It's Monday 10/31! What Are You Reading?

Hosted by The Book Date

Life

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!

I love Halloween and our family traditions--it's my favorite holiday! We enjoyed some seasonal fun this weekend, a super big deal because I was able to enjoy some fun. I'm still not fully out of this relapse or back to my usual baseline, but I am doing well enough to get out of the house a bit and move around more.

Friday evening, friends invited us to an outdoor fundraiser dinner for our local Food Bank. It was a beautiful fall evening, held at the Food Bank's farm property. We sat next to a lake and watched the sunset, enjoyed campfires set around the venue, and sampled some delicious food grown on the farm and prepared by their culinary students. I can't remember the last time I went out on a Friday night (luckily for me, this was early!), and we had a great time.

 

Sitting near the lake at a Food Bank event

Saturday, our son and his girlfriend joined us for our traditional visit to a nearby farm market for pumpkins, cider, and fresh, hot apple cider donuts! 

Cider and donuts ... yum!

 

And Sunday, my husband and I carved pumpkins. Our younger son, who lives with us, opted to go out with friends to watch football, but my husband and I kept up the tradition!

My husband and I with our pumpkins

 

 

Our jack-o-lanterns (lightning bolts from me!)

Today, I am SO missing the days when our sons were young and Halloween was one of the biggest highlights of the year! Their friends would come over, and the kids would all be so excited getting ready to go out. Is there anything better for a kid than trick-or-treating? Running around your neighborhood in the dark with your friends, dressed in costumes, and getting free candy! So, for my own nostalgia, here are some of our favorite family costumes from Halloweens past.

The Super Family!

 

Knight, Robin Hood, Little John & Maid Marion

Star Wars family

Rock Stars!

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On the Blog

I only had time for one review last week:

Fiction Review: The Last Policeman by Ben H. Winters - classic detective story set in an apocalyptic world.   

I have thoroughly enjoyed every book I read for the R.I.P. Challenge, immersing myself in the dark, suspenseful, and creepy!

Starting tomorrow (or whenever I finish my last spooky book), I will be participating in Nonfiction November, like I do every year. Helen's Book Blog, one of my favorites, has a great post up with all the details and hosts of Nonfiction November. I'll be posting my Nonfiction November video tomorrow, with my "pile of possibilities."

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 On Video

I posted two new videos to my YouTube channel last week:

Friday Reads 10-28-22 - Happy Halloween! - my last two books of the R.I.P. Challenge, both about ghosts! 

  End of the Year Book Tag - all about what I plan to read the rest of the year - how is it almost November??

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What We're Reading

We're all enjoying the last of the R.I.P. Challenge:  

 

I finished reading a suspense novel with a supernatural twist: A Furnace for Your Foe by Matty Dalrymple. This is book four in her Ann Kinnear series about a woman who can sense and communicate with spirits and often helps solve mysteries by talking to the dead. Here, Ann has traveled back to Mount Desert Island in Maine (one of my favorite places) to record a documentary about her abilities, along with a revered colleague, Garrick Masser. A wealthy man named Leo just died while hiking a trail he knew well, falling to his death from a steep spot. Soon, Shelby, his hiking partner and a colleague at his company, goes missing. Ann begins talking with Leo, as the documentary proceeds and the mysteries build. This was a good one--very twisty and suspenseful. And I love the characters in these books and the way that Matty writes. If you're interested in trying this series, start with book one, The Sense of Death.

Now, I am reading another ghosty novel, The Hotel Neversink by Adam O'Fallon Price. This story is set in the Catskills, at an old hotel set up on a hill overlooking the countryside and the Neversink River. Children keep disappearing from the hotel and the nearby area, and the reader knows from the start there are ghost(s) on the hotel property. This novel is written in an unusual way. Each chapter takes place in a different year and from a different character's perspective, so the story moves gradually from 1950, when the first child disappears, to 2012. The changing characters, mostly staff and guests at the hotel, provide a wide range of perspectives. I'm really enjoying it so far.

 

On audio, I've been listening this week to Denis Ever After by Tony Abbott, a middle-grade ghost story. Denis is a boy who died five years ago when he was seven years old. His body was found on the Georgia monument at Gettysburg after he was kidnapped, and the crime was never solved. Denis is enjoying Port Haven, a sort of interim place for the dead to gradually let go of the living world so that they can move on. Denis has met his great-grandmother, Gigi, there. He left behind a twin brother, Matt, along with his mom and dad, and when Denis checks in on his family, he is upset to see that they are not doing well. They have not been able to let go of the horrible and mysterious circumstances of his death and move on. Denis shows himself to Matt--and endures great pain and repercussions, and the two boys set out to solve Denis's murder to save their family. This immersive, unique novel is wonderful, though as Denis gradually remembers his kidnapping and death, it is quite disturbing. Best for older middle-graders or young teens (or adults--it's excellent!).

 

My husband, Ken, is still reading Into the Water by Paula Hawkins, a novel I found for him in one of our local Little Free Libraries (my LFL tour at the link). We both read and enjoyed Hawkins' The Girl on the Train. This newer novel is about two women who show up dead in a river that runs through town. There are multiple narrators and timelines shifting back and forth, but now that he's well into it, he says he knows who everyone is! It seems to be engrossing.

 

Our son, 28, is enjoying Confessor, book ten in the Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind. He's been plowing through these books and loves this series!

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What Are You Reading Monday is hosted by Kathryn at Book Date, so head over and check out her blog and join the Monday fun! You can also participate in a kid/teen/YA version hosted by Unleashing Readers.

You can follow me on Twitter at @SueBookByBook or on Facebook on my blog's page.  

What are you and your family reading this week?

 

Fiction Review: The Last Policeman

I had heard recommendations for The Last Policeman by Ben H. Winters from several different sources, including the Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast and author Jason Rekulak at Booktopia 2017 ... and it won the Edgar Award for Best Paperback Original in 2013. Since my husband loves mysteries and suspense, I gave it to him as a gift, and he liked it so much that I also gave him the second book in the trilogy, Countdown City, which he also enjoyed. Now, I finally had a chance to read this unique pre-apocalyptic detective story for myself.

Hank Palace has only recently been promoted to detective for the Concord, NH, police department, but he's completely committed to this job he's wanted all his life. So committed, in fact, that he's still working even though the world will end in six months. There's a giant asteroid headed for Earth, and at this point, there is nothing that scientists or governments can do about it. It's so big that no matter where it hits (everyone is waiting for the estimate), it will cause catastrophic changes all over the world, and life will never be the same. Life is already completely different, as people everywhere leave their jobs to chase their dreams. Hank is called out early one cold March morning to a local McDonald's (which, like all chains, is now a pirated shop) to the scene of an apparent hanging in the men's room. Suicides have become horribly common in this new world, and for some reason, hanging seems to be the method of choice in their town. The officer on the scene and the assistant attorney general who arrives both immediately write it off as yet another suicide, but Hank isn't so sure. There are tiny details at the crime scene that give him pause, so he sends the body to the medical examiner, amid his colleagues' teasing. Hank continues to investigate this seeming-suicide as a suspicious death, and the more he learns, the more complicated things seem. Could this possibly be a murder or is Hank wasting time investigating one of many suicides happening everywhere?

This classic detective novel is set in such a unique and surreal world that it makes for some very compelling reading. While Hank is following clues and interviewing people of interest, the reader gradually gets a fuller picture of what is happening in this small town--and all over the world--as the human race faces an apocalypse. The details are fascinating and lend themselves to many what-if questions. The mystery at the center of the novel is a good one: twisty and intriguing. Hank brings the reader right along with him, wondering what happened to this guy and becoming a bit obsessed with finding out. And, of course, at the heart of the novel is the question, Why does it matter? I enjoyed going along with Hank as he solved this case, and I'm looking forward to reading the next two books in the trilogy.

318 pages, Quirk Books

Brilliance Audio

Note: This post contains affiliate links. Purchases from these links provide a small commission to me (pennies per purchase), to help offset the time I spend writing for this blog, at no extra cost to you.

 

This book fits in the following 2022 Reading Challenges:

 

Mount TBR Challenge

Monthly Motif Challenge - murder or magic?

2022 Literary Escapes - New Hampshire

R.I.P. Challenge

Fall Into Reading Challenge - science fiction

 

Visit my YouTube Channel for more bookish fun!

 

Listen to a sample of the audiobook here and/or download it from Audible.

 

You can buy the book through Bookshop.org, where your purchase will support the indie bookstore of your choice (or all indie bookstores)--the convenience of shopping online while still buying local!

    

 

Or you can order The Last Policeman from Book Depository, with free shipping worldwide.

It's Monday 10/24! What Are You Reading?

Hosted by The Book Date

 Life

Most of last week was unpacking and catching up after our lovely long weekend at Lake Harmony. We had a nice treat on Saturday night. With my health being so poor and unpredictable lately, I haven't seen friends in ages. Luckily, we've got great friends who responded to my last-minute invitation to come over Saturday night for Thai takeout and a campfire! We hadn't seen them in months, so we enjoyed the delicious food, the perfect fall evening, and had a great time catching up with them. And it made up for missing our camping trip, too!

Cozy campfire on a beautiful fall night!

Briefly, I've seen some small improvements in my health this weekend, as this months-long relapse continues. My energy is definitely better, though the flu-like aches persist (and they are a warning sign that if I do anything, I'll get a lot worse). I had a long talk with my doctor last week about the (necessary) medication change in August that probably triggered this relapse initially. We decided on a new medication to try, to attempt to stabilize my hormone levels, and so far, I think it's helping! Yesterday was my first day without a headache in weeks. Fingers crossed the improvement continues.

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On the Blog

I was able to catch up on some reviews last week: 

Middle-Grade Graphic Novel Review: Booked by Kwame Alexander - an impulse grab at the library turned out to be an outstanding book!

   Fiction Review: The Word Is Murder by Anthony Horowitz - an excellent, unpredictable mystery ... with a twist

Fiction Review: The Guide by Peter Heller - I loved this outdoor thriller with great nature writing 

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On Video

One new book video posted to my YouTube channel:

Friday Reads & Lake Vacation - my usual weekly update on books, plus videos and photos from our weekend on the lake   

 

Plus, my local bookstore interviewed me last week! They posted the video to their Facebook page:

Hockessin Book Shelf Interview with Suzan Jackson 

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What We're Reading

We're still immersed in the R.I.P. Challenge for fall and enjoying our books:  

 

I finished reading High Country by Nevada Barr. Barr writes a series of mystery/thrillers featuring Park Ranger Anna Pigeon; each book is set in a different national park. In this one, Anna's been asked to travel to Yosemite NP and go undercover as a waitress, to sub in for a young woman who's recently gone missing, along with three other young park workers. As Anna quietly investigates, some very strange things come to light and happen to her. The tension grows as she begins to realize what's behind the disappearances, with several high-tension climactic scenes! Like all of Barr's novels, this one was suspenseful, immersive, and set in a beautiful (though here, quite dark) place. It was gripping from beginning to end, and now I remember why I love Nevada Barr's writing! 

Now, I am reading another dark suspense novel, with a supernatural twist: A Furnace for Your Foe by Matty Dalrymple. This is book four in her Ann Kinnear series about a woman who can sense and communicate with spirits and often helps solve mysteries by talking to the dead. Here, Ann has traveled back to Mount Desert Island in Maine (one of my favorite places) to record a documentary about her abilities, along with a revered colleague, Garrick Masser. A man named Leo just died while hiking a trail he knew well, falling to his death from a steep spot. Soon, Shelby, his hiking partner and a colleague at his company, goes missing. Ann begins talking with Leo, as the documentary proceeds and the mysteries build. I love this series and am fully immersed in this novel!

 

On audio, I am still listening to a psychological suspense novel, The Captives by Debra Jo Immergut. A young woman named Miranda is serving a long sentence for murder in a women's prison. She's assigned to prison psychologist Frank Lundquist, who immediately recognizes Miranda as his high school crush. Of course, this is a conflict of interest, but he doesn't say anything, and she doesn't seem to recognize him (she was a popular girl and he had few friends), so they begin therapy. As their sessions continue in the present day, we learn more about their pasts. The tension gradually builds in this novel. I'm almost to the end and just now finally finding out why Miranda went to prison. It's been twisty and compelling.

 

My husband, Ken, is still reading Into the Water by Paula Hawkins, a novel I found for him in one of our local Little Free Libraries (my LFL tour at the link). We both read and enjoyed Hawkins' The Girl on the Train. This newer novel is about two women who show up dead in a river that runs through town. There are multiple narrators and timelines shifting back and forth, but now that he's well into it, he says he knows who everyone is! It seems to be engrossing.

 

Our son, 28, just finished Phantom, book nine in the Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind, and now he's moving onto book ten, Confessor. This is the last one of a bunch that he bought at a used bookstore last time he visited home, so he'll have to move onto a different series next!

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What Are You Reading Monday is hosted by Kathryn at Book Date, so head over and check out her blog and join the Monday fun! You can also participate in a kid/teen/YA version hosted by Unleashing Readers.

You can follow me on Twitter at @SueBookByBook or on Facebook on my blog's page.  

What are you and your family reading this week?

Fiction Review: The Guide

I met author Peter Heller at Booktopia 2017, when he was discussing his novel, Celine, about a kick-ass older woman who used to work for the FBI and now helps to find missing persons (based on his own mother's real life!). Last year, my husband and I both read and enjoyed The River by Heller. Both of these novels combine two of our favorite things: thrillers and beautiful outdoor settings. So, I was excited to read Heller's latest outdoor thriller, The Guide, which is a follow-up to The River.

Jack, one of the main characters from The River, is back, now in his home state of Colorado. Jack's had a rough time with grieving and PTSD, so he takes a job as a fishing guide for the summer. Fishing has always been a soothing activity for him, and he thinks that fishing every day in this beautiful place will help him to heal. Kingfisher Lodge is very luxurious, catering to super wealthy clients, located on one of the most beautiful, pristine stretches of river in the state. Jack is assigned to guide Alison K. (no last names to protect privacy) as his first client. He doesn't really follow celebrity culture, but he thinks he recognizes her as a hugely popular singer. All he cares about is that she loves to fish as much as he does, and she's very good at it. The two of them spend their days on the river, engrossed in fly-fishing. But from the moment he's introduced to the property and the staff, Jack begins to feel that something's just not right in this idyllic spot. The property is bound by barbed wire on one side, and a warning that trespassers will be shot on the other.  Jack hears a scream in the middle of the night, some of the staff (and the lodge's rules) seem strange, and both he and Alison begin to notice that something is off with some of the other guests. What is really going on at this beautiful fishing lodge?

This is another winner from Heller! The first two-thirds of the novel is a slow build of tension, as Jack's observations and gut feeling tell him something is wrong. The suspense develops gradually, with a growing sense of dread, as Jack and Alison spend sun-soaked days on the river but sense something sinister beneath the surface. Toward the end of the novel, that tension bursts into an action-packed thriller with stunning secrets revealed one after another and Jack's life in danger. My favorite part of this and his other novels, though, is Heller's gorgeous nature writing.

"Jack put the manager out of his mind or tried. But it wasn't until they were through lunch and back on the creek that his anger swirled away in the thigh-deep current. The thing about fishing: it washed everything away but water and stone and wind. And bird cry. And blowdown. And a spiderweb's gleamings in the exposed roots of a cut bank. And in a tailwater pool: the spreading rings of rising trout, dapping silently like slow rain. His heart rose to these things like a hungry fish and he could forget himself."

I'm not really into fishing, but throughout the book, Heller paints vivid pictures of the outdoor world--the sights, sounds, and scents of nature--and how they affect Jack. I could completely relate to these frequent passages and appreciated them during a time when I wasn't able to get outside much myself. This is a thriller, though, and the horrors that humans can come up with are in sharp contrast to those beautiful, peaceful portraits of the natural world. My husband and I both loved this novel and can't wait to see what Peter Heller writes next!

257 pages, Alfred A. Knopf

Random House Audio

This book fits in the following 2022 Reading Challenges:

 

Mount TBR Challenge

Literary Escapes Challenge - Colorado

RIP Challenge

Fall Into Reading Challenge - Leaves on the cover

 

Visit my YouTube Channel for more bookish fun!

 

Listen to a sample of the audiobook here and/or download it from Audible.

 

You can buy the book through Bookshop.org, where your purchase will support the indie bookstore of your choice (or all indie bookstores)--the convenience of shopping online while still buying local!

   

 

Or you can order The Guide from Book Depository, with free shipping worldwide.

Fiction Review: The Word Is Murder

I knew of author Anthony Horowitz mostly because of his very popular middle-grade spy thriller series, Alex Rider, which my son enjoyed when he was a kid. I've been hearing more recently about Horowitz's adult novels, and I've been meaning to try those out. Last month, I listened to The Word Is Murder on audio, the first of his Hawthorne and Horowitz mysteries. It's a classic detective story, with a twist.

The surprising thing about this detective novel is that the author has put himself--his real-life self--into the middle of this fictional story. The main character is Anthony Horowitz, with all the writing credits and life experiences of the real Anthony Horowitz. In addition to his well-known novels, Horowitz has written many screenplays for movies and TV, including a popular detective TV show in the UK. That's all true. In the fictional world of the novel, Horowitz is approached by ex-police detective Daniel Hawthorne to write a true crime book about him solving a case. Hawthorne worked on the set of Horowitz's TV show as a consultant, and now, he wants the author to write about his newest murder case. It's an unusual one. A woman walked into a funeral parlor off the street, without an appointment, and planned and prepaid for her funeral. Six hours later, that woman was murdered in her own home. How is that series of coincidental events possible? The woman is the mother of a famous Hollywood actor, and she seems to have been well-liked and involved in the community. Horowitz agrees to write the book and begins to go with Hawthorne, all over London, as he interviews witnesses and suspects and investigates the murder.

The pair of Hawthorne and Horowitz have a Sherlock Holmes-Dr. Watson vibe. Like Holmes, Hawthorne seems to be a brilliant investigator and keen observer, though lacking in typical social graces. He often notices things and begins a line of investigation that makes no sense to Horowitz and has to be explained. The mystery itself is a twisty and complex one, with plenty of red herrings and dead ends. I enjoyed listening to the audio, narrated by actor Rory Kinnear. Besides the immersive and intriguing mystery, the main characters are interesting, and there is even a bit of humor in the story. This was a fun, suspenseful mystery that kept me guessing right up to the end.

432 pages, Harper Perennial

HarperAudio

This book fits in the following 2022 Reading Challenges:

 

Travel the World in Books - UK

R.I.P. Challenge

 

Disclosure: I received this book from the publisher in return for an honest review. My review is my own opinion and is not influenced by my relationship with the publisher or author.

 

Note: This post contains affiliate links. Purchases from these links provide a small commission to me (pennies per purchase), to help offset the time I spend writing for this blog, at no extra cost to you.

 

Visit my YouTube Channel for more bookish fun!

 

Listen to a sample of the audiobook here and/or download it from Audible.

 

You can buy the book through Bookshop.org, where your purchase will support the indie bookstore of your choice (or all indie bookstores)--the convenience of shopping online while still buying local!

   

 

Or you can order The Word Is Murder from Book Depository, with free shipping worldwide.

Middle-Grade Graphic Novel Review: Booked

This is probably my strangest reason ever for choosing a book! At the end of September, I realized I hadn't read a book for the Monthly Motif Challenge yet (you can see all of my reading challenges here). September's motif was "a book with a clever title that uses a play on words, a pun, or a double meaning." I didn't have time to fit another regular book in, but while in the library on September 29, I realized I could fit in a graphic novel! I went to the kids' section and found the perfect graphic novel: Booked by Kwame Alexander, with illustrations by Dawud Anyabwile. Not only does the title have multiple meanings, but the book itself is filled with clever word play that I thoroughly enjoyed.

Twelve-year-old Nick has a pretty good life as the novel opens. He is a star soccer player, playing for both his school team and a travel team. His best friend, Coby, also plays for the school team and is the star player on a competing travel team. Nick's mom has signed him up for old-fashioned etiquette/dancing classes, which are pretty lame, but he has a crush on a girl named April in the class, and he thinks she might like him, too. Then, things begin crashing down in Nick's life: his parents have a devastating announcement, bullies are bothering him, and even his beloved soccer is threatened. Just when it seems like he's hit bottom, Nick begins to realize he has a lot of people in his life who care for him--not just his parents and Coby but a teacher at school and The Mac, the school's rapper librarian. He even begins to develop an appreciation for books.

Sample page from Booked

Describing the plot (even though it is an excellent plot) doesn't even scratch the surface of this wonderful book! Kwame Alexander is known for his novels-in-verse, and this one includes a wide variety of storytelling techniques: verse, dialogue, narration, texts, and more. The illustrations by Anyabwile are stunning, in black, white, and green. The action just leaps off the page, and the characters come to life. And, as I mentioned, the book is loaded with fun, clever word play, well beyond just the multiple meanings of "booked." Nick's dad is a literature professor who's written his own dictionary of "weird and wonderful words" that Nick's required to read from each day (reluctantly), so the novel is packed with fun new vocabulary Nick is learning in spite of himself. This original, fun graphic novel has it all: friendship, family, action, humor, and plenty of emotional depth. I'm so glad my reading challenge led me to this wonderful book I might have otherwise missed!

320 pages, Clarion Books

This book fits in the following 2022 Reading Challenges:

 

Monthly Motif Challenge - Title Play

Diversity Challenge 

Note: This post contains affiliate links. Purchases from these links provide a small commission to me (pennies per purchase), to help offset the time I spend writing for this blog, at no extra cost to you.

Visit my YouTube Channel for more bookish fun!

 

You can buy the book through Bookshop.org, where your purchase will support the indie bookstore of your choice (or all indie bookstores)--the convenience of shopping online while still buying local!

   

 

Or you can order Booked from Book Depository, with free shipping worldwide.