are trying to return Camelot to its former splendor as queen and king. For her quest, Dean Sophie seeks to mold Evil in her own image. But soon they all feel themselves growing more isolated and alone. When their classmates’ quests plunge into chaos, however, someone must lead the charge to save them …
In this fifth instalment in Soman Chainani’s New York Times bestselling fantasy series, The School for Good and Evil, Sophie, Agatha, and their friends must find a way to overthrow the sinister evil that twists lies into the truth and seeks to rewrite their story.
A false king has claimed the throne of Camelot, sentenced Tedros to death, and forced Sophie to be his queen. Only Agatha manages to escape.
Now Agatha and the students at the School for Good and Evil must find a way to restore Tedros to his throne and save Camelot … before all of their fairy tales come to a lethal end.
Beyond Good and Evil. Beyond Ever Afters.
The fairy tale of Sophie and Agatha comes to a dramatic conclusion in this sixth and final book of Soman Chainani’s New York Times bestselling fantasy series.
Who will sit on Camelot’s throne and rule the Endless Woods? Who will be the One True King? Prepare yourself for the End of Ends …
The race is on to uncover the identity of a murderer with nothing to lose – and everything to kill for. When Robbie Bishop, star midfielder for the Bradfield Vics, is poisoned by a rare and deadly toxin, profiler Dr Tony Hill and trusted colleague DCI Carol Jordan have their work cut out for them. Robbie was adored, so the public want answers – but the answers aren’t coming, and trails are running cold. Then a bomb explodes in the football stadium, causing massive casualties – and another man dies from poisoning. Is there a link between the cases? And what are the motives for these crimes? The clock is ticking for Tony and Carol – and the death toll keeps rising …
Starship Captain Ed Carew leads a carefree life of smuggling, gun-running and other illicit pursuits in a far future ruled by the fascistic Expansion Authority. But when an Expansion judiciary ship captures Carew leaving the planet of Hesperides, an out-of-bounds world now governed by the fearsome Vetch extraterrestrials, Carew and his crew are sentenced to death …
Unless they agree to travel through Vetch territory in pursuit of a human vessel that set off for the Devil’s Nebula one hundred years ago. Why are the Expansion authorities so eager to track down the ship? Will Carew and co. survive the journey through Vetch territory? And what might they find when they arrive at the Devil’s Nebula?
Aristotle is an angry teen with a brother in prison. Dante is a know-it-all who has an unusual way of looking at the world. When the two meet at the swimming pool, they seem to have nothing in common. But as the loners start spending time together, they discover that they share a special friendship – the kind that changes lives and lasts a lifetime. And it is through this friendship that Ari and Dante will learn the most important truths about themselves and the kind of people they want to be.
Dave, John and Amy recount what seems like a fairly straightforward tale of a shape-shifting creature from another dimension that is stealing children and brainwashing their parents, but it eventually becomes clear that someone is lying, and that someone is the narrators.
The novel you’re reading is a cover-up, and the “true” story reveals itself in the cracks of their hilariously convoluted, and sometimes contradictory, narrative.
Nightmarish villains with superhuman enhancements.
An all-seeing social network that tracks your every move.
Mysterious, smooth-talking power players who lurk behind the scenes.
A young woman from the trailer park. And her very smelly cat.
Together, they will decide the future of mankind.
Get ready for a world in which anyone can have the powers of a god or the fame of a pop star, in which human achievement soars to new heights while its depravity plunges to the blackest depths. A world in which at least one cat smells like a seafood shop’s dumpster on a hot summer day.
This is the world in which Zoey Ashe finds herself, navigating a futuristic city in which one can find elements of the fantastic, nightmarish and ridiculous on any street corner. Her only trusted advisor is the aforementioned cat, but even in the future, cats cannot give advice. At least not any that you’d want to follow.
Will Zoey figure it all out in time? Or maybe the better question is, will you? After all, the future is coming sooner than you think.
NetGalley
Della can’t work out why her adored older sister Suki screams in her sleep. Suki has always been Della’s protector, especially after their mother went to prison and her boyfriend took the sisters in. But who has been protecting Suki?
Della is in trouble at school for having a big mouth, but after she stands up to the class bully other girls rally to her cause. When Suki tries to kill herself, Della decides it’s time to tell their secrets and speak out about the terrible things that happened to Suki. Bound by love and trauma, these two sisters must find their own voices before they can find their way back to each other.
Based on the author’s personal experience, this gripping and essential story explodes the stigma around child sexual abuse. Written from the heart, with tenderness, compassion and humour, Fighting Words is about finding the words to talk about the most difficult things in young adults’ lives.
This week I finished watching the third season of Rosehaven, the sixth season of SVU and the final season of Haven. I’m going to be introducing Mum to Good Girls tomorrow.
I’ve been doing a stack of boring paperwork stuff this week so I’m thinking of making some cinnamon scrolls this weekend as a treat. I’ve been holding off on reading Alix Harrow’s second book, The Once and Future Witches. It’s going to be my reward when I finally finish all of the report writing drudgery.
Word of the Week: oubliette. “A secret dungeon with access only through a trapdoor in its ceiling.” (from lexico.com) Also the name of one of my favourite episodes of The X Files. (I love that show! Must schedule a rewatch!)
Bookish Highlight of the Week: Manga Classics: Anne of Green Gables. I love Anne’s story and she was even more delightful with manga doe eyes. This was also my 700th book review!
Everyone knows the legend of the Jersey Devil. Some believe it is an abomination of nature, a hybrid winged beast from hell that stalks the Pine Barrens of southern New Jersey searching for prey. Others believe it is a hoax, a campfire story designed to scare children. But one man knows the truth …
THE DEVIL AWAKES
Sixty years ago, Boompa Willet came face to face with the Devil – and lived to tell the tale. Now, the creature’s stomping grounds are alive once again with strange sightings, disappearances, and worse. After all these years, Boompa must return to the Barrens, not to prove the legend is real but to wipe it off the face of the earth …
THE BEAST MUST DIE
It’ll take more than just courage to defeat the Devil. It will take four generations of the Willet clan, a lifetime of survivalist training, and all the firepower they can carry. But timing is critical. A summer music festival has attracted crowds of teenagers. The woods are filled with tender young prey. But this time, the Devil is not alone. The evil has grown into an unholy horde of mutant monstrosities. And hell has come home to New Jersey …
“Lengard is a secret government facility for extraordinary people,” they told me.
I believed them. That was my mistake.
There isn’t anyone else in the world like me.
I’m different. I’m an anomaly. I’m a monster.
For two years, six months, fourteen days, eleven hours and sixteen minutes, Subject Six-Eight-Four – ‘Jane Doe’ – has been locked away and experimented on, without uttering a single word.
As Jane’s resolve begins to crack under the influence of her new – and unexpectedly kind – evaluator, she uncovers the truth about Lengard’s mysterious ‘program’, discovering that her own secret is at the heart of a sinister plot … and one wrong move, one wrong word, could change the world.
A killer on the loose. A writer on the run. A town plagued by an ancient evil.
On tour with his latest book, true crime writer Martin Savage discovers one of his most-dangerous subjects has escaped. The so-called “Witch Hunter,” a delusional murderer of women and their unborn children, holds a deadly grudge. He’ll stop at nothing to get his revenge, and destroy everything Martin cares about.
With nowhere to run, Martin and forensic psychologist Sheila Tanner flee to the town he left when he was a boy, after his mother was locked away in a psychiatric facility. A town hidden deep in his past, where no one would think to look for them.
But things are not what they seem in Barrows Bay. The idyllic island holds terrible secrets. An ancient evil lived here long before the first Irish settlers crashed upon its shores in a coffin ship. An evil wearing the innocent faces of elderly midwives who’ve delivered every child in the Bay for two hundred and fifty years.
Martin and Sheila think they’re safe in his childhood home. But Martin’s mother has plans for them. Plans that require sacrifice.
And sacrifice requires blood.
Ever been to Taured before? No? In fact, you’ve never heard of it? Well, neither had the rest of the world when in July of 2020 a European businessman shows up at Tokyo International Airport claiming to not only hail from the non-existent country but produces a legitimate passport.
What follows is a breakneck tale full of mystery, intrigue, and action that will keep you turning pages well past your bedtime.
Welcome to Sunder City. The magic is gone but the monsters remain.
I’m Fetch Phillips, just like it says on the window. There are a few things you should know before you hire me:
1. Sobriety costs extra. 2. My services are confidential. 3. I don’t work for humans.
It’s nothing personal – I’m human myself. But after what happened, to the magic, it’s not the humans who need my help.
NetGalley
Siblings Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert were planning to adopt an orphaned boy to help out around their farm, Green Gables – instead, they got Anne Shirley. A plucky redheaded girl with a vibrant imagination, Anne turns first Green Gables and then the rest of Prince Edward Island on its ear.
Manga Classics® is proud to be the only authorized manga adaption of Anne of Green Gables by the Heirs of L.M. Montgomery, with a foreword by Kate McDonald Butler – granddaughter of the original author!
This volume presents a faithful recreation of this classic kids novel, from the Lake of Shining Waters to the Dryad’s Bubble!
This week I binged the second season of Good Girls. It took a few episodes for me to get back into it but by the end of the season I was hooked. I’m also halfway through the third season of Rosehaven, which is one of the most Australian shows I’ve ever seen. I absolutely love it!
Three ducks decided I was interesting yesterday. I saw them across the park from where I was sitting, so naturally I wandered over for a closer look. I gave them plenty of space so I didn’t scare them but they waddled over to investigate. When I walked back to the car they walked with me. It was so cute! I lost sight of them once I was in the car but heard them quacking so looked out my window. They were standing right next to my door.
I went back to see them again today. This time I took some food for them and am pretty sure I made some new friends. I need to remember to take my good camera with me next time so I can get some decent photos.
It’s been really windy for a couple of days and Mum and I have found a new way to entertain ourselves. We noticed a few weeks ago that the new jetty at the lake moves when there are waves from boats passing by. We figured it would be fun to ride the waves on the jetty while it was windy and now it’s our new favourite thing to do. We’re obviously easily entertained but it’s so much fun giggling and trying to remain upright while the jetty moves beneath our feet.
Word of the Week: inimitable. “So good or unusual as to be impossible to copy; unique.” (from lexico.com)
Bookish Highlight of the Week: The Raven. I wasn’t expecting it to be that good but I loved it. Buckets of blood, mythical creatures and a main character I really liked. I’m crossing my fingers for a sequel.
Dastardly deeds aren’t exactly the first things that come to mind when one hears the name “Clementine”, but as the sole heir of the infamous Dark Lord Elithor, twelve-year-old Clementine Morcerous has been groomed since birth to be the best (worst?) Evil Overlord she can be. But everything changes the day the Dark Lord Elithor is cursed by a mysterious rival.
Now, Clementine must not only search for a way to break the curse, but also take on the full responsibilities of the Dark Lord. As Clementine forms her first friendships, discovers more about her own magic than she ever dared to explore, and is called upon to break her father’s code of good and evil, she starts to question the very life she’s been fighting for. What if the Dark Lord Clementine doesn’t want to be dark after all?
Rooted in foundational loss and the hope that can live in anger, Riot Baby is both a global dystopian narrative an intimate family story with quietly devastating things to say about love, fury, and the black American experience.
Ella and Kev are brother and sister, both gifted with extraordinary power. Their childhoods are defined and destroyed by structural racism and brutality. Their futures might alter the world. When Kev is incarcerated for the crime of being a young black man in America, Ella – through visits both mundane and supernatural – tries to show him the way to a revolution that could burn it all down.
Mythical creatures, inner demons, and fear are a few forms in which monsters present themselves. When confronted by such savage beasts, the vulnerability of humanity is often exposed. Will we rise above, or will we succumb to our inevitable demise?
These sixteen horror stories by Red Lagoe explore the supernatural as well as human horror associated with grief, guilt, severed relationships, and severed limbs.
NetGalley
When my best friend Skyler told me about this party in the Hollywood Hills, I was less than enthused. As it turned out, my feelings were more than justified. That party ruined my life.
Tansy didn’t even want to go to the party. It’s hard enough living in one of your best friend’s shadows and secretly in love with your other best friend.
And now she’s leaving it a vampire.
Now her best friend Skyler is stuck on the road trip from hell, on tour as a groupie with a literal band of vamps. Tansy sets out with Vaughn, her other BFF turned maybe more, to save Skylar’s life and take down the band. But when they find themselves in the middle of a vampire war, will Tansy be able to make the ultimate sacrifice to save her friends?
Where does the story of the Owens family begin? With a baby abandoned in a snowy field in the 1600s. Under the care of Hannah Owens, little Maria learns about the “Unnamed Arts.” Hannah recognises that Maria has a gift and she teaches the girl all she knows.
When Maria is abandoned by the man she loves, she follows him to Salem, Massachusetts. Here she invokes the curse that will haunt her family. And it’s is here that she learns the rules of magic and the lesson that she will carry with her for the rest of her life. Love is the only thing that matters.
I binged a little on books this week. There have been quite a few Kindle books I’ve been drooling over for months but had been waiting for them to go on sale. A bad day early in the week was all it took for me to give in to the urge to let books make it all better. Books make everything better! I did restrain myself a bit, only buying the three most urgent reads on my list. The others were on sale so don’t count. Don’t you just love my book logic?
I also got some book mail – a preorder and one that I won a few weeks ago.
I’ve been watching Looking for Alaska and have been surprised by my lack of connection to the characters. I wish this was Dr. Hyde’s story instead of Alaska’s. I’m one of those people who finds something to cry about in almost every movie or TV series I watch. This series though? Not a hint of a tear. Weird …
Word of the Week: inimitable. “So good or unusual as to be impossible to copy; unique.” (from lexico.com)
Bookish Highlight of the Week: The Midnight Library. It’s been on my radar since pre-COVID so, by my calculations, about 287 years. I’m about a quarter of the way through it and I’m having trouble deciding whether I want to forgo sleep to finish it in one sitting or slow down and savour it.
The fair is in town! Nelson and Kenny want to go on ALL the rides! But after testing Grandma’s new invention, they’re suddenly TOO SMALL to go anywhere!
Luckily, Nelson and Kenny have a plan to get TALLER again … way, WAAAAY TALLER!
A boy awakens in the Afterlife, with a pocketful of vague memories, a key, a raven, and a mysterious Atlas to guide him as he sets out to piece together the mystery of his final moments …
Back on Earth, Twiggy is a street kid with a missing dad. But when he meets Flea, a cheerful pickpocket, the pair become fast friends, better even than blood family itself. Together, Twig and Flea raise themselves on the crime-ridden streets, taking what they need and giving the rest to the even-poorer. Life is good, as long as they have each other. But the all-powerful Boss who rules the streets has other plans.
Loyalty will be tested, and a cruel twist of fate will lead to an act of ultimate betrayal that will tear the friends apart … forever?
Kindle Black Hole of Good Intentions
A magical island. A dangerous task. A burning secret.
Linus Baker leads a quiet, solitary life. At forty, he lives in a tiny house with a devious cat and his old records. As a Case Worker at the Department in Charge Of Magical Youth, he spends his days overseeing the well-being of children in government-sanctioned orphanages.
When Linus is unexpectedly summoned by Extremely Upper Management he’s given a curious and highly classified assignment: travel to Marsyas Island Orphanage, where six dangerous children reside: a gnome, a sprite, a wyvern, an unidentifiable green blob, a were-Pomeranian, and the Antichrist. Linus must set aside his fears and determine whether or not they’re likely to bring about the end of days.
But the children aren’t the only secret the island keeps. Their caretaker is the charming and enigmatic Arthur Parnassus, who will do anything to keep his wards safe. As Arthur and Linus grow closer, long-held secrets are exposed, and Linus must make a choice: destroy a home or watch the world burn.
An enchanting story, masterfully told, The House in the Cerulean Sea is about the profound experience of discovering an unlikely family in an unexpected place – and realising that family is yours.
A decadent rock star. A deeply religious radio host. A disgraced scientist. And a teenage girl who may be the world’s last hope.
Shana wakes up one morning to discover her little sister in the grip of a strange malady. She appears to be sleepwalking. She cannot talk and cannot be woken up. And she is heading with inexorable determination to a destination that only she knows. But Shana and her sister are not alone. Soon they are joined by a flock of sleepwalkers from across America, on the same mysterious journey. And like Shana, there are other “shepherds” who follow the flock to protect their friends and family on the long dark road ahead.
For on their journey, they will discover an America convulsed with terror and violence, where this apocalyptic epidemic proves less dangerous than the fear of it. As the rest of society collapses all around them – and an ultraviolent militia threatens to exterminate them – the fate of the sleepwalkers depends on unravelling the mystery behind the epidemic. The terrifying secret will either tear the nation apart – or bring the survivors together to remake a shattered world.
A powerful debut novel of a refuge in Brooklyn for women in trouble – and the one woman who will risk all to protect them.
In the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighbourhood of Brooklyn stands a century-old row house presided over by renegade, silver-haired Sister Evelyn. Gruff and indomitable on the surface, warm and wry underneath, Evelyn and her fellow sisters makes Mercy House a safe haven for the abused and abandoned.
Women like Lucia, who arrives in the dead of night; Mei-Li, the Chinese and Russian house veteran; Desiree, a loud and proud prostitute; Esther, a Haitian immigrant and aspiring collegiate; and Katrina, knitter of lumpy scarves … all of them know what it’s like to be broken by men.
Little daunts Evelyn, until she receives word that Bishop Robert Hawkins is coming to investigate Mercy House and the nuns, whose secret efforts to help the women in ways forbidden by the Church may be uncovered. But Evelyn has secrets too, dark enough to threaten everything she has built.
Evelyn will do anything to protect Mercy House and the vibrant, diverse women it serves – confront gang members, challenge her beliefs, even face her past. As she fights to defend all that she loves, she discovers the extraordinary power of mercy and the grace it grants, not just to those who receive it, but to those strong enough to bestow it.
Kaylan’s life as she knew it is over. Again.
Hunted by the guards of Edriast and their ruthless captain, Kaylan is forced to flee into a world she’s never seen, armed with a power she never wanted. With her brother Elias by her side, she escapes to the distant city of Stynos, where rumour has it a possible ally is waiting … An ally who might help Kaylan control the violent magic that’s become her burden to bear.
But Kaylan can’t hide forever – not from the forces that surround her, or from the darkness inside herself. Rebel leader Bellamy seeks her help to destroy a regime; Captain Thorn pursues her with a vengeance; and as her power grows, her inner demons begin to seep through the cracks …
Kaylan may be strong, but is she strong enough to resist the Relic?
In the first book in a brilliant new fantasy series, books that aren’t finished by their authors reside in the Library of the Unwritten in Hell, and it is up to the Librarian to track down any restless characters who emerge from those unfinished stories.
Many years ago, Claire was named Head Librarian of the Unwritten Wing – a neutral space in Hell where all the stories unfinished by their authors reside. Her job consists mainly of repairing and organising books, but also of keeping an eye on restless stories that risk materialising as characters and escaping the library. When a Hero escapes from his book and goes in search of his author, Claire must track and capture him with the help of former muse and current assistant Brevity and nervous demon courier Leto.
But what should have been a simple retrieval goes horrifyingly wrong when the terrifyingly angelic Ramiel attacks them, convinced that they hold the Devil’s Bible. The text of the Devil’s Bible is a powerful weapon in the power struggle between Heaven and Hell, so it falls to the librarians to find a book with the power to reshape the boundaries between Heaven, Hell … and Earth.
‘Between life and death there is a library, and within that library, the shelves go on forever. Every book provides a chance to try another life you could have lived. To see how things would be if you had made other choices … Would you have done anything different, if you had the chance to undo your regrets?’
Somewhere out beyond the edge of the universe there is a library that contains an infinite number of books, each one the story of another reality. One tells the story of your life as it is, along with another book for the other life you could have lived if you had made a different choice at any point in your life. While we all wonder how our lives might have been, what if you had the chance to go to the library and see for yourself? Would any of these other lives truly be better?
In The Midnight Library, Matt Haig’s enchanting novel, Nora Seed finds herself faced with this decision. Faced with the possibility of changing her life for a new one, following a different career, undoing old breakups, realizing her dreams of becoming a glaciologist; she must search within herself as she travels through the Midnight Library to decide what is truly fulfilling in life, and what makes it worth living in the first place.
There were several days of perfect reading weather this week: cold, rainy, under a doona in your pyjamas, a coffee in one hand and a book in the other kind of weather. I’m not entirely sure how this happened but four of the six books I reviewed this week were written by or about Holocaust survivors.
I participated in a minor book splurge a few days ago. A company I usually buy from to satisfy by book binge requirements hasn’t had their usual monthly free shipping days since lockdown. I’ve been adding to and subtracting from my shopping cart ever since (mostly adding). I got an email to say they missed me this week (aww!) and, by the way, here’s a code for free shipping. I preordered a couple of books but will also have some happy book mail in time for next week’s book haul post.
I suddenly realised this morning that my blog is three months old today! I’m still having a lot more fun with it than I expected. Thank you to everyone who’s popped by for a squiz!
Word of the Week: renaissance, “a new growth of activity or interest in something, especially art, literature, or music” (from Cambridge Dictionary)
Bookish Highlight of the Week: Edith Eger. I finished The Choice, a couple of years late, and The Gift, which will be published in September. I am in awe of this woman! My current book evangelism consists entirely of, ‘Everyone needs to read Edith’s books!’
Sarah Wilson has helped over 1.2 million people across the world to quit sugar. She has also been an anxiety sufferer her whole life.
In her new book, she directs her intense focus and fierce investigatory skills onto this lifetime companion of hers, looking at the triggers and treatments, the fashions and fads. She reads widely and interviews fellow sufferers, mental health experts, philosophers, and even the Dalai Lama, processing all she learns through the prism her own experiences.
Sarah pulls at the thread of accepted definitions of anxiety, and unravels the notion that it is a difficult, dangerous disease that must be medicated into submission. Ultimately, she re-frames anxiety as a spiritual quest rather than a burdensome affliction, a state of yearning that will lead us closer to what really matters.
Practical and poetic, wise and funny, this is a small book with a big heart. It will encourage the myriad sufferers of the world’s most common mental illness to feel not just better about their condition, but delighted by the possibilities it offers for a richer, fuller life.
Growing up in 1980s Niagara Falls – a seedy but magical, slightly haunted place – Jake Baker spends most of his time with his uncle Calvin, a kind but eccentric enthusiast of occult artifacts and conspiracy theories. The summer Jake turns twelve, he befriends a pair of siblings new to town, and so Calvin decides to initiate them all into the “Saturday Night Ghost Club.” But as the summer goes on, what begins as a seemingly light-hearted project may ultimately uncover more than any of its members had imagined. With the alternating warmth and sadness of the best coming-of-age stories, The Saturday Night Ghost Club is a note-perfect novel that poignantly examines the haunting mutability of memory and storytelling, as well as the experiences that form the people we become, and establishes Craig Davidson as a remarkable literary talent.
Piper was raised in a cult.
She just doesn’t know it.
Seventeen-year-old Piper knows that Father is a Prophet. Infallible. The chosen one.
She would do anything for Father. That’s why she takes care of all her little sisters. That’s why she runs end-of-the-world drills. That’s why she never asks questions. Because Father knows best.
Until the day he doesn’t. Until the day the government raids the compound and separates Piper from her siblings, from Mother, from the Aunts, from all of Father’s followers – even from Caspian, the boy she loves.
Now Piper is living Outside. Among Them.
With a woman They claim is her real mother – a woman They say Father stole her from.
But Piper knows better. And Piper is going to escape.
I’m the fat Puerto Rican–Polish girl who doesn’t feel like she belongs in her skin, or anywhere else for that matter. I’ve always been too much and yet not enough.
Sugar Legowski-Gracia wasn’t always fat, but fat is what she is now at age seventeen. Not as fat as her mama, who is so big she hasn’t gotten out of bed in months. Not as heavy as her brother, Skunk, who has more meanness in him than fat, which is saying something. But she’s large enough to be the object of ridicule wherever she is: at the grocery store, walking down the street, at school. Sugar’s life is dictated by taking care of Mama in their run-down home – cooking, shopping, and, well, eating. A lot of eating, which Sugar hates as much as she loves.
When Sugar meets Even (not Evan – his nearly illiterate father misspelled his name on the birth certificate), she has the new experience of someone seeing her and not her body. As their unlikely friendship builds, Sugar allows herself to think about the future for the first time, a future not weighed down by her body or her mother.
Soon Sugar will have to decide whether to become the girl that Even helps her see within herself or to sink into the darkness of the skin-deep role her family and her life have created for her.
This is the way the world ends. Again.
Three terrible things happen in a single day. Essun, a woman living an ordinary life in a small town, comes home to find that her husband has brutally murdered their son and kidnapped their daughter. Meanwhile, mighty Sanze – the world-spanning empire whose innovations have been civilisation’s bedrock for a thousand years – collapses as most of its citizens are murdered to serve a madman’s vengeance. And worst of all, across the heart of the vast continent known as the Stillness, a great red rift has been torn into the heart of the earth, spewing ash enough to darken the sky for years. Or centuries.
Now Essun must pursue the wreckage of her family through a deadly, dying land. Without sunlight, clean water, or arable land, and with limited stockpiles of supplies, there will be war all across the Stillness: a battle royale of nations not for power or territory, but simply for the basic resources necessary to get through the long dark night. Essun does not care if the world falls apart around her. She’ll break it herself, if she must, to save her daughter.
NetGalley
Henry is the new boy at Halbrook Hall – a crumbling boarding school in the Scottish Highlands. He thinks the rumours of yeti lurking in the misty hills are nothing more than stories. Until one day he gets lost in the forest …
As a young yeti, Tadpole loves living in Shadowspring. But now the precious spring water is disappearing and no one knows why. The situation is serious – surely there’s something she can do to help …
When Tadpole accidentally reveals the top-secret location of Shadowspring to Henry, the lost boy she saves, she knows she’s in deep trouble. But what if this human actually has the power to help the yeti not harm them?
Every so often a book will come into my life at exactly the right time. This week I’ve been reading Edith Eger’s The Choice and if ever there was a right book at the right time, it’s this one. I don’t even know how to process it all yet so, although it’s taking me a lot longer to read than I expected, I’m glad I don’t have to put words together in some sort of order about it yet.
In between wrapping my head around Edith’s story and her remarkable insight, I’ve been for a couple of walks on the beach. Today I was about to leave the shore but looked back one last time and saw three dolphins catching a wave! I also found the once upon a tree that I first saw in mid-June.
At the time it was gorgeous, covered with pelagic goose barnacles, but because it was beached they didn’t survive. Eventually the entire thing was covered by sand but it must have found its way to the surface again after last week’s big waves. It just goes to show how powerful the ocean is; the once upon a tree had moved much further along the beach than I thought possible.
American Horror Story is one of my current TV series binges. I’ve rewatched Murder House and Asylum so far, and have had Dominique on repeat in my head for days. Although I absolutely adore Asylum I was relieved to begin Coven last night to hopefully replace my Dominique earworm with some Stevie Nicks instead.
I’ve seen Stevie in concert a few times but being in the audience when she was accompanied by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra during her Gold Dust tour remains one of my all time concert highlights. I haven’t listened to music much recently but being reminded of how alive it makes me feel has me wanting to remedy that.
Word of the Week: Gléo-dreám. Dreám meant “joy” or “pleasure” in Old English. Gléo-dreám literally means “glee-joy,” but it specifically referred to the feeling of pleasure that comes from listening to music.
Bookish Highlight of the Week: I won a copy of The Lost Soul Atlas by Zana Fraillon in a competition hosted by Hachette Australia Children’s Books. There are so many book competitions I’m not eligible to enter because I don’t live in America so I tend to pounce on any I find that I can enter. I love book mail so much! I can’t wait for this one to arrive so I can read it. Very gently though, because it comes with a signed bookplate! 😊
Consultant psychiatrist Dr Mark Cross knows a lot about anxiety. Many of his patients are sufferers, which is hardly surprising, given anxiety is the most common mental health condition in Australia, affecting up to one in four people at some point in their lives. But Mark also knows about anxiety from another perspective, because he too has suffered from anxiety all his life.
In this book, the well-known author of Changing Minds, who featured on the award-winning ABC TV series of the same name, demystifies this mental illness in his trademark warm and friendly style. He looks at causes, treatments, both medical and natural, anxiety in the workplace and more, sharing his own experiences as well as stories from others.
Two Truths and a Lie. The girls played it all the time in their tiny cabin at Camp Nightingale. Vivian, Natalie, Allison, and first-time camper Emma Davis, the youngest of the group. The games ended when Emma sleepily watched the others sneak out of the cabin in the dead of night. The last she – or anyone – saw of them was Vivian closing the cabin door behind her, hushing Emma with a finger pressed to her lips.
Now a rising star in the New York art scene, Emma turns her past into paintings – massive canvases filled with dark leaves and gnarled branches that cover ghostly shapes in white dresses. The paintings catch the attention of Francesca Harris-White, the socialite and wealthy owner of Camp Nightingale. When Francesca implores her to return to the newly reopened camp as a painting instructor, Emma sees an opportunity to try to find out what really happened to her friends.
Yet it’s immediately clear that all is not right at Camp Nightingale. Already haunted by memories from fifteen years ago, Emma discovers a security camera pointed directly at her cabin, mounting mistrust from Francesca and, most disturbing of all, cryptic clues Vivian left behind about the camp’s twisted origins. As she digs deeper, Emma finds herself sorting through lies from the past while facing threats from both man and nature in the present.
And the closer she gets to the truth about Camp Nightingale, the more she realises it may come at a deadly price.
There is a Wild Man who lives in the deep quiet of Greenhollow, and he listens to the wood. Tobias, tethered to the forest, does not dwell on his past life, but he lives a perfectly unremarkable existence with his cottage, his cat, and his dryads.
When Greenhollow Hall acquires a handsome, intensely curious new owner in Henry Silver, everything changes. Old secrets better left buried are dug up, and Tobias is forced to reckon with his troubled past – both the green magic of the woods, and the dark things that rest in its heart.
In 1954, at the start of the Cold War, the Soviet military offered four political prisoners their freedom if they participated in an experiment requiring them to remain awake for fourteen days while under the influence of a powerful stimulant gas. The prisoners ultimately reverted to murder, self-mutilation, and madness. None survived.
In 2018, Dr. Roy Wallis, an esteemed psychology professor at UC Berkeley, is attempting to recreate the same experiment during the summer break in a soon-to-be demolished building on campus. He and two student assistants share an eight-hour rotational schedule to observe their young Australian test subjects around the clock.
What begins innocently enough, however, morphs into a nightmare beyond description that no one could have imagined – with, perhaps, the exception of Dr. Roy Wallis himself.
NetGalley
The Nazis spared their lives because they were twins.
In the summer of 1944, Eva Mozes Kor and her family arrived at Auschwitz.
Within thirty minutes, they were separated. Her parents and two older sisters were taken to the gas chambers, while Eva and her twin, Miriam, were herded into the care of the man who became known as the Angel of Death: Dr. Josef Mengele. They were 10 years old.
While twins at Auschwitz were granted the ‘privileges’ of keeping their own clothes and hair, they were also subjected to Mengele’s sadistic medical experiments. They were forced to fight daily for their own survival and many died as a result of the experiments, or from the disease and hunger rife in the concentration camp.
In a narrative told simply, with emotion and astonishing restraint, The Twins of Auschwitz shares the inspirational story of a child’s endurance and survival in the face of truly extraordinary evil.
Also included is an epilogue on Eva’s incredible recovery and her remarkable decision to publicly forgive the Nazis. Through her museum and her lectures, she dedicated her life to giving testimony on the Holocaust, providing a message of hope for people who have suffered, and worked toward goals of forgiveness, peace, and the elimination of hatred and prejudice in the world.
The love of my chocaholic life, Caramilk, returned to the shelves this week so I’ve been well and truly overdosing on it for a few days. I hadn’t seen it in a store since pre-quarantine, so by my calculations it’s been about 287 years. I have a chocolate life philosophy that is definitely grammatically correct in another universe: Chocolate make it better! It applies to every aspect of my life, with the possible exception of my long term health.
There have been some big swells at the beach this week. I went to check it out for myself yesterday. The wind was making the waves really messy and the spray was everywhere as they were breaking, and it looked amazing! I braved the wind for a closer look. The waves were closer to the sand dunes than I’ve ever seen and I looked around for a helicopter a few times because that’s the sound the waves were making.
On a sadder note, I think I’m mourning one of my favourite birds. I say ‘I think’ because there’s a group of wild birds I feed and one hasn’t visited in almost two weeks. I get a lot of the walking wounded coming in for some TLC – a couple that are missing an eye, another whose foot was so badly damaged when they were born that they couldn’t stand on it for the first couple of months.
Sometimes a bird will disappear for weeks or even months and then all of a sudden they’ll visit again, so I don’t usually worry that much if I don’t see a specific bird for a while. However, the one I haven’t seen since 4 July has a broken beak and, in the close to four years since they were injured, they’ve relied on me to feed them.
Other injured birds are still able to get their own food but I haven’t seen this one manage it. When their beak was first injured they had so much trouble eating and drinking I didn’t think they’d survive. I’m really grateful to have had four extra years with them but I think it’s going to take a while before I stop hoping they’ll be there each time I walk outside.
Word of the Week: eldritch, which means “weird and sinister or ghostly”. (from lexico.com)
Bookish Highlight of the Week: I was granted a wish on NetGalley! Granted wishes happen so infrequently that it feels like the universe has unleashed a special brand of magic whenever I get a wish notification.
Deep in a Wyoming mine, hell awaits. Nat Blackburn is given an offer he can’t refuse by President Teddy Roosevelt. Tales of gold in the abandoned mining town of Hecla abound. The only problem – those who go seeking their fortune never return. Along with his constant companion, Teta, a hired gun with a thirst for adventure, Nat travels to a barren land where even animals dare not tread. Black-eyed children, strange lights and ferocious wild men venture from the deep, dark ghost mine … as well as a sinister force hungry for fresh souls.
NetGalley
Inspired by a true story, this supernatural thriller for fans of horror and true crime follows a tale as it evolves every twenty years – with terrifying results.
Ella Louise has lived in the woods surrounding Pilot’s Creek, Virginia, for nearly a decade. Publicly, she and her daughter, Jessica, are shunned by her upper-crust family and the local residents. Privately, desperate characters visit her apothecary for a cure to what ails them – until Ella Louise is blamed for the death of a prominent customer. Accused of witchcraft, Ella Louise and Jessica are burned at the stake in the middle of the night. Ella Louise’s burial site is never found, but the little girl has the most famous grave in the South: a steel-reinforced coffin surrounded by a fence of interconnected white crosses.
Their story will take the shape of an urban legend as it’s told around a campfire by a man forever marked by his childhood encounters with Jessica. Decades later, a boy at that campfire will cast Amber Pendleton as Jessica in a ’70s horror movie inspired by the Witch Girl of Pilot’s Creek. Amber’s experiences on that set and its meta-remake in the ’90s will ripple through pop culture, ruining her life and career after she becomes the target of a witch hunt.
Amber’s best chance to break the cycle of horror comes when a true-crime investigator tracks her down to interview her for his popular podcast. But will this final act of storytelling redeem her – or will it bring the story full circle, ready to be told once again? And again. And again …
Schizanthus Nerd 