Nicola Marter has psychometric powers. This means that when she touches an object, she can see glimpses of whoever’s owned it or touched it before. Her grandfather, who escaped from Russia, has the same powers and always admonished her to keep the gift hidden, which she does, even from her boss Sebastian, an eccentric and successful antiquities dealer. Yet when a woman, Margaret Ross, comes to them with a wooden carving which she wants authenticated, claiming that it was once owned by Empress Catherine of […]
Airships and mercenaries and bandits and adventure
Part One: The Kraken King and the Scribbling Spinster – 4 stars Part Two: The Kraken King and the Abominable Worm – 4 stars Part Three: The Kraken King and the Fox’s Den – 4.5 stars Part Four: The Kraken King and the Inevitable Abduction – 4 stars Because The Kraken King is being published in eight weekly instalments, I’m going to blog the first four as one book, and the final four as another, mainly because I don’t want to wait until I’ve read all the parts to share my […]
Eve Dallas hunts possible vampires and serial killers
Eternity in Death – 3 stars Creation in Death – 4.5 stars Creation in Death is book 25 in the In Death series (and the novella precedes it, counting as 24.5) and this is possibly not the place you want to start, as a whole load of character development comes before. However, as the books are a bit like episodes in a crime procedural show, picking up with this one would be like watching a random episode of a show a few seasons in. I don’t think there’s any major […]
An Unbelievable Bore
It seems as if every wanna be romance writer makes Amazon their dumping ground. Desperate to find some new authors to diversify my limited favorite authors’ selections, I stumbled upon Terri Osburn’s Home to Stay (2014), a bland, forgettable romance that emphasizes why I hate small town romance series. Home to Stay is the story of Willow Parsons and Randy Navarro, residents of Anchor Island. Willow, living on the island for only a year, works as a bartender and harbors a secret that keeps her emotionally distant and secretive […]
Women Can Be Scary Part 3: Daphne du Maurier
Rebecca, by Daphne du Maurier, is a classic that has been characterized as a romance and some sort of gothic chick lit. Nothing could be further from the truth. Rebecca is a dark and suspenseful novel, reminiscent of Jane Eyre, with an ending that involves violence and is far from happy. Like Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle, the reader might find him/herself rooting for a murderer and feeling distinctly uncomfortable about that. Rebecca is set in the 1930s mostly at a seaside […]
A World of Nevers Under a Never Sky
I kept seeing this title over and over, in Must-Read lists, in Read-Alike lists, in What-to-Read-Next lists, and in Best-Books-of-____ lists, so I finally broke down and bought it. I admit that I hesitated to purchase it because the reader reviews of the book were mixed. Some called it the best thing since Hunger Games, while others said it was just a lackluster attempt to capitalize on the popularity of the dystopian novel. The final decision was made after a favorable recommendation from a coworker […]
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