While I didn’t read that much in February I did read books for blog tours, my book club and some that have been on my TBR for a while so I was pleased with my progress. I also managed to complete at least one series I started but I am hoping for better in March.
Scythe by Neal Shusterman 4.75 Stars – The opening to Scythe was amazing, we are introduced to a world where humanity has overcome all obstacles even death, meaning the entire human race is now immortal. However, this poses a lot of problems because The Thunderhead, the evolution of the Cloud can only provide for so many people so people still have to die. With the absence of disease, accidents and old age, the Scythes were created. Scythes are people chosen to glean others in order to control the population. When we are introduced to Citra she is confronted with Scythe Faraday and she believes that one of her family is going to die. It turns out that the Scythe is gleaning their neighbour and wanted a meal in the meantime. We are also introduced to Rowan who encounters the same Scythe coming to glean the school’s star football player and he ends up witnessing the gleaning as Kohl had no family present and Rowan believes that someone should be with him. For Citra’s determination and Rowan’s empathy, Faraday takes these two to be his apprentices but they soon learn that only one of them may wear a Scythes ring. This means they are going to have to compete with each other, despite neither wanting the role both understand it works mean immunity for their entire families as long as they are alive and they are going to take the offer. Scythe has introduced us to a unique world that I can’t wait to explore more through the Scythe journals as well as Rowan and Citra’s journey to become a Scythe.
Guilty Pleasures by Laurell K. Hamilton 4.5 Stars – The opening to Guilty Pleasures wasn’t amazing but it was interesting as we are introduced to Anita Blake, who is an animator, someone who raises people from the dead. She is being asked to take on Willie McCoy, a newly made vampire as a client but she refuses despite his protests and veiled threats about the people he works for. After finishing her shift with the police she receives a phone call from Monica Vespucci, about her friend Catherine’s bachelorette party that night and she agrees to go. They end up at Guilty Pleasures, an all vampire strip club where they run into Jean-Claude, a master vampire. He and Anita seem to have some history between them as she is attracted to him and she intrigues him as she is able to resists his vampiric gifts such as enthralling and he is determined to put her under one day. On this night she witnesses a vampire feeding and there seems to be something off about Anita that may suggest she isn’t human but nothing to confirm it yet. However, she is called into work to consult on some murders that have taken place and she theories that it was done by a new kind of ghoul or a flesh-eating zombie but neither really fit the bill.
Wicked by Jennifer L. Armentrout 4.75 Stars – I have to say I wasn’t expected much from Wicked but the opening was surprisingly interesting. We are introduced to Ivy Morgan, who is a member of the Order. The Order is there to deal with paranormal activity in New Orleans, specifically fae. Their mission is to send the fae back to the Otherworld or to kill them and Ivy seems to be one of the best along with her best friend, Val. However, one day when she is tracking and dispatching a fae, she is attacked by another but this one isn’t a normal fae. This fae has no need for a glamour like the other and conjures a gun out of thin air shooting Ivy in the stomach and even when she throws her iron stake at it, it does nothing to the fae at all. Ivy manages to escape with her life and this is where she meets Ren Owens as he finds her and gets her help for her injury. Early on we also learn that Ivy lost both her birth parents and her adoptive parents to the fae along with her boyfriend three years age.
Things We Lost in the Fire by Mariana Enriquez 4 Stars – As this is an anthology like with the others I have reviewed I will review each story individually and then wrap up my thoughts on the collection as a whole. I haven’t read anything by this author before but it appears on the best horror novels of the past ten years and I decided to pick it up even though I didn’t know anything about it.
Authority by Jeff VanderMeer 3.5 Stars – From the synopsis I gathered that this book is going to be focusing more on the Southern Reach, the entity organising the expeditions into Area X. We learn early on that all the members of the 12th expedition except the psychologist, who we know was killed in the first book were recovered by the Southern Reach. The Southern Reach has undergone changes since the psychologist was the head of the Southern Reach so John Rodriguez aka “Control” has become the Southern Reach’s newly appointed head. Control has been tasked by the entity known only as the Voice to sort out the problems within the Southern Reach but this isn’t going to be easy since he is already facing a lot of hostility from within the Southern Reach. Since everyone but the psychologist have been recovered from Area X, they are brought in for questioning but like the other expeditions, none of them seem to remember anything about their time within Area X. Control asks for the other two survivors besides the biologist to be moved since he believes they won’t have anything for him and due to the hostility within the Southern Reach, it seems that these two were killed which is standard practice for the people who return from Area X.
Acceptance by Jeff VanderMeer 4 Stars – After the dramatic ending to a subpar book in Authority I was excited to get into the final of The Southern Reach trilogy and learn the answers to the mystery of Area X once and for all. I will say Acceptance has to work hard to claw back my full attention after the disappointment of Authority. Acceptance opens with the ending of Annihilation from the director’s perspective as she is confronted by the biologist and both of them are changing although the director is aware of it while the biologist is not. We then switch to the perspective of Saul Evans, the lighthouse keeper, we learn he is in a relationship with Charlie, a local fisherman and he is being harassed by the Séance & Science brigade consisting of Henry and Suzanne. It is interesting note his relationship with Gloria, a local child who has always seemed a little strange to Saul but he writes it off. On this day, Saul seems something glittering on the beach and when he picks it up it seems to enter him which throws him off especially when Henry becomes overly interested in him rather than the lighthouse and here we are seeing the beginning of Area X. We then switch again to the perspective of the biologist and Control, we learnt at the end of Authority that the biologist is a double of the original and she calls herself Ghost Bird and the pair returned to Area X and they are trying to get to the island as that is where Ghost Bird, who has a unique connection to Area X believes the answers are.
Strange Candy by Laurell K. Hamilton 4.5 Stars – Since this is a collection of short stories in the Anita Blake universe I will be discussing the stories individually as I have with other anthologies and then wrapping up my thoughts on the collection as a whole before getting into the second book in the series, The Laughing Corpse. It seems from the introduction that not all of the stories are set in the Anita Blake universe with some fantasy and sci-fi stories being in here as well so I am excited to see Hamilton’s writing outside of the Vampire Hunter universe.
Edmund Kemper: The True Story of the Co-Ed Killer by Jack Rosewood 2.25 Stars – I have always been fascinated with serial killers and after reading Mindhunter and watching the show, it reignited my fascination and this was the first book I picked up, obviously looking into Ed Kemper, the Co-Ed Killer. The first portion of the book introduces us to early childhood, Kemper for the first part of his childhood was seemingly normal but he did suffer a lot of verbal and mental abuse from his mother and this would only get worse after her divorce from Kemper’s father. In the aftermath he was locked in the basement, separated from his sisters because his mother feared that Kemper would rape them due to his larger size. This obviously had a massive impact on Kemper’s early development leading to him dropping out of school despite his near genius IQ and run away to be with his father who he had a better relationship with.
The Ghosts of Thorwald Place by Helen Power 4.5 Stars – I honestly wasn’t expecting much from The Ghosts of Thorwald Place because I have read many similar books in the past and while I have enjoyed them not many of them really stood out to me but this book definitely did. We are following Rachel who after the murder of her husband becomes agoraphobic until something scares her so badly into fleeing her old life which results in her death. This isn’t a spoiler as it happens very early on in the book which I wasn’t expecting and the entire novel is set in an apartment block in Thorwald Place. It is strange a murder happens here since the building has strict security measures, guards and CCTV watching everything and everyone all the time.
The Girl in the Corn by Jason Offutt 3.75 Stars – The Girl in the Corn wasn’t the type of book I would have picked up based on the synopsis alone but the reviews mentioned it blended classic horror elements with a touch of Norse mythology and I knew I had to pick it up. I can say the reviews were accurate about this blend of genres and it was masterfully done. I found the blend of mythology and horror so reminiscent of classic King but it also combines from elements more commonly found in fantasy novel with an epic quest mixed with the classic fighting between the forces of good and evil. However, unlike fantasy books, The Girl in the Corn is a dark, gritty tale. We are following a young boy named Thomas as he encounters an unusual girl in the corn field near his home and this leads him down a rabbit hole. This experience ends up sending him to mental ward and it only spirals into the bizarre from here but it was so gripping I couldn’t stop reading.
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