Middle-Grade Review: Denis Ever After

For my last audio book for the R.I.P Challenge in October, I chose a middle-grade novel, Denis Ever After by Tony Abbott. I loved every minute of this combination murder mystery-ghost story!

The narrator of this novel, Denis, is dead. He died when he was seven years old, and it's now been five years since he arrived in Port Haven, a sort of interim place the dead go to shed their lives and prepare to move on. He's been hanging out with GeeGee, his great-grandmother, who mentions the five-year anniversary to him one day. Startled by how much time has passed, Denis decides to look in on his twin brother, Matt, and his parents. What he sees is disturbing. They have not moved on. Matt has become obsessed with finding out what happened to Denis. All they know is that Denis was kidnapped and his body was later found at Gettysburg, on the Georgia monument there. Not knowing what happened has also torn his dad apart and caused friction between his parents. There are some negative consequences for Denis, but he decides he must pass back through the barrier between dead and living (not just look through it) to help his brother. Once Matt sees Denis, the two boys begin to investigate his death and the events leading up to it. Denis doesn't remember anything about that time. With their dad's help (though only Matt can see Denis), they return to the amusement park where Denis went missing and from there, look for clues or something that might trigger memories of that awful day. As they continue to look into it and get closer to some answers, Denis begins to have flashes of memory and passes that information onto Matt, as the boys put the pieces of the puzzle together.

While this is, at its center, a murder mystery, there is so much more to this wonderful novel. It's an in-depth look at the grief of a family, and the different ways that people cope. Denis and Matt's relationship as twin brothers is at the heart of the story, and it is filled with emotional depth. The characters here are fully formed and feel real. I loved the sections describing Port Haven and its inhabitants and the gentle process of adjustment that occurs after death, much like what their loved ones left behind are going through. As for the mystery itself, it's a suspenseful one, with plenty of surprise twists in store. The audio production was excellent and fully immersed me in the story. I enjoyed everything about this novel and look forward to reading more of Tony Abbott's books.

NOTE: This is a middle-grade novel, but some of the scenes--as Denis begins to remember and essentially relive the terror of what happened to him--might be too much for younger readers. I think that older middle-grade and young teen readers will love this book as much as I did.

320 pages, Katherine Tegen Books

This book fits in the following 2022 Reading Challenges:

 

Diversity Challenge

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, narrated by Kirby Heyborne, and/or download it from Audible. In the sample, Denis describes Port Haven, Gee Gee, and the tiny glimpses of memory he has from his death.

 

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 Denis Ever After from Book Depository, with free shipping worldwide.

Fiction Review: A Furnace for Your Foe

Toward the end of October I plunged into the "spirit" of the season with several novels about ghosts! I first read A Furnace for Your Foe by Matty Dalrymple, book four in the Ann Kinnear Suspense series. I don't normally read many series and almost never an entire series, in order, but I love this one! I read book 3, The Falcon and the Owl, in September and books one and two, The Sense of Death and The Sense of Reckoning in past falls. I once again thoroughly enjoyed this suspenseful mystery about a woman who can sense and communicate with spirits.

Ann Kinnear has been able to sense spirits since she was a little girl, though her talent has sharpened in recent years (see The Sense of Death, book one), now allowing her to actually communicate with the dead. She's put her skills to use with her business, Ann Kinnear Sensing, run by her brother, Mike. Ann appeared in a documentary, and now the filmmaker wants to make a second documentary, starring her and her colleague, Garrett Masser. Masser lives on Mount Desert Island in Maine (home of Acadia National Park), and the two worked together previously, as recounted in book 2, The Sense of Reckoning. Ann and Mike return to the island to film the documentary, timed to coincide with a recent suspicious death. A wealthy research scientist, Leo Dorn, recently fell to his death from a steep hiking trail while with his colleague and hiking partner, Shelby Kim. What's odd is that the trail was on Leo's own property, he had hiked it many times before, and the trail was dry that day. Soon after Ann arrives on the island, Shelby disappears. Though they are there to record the film, Ann also wants to help the police and the families and friends of Leo and Shelby. She speaks with Leo and goes searching for Shelby in the area where the woman disappeared.

What follows is a super-twisty, unpredictable, rollercoaster of a mystery, with secrets around every corner. I love this series in part because of the unique mix of suspense, mystery, and the supernatural. Peeking into the afterlife is endlessly fascinating to me. Just as important, though, is the excellent writing here that combines in-depth characters, family drama, and humor with the suspense. The author also provides wonderful details about the settings (here, one of my favorite places) that help to immerse the reader in the story. There were plenty of surprises in store in this novel, as well as some breathtakingly close calls for Ann and her friends. Each novel in this series just gets better and better. I can't wait to read the latest entry, book 5, A Serpent's Tooth, and I'm not waiting until next fall!

P.S. If you're wondering about the unusual title for this novel, it's from a quote from Shakespeare's Henry VIII. Matty often uses Shakespeare quotes for her titles.

339, William Kingsfield Publishers

This book fits in the following 2022 Reading Challenges:

 

Mount TBR Challenge

Diversity Challenge

R.I.P. Challenge

Visit my YouTube Channel for more bookish fun!

 

Listen to a sample of the audiobook here, narrated by Victoria Matlock Fowler, and/or download it from Audible. The sample is from the beginning of the novel, as Leo and Shelby are out on their ill-fated hike.

 

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 A Furnace for Your Foe from Book Depository, with free shipping worldwide.

Fiction Review: The Captives

I've been wanting to read The Captives by Debra Jo Immergut since its release in 2018. It caught my eye because Immergut was a long-time editor at FamilyFun magazine, which I wrote for freelance for over a decade. I never worked directly with her but always enjoyed her articles and was excited to see she'd turned to fiction after the magazine folded. This unique psychological suspense novel kept the tension up throughout the story.

Frank Lundquist works as a psychologist in a women's prison in New York state. It's not clear at first exactly what happened, but some sort of scandal lost him his Manhattan practice and landed him here. He's stunned one day when an inmate walks into his office for a new appointment, and he recognizes her as his high school crush. Miranda Greene was more than just a crush for Frank; he watched her every move and can still recite her achievements at track events. But she was a popular girl, and he was one of those quiet, invisible guys without any friends. He knows who she is as soon as she walks in his office, but she doesn't recognize him. Despite this being a huge ethical issue, he moves forward with her therapy without revealing that he knows her. She is still beautiful, even in this place, and he looks forward to his sessions with her. He can read in her file about her crime--murder--and knows of her very long sentence, though he has no idea what the circumstances were or how the golden girl from high school could have fallen to such a low. As their sessions continue, Frank becomes determined to somehow save Miranda.

This story unfolds slowly, with tension gradually building. Both Frank's and Miranda's backstories are revealed bit by bit: their childhoods, siblings, what happened to Frank's career, and how Miranda ended up in prison, convicted of murder. The action moves back and forth between the present and those past events, so the reader gradually gets to know each of them better. Meanwhile, in the present, there is a growing sense of dread because you know that Frank shouldn't be seeing Miranda as a patient, and Miranda is growing more desperate and Frank more obsessed with helping her (beyond therapy). The audio production was excellent, with both a male and female narrator to read Frank and Miranda's alternating chapters. Much of this novel is a slow build-up, with some surprising twists in store in the last chapters. I just read that The Captives was a 2019 Edgar Award finalist for Best Debut Novel, and I look forward to reading her second novel, released in 2020, You Again.

288 pages, Ecco

HarperAudio

This book fits in the following 2022 Reading Challenges:

 

R.I.P. Challenge

 

Visit my YouTube Channel for more bookish fun!

 

Listen to a sample of the audiobook here, from Frank's section during his first meeting with Miranda and thinking back to high school, and/or download it from Audible. This sample really sets up the whole story.

 

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 Captives from Book Depository, with free shipping worldwide.

Fiction Review: High Country

I have been a fan of Nevada Barr's novels for decades. My husband and I both enjoy her thrillers (19 now!) set in national parks, starring Park Ranger Anna Pigeon. We've read Anna Pigeon novels set in Isle Royale, Mesa Verde, Lassen Volcanic, and Carlsbad Caverns (see my review of Blind Descent). It's especially fun to read a Barr novel set in a park we've visited, as is the case in High Country, set in Yosemite National Park.

Our visit to Yosemite was in the summer with blue skies and sunshine, but this novel is set in December, a time when far fewer visitors come to the isolated valley. That setting--cold, foggy, remote, and constantly overcast--provides plenty of atmosphere for this dark story. Anna has been asked to come work at the park undercover, to help get some information about four young people, all seasonal park employees, who recently disappeared without a trace. Trish was one of them, and she worked as a waitress at the historic Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite Valley, so Anna arrives just in time to take over Trish's shifts. She also takes Trish's room in the nearby employee dorms. Her roommates are twenty-somethings and Anna is almost fifty, but she does her best to be friendly and get to know these young women who might have information about Trish that could help to find her and the other missing employees. Almost immediately, Anna begins to sense that something sinister is going on at the park. The head ranger who brought her in is away for a week, and the deputy thinks this whole undercover thing is ridiculous, so Anna heads off on her own. She has some clues that something might be going on at a small backcountry lake, so she hikes into the high country, in snow and dangerously cold temperatures, all alone. With her decades of ranger experience, Anna is an experienced hiker and backpacker, but nothing could have prepared her for what she encounters up there.

It had been years since I last read an Anna Pigeon novel, and this book reminded me how much I love this series! Nevada Barr is an excellent writer and has crafted a gripping, action-packed plot that kept me turning the pages, but she also has a wonderful sense of humor that often had me laughing out loud. Anna gradually uncovers the mystery of what is happening behind the scenes at Yosemite, and it's a twisty, unpredictable one. She finds herself in mortal danger not once but twice in this fast-paced adventure. I stayed up way too late reading this novel (and also read some of it outdoors). Now that I've remembered how great the Anna Pigeon books are, I definitely won't wait years before I read another Nevada Barr novel--I have about fifteen of them to catch up on!

323 pages, G.P. Putnam's Sons

Recorded Books

This book fits in the following 2022 Reading Challenges:

 

Mount TBR Challenge

Diversity Challenge

R.I.P. Challenge

 

Visit my YouTube Channel for more bookish fun!

 

Listen to a sample of the audiobook here, narrated by Barbara Rosenblat from the start of the novel, 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 High Country from Book Depository, with free shipping worldwide.

Teen/YA Review: Creep

I was looking for a creepy YA novel to listen to on audio in October for the R.I.P. Challenge, and Creep: A Love Story by Lygia Day Peñaflor certainly fit the bill! I enjoyed her earlier YA novel, All of This Is True, for Big Book Summer in 2021. This latest release is all about obsession, with a sense of growing dread perfect for my spooky fall reading.

 

Rafi is only a sophomore, but she knows all about Laney and Nico, the popular "it" couple of the senior class. They are both beautiful, kind, and talented, Nico in sports and Laney in dance. Rafi's job in the school office gives her a unique chance to interact with the two of them, like the day they both come in late, citing a trip to the DMV that is obviously a cover story. It's clear the two of them have just had sex for the first time, and as Rafi writes them late passes with the DMV excuse on them, it's like she's in on their secret joy. Little by little, Rafi works hard to become a part of their lives, volunteering for the clubs Laney volunteers in and offering to babysit Nico's little sister. She's also a photographer for the school yearbook and makes sure that Laney and Nico feature prominently in its pages, so they can look back and remember their perfect senior year together. There are hints that Rafi has done this before, with a teacher last year, and got in trouble for it, but she convinces herself that this is different, that Laney and Nico are truly her close friends. When tragedy strikes the perfect couple, Rafi is devastated and vows to do anything to keep them together.

 

This is a wonderful suspense novel, with a mounting sense of dread as Rafi's obsession grows. The title is perfect because as I listened to it, I kept thinking, "That's so creepy!" But this novel is so much more than just its tension and suspense. It has wonderful emotional complexity, as the reader gradually learns more about Rafi's background and life. She lives with her grandparents, and the mystery of what happened with her parents and their absence has a lot to do with Rafi's obsession with Laney and Nico. All of that backstory unspools slowly, through Rafi's perspective as she gets closer to the couple, thinks back to her own past, and learns more about her parents. The audio book was very well-done, with Gail Shalan providing a sweet adolescent voice that contrasts brilliantly with the creepiness of Rafi's obsession (listen to the sample below). I enjoyed this engrossing audio book. It just cements my opinion that Lygia Day Peñaflor writes gripping, immersive YA suspense stories.

 

272 pages, Clarion Books

HarperAudio

 

This book fits in the following 2022 Reading Challenges:

 

R.I.P. Challenge

Fall Into Reading Challenge - Autumn Vibes

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 Creep from Book Depository, with free shipping worldwide.

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!

 __________

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."

__________

 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??

__________

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.