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nt based potions no surprise she s known as a witch she is the embodiment of a strong woman who does what she wants takes no prisoners and suffers no fools that s why i choose vengeance she s the only mistress i serve jo used to work in the hospitality industry but now runs an all women s gym where she can rage run to her heart s content when she gets angry her power manifests in extreme strength and heaven help those who piss her off nessa is a former nurse who inherited the family legacy of being able to hear and see the dead her gift is what sets off the action as the women discover a dead body surrounded by more dead young women and are bound and determined to figure out what s going on in their neighborhood the book was not without its flaws and at one point i thought it was over but it still had quite a few pages left some of the characters intentions and true colors were telegraphed but honestly it just didn t matter these issues didn t detract enough to keep me from finding this a fantastically enjoyable trip i m a sucker for good character work and miller s is stellar each of the women is multi faceted and fascinating in her own right with backgrounds and issues that kept the narrative fluid and on point rather than dragging it down i wanted to know more about these women especially harriett who is someone i would want to hang out with any day i m so glad i was convinced to read the change and will definitely seek out more work by miller it was by turns moving hilarious serious outlandish educational motivational and fun a definite e ticket ride at 1 00 am no comments labels 2022 feminism fiction kristen miller mystery review social issues thriller women s fiction tuesday june 21 2022 the devil himself peter farris it s hard to believe it s been ten years since peter farris s fabulous last call for the living i ve been missing pete s words but since only the french seem to have common sense when it comes to publishing crime fiction the u s market has had to wait for this barnburner but holy moly is the devil himself worth the wait how s this for an opener that grabs you by the guts with hot needle nose pliers the girl in the trunk had been bound short sweet and irresistable to say too much about the plot is a disservice though this is straight forward hell bent on revenge grit the beauty is in discovering everything unfold in real time to figure out who you re rooting for what layers the characters have that are slowly peeled back i will say that teenaged maya she of the trunk does not go down without a fight she s found herself in a difficult position that marks her for death but don t underestimate her based on circumstance she ends up on the property of leonard moye the town s eccentric kook who doesn t tolerate anyone on his land to say that farris takes these two heavily labeled individuals and turns them into individuals you will never forget is downselling what he s done here it s simply magnificent set in the deep woods of south georgia the devil himself is a masterful work of character set within a dark world filled with many bad actors as well paced as it is heart piercing it s one i won t soon forget it s no surprise farris won several french literary awards with this work i hope he is similarly recognized here at home at 3 13 pm no comments labels 2022 noir peter farris review rural noir thriller tuesday may 17 2022 nobody gets out alive leigh newman as a proponent of the inverse correlation between the length of a work and its difficulty poetry to short stories and on up i have a high appreciation of the short form and try to read it as often and diversely as i can leigh newman s recent collection won me over with the cover followed by its description as a set of dazzling courageous stories about women struggling to survive not just grizzly bears and charging moose but the raw exhausting legacy of their marriages and families the first story howl palace was brilliant and i went hunting for everything else newman has written before i was half through with it i was unsurprised to learn it won the paris review s terry southern prize and was a best american short story and pushcart prize selection howl opens the night before a sixty seven year old widow s real estate agent holds an open house at her property which is listed as an attractively priced teardown to dutch however every good thing that had ever happened to me happened in howl palace and every bad thing too forty three years five husbands two floatplanes a lifetime it felt as if i should honor my home that strangers shouldn t come around poking through the kitchen or kicking the baseboards seeing only the mold in the hot tub and the gnaw marks on the cabinets from the dogs i d had over the years maybe even laughing at the name dutch expounds on her history with laugh out loud diatribes about life her husbands re skip number 5 shipping him off to a facility in washington near his daughter wasn t exactly something i struggled with her dogs her efforts if you are looking for a reason to split five cords of wood by hand each year for forty odd years consider my biceps at age sixty seven and her surroundings consider the oft mentioned and somewhat secretive wolf room just as she s setting up for the open house cookout the real love of dutch s life carl the beautiful deviling heartbreak of my life comes to ask if she will watch his dog while he s away it s something he knows she doesn t want to do and somehow the dog gets loose wreaking havoc and sending dutch s pre event anxiety through the roof it also lends to her reminiscing carl s imprint on so many parts of her life and the realization of why he has come to that day howl palace is a bittersweet raucous revisiting of a life as dutch prepares to let go of the only thing she has left beautifully paced and painting a picture you could look at forever newman shows herself a master of her craft i didn t want it to end the remainder of the collection is replete with the same gorgeous phraseology stories full of intriguing multi layered characters in various surroundings the sense of place is different in each many evoking what one envisions when they think of the wild bicep building life in alaska and yet some feeling they could take place anywhere not many stories feature a mastodon tusk as deftly and meaningfully as newman does her writing is unique and clever she is a wordsmith of the highest order my only complaint is that howl palace blew me so high out of the water i kept searching for its equal an unfair ask really and beginning the set with that story is both a blessing and a curse it s one of the best short stories i ve ever read and it will keep me reading newman s work well into the future at 1 00 am no comments labels 2022 alaska leigh newman review short stories monday may 16 2022 child zero chris holm as a huge fan of chris holm s work go dig on the killing kind i ve been waiting with bated breath for child zero on the other hand i knew a bit about where this book was headed and was let s say scairt holm is a super smartypants molecular biologist and i am a middling smartysock when i got my copy i was elated and also as i told him hoping it wasn t over my head as usual he had the best response if that s the case then i haven t done my job i can now attest that holm did his job to perfection one of the things i adore about chris s writing is that while story is job 1 character is job 1a once again he s nailed both in thrilling fashion in a not too far ahead future we have continued to fuck up unchecked climate change results in a deadly virus being unleashed from the siberian permafrost also whoopsy it renders antibiotics useless that hangnail you re nursing that teeny scratch from your beloved dashiell they might now be the death of you child zero is the thrilling story of people trying to adapt to a horror landscape several years following a bioterror attack we experience that terror through nypd detective jake gibson who lost his wife in the attack and is raising his daughter zoe alone as we meet jake zoe has a temperature high enough he is mandated to report it to the department of biological security but jake knows what happens when a report is made and he s willing to risk everything to keep zoe safe jake s problems are multiplied when he s notified of a massacre at park city an encampment of refugees stranded when manhattan was quarantined following the 8 17 bioterror attack the scene makes it clear the assassins were looking for something or someone and jake and his kickass partner amira amy hassan need to figure it out quickly as the park city attack began twelve year old mateo rivas was awakened by his uncle gabriel and hurried to a planned escape route gabriel ensured mat held a bound and wrapped package securely and remembered his instructions then sent the boy out into the world via the sewer system what mat possesses and why baddies might want it is at the core of child zero a total barnburner from start to finish the science is frighteningly on point and plausible the characters are so well drawn you can t help but want more of them and the sandbox the science and characters get to play in keeps the reader glued to the page holm s world building is superb and since the book was serendipitously published during a pandemic holm has made it all too easy to imagine this world as our future if sciencey stuff makes you think twice i m here to tell you it s not an obstacle to your understanding or enjoyment if science is your bag there are more than enough juicy tidbits for you if you are trying to escape pandemic reading this didn t ring my pandemic malaise bell although we can all now sadly relate to many of the issues raised by the plot child zero is still escapism at its finest i don t have a ratings system or give stars so i m just going to lasso the galaxy and hand it to child zero at 1 33 pm no comments labels 2022 chris holm mystery review suspense thriller wednesday april 27 2022 the hawk s way sy montgomery sy montgomery s the soul of an octopus is one of the most magnificent books i ve ever read so it was with great anticipation i cracked the e cover of her new work the hawk s way encounters with fierce beauty although montgomery writes about nature and its creatures in a manner that resonates with me and i admire that she considers multiple facets of her encounters i e man s impact on the natural world i was not as enamored with this account as her others at the outset it was surprisingly brief shy of 100 pages including photos which is really of no import unless the book doesn t feel complete it did seem odd in some ways as montgomery realizes the time and commitment involved in falconry a two year apprenticeship doesn t fit with her current circumstance so this brief foray into the mystical ways of the hawk is well brief i also admit to having some of the same hesitations as montgomery a known animal lover could she in good conscience take a bird from the wild or support a breeder does she really want to involve herself in a sport that uses quail launchers to aide in teaching a youngster to hunt yet learn she does and though brief her descriptions of the sport and partnership between bird and human are fascinating this is no normal people pet relationship as her mentor tells her if you want love out of this you re too needy don t be a falconer rather the falconer is training the bird to accept you as her servant and breaking the rules can be a bloody affair and while you may forge a working association your bird may never like you in fact it may hold a grudge for the rest of its life and will not hesitate to punish you montgomery is a master at putting words to hard to describe events emotions and connections it s what made the soul of an octopus so spectacular here she s done that again on an albeit much smaller scale and while i cannot get entirely on board with the sport reading about the birds themselves is well worth the time at 1 45 pm no comments older posts home subscribe to posts atom about malcolm avenue review i was lucky enough to be born and raised in a nifty oak shaded ranch house on malcolm avenue a wide laned residential street with little through traffic located amid the foothills of northern california it was on that street and in that house i learned most of my adolescent life lessons and many grown up ones to boot malcolm avenue was home for more than thirty years it was on malcolm avenue through and with my family and the other families that made up our neighborhood of characters that i first learned about and gained an appreciation for the things i continue to love the most to this day music animals photography sports television movies and of course books i owe a debt of gratitude to that life on malcolm avenue it gave me a sense of community and friendship support and adventure for better and worse life on that street likely had the biggest impact on the person i ve become so this blog and the things i write here are all at their base level a little bit of a love letter to malcolm avenue labels 02 tuesday 1 2014 13 2015 113 2016 57 2017 24 2017 favorites 1 2018 21 2019 66 2020 71 2021 27 2022 6 a j rich 1 adam benforado 1 adam rapp 1 adam shoalts 1 addiction 2 adrian mckinty 1 adrienne celt 1 adventure 3 alan sepinwall 1 alaska 1 alcohol 3 alix ohlin 1 allen eskens 1 alyssa mastromonaco 1 amber garza 1 amber mcbride 1 amy kaufman 1 amy poehler 1 amy timberlake 1 andre iguodala 1 andrew gumbel 1 andrew j graff 1 andrew vachss 1 andy weir 1 angie kim 1 animals 10 anna krien 1 anthology 1 anthony bourdain 1 araminta hall 2 arnaldur indridason 1 art 1 ashlee vance 1 ashley audrain 1 ashley little 1 australia 1 australian 2 author event 4 author interview 1 autopsy 1 b a paris 1 babysitter 1 bar 2 barbara natterson horowitz 1 bartending 1 baseball 1 becky mandelbaum 2 benjamin whitmer 1 bernhard aichner 1 bernie krause 1 bert ashe 1 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