Gail mchugh books6/10/2023 ![]() ![]() “Fate and the roads that get placed in front of us. It was love at first sight! And I just LOVED this book! And despite the fact that the book had a love triangle (which I typically avoid), I knew all along who she SHOULD be with. It made me swoon, it made me crazy mad, it made my heart hurt for all those moments rooted in wrongness and misunderstanding. This unexpected encounter compels Emily to question her decisions, forcing her to make a choice that will destroy friendships, shatter hearts, and forever change her life.ĭeep breath. Recovering from his own painful past, Gavin will stop at nothing to win Emily over. Tall, Dark, and Handsome is not inclined to let go so easily. Emily tries to deny the instant connection she feels, but Mr. Until she meets Gavin Blake-a rich and notorious playboy who is dangerously sexy and charming as hell. ![]() Knowing he can’t live without her by his side, he’s sweet, thoughtful, and everything Emily has ever wanted in a man. While harboring secrets of his own, Dillon Parker takes care of Emily through her grief. On the heels of graduating college and trying to cope with her mother’s death, Emily Cooper moves to New York City for a fresh start. What I ♥ The Most: The intensity of feeling in this book, not only in the fervency that came from the characters, but also in the emotions that it evoked in me as I read it!Ī missed first encounter… Colliding with a second chance….Main Characters & Casting: Gavin Blake (and here) and Emily Cooper. ![]()
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![]() ![]() Smart mouthed, practical and fun Percy doesn't go looking for trouble but he was born a hero, a combination of mortal and god parentage that he can not control. Move over Harry Potter because Percy Jackson could kick your butt. As a book written for young adults I didn't expect it to be as fun and engaging for an actual adult as it was. ![]() Along the way is more adventure than one boy can handle danger at every turn, and new heights of treachery.Īn absolutely fantastic tale marvelously woven by the author Rick Riordan. Monstrous attacks begin and Percy is sent on a quest to retrieve Zeus's stolen master bolt (the lightening bolt from which all other bolts are made) and return it before the summer solstice to stop an all out war between the gods. ![]() Peace can only last for so long though once it is discovered which god has fathered Percy. Here he makes friends with children of similar parentage and finally finds himself a place where he belongs. Finding out his best friends is a satyr and being chased by the Minotaur into a camp for demigods is only the beginning of Percy Jackson's new life. ![]() One day though on a seemingly innocent visit to the beach with his mother Percy's life changes forever. Percy Jackson is just a normal twelve year old boy. Sure he's got problems with school, bullies, and authority but at that age who doesn't? Getting kicked out of school after school does have a way of making one think he's a screw up though. ![]() Matrix by Lauren Groff6/9/2023 ![]() Groff has read these mystical poems and what limited historical records we have and has fashioned a life for Marie. Marie de France is a mysterious figure, a poet whose visionary lays and magical fables, written in Francien, a medieval dialect of Old French, are complex, sensual and self-lacerating. Groff’s fourth novel, Matrix, is something very different indeed: a strange and poetic piece of historical fiction set in a dreamlike abbey, the fictional biography of a 12th-century mystic. Now we have Lauren Groff, author of the celebrated Fates and Furies, a sharp novel of New York life that drew comparisons to Gone Girl and was praised by Barack Obama. More recently, there’s been Christopher Wilson’s Hurdy Gurdy, James Meek’s To Calais, in Ordinary Timeand, in a slightly skewed vision, Robert Harris’s The Second Sleep. ![]() ![]() Sylvia Townsend Warner’s The Corner That Held Them is a near-forgotten masterpiece set in a medieval nunnery, while Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose had metafictive fun mixing crime and semiotics. M onasteries and convents make excellent crucibles: closed worlds in which the events of a novel are heightened, their tensions felt more keenly. ![]() Sappho fragments anne carson6/9/2023 ![]() At its best, such meta-creation lives up to the Nobel-winning Polish poet Wisława Szymborska’s lovely notion of “that rare miracle when a translation stops being a translation and becomes… a second original.” ![]() (Available as a print.)īecause it touches on one of the most universal human themes, Fragment 31 is one of Sappho’s most translated fragments, which also means the most interpreted - for poetry in translation is an exponent of creation to begin with, but especially when translating the ancient tongue of a bygone civilization from a world alien to our own. Death of Sappho by Miguel Carbonell Selva, 1881. 570 BC) - the Tenth Muse, inventor of the personal lyric, and poet laureate of heartbreak - in one of the few surviving fragments of her poetry. No one has voiced this hunger with more howling precision than Sappho (c. ![]() ![]() It is also one of the most universal human experiences - homily on the elemental tragedy that the ever-open mouth of choice hungers for more than what chance grants us, so that we live desiring more than we have. Jealousy may be the most staggering scale discrepancy of the inner world - an enormous all-consuming emotion pinched into extreme smallness of spirit. ![]() The forbidden book candyman6/9/2023 ![]() I recommend most of Barker’s work as he is truly a master of horror. While Tony Todd is and forever will be the Candyman, Barker’s portrayal of him in The Forbidden was different, but no less creeptastic. ![]() ![]() We don’t get an origin story in The Forbidden, but the classic line of, “Be my victim” is there. And the premise of immortality through victim-hood and fatality underlies the end. For me, Candyman was one of my favorites and still is. ![]() It is a story about urban legends come to life, of how a downtrodden community protects their own. Any that are familiar with Barker’s writing knows that he has a way of creating a setting. The juxtaposition of new construction that was the pride of the city that quickly turned into abandoned flats and tagged walls are beautifully described from the outset. His depiction of the dilapidated housing estate sets the mood early, while in sharp contrast to Helen’s home life with Trevor clearly separates the haves from the have nots.Īlong with his setting of mood and tone early on, Barker increases the tension as a slow burn at first, but then cranks up the heat (*spoiler: quite literally at the end) and the readers are racing toward the character's final demise. This is one of those stories where I can’t definitively decide which is better, the story or the movie. ![]() The Forbidden is a short story by Clive Barker that inspired the movie Candyman. Oscar winner Jordan Peele and filmmaker Nia DaCosta unleash a fresh take on the blood-chilling urban legend: Candyman. ![]() Felix ever after by kacen callender6/9/2023 ![]() ![]() ![]() (This is set in modern-day New York, after all.) But lest all this sound like too idealized a cast, the propelling mystery of this tightly-written YA novel surrounds who at school is behind a traumatizing transphobic act against Felix. When we meet the eponymous protagonist in Felix Ever After, he has been out as trans for several years and found himself a squad comprising other LGBT youth of ethnic backgrounds mixed up in various ways. As if adolescence wasn't tricky enough already! That's especially true if you're a black, transgender, queer teenager on a scholarship at an elite Brooklyn high school for the arts - and in competition for one slot at Brown University. ![]() It feels political these days, just to exist. Your purchase helps support NPR programming. Close overlay Buy Featured Book Title Felix Ever After Author Kacen Callender ![]() Devil and the dark water6/8/2023 ![]() ![]() ![]() When strange occurrences begin early in the voyage, the crew is convinced that a curse is afoot, but is there more to the odd events than meets the eye? Sammy and Hayes will need to find out quickly if the ship is to make it to its destination. The two are on a voyage back to Amsterdam from the East Indies for Sammy’s trial, along with a cast of interesting and mysterious fellow passengers. I love the dynamic of having Samuel Pipps, who is a great detective, locked away as an accused prisoner and having to solve the mystery through his associate Hayes. The characters are well drawn out and interesting and the plot keeps the reader on their toes. Devil and Dark Water combines elements of Mystery, Historical Fiction, Science Fiction, and Fantasy for an unforgettable reading experience. After recommendations from multiple friends with similar reading interests, I decided that I just had to read this book, and boy am I glad I did! Another reviewer touted Turton’s novel as “genre-bending” and not only do I love that term, but I wholeheartedly agree with its use in this instance. I absolutely adored Stuart Turton’s novel The Devil and the Dark Water for many many reasons, not the least of which is the amazing plot twists that lead to a truly shocking finale. ![]() Time for andrew by mary downing hahn6/8/2023 ![]() ![]() ![]() My mouth was so dry I could hardly speak. It’s a simple as one two three.” He tapped the chalk three times for emphasis. “You walk out on the trestle and jump in the river. It’s not as bad as you think.” Carefully, Andrew added a curlicue of smoke to his drawing. “Is that what I’m supposed to do? Jump off?” Concentrating on his sketch, he said, “Before I got sick, Edward dared me to jump off the trestle.” Without looking at me, he picked up a piece of chalk and started drawing a little train on the floor. I was hoping he’d forgotten.”Īndrew hesitated. The expression on Andrew’s face told me he knew exactly what I was talking about. I’m supposed to do something when I get there, but he didn’t say what…” My voice trailed away. “I have to meet him at the railroad trestle next week. ![]() “I have to ask you something.” Stumbling over words, I described my encounter with Edward. ![]() Eddie glaude james baldwin6/8/2023 ![]() We have been here before: For James Baldwin, these after times came in the wake of the civil rights movement, when a similar attempt to compel a national confrontation with the truth was answered with the murders of Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King, Jr. From Charlottesville to the policies of child separation at the border, his administration turned its back on the promise of Obama’s presidency and refused to embrace a vision of the country shorn of the insidious belief that white people matter more than others. Glaude, Jr., in a moment when the struggles of Black Lives Matter and the attempt to achieve a new America have been challenged by the election of Donald Trump, a president whose victory represents yet another failure of America to face the lies it tells itself about race. ![]() "A powerful study of how to bear witness in a moment when America is being called to do the same." ( Time ) ![]() Shortlisted for the Goddard Riverside Stephan Russo Book Prize for Social Justice Named One of the Ten Best Books of the Year by Chicago Tribune and One of the Best Books of the Year by the Washington Post and Time In our own moment, when that confrontation feels more urgently needed than ever, what can we learn from his struggle? ![]() ![]() James Baldwin grew disillusioned by the failure of the civil rights movement to force America to confront its lies about race. ![]() ![]() ![]() SO SHANNA GOT A new job at the movie theater, we thought we’d play a fun prank on her, and now most of us are dead, and I’m really starting to feel kind of guilty about it all. "Suffused with questions about the nature of change and friendship, “Night of the Mannequins” is a fairy tale of impermanence showcasing Graham Jones’s signature style of smart, irreverent horror." - The New York TimesĪt the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied. That's the thing about heroes-sometimes you have to become a monster first. He'll do whatever he needs to so he can save the day. ![]() He'll save everyone to the best of his ability. Bringing a mannequin into a theater is just some harmless fun, right? Until it wakes up. One last laugh for the summer as it winds down. We thought we'd play a fun prank on her, and now most of us are dead. Award-winning author Stephen Graham Jones returns with Night of the Mannequins, a contemporary horror story where a teen prank goes very wrong and all hell breaks loose: is there a supernatural cause, a psychopath on the loose, or both? ![]() |