Back to Blog
Paper valentine by brenna yovanoff5/29/2023 ![]() ![]() For Hannah, the summer is a complicated one. The asphalt is melting, the birds are dying, petty crime is on the rise, and someone in Hannah Wagnor's peaceful suburban community is killing girls. The city of Ludlow is gripped by the hottest July on record. But how can things be normal when Lillian's ghost is haunting her bedroom, pushing her to investigate the mysterious string of murders? Hannah's just trying to understand why. Her best friend Lillian died six months ago, and Hannah just wants her life to go back to normal. ![]() ![]()
0 Comments
Read More
Back to Blog
Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch5/29/2023 ![]() ![]() It’s the British class system, and the cops that clash with it, are drawn from it, fight it and navigate it. ![]() No wonder this feels like a proper Rivers of London game, not a BRP with Rivers of London stuck on it (not that there was ever a chance of Chaosium doing that). He wants a BRP Rivers of London, and we can see how rich the game is with Ben Aaronovitch. Ben has views, and this isn’t a paper exercise of monetising the franchise. ![]() What’s not speculation Ben’s one of us he’s a tabletop gamer. Just how much of “there’s an RPG coming” did Aaronovitch know and react to while writing False Value? I learned that he specifically wanted Chaosium’s BRP, the Basic Roleplaying System, the stuff of Call of Cthulhu, for Rivers of London. I got to interview Ben over Zoom on a lockdown Friday night. ![]() Those recruits are our Player Characters. Until that point, the book’s police characters, DCI Thomas Nightingale and PC Peter Grant, start the groundwork for recruiting members of the Special Assessment Unit. The timeline is important and makes sense. The news that Rivers of London was getting an RPG broke in 2019. In particular, Rivers of London is set after False Value, the 8th book in the series, published in 2020. I doubt I’m alone, and there’s a small risk. I want it to feel like my Rivers of London, but I don’t want it to ruin the series for me. As a result, I’ve a particular interest in Chaosium’s new Rivers of London tabletop RPG. ![]()
Back to Blog
The wide awake princess ed baker5/29/2023 ![]() Although this seemed like a good idea it means that none of her family likes to be too near her because her spell tends to affect their own magical enchantments, making them less beautiful, more wrinkled and aged. She cast a spell on Princess Annie that made her impervious to all magic. They invited only one fairy along and asked for her advice. ![]() ![]() All of the upset over Gwendolyn's christening led to the King and Queen being very scared when their second daughter, Annabelle, was born. Her sister, Gwendolyn, was given various magical gifts at her birth making her graceful and beautiful, but then a bad fairy created the spell that Gwendolyn would prick her finger on a spinning wheel before she turned 16 and sleep for one hundred years. Princess Annie is Sleeping Beauty's younger sister. Summary: An unusual, fun version of the familiar Sleeping Beauty story - perfect for tweens who aren't quite willing to give up fairy tales just yet. ![]()
Back to Blog
![]() To be a suspect of another murder is unlikely but happens to Tandy Angel. Title: Confessions of a Murder Suspect Binding: Paperback Author: James Patterson Publisher: The Book Service Orphans Who can you really trust? As Tandy delves deepr into the mysteries, the stakes get dangerously high when her famiĬonfessions of a Murder Suspect: (Confession Series) But they''ve betrayed you time and again.A born detective, Tandy discovers a locked room in her grandmother''s house that holds ugly secrets about her family''s treacherous past. When your family is all you have.Scarred by the deaths of their parents and accusations of murder, Tandy Angel and her siblings start a new life in Paris under the watchful eye of an uncle they hardly know. Now she''s working to exonerate her superstar brother in his glamorous girlfriend''s murder. The first case she nailed was the mystery of her magnificently wealthy parents'' deaths. ![]() ![]() Young women from New York''s most exclusive neighbourhoods are being murdered, and the police aren''t looking for answers in the right place. ![]()
Back to Blog
The shining paperback5/29/2023 ![]() I’m not usually drawn to domestic fiction but the way abuse is handled in this story and the portrayal of Jack is interestingly balanced in a way that provides nuance to the character. He feels regret for his actions and has changed at the start of the story but like the matter of his addiction, the circumstances that led him to act out in violence are not completely resolved and the trust between he and his wife, Wendy, is strained. He also has a history of abuse toward his wife and son. Though he’s tried to stay clean and sober, not drinking has been a constant and daily battle for him. ![]() This is particularly true of who could be considered the main character of the three, Jack Torrance. The Shining in particular is so utterly character-driven, digging deep in the psyche of its three main leads and seeking to bring them to life via lengthy flashbacks, nitty-gritty details of their reactions and feelings, and occasional use of repetition to really drive home their demons and struggles. His style (or at least, the style present in The Shining) requires a level of patience and maturity, I think, that might have had me DNF’ing this book years ago and not getting along with the characters. ![]() That might sound weird so let me elaborate. After intending for years and years to read a Stephen King novel, I’m glad to have waited so long. ![]()
Back to Blog
Act like a lady think man book5/29/2023 ![]() ![]() They determined if I was easy to work with, if I got along well with others, if I showed up when I said I was going to show up, if I was worthy." This is what it takes to get to me.'"Īs an auto plant worker, Steve says he had to wait 90 days to receive benefits-and says the same probation period should apply to dating. "Say: 'Look, if you want to be with me, this is what you got to do. ![]() "With all that power, why do you suddenly relinquish this power just because you want a guy to accept you? That's stupid," he says. "Set your requirements up front so when a guy hooks you, he has to know this is business."Īnd don't let the man set the pace of the relationship-Steve says it's always the woman who has total control. "You've got to quit lowering your standards," he says. Without ironclad standards, Steve says you'll always end up back in the dating pool. "You've got to determine along the way which one of the fish you're going to be." You've got guys that are fishing to keep the fish, and you've got guys that are fishing to catch them, unhook them and throw them back," Steve says. ![]() "You've got sports fishermen, and you've got guys out there fishing to eat. You won't be able to find one, though, until you up your standards. Steve says men are like fishermen- but women are actually the ones looking for a good catch. ![]()
Back to Blog
Book the silence of the lambs5/28/2023 ![]() ![]() ![]() Anyway, in the book, as in the film, my heart dropped like a rock when Catherine offered to help the stranger with the sling get the armchair into his van.Ĭlarice is an amazing character. To the point that whenever I see Brooke Smith (who played Catherine Martin in the 1990 film) in anything, I affect an accent and ask, ‘Was she a great big fat person?’ I knew this story fairly intimately before I picked up the book, as I must have watched the film a few dozen times. Lecter’s clues and find Buffalo Bill? Or will Catherine Martin face the same appalling fate as those who came before her? But will Clarice be able to move beyond her own childhood trauma to sift through Dr. Lecter, the case takes on a new sense of urgency when a senator’s daughter goes missing. With FBI trainee, Clarice Starling, brought in to talk to the infinitely knowledgeable but terrifying Dr. ![]() ![]() A serial killer, dubbed Buffalo Bill, has been killing and skinning large women, and dumping their bodies in waterways across the country, in no particular pattern, leaving a chrysalis of the Death’s Head moth in their throats. The clever plots, fierce characters and grisly murders continue in this, the second Hannibal Lecter book. Book Review – The Silence of the Lambs (Hannibal Lecter #2) by Thomas Harris ![]()
Back to Blog
The birds by daphne dumaurier5/28/2023 ![]() ![]() ![]() She continued writing under her maiden name, and her subsequent novels became bestsellers, earning her enormous wealth and fame. A prestigious publishing house accepted her first novel when she was in her early twenties, and its publication brought her not only fame but the attentions of a handsome soldier, Major (later Lieutenant-General Sir) Frederick Browning, whom she married. Her family connections helped her establish her literary career, and she published some of her early work in Beaumont's Bystander magazine. She spent her youth sailing boats, travelling on the Continent with friends, and writing stories. ![]() Her elder sister, Angela du Maurier, also became a writer, and her younger sister Jeanne was a painter. She and her sisters were indulged as a children and grew up enjoying enormous freedom from financial and parental restraint. ![]() Born into a family with a rich artistic and historical background, her paternal grandfather was author and Punch cartoonist George du Maurier, who created the character of Svengali in the 1894 novel Trilby, and her mother was a maternal niece of journalist, author, and lecturer Comyns Beaumont. In many ways her life resembles a fairy tale. Daphne du Maurier was born on at 24 Cumberland Terrace, Regent's Park, London, the middle of three daughters of prominent actor-manager Sir Gerald du Maurier and actress Muriel, née Beaumont. ![]()
Back to Blog
Not a drop to drink book5/28/2023 ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() But when strangers appear, the mysterious footprints by the pond, nighttime threats, and gunshots make it all too clear Lynn has exactly what they want, and they won't stop until they get it.įor more in this gritty world, join Lynn on an epic journey to find home in the companion novel, In a Handful of Dust.Ī high-quality survivalist story for readers who enjoy internal story arcs as well as external dangers. Confident in her own abilities, Lynn has no use for the world beyond the nearby fields and forest. She makes sure anyone who comes near the pond leaves thirsty-or doesn't leave at all. Teenage Lynn has been taught to defend her pond against every threat: drought, a snowless winter, coyotes, and most important, people looking for a drink. New York Times bestselling author Michael Grant says Not a Drop to Drink is a debut "not to be missed." With evocative, spare language and incredible drama, danger, and romance, Mindy McGinnis depicts one girl's journey in a frontierlike world not so different from our own. Fans of classic frontier survival stories, as well as readers of dystopian literature, will enjoy this futuristic story where water is worth more than gold. ![]()
Back to Blog
Kafka 19275/28/2023 ![]() ![]() He concludes: ‘Ich bin entschlossen, nach Amerika auszuwandern, so lange es noch Zeit ist’ and asks Mann for help with a fast-tracked visitor visa. His situation in Prague, he notes, was fast becoming untenable as he faced vicious attacks on his work and character in fascist publications such as the Völkische Beobachter, the NSDAP’s official newspaper. In early 1939 he writes to Thomas Mann, who was then living in Princeton, with a major request. ![]() ![]() In the late 1930s, the life of Max Brod, Franz Kafka’s friend and post-humous editor, became more closely and existentially tied up with the fate of his friend’s manuscripts. How did the autographs of an early-twentieth-century Prague writer end up in Oxford? Interestingly, this situation is not (or only to a small extent) the result of targeted institutional collaboration and primarily the product of a mixture of chance and luck and, most importantly, of personal networks and connections. ![]() |