I picked this book because I’ve been hearing positive buzz about Joe Hill and they are making a movie of this novel.  I normally like to read the book before the movie, so I decided to give it a shot.  Joe Hill is the son of Stephen King, and he has his dads skill of making observations that gives the novel a realistic feel.  For example, I remember in one of the Stephen King books a character blows his nose and then ‘peeks at it’.  It’s that […]

Jesse, a fallen preacher and his girlfriend Tulip are traveling to the Grail to save their vampire friend Cassidy. More or less. Preacher draws on western mythology mixing it with religious critique and vulgar comedy. It’s brilliant. We follow the trio, sometimes duo, into various deadly situations and out – and in this sense book two is a straight line from book one. We get introduced to lots of new characters in this book as well; Herr Starr who works for “The Grail” under the […]

I think the best part about books of poems written for children is that the poets allow themselves to be unabashedly inspirational or absurd. They let themselves go past the limits of ‘ordinary’, into territory that’s considered too sentimental or ridiculous for grown-ups: When it comes to writing for children – particularly writing poems for children – there are no such boundaries. The less ‘normal’ the better, the more sweet or shocking, the more relate-able, it seems. And someone who’s figured this out pretty well […]

They used to be close; friends and maybe, before he left, on the road to becoming something more. But after  his father’s death, Paul Fraser was forced to leave his Highlands home and could only keep in contact with Juliette Andrews through letters and rare visits home. Their letters brought them even closer until, Paul thought he’d earned the right to ask the baron’s daughter to become his wife – although he was only a doctor, with no noble titles to his name, he was […]