Tag: Penguin Random House

Halloween Carnival Volume 3 – Brian James Freeman (editor)

Spoilers Ahead!

🎃 Horrificent Halloween Book! 🎃

N.B. Horrificent is totally a word (at least it is in my world and it’s my review so you’re in my world now whether you like it or not) and should be imagined as a unique blend of horrific and magnificent.

Halloween Carnival Volume 3 is the third of five volumes of short stories being released in time for Halloween. While I promise you I know how to count I didn’t feel like reading something the length of a novella when I started Volume 2 and then got sucked into these stories.

The Way Lost by Kelley Armstrong – 🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃

I absolutely loved this story. It was short but grabbed me from the first sentence – “Every Halloween, one child in Franklin lost his way and never came home.” Children in Franklin know not to go near the forest on Halloween night. Dale, however, can’t help himself. He watches at the edge of the forest, hoping to solve the mystery of how Franklin’s children lose their way, a mystery no one talks about. The creepy atmosphere in this story and the enticing dread had me wanting to sit by the edge of the forest to dare myself to uncover what was really happening to the children of this town. I need to read more by this author!

La Calavera by Kate Maruyama – 🎃🎃🎃🎃

Trish works hard on her calavera for this year’s Día de los Muertos Festival at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery. She attended each year with her roommate of five years, Jasmine (pronounced Yasmeen). On the day of the Festival Trish receives a phone call at work from Hector, who is supposed to still be in jail. This is a tale of binge-watching, waffles, family, obsession and letting go. I worked out how this story was going to play out fairly early but I still really enjoyed it.

The Devil’s Due by Michael McBride – 🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃

Building the initial dread into full blown panic and then hovering around desperation for the rest of the story, this one blew me away. Taking place in Pine Springs, Colorado, this town was founded in 1867 and has a long history of prosperity. Huddled in their ranch on the evening of 30 October, Thom and Tammy silently wait, hoping against hope that this isn’t their year. Their daughter and son are asleep upstairs, unaware of the danger that infiltrates their postcard perfect community this night every year. This year there’s a bloody handprint on the Martin’s door and soon the mayor and chief of police will be coming to collect Thom so he can do his duty. I’m going to be checking out this author’s other work for sure.

A Thousand Rooms of Darkness by Taylor Grant – 🎃🎃🎃🎃

Anne has phasmophobia (fear of ghosts) and samhainophobia (fear of Halloween), and with good reason. Panic attacks and phobias have contributed to the breakdown of Anne’s previous relationships so she is understandably terrified of telling the new love of her life, Evan, of her crippling fears. But this year her haunting starts early. I enjoyed the buildup to Halloween and the increased fear Anne faces. I loved the initial twist but the final wrap up felt a tad rushed.

The Last Night of October by Greg Chapman – 🎃🎃🎃

Gerald sits in his wheelchair, oxygen mask affixed trying to deliver its breath to his emphysema affected lungs, watching the front door. He keeps watch every Halloween night until dawn, waiting for it to come. It comes every Halloween without fail. This Halloween Gerald can’t avoid it. This novella started with such promise but I found a key component of the story implausible. It jarred me out of the lovely flow I was in and I never got my momentum back.

While I had no problems with the crossroads and what the boys found there I didn’t believe that Martha could so easily convince Gerald to kill his friend. They were best friends and yes, I understand they were kids and terrified, but even if that was always going to be the outcome I would have expected a longer exchange between the three characters before the murder occurred.

My favourites in this collection were The Way Lost and The Devil’s Due. I think The Devil’s Due may have won in the photo finish but both stories had me taking note of who wrote them so I can explore their work further.

The overall theme that runs through these stories is that things are not always what they seem and while I’d expect this in Halloween tales, there’s bloodshed in each of them. While I’ve only read two of the five volumes so far I much preferred this one overall than Volume 1. I loved that even after working out that all of these stories had elements where things were not as they seemed, there were still some where I didn’t pick up on the twist until after it happened.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group – Hydra for the opportunity to read this book.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Once Upon a Blurb

Kelley Armstrong, Kate Maruyama, Michael McBride, Taylor Grant, and Greg Chapman unleash the unsettled spirits of the past in five frightening stories collected by celebrated editor, author, and horror guru Brian James Freeman.

THE WAY LOST by Kelley Armstrong
The kids in Franklin don’t ask questions. Each Halloween, one of them disappears into the forest. Dale promised his mother he’d never go into the woods alone. But the kids in Franklin also lie.

LA CALAVERA by Kate Maruyama
The Día de los Muertos Festival at the Hollywood Cemetery used to be ours. Now, without Jasmine, it’s only right that I go one last time in her honour – before I let her go for good …

THE DEVIL’S DUE by Michael McBride
Pine Springs, Colorado, has prospered for generations by honoring its traditions and its promises. Then one man refuses to do his civic duty – and the price he must pay is fatally steep.

A THOUSAND ROOMS OF DARKNESS by Taylor Grant
Samhainophobia: an irrational fear of Halloween. Phasmophobia: an irrational fear of ghosts. For Anne, these terrors are more rational than she knows.

THE LAST NIGHT OF OCTOBER by Greg Chapman
Every year, one little boy wearing a grotesque Frankenstein mask comes knocking at Gerald’s door. Gerald has always managed to avoid him … until this year. 

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Spot Goes to the Fire Station – Eric Hill

Confession time: All Spot books are automatically ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ for me. I grew up reading about Spot. I still love Spot. My mother loves Spot. I made a Spot birthday cake for her 50th.

So, now that you know I’m completely biased, let me tell you something I didn’t know about Spot. His grandfather is a fireman! Grandpa is adorable in this board book and there’s also an adorable brown bear fireman. Outside the fire station a cat is having a lovely nap until Spot has some fun with the siren.

Fun fact: Cats don’t appreciate getting woken up by sirens.

Like all Spot books, there aren’t a lot of words but there’s still a nice little story, the illustrations are sweet and colourful, and the whole book is basically cute overload.

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Once Upon a Blurb

Spot’s visiting Grandpa at the fire station, where he decides he wants to be a fireman too! Grandpa gives him his very own fireman’s helmet and they set to work.

Cheeky Spot slides down the pole, climbs the ladder, soaks Grandpa with the hose and finally sounds the noisy siren. Spot thinks he’s a very good fireman, but Grandpa may not be so sure!

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Halloween Carnival Volume 1 – Brian James Freeman (editor)

🎃 Heralding Halloween Book! 🎃

Halloween Carnival Volume 1 is the first of five volumes of short stories being released in time for Halloween. Brought together by Brian James Freeman of Cemetery Dance Publications fame, this book contains five stories inspired by Halloween.

Strange Candy by Robert McCammon – 🎃🎃🎃

When Chris Parker eats the unwrapped sparkly white candy shaped like a hand he and his wife found at the bottom of his daughter’s trick or treat loot bag, he finds he’s no longer sitting in his lounge room watching his annual Halloween late night horror movie.

With messages from the dead being the ultimate focus of this story, I mostly felt sad at the grief felt by the characters. Hope was given through the messages to loved ones and it was a nice story but it didn’t really come across as a much of a Halloween story to me. The candy could have been substituted for just about anything else and the story still would have worked.

The Rage of Achilles or When Mockingbirds Sing by Kevin Lucia – 🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃

Father Ward sits meditating in the confessional on Halloween night, not expecting visitors. The story he hears that night will change him forever. Kevin Lucia’s story came with a great twist.

This was quite a sad story with themes of guilt, anger and revenge. I don’t want to give anything away but it was very well written and made me want to read more from this author.

Demon Air by John R. Little – 🎃🎃

When Halle Barry boards Diamond Air Flight 194 to Sydney on 30 October, she’s planning on finding out who she really is. When the clock strikes midnight, a series of events unfold midair that show her what she’s made of.

Demon Air read like two stories had been joined together. The first story was one of identity and I enjoyed this section. I would have liked Halle’s ancestry journey to have continued to Australia, New Zealand and Scotland. I was interested in finding out more about her history. Naturally that story wouldn’t have fit this collection.

Once Halloween began mid air, I felt the cohesiveness was lost and it tried to become a different story just to introduce the Halloween theme. Had the story been exclusively about what happened on Demon Air I would have enjoyed it more as sufficient time would have been spent setting up the scenario and playing the games on board. As it was it felt like only a few minutes of story time had occurred and then suddenly a whole day had passed. This section didn’t gel with me and the joining of the two stories felt flimsy, using Halle’s limited knowledge of Australian Aboriginal culture to determine her course of action.

La Hacienda de los Muertos by Lisa Morton – 🎃🎃🎃🎃

After thirty years of acting in cowboy movies, Trick McGrew’s career died along with Blazer, his horse, six years ago. His agent has arranged a part for Trick in a Mexican horror movie. Taking place during Day of the Dead celebrations in 1958, Trick inadvertently becomes involved in the local legend of La Llorona.

This ghost story was an interesting take on a real legend and featured the Day of the Dead celebrations. I liked the growth of the main character throughout the story.

#MakeHalloweenScaryAgain by Mark Allan Gunnells – 🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃

Dustin Davis, an author from Greer working on his latest novel, wants his #MakeHalloweenScaryAgain to go viral. He is disappointed by peoples’ apathy toward Halloween, especially those in his neighbourhood and hopes if his hashtag garners enough attention it will help generate interest in his writing.

As Halloween draws nearer locals start getting murdered, with Dustin’s hashtag featuring at each crime scene. Questioned by Officer Workman and with local reporter Shawn Moore hoping to catch his big break from this story, Dustin’s hopes for fame turn into suspicion when the people of Greer suspect he is the murderer. The killer ups the ante when they let the locals know that the family inside one house that isn’t decorated for Halloween will be murdered on Halloween night. Chaos ensues.

I really enjoyed this story. There was a creepy atmosphere and a sense of dread built throughout the story as Halloween drew closer. I liked the snippets of how different locals were dealing with the murders in their town and the interactions between Dustin, Shawn and Officer Workman. I did pick who the killer was (yay me!) but I was still entertained throughout the story.

The Rage of Achilles or When Mockingbirds Sing and #MakeHalloweenScaryAgain were my favourites in this collection.

A common theme running through this collection was that at least one character experienced loss and grief. The stories weren’t scary at all which disappointed me. I had hoped for some real fear and the closest I came to it was some creepy fun in the final story. However, they were mostly well written and they all took place around Halloween. The final story was a fun introduction to the season of scares and I look forward to reading the other four volumes.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group – Hydra for the opportunity to read this book.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Once Upon a Blurb

STRANGE CANDY by Robert McCammon
Chocolate bars and sour suckers are trick-or-treat staples, but beware the odd sweet at the bottom of your bag. You never know who it’s from – or what it might do to you.

THE RAGE OF ACHILLES by Kevin Lucia
Father Ward should have heeded the warnings about hearing confession on All Hallow’s Eve. Because a man is about to tell him a secret more haunting than any he has heard before.

DEMON AIR by John R. Little
Fear of flying is not uncommon. But on this transpacific airline, the real danger isn’t the flight itself. It’s whoever – or whatever – is up in the air with you.

LA HACIENDA DE LOS MUERTOS by Lisa Morton
Trick McGrew, former cowboy star of the silver screen, has never believed in tall tales. But down in Mexico, the land of La Llorona, he’s about to find out just how real urban legends can be.

#MAKEHALLOWEENSCARYAGAIN by Mark Allan Gunnells
Some people will go to any lengths to rack up retweets, likes, and follows on social media, no matter who they end up hurting … or even killing.

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Comics for a Strange World: A Book of Poorly Drawn Lines – Reza Farazmand

I read some of the comics twice to try and figure out what I was missing. I find most things funny including things that aren’t supposed to be, yet I didn’t even feel the beginning of a smile while reading this book. I tried really hard. Sorry, this one wasn’t for me.

Thank you very much to NetGalley and Plume Books, Penguin Group for the opportunity to read this book.

Once Upon a Blurb

Absurd comics for our absurd times, from the artist behind the wildly popular webcomic Poorly Drawn Lines.

In his follow up to the New York Times bestselling Poorly Drawn Lines, beloved webcomic artist Reza Farazmand returns with a new collection of comics that hilariously skewers our modern age. Comics for a Strange World takes readers through time, space, and alternate realities, reuniting fans with favourite characters and presenting them with even more bizarre scenarios. A child is arrested for plagiarism. A squirrel adapts to human society by purchasing a cell phone – and a gun. And an old man shares memories of the Internet with his granddaughter (“A vast network of millions of idiots. Together, the idiots created endless shitty ideas. It was a true renaissance of shit.”). In the world of Poorly Drawn Lines, nothing is too weird or too outlandish for parody.

Featuring 50% brand new content alongside some of the most popular comics of the past year, Comics for a Strange World is the perfect antidote to life’s absurdities.

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The Agony of Bun O’Keefe – Heather Smith

When her 300 pound hoarder mother tells this smart as a whip yet extraordinarily literal 14 year old daughter to get out, Bun does and leaves the remote place she has always resided (I refuse to call it a home or living). She finds her home in the city with a group of strangers, the names of almost all we never learn.

Bun’s father left when she was five, at which point her mother made her invisible. Telling everyone Bun had gone with her father, her mother withdrew her from school after she’d only attended Kindergarten and proceeded to focus solely on her hoard. Bun taught herself everything she knows from the various books and VHS tapes that made their way into the house with the towers of stuff her mother gathered. Yes, you read that right. I said VHS. We travel back to the 1980’s in this book.

So, with all of Bun’s book smarts, incredible talent for memorising entire documentaries (here’s to you, Jimmy Quinlan) and her lack of any form of contact with the world except possibly on Tuesdays when she’d walk half an hour to shower at the RV park, Bun is completely naive regarding social norms. She doesn’t lie, doesn’t tell jokes and she doesn’t do sarcasm. What comes out of her mouth is usually delightfully inappropriate and giggle worthy.

I’m bleepin’ certain that my heart grew larger while reading The Agony of Bun O’Keefe and I’m pretty sure Bun is going to inhabit that extra space for a long time to come. This story should be a tragedy, covering a range of themes including sexuality, abuse, neglect, abandonment, rejection, sexual assault, suicide, grief, discrimination and outright bigotry, yet it’s not. The reason it’s not? Bun O’Keefe and her family. Not the family she was born into. Nope. They suck.

I’m talking about her other family that all live in the same temporary accommodation – Busker Boy, Big Eyes (thanks for the lesson in fake swearing, Big Eyes), Chef and Cher who is sometimes Chris. [Oh, and Dragon Man lives in the attic in the temporary accommodation but he is most definitely not family and doesn’t deserve precious words wasted on him.]

This book follows the lives of a bunch of society’s supposed misfits who we’d all be better off knowing and we would be so blessed to be grafted into their family. Everyone in this family have histories that haunt them and as we learn more about them and their pasts, we learn to love them all. This group of loveable outcasts show compassion that they haven’t been given, understanding that they’ve been denied and a purity of love that I doubt they’ve often felt, if ever.

The writing style made me want to beg Heather Smith to give me writing lessons. There was a simplicity to the way this book read, like you’re listening in on a conversation, but told in such a gorgeous way. I almost feel as though Heather bewitched me because I can’t tell you exactly how she made me connect so deeply and so quickly to this many diverse characters but she did a brilliant job. This book brought echoes of Billie Letts’ writing style to mind, perhaps because of the host of quirky characters and the ability to put a knife through my heart yet give me hope at the same time.

This should be one of the most depressing stories you’ve ever read but it’s told with such grace and beauty that I wound up smiling at all of the funny little things that made their way out of Bun’s mouth. Beneath the surface you are sure to feel an ache for her and the life that she and her new family have endured, and sometimes that ache will flare into an open wound, but you will be OK because this family won’t let you wallow in your sadness for long. Yes, I did need Kleenex and yes, I did cry six times but I promise you that over half of those times they were ‘oh, that’s so beautiful’ tears.

The ending was so sweet I could almost taste it but that didn’t bother me in the slightest. After what these people have been through, they deserve every snippet of happiness that comes their way.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Penguin Random House Canada for the opportunity to read this book. This book is now one of my all time favourites. Whatever Heather Smith writes, I plan to read, no questions asked.

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Once Upon a Blurb

Set in 1980’s Newfoundland, The Agony of Bun O’Keefe is the story of a 14-year-old girl who runs away to the city and is taken in by a street musician who lives with an eclectic cast of characters: a pot smoking dishwasher with culinary dreams; a drag queen with a tragic past; a Catholic school girl desperately trying to reinvent herself; and a man who Bun is told to avoid at all cost.

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Rizzoli & Isles #12: I Know a Secret – Tess Gerritsen

I adore the Rizzoli & Isles TV show and have watched every episode at least once and sometimes about five times. I love the friendship between Jane and Maura. I love the stories about their families and the crime scenes they attend and the murders they solve. I love that I get to observe Maura doing the job that should have been mine.

I adore Rizzoli & Isles books even more. You’d think after 12 books, the whole Rizzoli & Isles things would be stale. I’m delighted to tell you it’s not! I’ve been waiting so long for this book and now begins the wait for Rizzoli & Isles book 13. After not being completely overjoyed by the last Tess book I read, Playing with Fire (please forgive me Tess), I was approaching I Know a Secret with some trepidation. However I needn’t have worried as this book instantly reminded me of the Tess whose writing I fell in love with, admittedly after I’d already fallen in love with her TV characters.

I don’t want to discuss the plot for fear of accidentally giving something away but I couldn’t wait to find out how it was all going to unravel. I’m pleased to report that I got some of the big reveal correct but I’m equally pleased that I was completely wrong about some of it too. I hate books where the ending is telegraphed from about page 6 but I’ve never encountered that problem with a Tess book.

The only person I know who’s about to read this book is my mother (also a huge Tess fan) but she’s got half a book to go before she starts this one and I may well explode before I get to discuss it with her and find out what she thought about the things that surprised me and what didn’t, and all the things I loved about this book.

So, here’s the information you need to remember. If I’m found as an icky, explodey jumble of splatter in the next couple of days, please tell Maura when she does my autopsy that I couldn’t hold in my excitement about this book any longer and accidentally detonated myself, and I’m very sorry about the mess.

Bring on book 13!

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Once Upon a Blurb

In the twelfth gripping novel featuring Jane Rizzoli and Maura Isles, the crime-solving duo — featured in the smash-hit TNT series Rizzoli & Isles — are faced with the gruesomely staged murder of a horror film producer.

The crime scene is unlike any that Detective Rizzoli and medical examiner Maura Isles have ever before encountered. The woman lies in apparently peaceful repose on her bed, and Maura finds no apparent cause of death, but there is no doubt the woman is indeed dead. The victim’s eyes have been removed and placed in the palm of her hand, a gesture that echoes the terrifying films she produces. Is a crazed movie fan reenacting scenes from those disturbing films?

When another victim is found, again with no apparent cause of death, again with a grotesquely staged crime scene, Jane and Maura realize the killer has widened his circle of targets. He’s chosen one particular woman for his next victim, and she knows he’s coming for her next. She’s the only one who can help Jane and Maura catch the killer.

But she knows a secret. And it’s a secret she’ll never tell. 

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