Death In The Bush by Wendy M. Wilson

 

I listened to the unabridged audio version of Death In The Bush by Wendy M. Wilson, which is well narrated by Sam Devereaux. Death In The Bush is the first novel in the 'Mr. Hardy Investigates' series and is a historical mystery set in New Zealand.

I listened to Death In The Bush in October of 2024. I initially found it difficult to get into this novel and wasn't quite sure I liked the main characters (James and Beatrice Hardy, a husband and wife that's recently moved to New Zealand) at first either. Over time, I grew to enjoy the main characters, supporting characters, and the storyline. The plot twists for this novel were pretty good and made for good reading. There is nothing better than reading a historical mystery novel, as it combines a couple of my favorite genres, mystery and historical fiction!

Below is the publishers summary for Death In The Bush by Wendy M. Wilson from Amazon's website:

Step into a different time and place with James and Beatrice Hardy, Inspector Scully and Patrick Foster in the first book of a small-town cozy historical mystery series from New Zealand in 1882.

Ride back in time to Napier on the east coast of New Zealand, when buggies raced along the beach, it took two days to reach the capital by steamer -- if the steamer didn't sink -- and a telephone exchange was a high tech invention for early adopters.

Retired English coachman James Hardy needs to find a new life in this strange country. Investigating crimes might be just the ticket.

New Zealand 1881: After a reclusive Māori on the run from the police leaps onto the back of his spring buggy, retired coachman JAMES HARDY discovers he has stumbled into a murder scene. While tracking a gang of lumber thieves, police have found the body of a young housemaid lying beside a log. The local hermit is hunched over the corpse clutching a knife with ties to the past, but did he do it? And why does he claim he took the knife for the major?

When the inspector in charge of the case asks Hardy for assistance, in the mistaken belief that he is a retired Scotland Yard detective, he agrees. He's a great listener, he's kept up with crime in the English broadsheets, he's an expert cryptic crossword solver, and he can drive a coach better than anyone he's met; he can catch the person who used the famous knife to kill Rosie. But he'll need help from his intrepid American wife, Beatrice, and a young constable recently arrived from Ireland.

I am giving Death In The Bush by Wendy M. Wilson a rating of 3 stars out of 5 stars.

Until my next post, happy reading!!

Murder As Fine Art by David Morrell

 

I listened to the unabridged audio version of Murder As Fine Art by David Morrell and narrated by Matthew Wolf. I had Murder As Fine Art by David Morrell on my reading wishlist for a long time. I finally listened to it last month in October 2024.

Murder As Fine Art by David Morrell is a work of historical fiction and the first novel in the Thomas De Quincy series. Wow, this novel was so much better than I expected it to be!! If you L-O-V-E historical fiction and mystery/thriller novels, then this is definitely for you! The writing is detailed and simply superb. I feel like David Morrell did a ton of research for Murder As Fine Art in terms of what life was like in London during the 1800s, along with researching the historical events in which the author writes about for this novel. I found the characters, the storyline and plot twists were engaging and at times felt like I was witnessing the details firsthand as the writing was so vivid.

Below is the publisher's summary for Murder As Fine Art by David Morrell from Amazon's website:

Gaslit London is brought to its knees in David Morriell's brilliant historical thriller.

Thomas De Quincey, infamous for his memoir Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, is the major suspect in a series of ferocious mass murders identical to ones that terrorized London 43 years earlier.

The blueprint for the killings seems to be De Quincey's essay "On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts". Desperate to clear his name but crippled by opium addiction, De Quincey is aided by his devoted daughter, Emily, and a pair of determined Scotland Yard detectives.

In Murder as a Fine Art, David Morrell plucks De Quincey, Victorian London, and the Ratcliffe Highway murders from history. Fogbound streets become a battleground between a literary star and a brilliant murderer, whose lives are linked by secrets long buried but never forgotten.

I am giving Murder As Fine Art by David Morrell a rating of 4 stars out of 5 stars.

Until my next post, happy reading!!

Animals Make Us Human by Temple Grandin

 

I read Animals In Translation by Temple Grandin years ago (well before starting my blogging journey) and loved it! In fact, Animals In Translation is one of my favorite all time books ever. 

I'd been meaning to read another book by Temple Grandin ever since then. I finally took the time to listen to the unabridged audio version of Animals Make Us Human by Temple Grandin, which is well narrated by Andrea Gallo last month in October 2024. I really enjoyed this work of nonfiction about animals... Although, I still like Animals In Translation a bit more.

What I enjoyed most about Animals Make Us Human by Temple Grandin is that almost every chapter in the book was devoted to a specific animal or group of animals in a particular setting. So you have chapters focused on specifically on cats, dogs, horses, pigs, cows, chickens and other fowl, and also chapters on animals in the wild and animals in captivity. Plus, I enjoyed hearing the last chapter, which was narrated by Temple Grandin, on why she still works in the industry.

I learned so much from listening to Animals Make Us Human by Temple Grandin. Some of the content was very difficult to hear when it comes to factory farming, but I greatly admire Temple Grandin's research and how she's helped to transform the farming industry here in the USA to make it better. We need more people like her in this world. Thank you Temple Grandin for making the world a better place for animals.

Below is the publisher's summary for Animals Make Us Human by Temple Grandin I found on Amazon's website:

The best-selling animal advocate Temple Grandin offers the most exciting exploration of how animals feel since The Hidden Life of Dogs.

In her groundbreaking and best-selling book Animals in Translation, Temple Grandin drew on her own experience with autism as well as her distinguished career as an animal scientist to deliver extraordinary insights into how animals think, act, and feel. Now she builds on those insights to show us how to give our animals the best and happiest life—on their terms, not ours.

It’s usually easy to pinpoint the cause of physical pain in animals, but to know what is causing them emotional distress is much harder. Drawing on the latest research and her own work, Grandin identifies the core emotional needs of animals. Then she explains how to fulfill them for dogs and cats, horses, farm animals, and zoo animals. Whether it’s how to make the healthiest environment for the dog you must leave alone most of the day, how to keep pigs from being bored, or how to know if the lion pacing in the zoo is miserable or just exercising, Grandin teaches us to challenge our assumptions about animal contentment and honor our bond with our fellow creatures.

Animals Make Us Human is the culmination of almost thirty years of research, experimentation, and experience.

I am giving Animals Make Us Human by Temple Grandin a rating of 5 stars out of 5 stars.

Until my next post, happy reading!!

The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix

 

The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix was my first read for the month of October 2024, but is the third novel I've read by Grady Hendrix. I selected this novel as a Halloween themed read. I listened to the unabridged audio version of The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires, which was well narrated by Bahni Turpin.

I think The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires may be the last Grady Hendrix novel I read. I really enjoyed his novel, Horrorstör, so I chose to read more of his novels. However, both The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires and My Best Friend's Exorcism by Grady Hendrix, simply weren't as engaging/captivating for me as Horrorstör was.

The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires was definitely suspenseful in parts and definitely had a lot of horror elements to it. The characters and storyline were intriguing, but the plot took a different direction than I anticipated it would based on the book blurb. 

I didn't like how derogatory the male characters were in their views and behavior towards their wives and women in general throughout The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires, which was a HUGE turn off for me. 

I know Grady Hendrix seems to be popular among many readers, but his novels don't resonate with me very well for the most part. I think he's a good writer, but the characters and storylines aren't entertaining enough for me to invest time reading anymore of them in the future.

Below is the publisher's summary for The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix I found on Goodreads:

Fried Green Tomatoes and "Steel Magnolias" meet Dracula in this Southern-flavored supernatural thriller set in the '90s about a women's book club that must protect its suburban community from a mysterious and handsome stranger who turns out to be a blood-sucking fiend.

Patricia Campbell had always planned for a big life, but after giving up her career as a nurse to marry an ambitious doctor and become a mother, Patricia's life has never felt smaller. The days are long, her kids are ungrateful, her husband is distant, and her to-do list is never really done. The one thing she has to look forward to is her book club, a group of Charleston mothers united only by their love for true-crime and suspenseful fiction. In these meetings, they're more likely to discuss the FBI's recent siege of Waco as much as the ups and downs of marriage and motherhood.

But when an artistic and sensitive stranger moves into the neighborhood, the book club's meetings turn into speculation about the newcomer. Patricia is initially attracted to him, but when some local children go missing, she starts to suspect the newcomer is involved. She begins her own investigation, assuming that he's a Jeffrey Dahmer or Ted Bundy. What she uncovers is far more terrifying, and soon she--and her book club--are the only people standing between the monster they've invited into their homes and their unsuspecting community.

I am giving The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix a rating of 3 stars out of 5 stars.

Until my next post, happy reading!

Houses Without Doors by Peter Straub

I listened to the unabridged audio version of Houses Without Doors by Peter Straub, which well narrated by Patrick Lawlor last month as a spooky/horror themed read for Halloween. This is the first book I've ever read by Peter Straub, although I've heard about him before as an author for a number of years. I am so happy that I have finally read a book by Peter Straub. His writing is exquisite.

Houses Without Doors by Peter Straub is a collection of short stories. I usually find short stories hit or miss. The stories in this collection were interesting, engaging, and different to say the least. Each story was so different. If you like the horror genre and also short stories, then give this collection a try.

I think what I enjoyed most about Houses Without Doors by Peter Straub was the writing itself. I look forward to read a full length novel by Peter Straub in the future.

Below is the publisher's summary for Houses Without Doors by Peter Straub from Amazon's website:

These psychic and horror fictions - seven of them short-shorts - reveals Straub at his spellbinding best. Two tales (first installments of his Blue Rose trilogy), are linked to Koko and Mystery and exactingly probe the consequences of boyhood clashes with evil.

In "Blue Rose," sadistic Harry Beevers, 10, hypnotizes and destroys his younger brother; the tale leaps ahead to the ironic verdict in Harry's court-martial for wreaking atrocities in Vietnam.

In the outstanding "The Juniper Tree," a novelist relives a harrowing, seductive summer when, at age seven, he was sexually molested in a movie house by drifter Stan, a seedy Alan Ladd lookalike.

"The Buffalo Hunter" fastidiously chronicles the fixations of a 35-year-old who numbs his fear of women by sucking his coffee and cognac from baby bottles.

In the ambitious gothic thriller/academic spoof "Mrs. God," a fatuous professor is lured to a creepy English mansion crammed with grisly secrets to research the papers of his poet ancestress; dead babies provide a subtheme.

Wry and riveting, "A Short Guide to the City" fuses and parodies two genres: the self-congratulatory tourist blurb with a news alert on the "viaduct killer."

I am giving Houses Without Doors by Peter Straub a rating of 4 stars out of 5 stars.

Until my next post, happy reading!!

Win Me Something by Kyle Lucia Wu

 

My last read for the month of October 2024 was Win Me Something by Kyle Lucia Wu. I listened to the unabridged audio version of Win Me Something by Kyle Lucia Wu and well narrated by Natalie Naudus.

I have mixed thoughts about this debut novel. I loved the concept of this novel. The main character, Willa Chen, is 24 years old, biracial woman (Chinese American) and living in New York City. Willa has never felt like she fits in within the white community, nor the Asian American community. To make matters worse, she feels like an outsider within in her own family. Her parents divorced when she was really young. Both of Willa's parents eventually remarried and had children with their new spouses. Willa spent time with both of her parents growing up, but she didn't feel a deep connection with either of her parents or step-parents and her half siblings... Willa has an identity crisis, if you will, on how and where she fits in with not only inside her family, but within society as well. Willa is also not very confident and somewhat shy. All of this comes through pretty well in the novel. 

Additionally, Willa works as a nanny for a wealthy family in the Tribeca neighborhood in NYC, which is a large chunk of the novel. So, this is another part of the storyline and how being a nanny factors into Willa's overall life and world view.

The cons of this novel for me was it didn't quite hit the mark. The premise of the novel is a good one, but the supporting characters were kinda flat. The character interactions felt kinda flat and needed another pop to make things a bit more engaging as well. I also felt like Willa had low self-esteem/low self-confidence and needed to speak up for herself. I was hoping to see this issue resolved by the end of the novel or at least an improvement, but really didn't seem to happen. Also, the ending was lacking... So, what happens with Willa? I guess we'll never know.

Below is the publisher's summary for Win Me Something by Kyle Lucia Wu from Amazon:

A perceptive and powerful debut of identity and belonging - of a young woman determined to be seen.

Willa Chen has never quite fit in. Growing up as a biracial Chinese American girl in New Jersey, Willa felt both hypervisible and unseen, too Asian to fit in at her mostly White school, and too White to speak to the few Asian kids around. After her parents’ early divorce, they both remarried and started new families, and Willa grew up feeling outside of their new lives, too.

For years, Willa does her best to stifle her feelings of loneliness, drifting through high school and then college as she tries to quiet the unease inside her. But when she begins working for the Adriens - a wealthy White family in Tribeca - as a nanny for their daughter, Bijou, Willa is confronted with all of the things she never had. As she draws closer to the family and eventually moves in with them, Willa finds herself questioning who she is, and revisiting a childhood where she never felt fully at home.

Self-examining and fraught with the emotions of a family who fails and loves in equal measure, Win Me Something is a nuanced coming-of-age debut about the irreparable fissures between people, and a young woman who asks what it really means to belong, and how she might begin to define her own life.

I am giving Win Me Something by Kyle Lucia Wu a rating of 3 out of 5 stars.

Until my next post, happy reading!!

Bookish Quote of the Day!!

 

Happy Halloween! Ten Spooky/Horror Books I've Enjoyed Reading in 2024

Happy Halloween!!

In the distant past, I've generally stayed away from reading horror novels. However, in recent years, I've kinda warmed up to reading books from the horror genre. I wouldn't say the horror genre is even close to being my favorite genre, but it has been fun discovering new authors!

Below are ten spooky/horror reads I've enjoyed reading in 2024!!

1. The Amityville Horror by Jay Anson

2. Voices in the Snow by Darcy Coates

3. Hunted by Darcy Coates

4. The Haunting of Blackwood House by Darcy Coates

5. A Stir of Echoes by Richard Matheson

6. My Best Friends Exorcism by Grady Hendrix

7. Psycho by Richard Bloch

8. Hell House by Richard Matheson

9. Houses Without Doors by Peter Straub

10. The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix

Have you read any really good spooky/horror related novels this year or in years past that have really stuck with you?

The Woman Behind Del Rey Books!

 

I've heard of Del Rey Books before. But I never knew the story behind the woman who created this powerhouse of a publishing company.

Judy-Lynn Del Rey became a powerful woman in the publishing industry during a time when women didn't hold top tier positions in this industry. Ms. Del Rey became vice president of Ballantine Books at age 35! 

While at Ballantine Books, Judy-Lynn Del Rey "revitalized the publisher's once-prominent science fiction line. 

She was also instrumental in obtaining the rights to publish novels based on George Lucas's then-unreleased movie Star Wars, which would earn Ballantine/Del Rey several million dollars." (Wikipedia)

Because of her success at Ballantine Books, Judy-Lynn Del Rey was given her own imprint, Del Rey Books! Ms. Del Rey was very well respected in the publishing industry for both her marketing prowess and superb editing skills.

Wow, This Little Free Library In Concord, California Is On A Whole New Level!!

 

It's no secret that I L-O-V-E finding Little Free Libraries and blogging about my Little Free Library adventures here on my blog! 

The above Little Free Library featured in the above YouTube video sounds incredible and also a labor of love for the LFL steward. It's definitely the largest Little Free Library I've ever seen anywhere.

I live relatively close to Concord, California, so, I will have to try and find the above Little Free Library one of these days.