Bed with Books

Throwback Review from 2011! Anna Dressed in Blood is a YA paranormal ghost story by author Kendare Blake. Cas is a teenage ghost killer. He has inherited his father's powerful athame, the knife he uses to send deadly ghosts out of this dimension, after he died. And with each kill he is training himself to hunt down the one that brought down his Dad... His Mom is a kitchen witch, selling mystical stuff on the go, and helping to keep the two of them safe. She's along for the ride somewhat reluctantly, but she knows that just like with her husband - this is Cas's choice, and he's good at it. They move from place to place following legends and leads - and the latest brings them to a town harboring a ghost that is more dangerous than ever - Anna Dressed in Blood. She's unlike any other ghost he's encountered before. She's fascinating, extraordinary and wears the same dress she was wearing in 1958 when she was brutally murdered. And it drips, neveren...

Another Throwback Review, this time from February 2012. Take a looksie: The Game of Triumphs is a YA urban fantasy by Laura Powell. Fifteen-year-old Cat is on her way home, doing her best to avoid human contact as always, when she can’t help but notice a man being chased – a man that asks for her help. But Cat sees the gleam of excitement in his eyes, along with the fear, and figures he’s just a weirdo. Yet something about it all sparks her curiosity, and Cat can’t seem to help pursuing the situation. Doing so brings her to an extravagant party that introduces her to the Game of Triumphs. It’s a centuries-old game played between modern-day London and an alternate, unexplainable reality called the Arcanum where game players embark on challenges having to do with the tarot cards they are dealt, or the card they are trying to win. It’s all a bit confusing to Cat at first, but the intrigue is undeniable. Not long after becoming involved in this enigmatic game, though, Cat fi...

Psych: A Mind is a Terrible to Read is a contemporary mystery based on the USA television series and written by William Rabkin. Brilliantly showing up a detective in court by causing someone other than the defendant to confess to a murder, therefore throwing out the whole case, is not the best way to get in someone’s good graces. Though Shawn, man-child of excellent deduction skills who has convinced most of Santa Barbara that he is actually psychic, may be convinced that the end justifies the means in this case, the detective in question is not so sure. In fact, he’s so irritated that he gets Gus, Shawn’s best friend since childhood, and Shawn’s car impounded over something as silly as eighty-seven parking tickets. Petty man! But when the duo go to pick up the car, they find they’ve stumbled across a criminal conspiracy and nearly get run over by a Mercedes. Not that surprising, really. Once Gus wakes up in the hospital, not only does he find himself in the midst of another crazy ca...

Scarlett Undercover is a YA contemporary mystery by Jennifer Latham. Independent, shrewd fifteen year old Scarlett finished high school two years early and now spends her time as a private investigator. When she agrees to investigate the concerns of a little girl after her older brother seems to be “off” following a friend’s suicide – she doesn’t expect it to be a long investigation, more of a feel good case for a kid. Yet when it becomes clear the suicide may have actually been murder, Scarlett finds herself getting entangled in a world of cults, curses and secrets that may tie into her own family tragedy… Scarlett Undercover is trying to be a lot of things. It is trying to be diverse, by bringing a biracial, non-traditional Muslim main character into the limelight. It is trying to be clever and sassy, with a Veronica Mars angle with the teenage detective plot and droll protagonist dealing with a personal, unsolved crime. It’s trying to be slyly supernatural in a magical realism way...

Tell Me Three Things is a YA contemporary novel by debut author Julie Buxbaum. Jessie’s life has been turned upside down – and she was not consulted. Being moved from her Chicago home to a prep school in Los Angeles to begin her junior year of high school is traumatizing enough without also having to try to become comfortable living with her new earnest stepmom and standoffish stepbrother. How her dad could have done this to her, sprung this on her, without any notice… It is beyond her. To be saddled with people she doesn’t even know when it’s been barely two years since her mother’s death is not helping her relationship with her dad. Without her best friend and without any frame of reference in Los Angeles, Jessie feels totally alone. That is, until she receives an email from someone calling themselves Somebody/Nobody (SN for short), providing an offer to help her navigate her new surroundings. It’s weird but intriguing. And in a decision based on need rather than anything else, Jes...

The Unnaturalists is a YA alt-Victorian steampunk novel by Tiffany Trent. Fascinated with her father’s work in the Museum of Unnatural History, Vespa Nyx enjoys spending her days cataloging the Unnatural creatures of their world. Yet her unusual hobby is growing less and less socially acceptable as she nears seventeen and is expected to be a respectable young lady with marriage prospects. Just when Vespa is beginning to sullenly accept her tedious fate, strange accidents begin to happen at the museum and she finds herself running into a young Tinker boy that believes she has a role to play in the future of New London – as a witch. But witchcraft is the worst possible violation in New London and punishable by death… As a fan of steampunk, I was very excited to read The Unnaturalists and had been wanting to for quite some time. Tiffany Trent excellently presents a fleshed out alternative world with magical creatures, various cultures and even a legend of how New London came to be. Vespa...

The Dead House is a YA contemporary psychological thriller by debut author Dawn Kurtagich. Two decades ago there was a fire at Elmbridge High, leaving dead and missing students. So much was unknown at the time, though fascination and mystery surround the now abandoned, condemned former boarding school. Then a diary is found among the rubble. It is not that of Carly Johnson, a primary focus in the initial investigation – a student who vanished without a trace. Instead it was written by Kaitlyn Johnson. Who is she? How is she related to Carly? Did she truly exist? This new information reopens the case – and an examination of the diary alongside gathered psychiatric reports, video footage, text message and emails creates a far more disturbing account than anyone expected… The Dead House is CREEPY. It’s been a while since I read a book that left me a bit unsettled each time I put it down to go to bed, go about my daily tasks, etc. But this one did it. Uh huh. CREEPY. Let’s dive deeper in...

Through Waters Deep is a Christian historical WWII era romance by Sarah Sundin. It is the first book in her Waves of Freedom series. In 1941 Massachusetts, Mary Stirling enjoys her position as Boston Navy Yard secretary – she excels at it but happily can avoid any particular attention in her role. There’s nothing she likes less than attention… When naval officer Ensign Jim Avery comes to Boston on a new assignment, they recognize each other as childhood friends – in fact, Mary clearly remembers Jim’s infatuation with her best friend. As their friendship and camaraderie grows, events take a darker turn – someone seems to be sabotaging the USS Atwood . Tensions are growing regarding the divided opinion on potentially entering into the new war… This is a dangerous time on the Boston shipyards… I have previously enjoyed Sarah Sundin’s Wings of Glory series, as they have a rich historical background with WWII. Unlike some other historical fiction romances that brush over detail of the pe...

The Masque of the Black Tulip is an adult historical novel with a contemporary mashup and the second in the Pink Carnation series by Lauren Willig. Many years ago I read The Secret History of the Pink Carnation and enjoyed it. I am finally getting interested in continuing the series, which last I checked now has twelve novels and is not done yet!! I would definitely recommend reading The Secret History of the Pink Carnation first, as it introduces the reader to the fictionalized world of flowery espionage in England during the days of the Napoleonic wars. We also first meet our cast of characters in it. Though The Masque of the Black Tulip puts emphasis and focus on a different set of characters, they are within the same family and social circle. So, I still recommend reading it first. Okay, now onto deets of The Masque of the Black Tulip! Having discovered the shockingly delicious identity of the Pink Carnation, modern day graduate student Eloise has even more questions. Especiall...

The Girl Who Ignored Ghosts is a YA paranormal contemporary novel and the first in The Unbelievables series by K. C. Tansley. As a child, ghosts were normal to Kat. They were around often, taught her about ghosts and how they came to be – and they were her friends. But when a frightening series of events made ghosts a greater threat to Kat, she had to consciously decide to no longer believe in them. If you don’t believe in ghosts you cannot be hurt by them. Now in her junior year at McTernan Academy, Kat has been kept safe by her strident disbelief – making sure to surround herself with other unbelievers to stay strong. However, a research project she is assigned to threatens to ruin all of the protections she has put in place for years. Once she is sent to a private island off the coast of Connecticut to investigate the details of the shocking murder of newlyweds in 1886, and the rumored resultant ancestral curse, Kat is in a poor position to continue to ignore her connection with gh...

The Big Fix is the third book in the Ciel Halligan urban fantasy/mystery series by Linda Grimes. As with any other series, it is best to read the novels in order for the most fulfilling reading experience. Therefore, please find links to the prior book titles and my reviews of them here: In a Fix Quick Fix For those of you who have already read these books, feel free to read on. For those of you who haven’t, there could be minor spoilers of the first two books – you’ve been warned!!! Ciel Halligan, aura adaptor, is still determined to make her business work and be self-sufficient. Just because her hot boyfriend wants to help her out financially doesn’t mean she would ever accept. But she WILL accept his referral for a new client, since she so desperately needs one. Plus, this job is a fun one! Getting a chance to take on famous action star actor Jackson Gunn’s aura for a snake handling scene (he’s apparently terrified of snakes, who knew?!) should be a fast way to make a good amount of...

Enthralled: Paranormal Diversions is a YA anthology of stories by numerous best-selling authors and edited by Melissa Marr and Kelley Armstrong. Pulling together short stories together regarding journeys – whether physical or not – these authors provide plots featuring vampires, faeries, angels and more. Authors include such bigwigs as Kami Garcia, Margaret Stohl, Jennifer Lynn Barnes, Carrie Ryan and more. One of the main reasons I wanted to read Enthralled: Paranormal Diversions was for the short story by Kelley Armstrong. I’m a huge fan of her Darkest Powers trilogy and Facing Facts was a great little reunion with my favorite characters of hers – Chloe and Derek! Facing Facts did not disappoint! Generally, however, Enthralled was a mixed bag. Giovanni’s Farewell was a good, sweet story by Claudia Gray. Let’s Get This Undead Show on the Road by Sarah Rees Brennan and At the Late Night, Double Feature Picture Show by Jessica Verday were interesting diversions, both creative an...

The Monstrumologist is a YA historical horror novel by Rick Yancey. Orphaned apprentice Will Henry lives and works with Dr. Warthrop – a man whose area of study is monstrumology, i.e. monsters. Already Will Henry has seen terrors that many men three times his age could never imagine, but when a midnight caller drags in the corpse of a young woman entangled with the carcass of an Anthropophagus, the first of his most horrific cases begins. A headless monster of extreme height and size, eyes deep in its shoulders and a mouth of razor-sharp teeth in its stomach, Anthropophagi are not supposed to exist in New Jerusalem. Yet, here one is. Will and the monstrumologist now must race against time to put a stop to these horrors before they kill again. And again. And again… The Monstrumologist is a gory, suspenseful, creepy novel that demands a strong stomach of its reader. What’s wonderful about it is that as grisly and graphic as the novel is, as it delves into a monsterific mystery, it is w...

Princess of the Midnight Ball is a YA fairytale retelling of The Twelve Dancing Princesses by Jessica Day George. After the twelve year war, soldiers are returning from battle to their home country. Galen is one of these. On his journey to find his mother’s sister, the only family he has left, he meets a mysterious elderly woman on the side of the road gives him magical items and declares he will need them soon… Meanwhile, in the palace, Rose is the eldest princess of twelve and is faced with a problem. Each morning she and her sisters slippers are becoming terribly worn – and no one call tell the king why. The ordinary flood of balls in their father’s kingdom is not the cause… Instead, Rose and her sisters are being forced to travel deep into the earth to the malicious King Under Stone’s realm where they must dance with his twelve sons. It is a curse. And it is not one with an ending any time soon. Or ever. Once Galen becomes a gardener at the palace and learns of the mystery, and i...

Jane and the Madness of Lord Byron is the tenth historical mystery in the Jane Austen Mystery series by Stephanie Barron. As I said last week regarding Jane and the Barque of Frailty , these are really books best read in order to get the full impact and understanding of relationships and such. However, I believe they could potentially work as stand-alone stories, as well. When Henry’s adored, animated wife Eliza passes away from illness, Jane and Henry mourn her deeply. Calling on the recuperative, distracting power of the ocean and sea air, the pair head to Brighton to enjoy the teeming, dazzling resort life favored by so many. It is not long before Jane’s path crosses with the famous, possibly mad, undeniably magnetic poet and seducer of women: Lord Byron. His reputation is known to Jane, but even she cannot help but be shocked by the circumstances in which she meets him. So, when a beautiful young girl barely out in society is found murdered and placed in Lord Byron’s bed, there a...

Jane and the Barque of Frailty is the ninth in Stephanie Barron’s Jane Austen Mystery series. I thoroughly recommend reading this fantastically imagined, Regency whodunit series from the beginning. You would want to start with Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave Manor . I’ve been a huge enthusiast of this series from the beginning as a fan of both Jane Austen and mysteries! It’s 1811 in London and Jane Austen is enjoying a month-long visit with her brother Henry and his lively wife Eliza. She’s awaiting publication of her first novel, Sense and Sensibility and spending her free time socializing during the height of the Season. When a mysterious, exiled, lovely Russian princess is found dead outside of the abode of a notorious Tory minister, though – even Jane is surprised. The determination of self-murder does not sit right with Jane, and she is happy to investigate further. What is more surprising, however, is that Jane and Eliza manage to thrust themselves into the case – as ...

The Cake House is a contemporary novel by Latifah Salom. When Rosaura Douglas’s father shoots himself, her entire life changes. Suddenly she is living in “The Cake House”, a monstrously pink manor that is nothing like the small apartment she was recently calling home. She has a step-father that wants to shower money on her with no clear explanation as to where the wealth comes from, and a new step-brother that keeps just as mum. Soon Rosaura begins to see her father’s ghost – and he always seems to be warning her that her step-father is not to be trusted… That, perhaps, his death was not a suicide… The Cake House was odd. Rosaura was very difficult to try and relate to. First, trying to pin down her age was very difficult – the way she reacts to her father’s death made me initially think she was very young. Once it was revealed that she was thirteen/fourteen I found it a little bizarre. I know people deal with grief differently – but her reaction gave me an impression of definite ins...

All Fall Down is the first book in Ally Carter’s YA Embassy Row series. Returning to embassy row in the small, but powerful, European country her mother grew up in does not change the three truths Grace knows to her core: 1. She’s not crazy 2. Her mother was murdered 3. Someday she WILL find the murderer But no one believes her – not her ambassador grandfather, nor his formidable secretary – just like no one at home believed her. So why should her new friends? There’s Alexei, the Russian boy next door who wants to watch over her per her brother’s instructions, her appointed best friend, Israeli Noah, and a couple others who Grace finds herself surprisingly drawn to being friends with – an oddity for her. Yet knowing that there’s no way they would understand her determination to find her mother’s murderer over the last three years – after witnessing it at thirteen years old – keeps her at a lonely distance. So she puts on her smile that says she’s normal and tries to control her impul...

The Witch Hunter is a YA fantasy novel by debut author Virginia Boecker. Elizabeth Grey has worked hard, training her slender frame into one of the king’s best witch hunters – meant to locate those practicing witchcraft and bring them to justice. So, when Elizabeth is accused of being a witch herself – she knows the future that lies ahead of her. Fire and death. Clinging to the fact that she is innocent, she grows increasingly ill as she waits in her cell – sure that one of her fellow witch hunters will free her. Instead the very last person she ever expected to show up arrives: Nicholas Perevil, one of the most wanted, most powerful wizards in the kingdom. He offers her freedom in exchange for her help to break a curse that has been placed upon him – a curse that is killing him. Suddenly thrust into the other side of the world she has been living in, Elizabeth finds herself among witches, ghosts, pirates and an uncomfortably attractive healer. Everything she is meant to hunt, to despi...

When You Lea ve is a YA contemporary mystery novel by Monica Ropal. Skater girl Cass doesn’t plan on becoming friendly with anyone at her new private high school. After all, her experience with getting close to people is not a positive one. Her recent change of lifestyle is due to her mother’s remarriage to a wealthy man, when it was her mother’s previous husband – Cass’s father – that left them high and dry in near financial poverty. It’s an adjustment. One of her only constants is her best friend – whom she almost lost to cancer. All in all, not the best situations to build trust in relationships… But despite concealing her skater girl personality under the preppy plaid skirts, Cass’s good-looking, popular locker neighbor, Cooper, notices her. Oddly enough, he’s interested in her – and against her better judgement, she begins to be interested in return… Yet just as Cass begins to let him in, Cooper is murdered. Stunned, the news only gets worse when one of Cass’s closest friends is s...