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It was, I’m sure, pure coincidence that the two books I recently read had main characters named Jane whose death seemed all but inevitable.  Loosely connected by the thread of “Janes in constant danger”, Helen Keeble’s campy, funny debut  Fang Girl and Graham McNamee’s spooky Beyond took me from the dark nights in a British suburb to the even darker, rainy nights in a small village on Canada’s “rain coast.” Waking up disoriented, in a small dark space, to the sound of a mobile phone ringing, Xanthe “Jane” Greene, realizes very quickly that she is dead. No, actually, she’s not dead, she’s undead. As in vampire undead.Read More →

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“You know what?” Minnie said with a dramatic pause. “This is how horror movies start.” (58) And so it is in Gretchen McNeil’s Ten.  A seemingly innocent weekend house party on exclusive Henry Island turns deadly in less than 100 pages where best friends since middle school, high school seniors Meg and Minnie, are two of 10 guests invited to the most popular girl in school’s private party.  Other guests come from 2 other high schools in town and while the hostess is delayed on the mainland, the group of 10 make themselves at home.  Predictably, a torrential storm sets in, knocking out the power,Read More →

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The voices in Ry Burke’s head have been quiet for nearly nine years following the trauma he suffered in the Black Glade forest which grows beside his family’s farm. During this time, he and his family has been able to return to a resemblance of normalcy, escaping Marvin Burke, the abusive father Ry helped to put in prison. But, with the oncoming of a meteor shower, Ry hears the voices of his “friends” rising to the surface again just as his family is informed of an explosion at the nearby prison. As the meteors begin to fall and the threat of Marvin’s return looms, theRead More →

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17 year old Jack’s summer job, as a “nanny” for an 8 and 12 year old brother and sister, seems like it would be a cake walk.  He’ll be making really good money and all he has to do is hang out with a couple of kids for a couple months.  The major downside is that the kids live on an isolated island off the mainland that’s devoid of any modern connectivity; sure, they have generator-powered electricity, but there’s no phone, no wi-fi or internet, and the only connection to the outside world is the twice weekly ferry that passes by the island.  Willing toRead More →

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Acclaimed British novelist Catherine Fisher (Incarceron – The Times’ Children’s Book of the Year) is back this Fall with a new subtly woven, spooky Faust-inspired, fantasy, Darkwater. In the early twentieth century in a windswept British village on the sea, 16 year old Sarah Trevelyan would give anything to regain the power, prestige, and wealth her family held for generations but lost in the folly of a card game gone wrong.  Reduced to living with her family’s only remaining loyal servant, Sarah’s sickly and broken father sinks deeper into a wasting illness while she is forced to humble herself as a scullery maid at the localRead More →

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Libba Bray‘s latest series, The Diviners, combines popular culture favorites from Roaring Twenties of HBO’s Boardwalk Empire series to Showtime’s Dexter’s most recent season of a serial killer’s elaborate staged murders set to bring about the End of Days.  Throw in her trademark historical fiction and a dash of romance, and Bray’s new series is going to be a big hit. The first book in the series centers around spunky, smart and convention-fighting Evie.  She’s got too big of a personality for her small Ohio home town and at 17 has already crossed the conservative social lines one too many times. Sent to live inRead More →

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What would you sacrifice for power? For love?  Would you give of yourself – your blood, your energy, your soul – for someone else if you loved them enough? To harness the power of the land, a sacrifice is required. A drop of blood onto the earth brings abundance and growth. A drop of blood into wine or food brings vitality and wellness. A drop of blood is the trade-off to release the magic, tying the giver to the gift, making the circle whole and the magic powerful.  To harness the trust and love of another, a sacrifice is required.  Sharing hopes and dreams bringsRead More →

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Calling to mind the sometimes surreal, often dreamlike, and always visceral way that Francesca Lia Block infuses the City of Los Angeles with a pulsating life of its own in her many young adult novels, M. Beth Bloom‘s debut, Drain You, creates a city simmering under the summertime sun,  blown dry by the desert winds, and fully alive while we spend the endless nights wandering the streets of a city built on dreams, shadows, illusions and secrets.  The scene is so perfectly set, the place so vividly imagined and described, it’s very easy to lose yourself to the siren call of a city that isRead More →

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Anna Waggener’s debut, Grim,  is an oddly befuddling, somewhat incomprehensible story that didn’t “come together” until about 150 pages into the book.  Switching between multiple points of view, jumping through time and space, and not giving any real explanation for much of anything, it took a lot of patience on my part to wait for that crucial “oh, now I understand” moment.  Erika, a mid-thirties divorced mother of 3 who’s unhappy with her life, is killed driving home from work on a dark stretch of highway; Rebecca, her reckless 18 year old daughter and Shawn, her straightlaced 16 year old son,  are wracked with griefRead More →