A Season to Lie
Riveting character-driven police procedural set in February in the Colorado Rockies. Gemma has just returned from maternity leave to her job as a Cedar Valley Colorado police detective. She is conflicted about letting her baby-daddy and live-in boyfriend work from home while watching her daughter. Her first case is theContinue Reading
No Future
Meticulously researched history of punk rock. If you ever wanted to know what punk rock stood for and emerged from, pick up this excellent book. No Future covers the punk scene in England and Ireland from 1976 to 1984. It uses material from the time as its source material thus avoidingContinue Reading
Heaven’s Crooked Finger
Snakes. Why did it have to be snakes? Layers of secrets abound in Heaven’s Crooked Finger. 50-year-old Earl Marcus returns to his hometown in the mountains of Georgia that he left after a failed snake handling forced on him by his father RJ almost killed him at seventeen. RJ isContinue Reading
Prince and the Purple Rain Era Sessions
Like Beetlejuice’s The Handbook for the Living and the Dead, “this thing reads like stereo instructions”. But if the stereo instructions show Prince behind the scenes, it is worth spending a bit of time reading inconsequential details. Prince and the Purple Rain Era Sessions: 1983 and 1984 describes what PrinceContinue Reading
Stay Fit for Life
Stay Fit for Life provides quick workouts for older, rehabbing or sedentary adults with little additional equipment required. With 62 exercises, 20 workout routines, and three levels of fitness programs, Stay Fit for Life covers all aspects of older adult fitness. There are modifications for most to make them easierContinue Reading
The Real McCoys
The Real McCoys is a cute humorous mystery for middle grade readers with perfect artwork. Move over Encyclopedia Brown, Moxie McCoy is the new detective in town! Moxie is in fourth grade at Tiddlywhump Elementary School. She is also the sole remaining partner at M&M Inc. detective agency. Her partner,Continue Reading
The Vegan Cookbook
Pretty pictures but recipes are less than awe-inspiring. Readers have abundant choices for vegan cookbooks. Most can be separated into quick and easy or complex and expensive. The Vegan Cookbook falls into the second category. It has mouthwatering pictures of the completed recipes. However, all the recipes include a multitudeContinue Reading
Don’t Mean a Thing
Fun and quick chick-lit read set in Darwin Australia. The swing dancing background of Don’t Mean a Thing makes it perfect for fans of Dancing with the Stars! Macie joins the Royal Australian Air Force after a bad break up with her verbally abusive ex-boyfriend. She finds not only aContinue Reading
Kill Creek
Beware, you may not sleep well after reading Kill Creek! Kill Creek begins with four horror novelists agreeing to a live-streamed interview in a long abandoned haunted house in Kill Creek, Kansas. The interviews are held on Halloween night and the novelists stay overnight within the house. All the novelistsContinue Reading
Dawn in Damnation
Interesting setting and plot wasted with a lackluster resolution. Dawn in Damnation opens in a western bar where a veteran resident is explaining how a newbie got there. Damnation is “hell’s sifter”. Those that have some redeeming qualities included in an evil life, go to Damnation to be judged. ThoseContinue Reading
Punk is Dead: Modernity Killed Every Night
Interesting, but pretentious, essays and memoirs about punk rock’s beginnings in England. The essays here vary tremendously in readability and point of view. Quite a few emphasize the punk “scene” and how awesome it was for the writer to be a part of it. Others interpret punk as a reactionContinue Reading
High Moon #1
A former Pinkerton detective, MacGregor, searches for a known criminal in a Western town infected with evil. Set in 1890, the villainous gangs in this graphic novel are extremely original paranormal creatures. Their originality is the best part of this book. The other characters are western movie stereotypes like theContinue Reading
Subhuman
A non-stop roller-coaster of a read! Subhuman begins by showing the seemingly disparate specialties of five scientists. Dr. Cade Evans is an archaeologist, who has just discovered a mass grave underneath an existing excavated Egyptian tomb. Within it, Evans finds a mass of animal and human bodies, one with anContinue Reading
Hidden in Plain Sight: America’s Slaves of the New Millennium
Intriguing look at modern human trafficking victims, their abusers and customers. Hidden in Plain Sight addresses the many ways to exploit humans to make money. It includes those forced into prostitution, paid little for domestic work or to work on produce and cocoa farms, and coerced into solicitation crews. SexualContinue Reading
The Stories of Edgar Allen Poe: Manga Classics
Great manga version of the most famous of Poe’s tales. This volume of Edgar Allen Poe tales includes The Raven, The Tell Tale Heart, The Cask of Amontillado, The Fall of the House of Usher and The Mask of the Red Death. All are famous as Poe’s best work. TheContinue Reading
Streak of Chalk
With beautiful artwork and a plot that can be interpreted many ways, this is a perfect book club read. Streak of Chalk tells the story of two strangers on a mysterious island where the only residents are the proprietor of an inn/general store and her silent adult son. There isContinue Reading