All tagged Paranormal
A New Favorite, But Not for Everyone - The Diviners by Libba Bray
Libba Bray writes of the wind in the first pages of The Diviners, of how it swoops through New York City, silent witness to all that has been, is and will be.
The wind existed forever. It has seen much in this country of dreams and soap ads, old horrors and bloodshed. It has played mute witness to its burning witches, and has walked along a Trail of Tears; it has seen the slave ships release their human cargo, blinking and afraid, into the ports, their only possession a grief they can never lose ... It ran with the buffalo and touched tentative fingers to the tall black hats of Puritans. It has carried shouts of love, and it has dried tears to salt tracks on more faces than it can number.
The wind also saw the Roaring Twenties, a time when anything seemed possible, where money flowed as freely as illegal booze.
Evie O’Neill felt trapped in a small town with small minds. She ached to jump out of the confines of he life into the glamour and excitement she knew waited for her. Her exuberance and sometimes her rashness made Evie a poor candidate for living happily in a backwoods Ohio community.
One evening while partying with friends and drinking way too much, Evie stretches the bounds of acceptability for the last time by revealing a town scandal. It lands her in front of her parents with her head pounding from a hangover with mom and dad shouting their displeasure and despair.
Review: Spirit and Dust by Rosemary Clement-Moore
Rosemary Clement-Moore’s name on a book assures me that I’m in for a delightful and clever novel. It also translates to some late nights of reading until my eyes will no longer continue a marathon session filled with humor and a fantastical world.
The Goodnight family’s funny, eccentric, unique and lovable and they have the gift of magic. Their magic has wrapped itself around me from my first read of author Rosemary Clement-Moore’s Texas Gothic to her latest novel Spirit and Dust.
I first met the Goodnights with all their magical quirkiness Texas Gothic, which I loved for its humor and a thick coat of mystery with a few Nancy Drew references. None of the Goodnights fit neatly into predicable package, which is true of Spirit and Dust’s main character, Daisy Goodnight, who possesses a magical talent with a deadly twist.
The local cops kept staring at me. I couldn’t decide if it was the plaid miniskirt in subarctic temperatures, or the fact that they’d never seen anyone talk to the dead before.
Review: Oath Bound (Unbound #3) by Rachel Vincent
The third (and supposedly, final) installment in Rachel Vincent's Unbound series, Oath Bound was one of my most anticipated novels of the year. The unusual, mob-style world and distinctive, yet not overwhelming, paranormal elements have made this series one I've enjoyed immensely, and recommend often.
Fortunately, Oath Bound met my expectations and while I didn't love it as much as the second book in the series, Shadow Bound, it equalled the quality of the gripping first novel, Blood Bound. However, for an alleged final book in a series, I was definitely left feeling that there was quite a bit more needed in order for the series to achieve closure (though as with the previous books, the story itself comes to a satisfying ending).
Note: I have made every attempt to not spoil either of the two previous books in this series. While this novel would be best read after reading Blood Bound and Shadow Bound, it could be read as a standalone.
Here's quick primer on the Unbound world: The best comparison I can make is to Holly Black's Curse Workers series (which I also highly recommend). Some people are Skilled, and are able to utilize their Skills for a specific purpose, such as tracking people with just a name, teleporting via dark spaces, jamming tracking skills, binding contracts in a way that they're unbreakable or seeing future events. Like in the Curse Workers series, these talents are often commandeered by crime families, whose organizations exploit the Skilled for the benefit of their criminal enterprises. These organizations are ruthless, and the particular city these novels take place in are ruled by two rival, ruthless syndicates: Tower and Cavazos.
The Unbound series explores the theme of free will quite extensively, as that's the most valuable commodity in this world.
Each of the books in the Unbound series are told from two first-person points-of-view. In Oath Bound, one of those points-of-view is Kris, the brother of Kori, who was a narrator in Shadow Bound, and Kenley, an important secondary character in both this novel and the previous installment. The other narrator is a new introduction, Sera, who's the secret daughter of Jake Tower, former leader of one of the Tower syndicates.
Review: Levitating Las Vegas by Jennifer Echols
Generally, I really enjoy it when authors take their writing in new directions. Maybe a contemporary/realistic author tries science fiction, or a speculative author attempts a mystery. So, when Jennifer Echols--who's a favorite author of mine--announced that she'd written a paranormal "new adult" novel, my interest was piqued.
Unfortunately, while Levitating Las Vegas had an interesting concept, the filmsy world-building, characterization and plot largely failed to to deliver.
Holly Starr is a Las Vegas showgirl and recent college grad who has taken medication for years to prevent hallucinations that started as a teen, hallucinations that she could levitate. She's tired of spending her nights assisting in her father's magic show and hopes to forge her own path in Las Vegas. Her former classmate, Elijah also experienced hallucinations as a teen that he's been medicated for ever since. In his case, he believed he could read minds.
Both of their hallucinations threaten to return when the supply of their medication suddenly disappears, and they start to wonder if maybe they're not so crazy after all?
““Why the hell not?” Holly yelled back. “It doesn’t sound so bad when I think about all the shit you and my parents have put me through. Just for starters, all the edamame, Kaylee. My mom brainwashed me into purchasing and steaming my very own edamame even now that I’m out from under her roof, just to keep my weight down. Do you know how many cookies I’ve missed out on in the last seven years, all in the name of pleasing my parents despite my fake debilitating mental illness? God!” ”
Thus ensues a mayhem-filled story that includes everything from a kidnapping (Elijah kidnaps Holly) to a show-stopper of a magic trick involving nudity and the Hoover Dam.
With this wild premise, Levitating Las Vegas could have been a fun read, and I did have moments when I really enjoyed it (such as Holly, who'd never driven a car, "driving" it down the Strip in her own unique fashion) and am a sucker for caper-style plots, as a big fan of urban fantasy, I expected more in terms of logical construction of the world and magic.
Dear Googler, Volume 4
Dear Googler,
It's been awhile since we answered your questions. You have many burning questions, quite a few of are the dirty variety and we're worried that you've been left hanging all this time.
You asked, we answered.
XOXOX,
Clear Eyes, Full Shelves
Review: The Madness Underneath by Maureen Johnson
I was in the unusual position of holding all the cards. I had to decide what to do, and only I could do it. And I was going to do it. I had faced frightening things before and had been powerless. But not this time.
Maureen Johnson's The Name of the Star was a real surprise for me in 2011. It had a bit of everything--mystery, paranormal, romance, humor--and it all came together in quickly-paced, gripping read.
The long-awaited sequel, The Madness Underneath, continues in the same vein, but amps up the over-arching intrigue factor, building the overarching mystery that began in the first Shades of London novel.
Note: the rest of review contains mild spoilers for the previous book in the series. If you want to remain wholly unspoiled about The Name of the Star and are curious about starting reading this series, please read Sandra's spoiler-free review of that book.
The Madness Underneath revisits Rory, a Louisiana native in England who survived a run-in with the ghost of Jack the Ripper in the first novel, but was also profoundly transformed--in a very literal way. She's now a terminus, a human who can vanquish ghosts on contact. Her background means that she's mostly unflappable, even to her weird circumstances.
It’s possible that I have a higher tolerance for crazy talk than most people because of my background. I’ve channeled multicolored angels with my cousin and gone for discount waxes with my grandmother. I know two people who have started their own religions. One of my neighbors was arrested for sitting on top of the town equestrian statue dressed as SpiderMan. He just climbed up there with a few loaves of bread and tore them up and threw bread at anyone who got near him. Another neighbor puts up her Christmas decorations in August and goes caroling on Halloween to “fight the devil with song.”
Rory finds herself back in London after her parents sequestered her away in Bristol. She's rejoined her classmates at Wexford, the boarding school she left after her incident with the aforementioned ghost. Understandably, Rory has a difficult time adjusting, especially since her friends from the ghost catching squad (I call them the Ghost Busters in my head, but they're actually called The Shades), Stephen, Callum and Boo, seem to be missing. She's alone with her weird ability.