The nitty-gritty: Lush imagery and beautiful writing make this a stand-out YA fantasy, despite some issues I had with one of the characters. Keeper of the Bees, as I found out after I requested it, is a companion novel to Blackbird of the Gallows, which got lots of rave reviews from the blogging community last […]
The nitty-gritty: Delightfully twisted and disturbing, The Mouth of the Dark is part Tales from the Dark Side, part Poltergeist, and completely bat shit crazy. The launch of small publisher Flame Tree Press caught my attention last month when they were blasted all over the internet—good marketing, guys!—and I was curious enough to head over […]
The nitty-gritty: Disturbing and atmospheric, The Chrysalis combines traditional horror elements with solid character development and delivers a cautionary tale about addiction. The Chrysalis is being described by a lot of readers on Goodreads as “science fiction,” but I just don’t get that. To me, this was pretty clearly a horror story, and while it […]
The nitty-gritty: A tense and violent thriller with surprisingly sympathetic characters and surprises at every turn, Vicious Rumer will be a hit with readers who like their stories on the gritty side. I did a thing I don’t normally do: I accepted a review request directly from an author, and I actually had a blast […]
The nitty-gritty: A compelling story, exciting action and TITANS make this YA novel a whole lot of fun! I had so much fun with this book, and I have to thank Quirk Books for bringing it to my attention, because I had never heard of it until it was pitched to me. And this review […]
The nitty-gritty: Brutal and thought-provoking, One of Us is Southern Gothic with a touch of the fantastical. I went into One of Us not knowing much about it, and it turned out to be one of those stories that caught me completely off guard. This is not an easy book to read, in the respect […]
The nitty-gritty: A bloody good time, Awakened has plenty of twists and will appeal to fans of survivalist horror. I featured Awakened on a Waiting on Wednesday post some months back, and author Darren Wearmouth actually contacted me to see if I’d like a review copy. And I’m so glad I had the chance to […]
The nitty-gritty: A lovely blend of history and fantasy, The Mermaid is a beautifully written ode to the sea and one of the iconic creatures who lives there. Those eyes were not of the shore, he thought. They were grey as the storm that boiled below them, the constant swirl and crash that was the […]
On humanity’s first extra-solar mission, the exploration vessel Magellan discovers an alien construction. Deciding that finding advanced alien life is too important to ignore, the ship’s captain chooses to return to Earth while reverse engineering technology far beyond anything back home. Meanwhile, at mission control, the governments struggle to maintain the existence of aliens a […]
The nitty-gritty: A fast and furious science-based space thriller with plenty of surprises. The minute I read the synopsis for Obscura I knew I had to read it, and I’m so glad that I did. This was a fast-paced, twisty mystery in space that kept me guessing and scared the pants off me more than […]