“The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not.” Two rival magicians agree to bind their students to a challenge. Hector will teach his daughter, Celia, and Alexander will teach a student of his own choosing. When the students are older, they will face each other Continue Reading…
This is a story told from many points of view. First is Zebulon Vance, the real life Civil War governor of North Carolina. We follow him from his days as a hotel porter fresh off the farm until his rise to governor. Next is Malinda Blalock, a tough mountain woman who follows her husband to Continue Reading…
Jill Conner Browne writes a fictional account of how the Sweet Potato Queens came into being and how they truly became queens through some terrible decisions and heartbreak. I absolutely loved the first section of this book. It was sheer perfection I tell you. It starts when the queens are in high school and haven’t Continue Reading…
A serial killer has been viciously murdering women in the Combat Zone, a seedy area of Newford. He makes a mistake when he kills a wealthy man’s daughter, apparently mistaking her for one of the prostitutes he normally targets. There’s a witness to this one too. He swears the killer stepped out of the side Continue Reading…
Chicago wins a bid to be the host of the World’s Fair in 1892, the 400th anniversary of Columbus’s discovery of America. The city’s top architects immediately swing into gear to make this a fair to remember. Paris had hosted a world’s fair a few years earlier and everyone said that it couldn’t be beaten. Continue Reading…
Elliot somehow finds himself appointed King of the Brownies (not the kind you eat–the kind that likes to clean your house as you sleep. I’d be happy with either of them in my house). He first came to the Brownies’ attention after he saved one of them from some evil Goblins on Halloween night. That Continue Reading…
Miles Roby is the manager of The Empire Grill in the heart of Empire Falls, Maine–or what’s left of it, anyway. This once-thriving industrial town is dying now that the factories have all closed. Empire Falls still has a tightly-knit, optimistic community though. There are constantly rumors about new buyers for the factories. Miles feels Continue Reading…
It’s only been about a week since I read this book, but I’m already hazy on the details, so this will be vague. Basically, this super-rich guy hires an engineering firm with a perfect record of doing the “impossible” to extract a meteorite from the ground of a Chilean island off of Cape Horn. In Continue Reading…
Kendra and Seth are nearing the end of the school year when a new guy joins Kendra’s class. The other girls talk about how cute he is, but all Kendra sees is a disgusting goblin who plays cruel tricks on people. A mysterious stranger offers to help them get rid of the goblin (or kobold, Continue Reading…
I have to start with this actual physical book. If you read my blog, you might be aware that I don’t accept books for review. Reading on a schedule was starting to feel like work, so I decided to just say no to free books and read what I want when I want. It works Continue Reading…
Vida is 19 years old and dying. She’s been dying her entire life. Not in the vague way that we are all destined to die, but in a way that has led her through multiple heart surgeries in her short life. This time, it’s for real. Her doctors are talking weeks if she’s lucky. She’s Continue Reading…