strange and random happenstance

If you think about it, education, and in particular English classes, are, to an extent book clubs. Everyone is assigned a book to read and then participate in discussions moderated by a teacher. Which is probably why so many people don't like reading. They view it as homework. Which is why I personally think of book clubs as my own version of BOOK IT! Here we were rewarded for reading with stickers and personal pan pizzas. So what's the reward for book clubs? Getting to get together with your friends once a month to just talk and eat. Just being in the presence of those you care for who also happen to love reading as much as you, even if they didn't read the book, because true book clubs should encourage reading and not punish members if they didn't have time to read the book. I came late to books. I have a few precious volumes of books I read over and over when young, but it wasn't until after I was out of high school that I really started to read. And very shortly my desire to read with others became an obsession. I wanted a book club. I need a book club. And yes, I occasionally went to my mother's book club that consisted of all my grade school teachers because I needed one so bad. I was like Gomez Addams calling into the Sally Jessy Raphael show asking about where the voodoo witch doctors would meet. I even made a fake book club organization for a school project, Literary Linkup, and may have harassed a few of my classmates when they mentioned they were in book clubs. I had become Gomez Addams! But oddly something happened because of this. One of my classmates and I formed a book club, which was eventually dubbed, The Last Word. There were several classmates and friends that came and went over the years. We're now a small core, but through it all, disagreements, reading way more Philip K. Dick, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Neil Gaiman than I ever thought I would, we've now been together for twelve years this year. Things have changed a bit over the last four years, we're now virtual versus trawling around different cafes, houses, and apartments. But through it all it's about having one day a month where I make time for my friends and discuss what we've read, even if it isn't the book we were supposed to. The different tastes and opinions expands my mind and understanding. We rarely, if ever, agree on a book, and that makes it that much more interesting. So here's to celebrating my book club. Here's to celebrating all book clubs. Over the next few months I'll present just a sampling of what we've read over the years. But I hope you'll find it interesting, and maybe you'll share your own book club experiences.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Book Club, Book Clubs, Book It, For the Love of Book Clubs, Gomez Addams, Literary Linkup, Neil Gaiman, Philip K. Dick, Pizza, Pizza Hunt, Sally Jessy Raphael, The Addams Family, The Last Word, Ursula K. Le Guin

The Deception of the Emerald Ring by Lauren Willig
Published by: NAL
Publication Date: November 16th, 2006
Format: Paperback, 464 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy

Letty and Mary Alsworthy are as different as two sisters can be. At a frizzy haired five foot, Letty will never be like her statuesque sister. And she would NEVER run off in the middle of the night for a midnight elopement with Geoffry Pinchingdale-Snipe. She might try to stop the elopement with all good intentions, but never elope herself. Until fate intervenes and she's the one being spirited away in the night to a rendezvous with a certain member of the peerage. Geoff, being Geoff, marries the sister whose reputation he inadvertently ruined. He might see her as a conniving and manipulative upstart who took her chance when the opportunity afforded itself, but at least his obligations to the Pink Carnation mean that he can hare off to Ireland and put some space between his broken heart and his unwanted bride. Practical Letty for once doesn't know what to do. She's been the one who has always taken care of her family and has never had a spot of bother. Now she's married to a man who has vanished and he hasn't let her explain what really happened. A little drunk, she gets the first packet out of London to follow Geoff to Ireland thanks to Miles and Henrietta spilling the beans as to where Goeff went. But an unwanted wife in England is a completely different situation to an unwanted wife in Ireland interfering with his mission to thwart a French and Irish alliance. Begrudgingly taking Letty into his confidences with one Pink Carnation, Jane Wolliston, and one parasol wielding pyromaniac in the making, Miss Gwen, they all try to muddle through for the good of England. But add a dangerous cousin on the prowl for Geoff's title, Lord Vaughn, who's every word has double and triple entendres, and evidence that the Black Tulip is at it again, things might be trickier than anyone thought. Can this all be untangled and England saved? Because maybe fate intervened for a reason and Letty is the sister Geoff should have been wooing all along. But back in the present Eloise has an even more pressing problem. Can she get a certain Colin Selwick to call her and set up a date?

The Deception of the Emerald Ring is itself very deceptive. Whenever I think of the Pink Carnation series as a whole it never makes the cut as a favorite, and then I re-read it and realize how much I love it. I start to question my entire ranking of the series and as of this moment while I write this review it might even make my top ten books of 2021 because I adored re-reading it so much. This book tricks me every time into thinking that it's not as good as it is. I should have learned by now having read this book as many times as I have. Also, I seriously have no idea how many times I've read it. Because of other reading commitments during the year long Pink Carnation Read Along and the fact that I was once again underestimating it and not really looking forward to picking it up The Deception of the Emerald Ring didn't make it off my bookshelf until the day before the Zoom meeting. And while I had intended to shotgun the whole book in day, I found myself so drawn into the book I wanted it to last for days. So the Zoom meeting came and went and I was still reading. And now I think I'm going to read all the books AFTER the meeting. Because I've read all these stories before it's not like a book club meeting where you're feverishly trying to finish before time so you can discuss it. No, the meeting gave me further insights into the story so that when I was reading it I picked up on these new nuggets of information. I got to thinking about the implications of donning trousers, the practicalities versus the amorous. I got to enjoy Lord Vaughn showing up and just taking over every scene he was in. And I finally got to see the Black Tulip plot line form into a more logical garden plan. To not have just one sadistic spy, but sadists working for a criminal mastermind makes more sense that the Marquise ever did. She mistook Turnip for the Pink Carnation! I'm sorry, but anyone who could think that doesn't deserve to be a criminal mastermind. A pawn though... Totally suited for a pawn.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Book Club, France, Geoffry Pinchingdale-Snipe, Ireland, Lauren Willig, Letty Alsworthy, Pink Carnation Read Along, Regency Romp, The Black Tulip, The Deception of the Emerald Ring, The Pink Carnation, Zoom

The Deception of the Emerald Ring by Lauren Willig
Published by: NAL
Publication Date: November 16th, 2006
Format: Paperback, 464 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy

Letty and Mary Alsworthy are as different as two sisters can be. At a frizzy haired five foot, Letty will never be like her statuesque sister. And she would NEVER run off in the middle of the night for a midnight elopement with Geoffry Pinchingdale-Snipe. She might try to stop the elopement with all good intentions, but never elope herself. Until fate intervenes and she's the one being spirited away in the night to a rendezvous with a certain member of the peerage. Geoff, being Geoff, marries the sister whose reputation he inadvertently ruined. He might see her as a conniving and manipulative upstart who took her chance when the opportunity afforded itself, but at least his obligations to the Pink Carnation mean that he can hare off to Ireland and put some space between his broken heart and his unwanted bride. Practical Letty for once doesn't know what to do. She's been the one who has always taken care of her family and has never had a spot of bother. Now she's married to a man who has vanished and he hasn't let her explain what really happened. A little drunk, she gets the first packet out of London to follow Geoff to Ireland thanks to Miles and Henrietta spilling the beans as to where Goeff went. But an unwanted wife in England is a completely different situation to an unwanted wife in Ireland interfering with his mission to thwart a French and Irish alliance. Begrudgingly taking Letty into his confidences with one Pink Carnation, Jane Wolliston, and one parasol wielding pyromaniac in the making, Miss Gwen, they all try to muddle through for the good of England. But add a dangerous cousin on the prowl for Geoff's title, Lord Vaughn, who's every word has double and triple entendres, and evidence that the Black Tulip is at it again, things might be trickier than anyone thought. Can this all be untangled and England saved? Because maybe fate intervened for a reason and Letty is the sister Geoff should have been wooing all along. But back in the present Eloise has an even more pressing problem. Can she get a certain Colin Selwick to call her and set up a date?

The Deception of the Emerald Ring is itself very deceptive. Whenever I think of the Pink Carnation series as a whole it never makes the cut as a favorite, and then I re-read it and realize how much I love it. I start to question my entire ranking of the series and as of this moment while I write this review it might even make my top ten books of 2021 because I adored re-reading it so much. This book tricks me every time into thinking that it's not as good as it is. I should have learned by now having read this book as many times as I have. Also, I seriously have no idea how many times I've read it. Because of other reading commitments during the year long Pink Carnation Read Along and the fact that I was once again underestimating it and not really looking forward to picking it up The Deception of the Emerald Ring didn't make it off my bookshelf until the day before the Zoom meeting. And while I had intended to shotgun the whole book in day, I found myself so drawn into the book I wanted it to last for days. So the Zoom meeting came and went and I was still reading. And now I think I'm going to read all the books AFTER the meeting. Because I've read all these stories before it's not like a book club meeting where you're feverishly trying to finish before time so you can discuss it. No, the meeting gave me further insights into the story so that when I was reading it I picked up on these new nuggets of information. I got to thinking about the implications of donning trousers, the practicalities versus the amorous. I got to enjoy Lord Vaughn showing up and just taking over every scene he was in. And I finally got to see the Black Tulip plot line form into a more logical garden plan. To not have just one sadistic spy, but sadists working for a criminal mastermind makes more sense that the Marquise ever did. She mistook Turnip for the Pink Carnation! I'm sorry, but anyone who could think that doesn't deserve to be a criminal mastermind. A pawn though... Totally suited for a pawn.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Book Club, France, Geoffry Pinchingdale-Snipe, Ireland, Lauren Willig, Letty Alsworthy, Pink Carnation Read Along, Regency, The Black Tulip, The Deception of the Emerald Ring, The Pink Carnation, Zoom

Lakewood by Megan Giddings
Published by: Amistad
Publication Date: March 24th, 2020
Format: Kindle, 288 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
To Buy (different edition than one reviewed)

Lena doesn't know what to do. Her grandmother was barely keeping things together before her passing. Now that she's gone Lena has to be the head of the family. Her mother has been ill for years. $80,000 worth of tests proved that she's sick but they still don't know with what. She has headaches and seizures, and her brain sometime just doesn't want to work right. In order for her to get the care she needs they need money. So Lena makes a decision. Her degree in art history can wait. It's not like school is going anywhere. She will become the breadwinner in the family. The problem is the only real job offer she's had is to be a sexy mascot at a taco restaurant opening up, and that isn't exactly going to pay much. But then she gets an invitation in the mail to join a medical study supposedly on memory. She'd have to sign an NDA and understand no one would be allowed to know what she is really doing. They'd set it up to make it look like she is just doing normal office work and all her and her mother's medical bills would be covered. Plus, Lena could start building a nest egg for herself and her mother. First she has to complete a week long series of tests. They are harrowing. Lena doesn't remember much except lots of doctors and needles and talking. But at the end of the week she's a few thousand dollars richer and realizes that because of her position, if she's lucky enough to be offered a place in the study, she will take it with no hesitation. Which is how Lena ends up in the town of Lakewood. There she reports everyday to a normal office and is handed a sheet of paper that tells her what her day consisted of. This is a well fabricated lie about dirty microwaves and stolen yogurt. In reality she and her colleagues undergo various tests. At first they seem benign. But then the "secretary's" teeth all fall out and Lena is locked in a cabin for she doesn't know how long. And then it gets worse. Also, why are there no white participants? And what is happening on other floors? And what will happen to Lena's mother if she leaves? Or worse, if Lena doesn't survive the study? Only time will tell if the mysteries of Lakewood get revealed.

The thing I love about my book club is that we all have such drastically different tastes that I read books I would never pick up on my own. And no, we never read books that the internet would designate as "perfect for your book club." Have you ever noticed those books are just... well, I could see the older women in my mom's old book club reading them, but never me. We read speculative science fiction, biographies, mysteries, YA, we are all over the place. I have to admit that the last few picks prior to Lakewood were not my cup of tea. So I was hesitant going in but also hopeful that it would break the cycle of, what I deemed, schlock. Lakewood delivered. The book was sold as "part The Handmaid’s Tale, part The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks." While I get the whole reason for comparing books to other books to get people to pick them up, it sometimes annoys me, and in this instance I think they sold Lakewood short, because this is The Circle meets Get Out with a dash of The Office and a final helping of Annihilation and Stranger Things. It's got EVERYTHING! There's this day to day grind of what horrors will happen to Lena today. What will happen while she plays at having an office job? There's this veneer of normalcy that made me think of The Circle. The fact that this could be all above board except for this feeling that something is lurking beneath the surface. And while Lakewood would have been good at anytime, I think that when it was released led people to appreciate it all the more because it resonated with what was happening in the world, from the pandemic to BLM. This country has a horrible history of how it has treated people of color, and specifically in regard to medical trials, seeing them as nothing more than lab rats. Just look to the television commercials targeting people of color to get vaccinated featuring Spike Lee and the Obamas. The reason these ads are even necessary is because they have EVERY REASON not to trust. Years and years of medical experimentation have made them rightly wary. This book shines a light right on that and on the fact that people will only pay attention once white people start getting hurt. Things need to change and I hope this book, besides being entertaining, will get people to actually think.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Annihilation, BLM, Book Club, Get Out, Going Gothic, Lakewood, Medical Trials, Megan Giddings, Racism, Stranger Things, The Circle, The Handmaid's Tale, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, The Office, Vaccine

Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Published by: Del Rey
Publication Date: June 30th, 2020
Format: Hardcover, 320 Pages
Rating: ★★★
To Buy

Noemí Taboada's is the life of the party. A wealthy socialite, she loves her modern life and all the men she's stringing along. With her red lipstick firmly affixed she feels like she could tackle anything the world can throw at her. Everything changes when she gets a letter from her cousin Catalina. Catalina is recently married and is convinced that her husband is trying to kill her. Noemí and her father worry that the once wealthy Virgil Doyle only married Catalina for her money and is now going to get rid of an inconvenient wife. Therefore it is up to Noemí to suss out the situation. She packs her bags and heads to High Place. The home is high in the mountains and shrouded by mist. It feels as if she's stepped back in time to a forgotten world where they can't even rely on the electricity and instead live by candlelight. The household consists of four Doyles and Catalina. There is Catalina's husband Virgil, and his father Howard, and Howard's first cousin Florence, and her son Francis. Florence rules the house with an iron first, but Howard is the power behind the throne. But the one thing they all seem agreed on is that Noemí should be allowed to see her cousin as little as possible. They hope they can dissuade her and she'll leave them alone. They obviously don't know Noemí. When Noemí can finally speak to Catalina her cousin begs her to seek out a healer, Marta Duval, in the small village of El Triunfo. Catalina says that despite what the family physician says, this medicine is the only thing that can help her. It helps her right into a seizure and Noemí is banned from seeing her cousin. But not that that concerns her too much, as she's started to have ghostly dreams and is sleepwalking. She's befriended Francis and along with information she has dug up it all points to the Doyles being dangerous. She decides she must leave. She can return home, get her father, and return for Catalina. Only the Doyles say she is not allowed to leave. She is to stay. She is to marry Francis. She is going to be one of them now.

The first, and in my mind, most important aspect of a good Gothic novel is location. If you get the location right it's hard to mess up the rest. Mexican Gothic nailed the location. High Place has oodles of Gothic atmosphere. There is this wonderful Crimson Peak vibe that just engulfed me and made me want to stay. I could picture every nook and cranny of that forbidding and compelling house and felt like I was there. Much like Daphne Du Maurier, Silvia Moreno-Garcia has created a memorable place and therefore Mexican Gothic is one of those rare occasions when I don't throw up my arms in protest when comparisons are made to my favorite Cornwall obsessed author. And yet... For once the location just wasn't enough... For me I think Mexican Gothic suffered from too much hype. Summer of 2020 it was THE BOOK everyone was talking about and recommending. Every online book club was reading it and it was flying off the shelves. Perhaps this was just because we hit the book club phase of Covid? I've been in a book club for years so I didn't experience this phase of the pandemic. Because while I enjoyed the book I didn't love it. But who knows, this could change, much like my opinion of Crimson Peak. I did not like that movie at first and learned to appreciate it in time once I got over what I expected it to be and accepted it for what it was; a Gothic love story, not Gothic horror. This here also has the love story elements and the horror elements, but oddly, despite the Gothic trappings, I felt this adhered more to magical realism. I mean, yes, we could even argue that we have science fiction elements similar to The Expanse, but I'm sticking to my guns with magical realism just because of the feeling from beginning to end. And as for the "villain" of the piece, the fungus amongus? I saw where she was headed too early and I didn't find it compelling enough for me to care about how it played out. That last act needed another polish because it felt too cobbled together and disjointed making me even more disinterested. But a real solid first act! Too bad it didn't last.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: 2020, Book Club, Cornwall, Covid, Crimson Peak, Daphne Du Maurier, Going Gothic, High Place, Hype, Location, Magical Realism, Mexican Gothic, Money, Noemí Taboada, Science Fiction, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, The Expanse

The House on the Borderland by William Hope Hodgson
Published by: A Public Domain Book
Publication Date: 1901
Format: Kindle, 109 Pages
Rating: ★★
To Buy

There once was a house. It is now nothing more than ruins. There once were strange occurrences there. They are long forgotten. Only a journal tells of what happened there at the house near the abyss and that journal has been found by two travelers. They went looking for some good fishing in the west of Ireland and instead found a tale which will ensure they will never return to this benighted land. The author of the journal lived in the house with his sister who acted as his housekeeper and his dog Pepper. The house was long thought cursed by the locals, and after his experiences, perhaps they were right. One night he had an out-of-body experience and traveled through space to another planet that had a vast plain. There a valley housed a jade replica of his own home. The valley looked more like an arena because the mountains rise up in such away around the house that it feels as if they are watching it, along with the idols that dot the mountains. Before he returns home he sees a humanoid pig creature trying to force its way into the jade version of his house. The creature clearly sees him before he departs. Months later the humanoid horrors attack his home. This time it's not on some distant planet but right outside his door. He doesn't know how, but he fights them off. They appeared to have come out of an ever growing pit near his home and after the attack he plans to investigate. He and Pepper laboriously work their way further and further into the pit only to see that at the bottom there is no bottom, just an abyss. They have to fight their way out of the pit against rushing water and their own frailties. Pepper is injured in the exodus. The pit becomes a lake but the sound of rushing water is constant, which leads to the realization that a mysterious door in the cellar of the house leads directly into the abyss. The house is perched above nothing. Time expands and contracts. He sees his lost love, he sees Pepper age and die before his eyes, he sees the creatures return, he sees the door open...

At the very heart of this book there is a great Gothic horror story to be had, but you have to wade through a lot of slop to get to it. It's not that the slop isn't interesting from a historical point of view, you can obviously see how this work influenced authors from H.P. Lovecraft to Terry Pratchett. Pratchett even said that The House on the Borderland was "the Big Bang in my private universe as a science fiction and fantasy reader and, later, writer." Not knowing that Pratchett felt this way prior to reading it when the protagonist ends up on a foreign planet surrounded by idols I was instantly reminded of Pratchett's writing to a distracting degree. I'm just happy it turns out I wasn't hallucinating this, which is probably what most of this novel is. But going back to what worked in this novel, one night the house is attacked by the humanoid pigs previously seen in the vision of the other planet. They have somehow emerged from the pit near the house and decided to attack it. They are vicious and intelligent, but after a battle raging a full twenty-four hours the protagonist is victorious if still perplexed. Where did these creatures come from? Where are the bodies of those he successfully killed? He doesn't go out into the garden for days after the battle for fear of attack, but could the survivors really have taken away their fallen comrades? And did any of this even happen. That's what I find most interesting about this story is that here we have an entirely unreliable narrator, yet for these few pages as the battle rages, he seems lucid enough to be telling the truth. Yet his omissions make you question your own opinion on his sanity. The biggest problem is where is his sister? She seems to come and go throughout as an afterthought, but during a battle one would think that she would make an appearance. So then you start going further down the unreliable narrator rabbit hole and wondering if she even exists. What's more, are the humanoid swine really trying to break into the house on Earth or, because we saw the house on that far distant planet where the swine are supposedly from, is the attack happening to that house and somehow there is a rift in time and space? Whatever is really going on here, this small slice of the pie makes the rest of the hallucinatory rants almost worth it.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Book Club, Going Gothic, Gothic, H.P. Lovecraft, Horror, Humanoid, Interstellar, Journal, Ruins, Science Fiction, Secret Door, Swine, Terry Pratchett, The House on the Borderland, The Last Word, William Hope Hodgson

The Hidden Palace by Helene Wecker
Published by: Harper
Publication Date: June 8th, 2021
Format: Hardcover, 480 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"In this enthralling historical epic, set in New York City and the Middle East in the years leading to World War I -  the long-awaited follow-up to the acclaimed New York Times bestseller The Golem and the Jinni - Helene Wecker revisits her beloved characters Chava and Ahmad as they confront unexpected new challenges in a rapidly changing human world.

Chava is a golem, a woman made of clay, who can hear the thoughts and longings of those around her and feels compelled by her nature to help them. Ahmad is a jinni, a restless creature of fire, once free to roam the desert but now imprisoned in the shape of a man. Fearing they’ll be exposed as monsters, these magical beings hide their true selves and try to pass as human - just two more immigrants in the bustling world of 1900s Manhattan. Brought together under calamitous circumstances, their lives are now entwined - but they’re not yet certain of what they mean to each other.

Both Chava and Ahmad have changed the lives of the people around them. Park Avenue heiress Sophia Winston, whose brief encounter with Ahmad left her with a strange illness that makes her shiver with cold, travels to the Middle East to seek a cure. There she meets Dima, a tempestuous female jinni who’s been banished from her tribe. Back in New York, in a tenement on the Lower East Side, a little girl named Kreindel helps her rabbi father build a golem they name Yossele - not knowing that she’s about to be sent to an orphanage uptown, where the hulking Yossele will become her only friend and protector.

Spanning the tumultuous years from the turn of the twentieth century to the beginning of World War I, The Hidden Palace follows these lives and others as they collide and interleave. Can Chava and Ahmad find their places in the human world while remaining true to each other? Or will their opposing natures and desires eventually tear them apart - especially once they encounter, thrillingly, other beings like themselves?"

I've been wanting desperately to read The Golem and the Jinni for years... well, guess what just got itself moved to the top of my to be read pile?

All Our Hidden Gifts by Caroline O'Donoghue
Published by: Walker Books US
Publication Date: June 8th, 2021
Format: Hardcover, 384 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"Maeve’s strangely astute tarot readings make her the talk of the school, until a classmate draws a chilling and unfamiliar card - and then disappears.

After Maeve finds a pack of tarot cards while cleaning out a closet during her in-school suspension, she quickly becomes the most sought-after diviner at St. Bernadette’s Catholic school. But when Maeve’s ex–best friend, Lily, draws an unsettling card called The Housekeeper that Maeve has never seen before, the session devolves into a heated argument that ends with Maeve wishing aloud that Lily would disappear. When Lily isn’t at school the next Monday, Maeve learns her ex-friend has vanished without a trace.

Shunned by her classmates and struggling to preserve a fledgling romance with Lily's gender-fluid sibling, Roe, Maeve must dig deep into her connection with the cards to search for clues the police cannot find - even if they lead to the terrifying Housekeeper herself. Set in an Irish town where the church’s tight hold has loosened and new freedoms are trying to take root, this sharply contemporary story is witty, gripping, and tinged with mysticism."

I might be a tad tarot obsessed and this book ticks all the boxes in the most unexpected ways.

Rabbits by Terry Miles
Published by: Del Rey
Publication Date: June 8th, 2021
Format: Hardcover, 432 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"A deadly underground game might just be altering reality itself in this all-new adventure set in the world of the hit Rabbits podcast.

It’s an average work day. You’ve been wrapped up in a task, and you check the clock when you come up for air - 4:44 p.m. You check your email, and 44 unread messages have built up. With a shock, you realize the date is April 4 - 4/4. And when you get in your car to drive home, your odometer reads 44,444.

Coincidence? Or have you just seen the edge of a rabbit hole?

Rabbits is a mysterious alternate reality game so vast it uses the entire world as its canvas.

Since the game started in 1959, ten iterations have appeared and nine winners have been declared. The identities of these winners are unknown.

So is their reward, which is whispered to be NSA or CIA recruitment, vast wealth, immortality, or perhaps even the key to the secrets of the universe itself.

But the deeper you get, the more dangerous the game becomes. Players have died in the past - and the body count is rising.

And now the eleventh round is about to begin.

Enter K - a Rabbits obsessive who has been trying to find a way into the game for years. That path opens when K is approached by billionaire Alan Scarpio, rumored to be the winner of the sixth iteration. Scarpio says that something has gone wrong with the game and that K needs to fix it before Eleven starts, or the whole world will pay the price.

Five days later, Scarpio is declared missing.

Two weeks after that, K blows the deadline: Eleven begins.

And suddenly, the fate of the entire universe is at stake."

I freely admit I've never heard of the podcast where this book is set, but now I HAVE to learn more about all of it because isn't a better Ready Player One? 

The Missing Treasures of Amy Ashton by Eleanor Ray
Published by: Gallery Books
Publication Date: June 8th, 2021
Format: Hardcover, 320 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"For fans of The Keeper of Lost Things and Evvie Drake Starts Over comes a funny and tender debut about a reclusive artist whose collection has gotten out of control - but whose unexpected friendship with a pair of new neighbors might be just what she needs to start over.

Amy Ashton once dreamed of becoming an artist - of creating beautiful objects. But now she simply collects them. Aquamarine bottles, bright yellow crockery, deep Tuscan red pots (and the odd slow-cooker) take up every available inch of space in her house. Having suffered a terrible tragedy - one she staunchly refuses to let herself think about, thank you very much - she’s decided that it’s easier to love things than people. Things are safe. Things will never leave you.

But when a new family moves in next door with two young boys, one of whom has a collection of his own, Amy’s carefully managed life starts to unravel, prompting her to question why she began to close herself off in the first place. As Amy embarks on a journey back into her past, she has to contend with nosy neighbors, a meddlesome government worker, the inept police, and a little boy whose love of bulldozers might just let Amy open up her heart - and her home - again.

Quirky and charming, big-hearted and moving, The Missing Treasures of Amy Ashton proves that it’s never too late to let go of the things that don’t matter...and welcome the people who do."

Because if this past year has taught me anything it's that we need to let go of the things that don't matter and hold on to those who do.

The Disappearing Act by Catherine Steadman
Published by: Ballantine Books
Publication Date: June 8th, 2021
Format: Hardcover, 320 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"A British actress discovers the dark side of Hollywood when she is the only witness to the sudden disappearance of a woman she meets at an audition, in this electrifying psychological thriller from the New York Times bestselling author of Something in the Water and Mr. Nobody.

Once a year, actors from across the globe descend on the smog and sunshine of Los Angeles for pilot season. Every cable network and studio is looking to fill the rosters of their new shows, enticing a fresh batch of young hopefuls - anxious, desperate, and willing to do whatever it takes to make it. Careers will be made, dreams will be realized, stars will be born. And some will be snuffed out.

British star Mia Eliot has landed leading roles in costume dramas in her native country, but now it’s time for Hollywood to take her to the next level. Mia flies across the Atlantic to join the horde of talent scrambling for their big breaks. She’s a fish out of water in the ruthlessly competitive arena of back-to-back auditioning. Then one day she meets Emily, another actress from out of town and a kindred spirit. Emily is friendly and genuine and reassuringly doesn’t seem to be taking any of it too seriously. She stands out in a conveyor-belt world of fellow auditionees. But a simple favor takes a dark twist when Emily disappears and Mia realizes she was the last person to see her. And when a woman knocks on Mia’s door the following day claiming to be Emily and isn’t the woman Mia remembers at all, Mia is deeply troubled.

All Mia has to go on is the memory of a girl she met only once...and the suffocating feeling that something terrible has happened. Worse still, the police don’t believe her when she claims the real Emily has gone missing. So Mia is forced to risk the role of a lifetime to try to uncover the truth about Emily, a gamble that will force her to question her own sanity as the truth goes beyond anything she could ever have imagined.

Actress and author Catherine Steadman has written a gripping thriller set in a world close to home that asks the question: In a city where dreams really do come true, how far would you go to make the unreal real?"

As a fan of Catherine Steadman I had NO IDEA she was a writer until now, and this book is deliciously close to the bone!

The Family Tree by Steph Mullin and Nichole Mabry
Published by: Avon Books
Publication Date: June 8th, 2021
Format: Paperback, 416 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"The DNA results are back. And there's a serial killer in her family tree...

Liz Catalano is shocked when an ancestry kit reveals she's adopted. But she could never have imagined connecting with her unknown family would plunge her into an FBI investigation of a notorious serial killer...

The Tri-State Killer has been abducting pairs of women for forty years, leaving no clues behind - only bodies.

Can Liz figure out who the killer in her new family is? And can she save his newest victims before it's too late?

A gripping, original thriller for fans of My Lovely Wife, Netflix's Making a Murderer, and anyone who's ever wondered what their family tree might be hiding..."

I like that this is like the reverse of how The Golden State Killer was found!

Shadow and Claw by Gene Wolfe
Published by: Tor Books
Publication Date: June 8th, 2021
Format: Hardcover, 528 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"Gene Wolfe has been called "the finest writer the science fiction world has yet produced" by the Washington Post.

The Book of the New Sun is unanimously acclaimed as Wolfe’s most remarkable work, hailed as "a masterpiece of science fantasy comparable in importance to the major works of Tolkien and Lewis" by Publishers Weekly and “one of the most ambitious works of speculative fiction in the twentieth century” by the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.

The Shadow of the Torturer is the first volume in this four-volume epic, the tale of young Severian, an apprentice to the Guild of Torturers on the world called Urth, exiled for committing the ultimate sin of his profession- showing mercy toward his victim.

The Claw of the Conciliator continues the saga of Severian, banished from his home, as he undertakes a mythic quest to discover the awesome power of an ancient relic and learn the truth about his hidden destiny.

This new Tor Essentials edition of Shadow and Claw contains a new introduction by historian and novelist Ada Palmer, author of the award-winning Too Like the Lightning."

I read a one of Wolfe's books for book club and have since been wanting to read more, so this book is perfectly timed.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Actress, Book Club, Caroline O'Donoghue, Catherine Steadman, Eleanor Ray, Gene Wolfe, Helene Wecker, Nichole Mabry, Rabbits, Steph Mullin, Tarot, Terry Miles, The Golden State Killer, The Golem and the Jinni

The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton
Published by: Little, Brown and Company
Publication Date: August 24th, 2013
Format: Kindle, 832 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy

One night three odd things happen in Hokitika. Crosbie Wells, an ex-prospector hoping to build a lumber mill dies. Anna Wetherell, a popular prostitute in the Chinatown district and known opium addict is found unconscious on the road out of town and is taken to prison. And Emery Staines, a wealthy prospector, disappears. After that night surprising discoveries start to link these events. Crosbie Wells had a fortune in gold hidden about his cabin. Emery Staines was about to pay Anna Wetherell a substantial amount of money before he disappeared. Enough to get her off the game. As for Anna Wetherell, she wakes in prison no longer an opium addict and her clothes are weighted down with gold in all the seams. What does it all mean? Obviously gold is the lifeblood of Hokitika, the epicenter of the West Coast Gold Rush, but how could these specific individuals account for their windfalls? Twelve of the townsmen peripherally or directly involved in these events have formed a council of sorts to get to the bottom of things. At the night of their first meeting at the Crown Hotel they are interrupted by a newcomer, Walter Moody. Walter is taken aback by the incongruous gathering. After hearing about Walter's otherworldly journey to Hokitika aboard Francis Carver's ship, Godspeed, the twelve decide to let him into their counsel and tell him their stories, one at a time. Each story filling in gaps of knowledge for the others. A picture begins to emerge and one man appears to be at the center of it, Francis Carver. As their counsel draws to a close news arrives that the Godspeed has foundered on the spare. She is wrecked. Who knows what the contents of that ship might reveal? Or what the arrival of Crosbie Wells's widow will mean. No one knew he was married. Yet here she is arriving to claim her inheritance, arriving before she could have gotten news of his untimely passing or the windfall in his cabin. Whatever secrets lay in Hokitika, Walter and the council feel duty bound to get the the bottom of it, no matter what happens.

There is literally no other book out there where it's so apt that I can literally say the stars fell perfectly into alignment to get me to pick it up. It all started at a book club meeting where one of my fellow members was talking about a doorstop of a book set in New Zealand that was notorious for it's excruciating detail of the minutiae of 1800s life. I instantly perked up, this sounded like my kind of book! After the meeting and the hellacious months that followed I didn't have a spare minute to look into it more until I stumbled on an article on the Radio Times website about a miniseries adaptation of The Luminaries. I instantly put two and two together and realized THIS was the book! I knew I had to read it. And that's when the final star fell into alignment, my library was promoting their digital collection on OverDrive and The Luminaries was there with no wait list! So on July 23rd I dove into a book that became my solace for the next month. This book is amazing for two reasons. One is that Eleanor Catton created a book entirely based around the zodiac with each of the twelve councilmen representing a sign of the zodiac. The other important characters are assigned heavenly bodies and they influence certain signs. Throughout the book there are meticulously plotted star charts that will drive the action that happens within the following pages. So this is a whole rabbit hole you can do a deep dive into if that's your jam, I waded in the shallow end and was mightily impressed. But what impressed me more is that while this amazing structure exists under the surface with charts and graphs and what have you, even with no knowledge of the zodiac this is an amazing book. This book can be read on two levels. Those who revel in astrology will see something entirely different than those who don't. So do not let the astrology deter you from picking it up! For me the astrology was another level of the onion, but I loved the onion even before I started peeling it. This was Deadwood meets Agatha Christie and everything else was just icing on the cake.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: 1800s, Agatha Christie, Anna Wetherell, Astrology, Book Club, Crosbie Wells, Deadwood, Eleanor Catton, Emery Staines, Francis Carver, Gold, Gold Rush, Hokitika, New Zealand, OverDrive, The Luminaries, Zodiac

For years I dreamt of a book club. You may think that I exaggerate, you may think this is hyperbole. It is not. My search for one yielded nothing. At school when asked to do projects I would somehow make then about books or book clubs. When people told me they where in book clubs I would ask them when and where they meet, perhaps with a little too much fervor, seeing as they never told me, like Gomez Addams calling into Sally Jesse Raphael, pleading to know where the cults meet. Yes, obscure Addams Family reference there, but I'm sorry, that movie is awesome.

Last year my friend Daniella and I said "IT IS TIME!" There may have been a god like bolt of lightning, or there may have just been a Facebook group formed... but the gist is this: I HAVE A BOOK CLUB! I love that I have a book club! February is about love. It's the time of year when couples are sickeningly sweet and make everyone else feel sad and lonely at this cold and bleak time. But really, there are so many things to love, and I love books and my book club. Therefore I thought that this February, I would ignore the coupledom of Valentine's and concentrate on the love aspect. So this month is an ode to my book club, The Last Word Book Club, (yes we have a name,  a tagline, and soon a blog, I really got to get on that, we meet this weekend) with a selection of the books we read over the past year. Books we loved or loathed or changed our views on human ashes forever, yes I'm looking at you Cheryl Strayed. Stay and enjoy the height of ultracrepidarianism (points if you know what that word means!)

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Book Club, Cheryl Strayed, Facebook, The Addams Family, The Last Word