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Gamers, Vampires, Volcanoes, Demons and A Superhero Kid
My reading for July 2024 was eclectic as always but with the usual break from reality and accompanied by a cast of memorable characters. These are just post-it notes style remarks on the books I’ve read this month. TOMORROW AND TOMORROW AND TOMORROW by Gabrielle Zevin When Sam catches sight of Sadie at a crowded train station one morning he is catapulted straight back to childhood, and the hours they spent immersed in playing games. Their spark is instantly reignited and sets off a creative collaboration that will make them superstars. It is the 90s, and anything is possible. What comes next is a decades-long tale of friendship and rivalry, fame and art, betrayal and tragedy, perfect worlds and imperfect ones. And, above all, our need to connect: to be loved and to love. My daughter, A,…
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Review: Joe Pickett
The series follows the life of Joe Pickett, a Wyoming-based game warden, and his family in the small town of Saddlestring and the surrounding wilderness of Yellowstone National Park. What did you like best about the series? There was a lot to like about this series. The characters were relatable and by-and-large well written; the location was stunning, but not overwhelming – sometimes the photography can subdue the characters and plot when the setting is this beautiful; while another “police” procedural it had enough new elements to hold my interest. What did you like least about the series? I felt the female characters were a little underdeveloped and secondary. MaryBeth Pickett was a lawyer that gave up practising law so Joe could become a game warden (!), her mother picks by men for life partners, the female deputy is…
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Review: The HalfHero series by Ian W. Sainsbury
What if a super human turned out not to be so super…or even human? Britain’s superhero, The Deterrent, was unveiled to the world in 1979, and disappeared two years later. The truth about his origins has never been revealed. The rumours about his children—those that survived—and their mysterious abilities have never been confirmed. Until now. Armed with a diary that reveals everything about The Deterrent’s early years, Daniel Harbin—discovering powers of his own—finds himself dragged into the same secretive government department his famous father worked for. Can a halfhero be a better superhero than his father, or is Daniel making a terrible mistake? When the wrong people know what you’re capable of, no matter how powerful you are, you’re still in danger…. A…
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Review: Frying Plantain by Zalika Reid-Benta
Kara Davis is a girl caught in the middle — of her Canadian nationality and her desire to be a “true” Jamaican, of her mother and grandmother’s rages and life lessons, of having to avoid being thought of as too “faas” or too “quiet” or too “bold” or too “soft.” Set in “Little Jamaica,” Toronto’s Eglinton West neighbourhood, Kara moves from girlhood to the threshold of adulthood, from elementary school to high school graduation, in these twelve interconnected stories. We see her on a visit to Jamaica, startled by the sight of a severed pig’s head in her great aunt’s freezer; in junior high, the victim of a devastating prank by her closest friends; and as a teenager in and out of her grandmother’s house, trying to cope with the ongoing battles between her unyielding grandparents. I…
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DRIVING OVER LEMONS
Given the ban on travel because of the current pandemic, and a series of unfortunate events that have prevented us from even wandering around Ireland, I've taken lately to travelling vicariously through other people's accounts of their journeys and life experiences in various parts of the world. In this adventure we're off to Andalucia in the 1980s with the first drummer of the band Genesis (I bet he's sick of being described in that way at this stage), his wife and a menagerie of both human and non-human characters. This memoir is an easy read and if I'm to be honest it's suffering from a dated feel at this stage, even though the version I read was a 25th anniversary edition with an extra chapter (that didn't really add anything to the overall story).
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MORIARTY
Moriarty by Anthony Horowitz Sherlock Holmes is dead. Days after Holmes and his arch-enemy Moriarty fall to their doom at the Reichenbach Falls, Pinkerton agent Frederick Chase arrives in Europe from New York. The death of Moriarty has created a poisonous vacuum which has been swiftly filled by a fiendish new criminal mastermind who has risen to take his place. Ably assisted by Inspector Athelney Jones of Scotland Yard, a devoted student of Holmes’s methods of investigation and deduction, Frederick Chase must forge a path through the darkest corners of the capital to shine light on this shadowy figure, a man much feared but seldom seen, a man determined to engulf London in a tide of murder and menace. THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW A sequel to House of Silk the first Sherlock Holmes novel approved…
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NECROPOLIS
Necropolis by Anthony Horowitz Evil has been unleashed on the world and only five children – with special powers – can save it. Matt and the other three desperately need to find Scar, the final gatekeeper, who has been trapped in Hong Kong, where puddles of water turn into puddles of blood, where ghosts, demons and hideous creatures stalk the streets. Matt has no choice but to follow her. Now, both imprisoned, their only hope of survival is to reach a secret door in the Man Ho temple. But even if Scar can find her psychic power, it may already be too late. THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW If you’re what Stephen King refers to as a ‘constant reader’ then you’ll know when I find an author or series of books I tend to binge until…
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YEAR ONE
This is my first Nora Roberts novel and it won't be my last. Okay I realise she appears to mostly write romantic fiction and while it has it's place it wouldn't be something in which I'd want to invest enough time for a whole novel, but that aspect received a light touch in this book and was used only to make the characters real and move the story along.
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A BOOK OF BONES
The new Charlie Parker novel is always a highly anticipated event for me. It's like getting together with a group of old friends that studiously avoid social media and the way that medium devalues the joy and sometimes sadness of "catching up". A Book of Bones was more like being invited to a wedding to which those old friends had also been invited and getting the highlights of what we'd all been up to despite the distractions of the other guests and the too loud music. In this case the too loud music was without a doubt the intrusion of the historical "short stories' injected into the almost 700 page novel.
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GONE
Gone is the first in a series of YA of six novels which pitches a group of young people against forces they can't begin to understand and ultimately each other. Once again we have Lord of the Flies meets Stephen King's under the dome with a touch of Marvel's Xmen thrown in for good measure.
