Cackle by Rachel Harrison
Been a slow drip of reading to start the month. So slow that I keep forgetting I actually finished this book a week ago and have been putting off this review. I liked it when I finished it and seven days later, I find myself appreciating it even more. I’ve now read through Rachel Harrison’s whole catalog, save her short story collection. Not a big fan of reading short story collections but I may need to get to hers because she’s a fun writer and […]
The Ex-Hex by Erin Stirling
Heartbroken after discovering that the gorgeous young man she’d spent all summer with may in fact have a “betrothed” back in Wales, Vivienne “Vivi” Jones gets very drunk and weepy and she and her cousin light some candles and throw together a curse, to make Vivi feel better. They think nothing of it, until nine years later, when Rhys Penhallow, Vivi’s ex, and descendant of Graves Glen’s founding father returns to charge the ley lines. Suddenly there are murderous plastic toy skulls, a talking cat, […]
In Defense of Witches: The Legacy of the Witch Hunts and Why Women Are Still on Trial by Mona Chollet
30 Books in 30 Days, Vol. 3 Book 11/30 This one was frustrating! The title absolutely is misleading. The only witches you will get in this book are in the introduction, and in Carmen Maria Machado’s foreword. So if you find yourself digging those two parts just brace yourself that’s not what the rest of the book is like. To be fair, for the most part I found the rest of the book interesting and never wanted to stop reading it, but I came for […]
Witch Poems by Daisy Wallace
If this book has not at least been challenged at least once, I would be amazed. Witch Poems edited by Daisy Wallace includes some fantastic poems. However, while this is a great collection of poetry about witches and spooky fun (and not so much fun), it can be dated with language and imagery. Trina Schart Hyman had a style that when you saw it, you knew it was them. They had diverse characters before diverseness was prominent in children’s books. Yet, there are some stereotypes […]
The Witches of Moonshyne Manor by Bianca Marais
Bingo 12: Dwelling There’s a probably slightly magically sentient house in this novel, both in the title The Witches of Moonshyne Manor, and in the background as a character, but mostly as a big part of the setting. The magic manor is only one of many many tropes in this novel, to the point where I’m not sure whether this whole novel is full of clichés or it’s actually mildly ironically self-aware. There’s a sisterhood of witches with the leader type (Queenie), the sexy one […]
There Will Be Fire: Margaret Thatcher, the IRA, and Two Minutes That Changed History by Rory Carroll
City of Dreams by Don Winslow
Madame Restell: The Life, Death, and Resurrection of Old New York's Most Fabulous, Fearless, and Infamous Abortionist by Jennifer Wright
Under Color of Law by Aaron Philip Clark
The Kind Worth Killing by Peter Swanson
The Last Quarry by Max Allan Collins
Tripwire by Jack Reacher
Baby Moll by John Farris
Only the Dead Know Brooklyn by Thomas Boyle
The Laundromat: Inside the Panama Papers Investigation of Illicit Money Networks and the Global Elite by Jake Bernstein
Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem
Winning Fixes Everything: How Baseball's Brightest Minds Created Sports' Biggest Mess by Evan Drellich
X by Davey Davis
Our Last Season: A Writer, A Fan, A Friendship by Harvey Araton
The Testament of Mary by Colm Tóibín
Hard Rain by Samantha Jayne Allen
The Boys From Biloxi by John Grisham
Ex Machina Book Four by Brian K. Vaughan
Jacket Weather by Mike DeCapite
Straight Cut by Madison Smartt Bell
The Crust on Its Uppers by Derek Raymond
That Kind of Danger by Donna Masini
An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green
Spenser Confidential by Ace Atkins
Crook Manifesto by Colson Whitehead
Weyward by Emilia Hart
The Mysterious Disappearance of Leon, I Mean Noel by Ellen Raskin
The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix
I usually do these at the end of the month but then I went through a big reading slump March-May. And then I roared back but realized I was behind. So apologies for this being so long. There Will Be Fire **** A good, readable text on a moment in history I knew little about. Even after reading Patrick Radden Keefe’s Say Nothing, I still had a lot of problem keeping track of all the socio-political dynamics so it’s good that Rory Carroll makes it accessible […]
