A Series Of (Un)Fortunate Reviews

The Dry is the debut novel by Australian writer Jane Harper.  Set in Australia, it's an expertly written mystery that doubles as a tense coming home novel.  Compared to the last book I read, Everything We Keep , The Dry features much stronger, organic writing. When his childhood friend, Luke Hadler, butchers his family and then kills himself, Aaron Falk, now a successful federal agent, returns to the rural, farming town that literally ran him and his father out in the middle of the night over a decade ago.  Aaron is determined to stay for the funerals and be gone the next morning.  Meanwhile, the only people welcoming him home are the parents of his deceased friend Luke and his childhood friend, Gretchen, who is now a mother herself.  The whole town, save for the handful of residents who have moved there in the interim since the Falks departure, makes it clear that Falk is not welcome and regards him askance while the Deacon family openly regards him with ...

Crimson Peak stars Mia Wasikowska, Jessica Chastain, Tom Hiddleston, Charlie Hunnam, and Uncle Bobby from Supernatural (a.k.a. Jim Beaver).  This is a suspenseful, dark, Gothic, horror movie.  While there are some scary ghosts thrown in for good measure, the meat of this story is a twisted family drama crossed with a serial killer thriller set in 1901. Edith Cushing is a feisty lady and aspiring writer living with her father in upstate New York just after the turn of the century.  However, the family's idyll comes to a brutal halt shortly after Edith crosses paths with and falls for Sir Thomas Sharpe, a British baronet seeking capital in the U.S. for some contraption he hopes will revolutionize red clay mining or some such.  Sharpe travels with his sister, Lucille, who at first appears distant and cold.  Time reveals Lucille's distance to be something subtly off--and slightly more sinister--with her character.  Right from the get Edith's pa knows ther...

So many things to say about this book, you guys.  So. Many. Things.  I was conflicted while I was reading this book because on the one hand if some soap opera drama went down, this review was going to be one long rant.  On the other hand if nothing happened, then I would have been disappointed because I felt like I was waiting for the other shoe to drop in this novel from the second chapter.   And if nothing ever dropped, I would have felt cheated. I'm just going to warn you now.  I may sound like an unhinged bookworm in this review because of the drama that goes down in this book.  If you watch a lot of soap operas or telenovelas or if you read a lot and have an overactive imagination, then many of the plot developments will be predictable but no less polarizing.  The epilogue, you guys, is a big, fat, heartbreaking cliffhanger. Everything We Keep is Kerry Lonsdale's debut novel.  It's been out a while, and I think Lonsdale may have al...

Pennsylvania One Book. Every Young Child. is an annual campaign that "encourages adults to read daily to the young children in their lives and to engage children in conversations and experiences around the story and illustrations."  These practices help develop early emergent literacy skills in babies and young children and provide a deeper reading experience for the child.  The campaign runs in April of each year, and each year a new title is selected.  This year's title is Daniel Finds a Poem by Micha Archer.  You can go to www.paonebook.org  for more information on the campaign, this year's title, and to see titles from previous years.  You can also access a 64 page activity guide, a fun guide, rhymes, songs, and more under the Resources tab of the main menu. While Micha Archer has previously illustrated other books, this is the first book she has both written and illustrated.  Archer is a former kindergarten teacher who has traveled the world...

I've previously read and reviewed six of Sharon Bolton's novels when she was writing and publishing under the pen name S. J. Bolton.  You can click this link to see those reviews.  Among those novels were three stand alone novels and three novels that are part of the Lacey Flint series (there's a fourth Flint novel and another stand alone novel that I haven't read yet as well as another stand alone novel that will be published soon).   Little Black Lies is a return to form for Bolton in that it's a stand alone book after four Flint novels.  Bolton also harnesses the use of a unique setting as character Little Black Lies much the same way she did for her first three novels.   Little Black Lies is a tautly written, highly suspenseful story that will keep you guessing through its final pages. Little Black Lies is set in the Falkland Islands, an archipelago located three hundred miles off the coast of Argentina.  While the islands are under British sov...