strange and random happenstance

Middle of the Night by Riley Sager
Published by: Dutton
Publication Date: June 18th, 2024
Format: Hardcover, 384 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
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The inhabitants of Hemlock Circle, a quaint New Jersey cul-de-sac, are the same when Ethan Marsh moves home as they were when he left over twenty years ago. It's like the neighbors are trapped in amber. There's the old Barringer place on the left, continuing clockwise, the Van de Veers', the Wallaces', the Patel's, and the Chens'. Of the six original houses built in the late eighties only one isn't in the hands of its original owner. But no one holds onto the old Barringer place for long. Ethan has moved back home because his parents are moving to Florida and it would be easiest for them if he's around during the sale of the house. What they don't say is that he has nowhere else to go. But home brings with it unanswered questions from his past and a mystery that forever changed Hemlock Circle and gripped a nation. On Saturday, July 15th, 1994, Ethan and his best friend Billy Barringer set up a tent in Ethan's backyard. The ten-year-olds did this all summer, camping out within the safety of their own neighborhood. Only that night was different. Because when Ethan woke up on Sunday morning there was a large rend in the tent and Billy was gone. Billy became The Lost Boy. They searched everywhere, through the acres of preserved woodland surrounding the neighborhood, but he was just gone. Ethan still dreams about that night. Who took Billy and why? He always wakes when he hears the tent being slashed, never seeing the face of the culprit. He left home because he couldn't stand to see the constant reminder out his bedroom window of the last known location of Billy. But now that he's back home it's not just memories that are playing with him. First there's the motion activated lights on the houses. Lighting up one after another in the middle of the night. Then a baseball appears in his yard. A baseball thrown over the fence was his and Billy's secret code. Who else but Billy would know that? He decides to ask his neighbors. He wants to know who's playing with him. Everyone who was there the night Billy disappeared has returned to Hemlock Circle this summer. It seems portentous. And then he finds out his fellow neighbor and classmate, Ragesh Patel, is the police liaison for Billy's case and they've found something. They've found Billy. The dental records confirm it.

Riley Sager is the king of spooky nostalgia. His books often tap into his own past, the most blatant being Survive the Night, but due to the fact he's only four years older than me there's a universality to his tales for those raised in the seventies, eighties, and nineties. Common ground that we all feel nostalgic for that he then twists ever so slightly to make unsettling. And one of the common fears of growing up during this period was kidnapping, it was the height of "stranger danger" and kids on milk cartons. There was quite the incident of "stranger danger" to one of my classmates in grade school, but that's a story for another time. So to have this character, Ethan, experience the worst nightmare of any child growing up then that isn't quicksand, it's relatable. In fact, that's why I enjoyed this book, it's relatable. I grew up in a neighborhood where everyone knew everyone and kids were in and out of each other's houses. We moved in unruly gangs, playing elaborate city block-sized games of capture the flag. And I miss that. I don't just miss an easier time, I miss a time when everyone and their business was known to you. Your neighbors meant more than they mean today. The grandparents, the parents, and the kids all knew who you were and asked after your only family. There was a sense of community. I mean, this is still happening, I see the kids in my neighborhood roving around in gangs, but people aren't rooted to the same spot anymore. People pick up and move at a moments notice, whether it's due to job insecurity, the cost of living, or whatever life change that results in dislocation. Therefore you just don't have neighborhoods like Hemlock Circle anymore. More and more as everything becomes chaotic and unsettled I am searching for these nostalgic vibes that remind me of a time when I felt safe. Old shows, old books, things that bring comfort. And yes, Riley Sager brings me comfort. I know a lot of people would be questioning my sanity in that mystery and horror bring me comfort, but it's the subverting of the comforting within a set of rules. I mean, just look to Scream, it's a total comfort watch for my generation and it's because it's nostalgic and has rules. I should say, it has Rules, capital "R." Sadly, Randy Meeks, the king of the Rules, did not survive the sequel. But that didn't stop him from imparting his wisdom from beyond the grave. I'm sure he'd understand the pull of nostalgia, he was quite wise until he baited Mrs. Loomis. But his death for me will always be comforting. As comforting as a new Riley Sager book. No matter the death toll.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Billy Barringer, Community, Disapperance, Ethan Marsh, Hemlock Circle, Kidnapping, Middle of the Night, Murder Most Foul, Neighborhood, Nostalgia, Quicksand, Randy Meeks, Riley Sager, Scream, Stranger Danger, Survive the Night

The Last Word by Taylor Adams
Published by: William Morrow
Publication Date: April 25th, 2023
Format: Hardcover, 352 Pages
Rating: ★★
To Buy (different edition than one reviewed)

In December the Strand is deserted. Which is exactly how Emma likes it. After what happened she needed a clean break. A place to forget what came before and see if she can face what happens next. Which is a big if. The backpack by the door filled with rocks is a reminder of how it might all end. She often finds herself standing in the ocean wondering how she got there and if next time might be the point of no return. She took a job house sitting for a local, Jules, in order to escape her life and humanity. Which has worked out quite well. Only Jules has her phone number and her nearest neighbor Deek is thankfully willing to keep their relationship strictly relegated to games of hangman on white boards placed in their windows. Emma spends her days walking her beloved dog Laika and devouring bargain priced murder mysteries on her Kindle. The quality of the story doesn't even matter, she just needs it to be different from her life, her pain. Then one day Deek recommends a book, Murder Mountain by H.G. Kane. The book has an interesting conceit in that it's told through the eyes of the killer but other than that it might just be the worst book that Emma has ever read. Which leads her to write a review. A vicious one star ode to a book that should be avoided at all costs. She almost doesn't post it. It would have been better for her if she hadn't. Because the author asks her to take it down. Then demands it. She writes him an email and his response is unhinged, but also worrying. Could he know who she is? But that would be more ludicrous than the plot of his book. But what if his books aren't fiction? What if he writes from the perspective of the killer because he is a killer? Sounds in the house start to put Emma on edge. And there are odd smells too. The figure watching her sleep had to be a dream. Then Laika finds some food on the beach with fishhooks in it. Thankfully Emma gets it away from Laika without any damage. Then a masked individual appears on the doorbell camera. Jules is worried for Emma's safety and tells her she'll send her a stun gun. Emma thinks this is blowing things way out of proportion. But Emma will soon learn that nothing is being blown out of proportion. Her life is on the line. The question is, will she fight for it?

Perhaps I gave this book an extra star due to its conceit and possible consequences. The clever conceit of The Last Word, almost a reverse Misery, should make any online reviewer question what they're putting out in the world. But a clever conceit sadly isn't not enough to save it from feeling bloated. This book overstays its welcome. It would have made a great novella. Because the way successful horror is structured you usually get an initial introduction to the killer and their first victim and move on to the final girl and her story. Taylor Adams doesn't realize that Emma Carpenter isn't the final girl. She's the girl who's supposed to be murdered in the first few pages. She is the Drew Barrymore of this tale and nothing more. So trying to make her something more is painful. And speaking of Scream, this book could have done with a lot more knowing humor, a little camp. It's written so formally that a conceit that could have been camp comes across as forced. Taylor Adams is forcing us to accept the absurdity of the situation without fully embracing it himself with a few exceptions. This is painfully obvious with the parallel narration about H.G. Kane. Kane is a creepy incel. Having to read about his self-perceived "genius" is like being forced to listen to someone spouting Trumpisms. "This is the best book in the world, this book has more words than any book ever, can you believe I wrote that many words? 110,00 to be precise! I'm a creator while all Emma does is destroy and denigrate with her hurtful words, could she write that many words? No she could not." This writing style while obviously a parody of all the Trumpers out there after the initial laugh just enraged me. I don't want to spend a minute with this character let alone an entire book. Thinking on it now I'm reminded of when The Late Show with Stephen Colbert released the book Whose Boat Is This Boat?: Comments That Don't Help in the Aftermath of a Hurricane composed entirely of things our previous President said. It was supposedly satire for charity, but it was painful to read such stupidity. I just can't with people like Trump and H.G. Kane. Which is why this book needed more camp, more social commentary on this horrible human. H.G. Kane doesn't deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence as Michael Myers. He just needs to go away or be mercilessly sqwered. Because the balance as it exists in this book now just doesn't work. There's no one I liked other than the dog, and all the twists were so obvious. I mean like, hit my head against the wall obvious. If people couldn't get what was going on perhaps you need to go take that "man, woman, person, TV, camera" mental cognitive assessment.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Book Review, Drew Barrymore, Final Girl, For the Love of Book Clubs, H.G. Kane, House Sitting, Incels, Kindle, Laika, Misery, Murder Mountain, Scream, Taylor Adams, The Last Word, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert

Soul Taken by Patricia Briggs
Published by: Ace
Publication Date: August 23rd, 2022
Format: Hardcover, 400 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy

Everyone in the tri-cities is talking about a new movie that's premiering, The Harvester. The screenwriter is a local and the story is supposedly based on an urban legend he heard as a boy. People are dressing up as the villainous Harvester and going to midnight screenings, but one of these people isn't cosplaying. They're there to kill. And Mercy just happens to stumble on the crime scene. Who knew a late night run to the store would result in a murder investigation? Mercy actually should have learned by now. But faced with the ghosts of the dead she must help them as best she can. As it happens the urban legend might just be about a legendary weapon that exists. A sickle that reaps souls, with the "clever" moniker the Soul Taker. A sickle that her mentor Zee might be willing to kill for because the two of them have a complicated history. And while this is all very disturbing, the fact that the vampire Wulfe has disappeared might be even more terrifying. He's unhinged and missing and his current hobby is following Mercy. And she hasn't seen him in awhile. She's occasionally felt him. She thinks. She might be wrong. She hopes she's wrong. But the only person who could help her is Stefan, the vampire she has a blood link to, and now he's missing. His house is in fact completely empty. Well, not completely. There's a nasty surprise waiting to attack Mercy, but isn't there always? But Stefan is gone, even Marsilia and the Seethe are MIA. Where have all the vampires gone? And does this have anything to do with this evil sickle? As Mercy has learned time and time again, bad things that happen simultaneously are often connected. You might think there might be no possible chance of this being true, but it is. And that happens to be the case here, once again. An old enemy has concocted the most elaborate of plans to enact their revenge. A plan that has the most casualties and puts as many innocent lives on the line as possible. The chaos is an added bonus to disguise their intent and to make Mercy suffer. But as Mercy knows, with Adam at her side she can tackle whatever any enemy throws at her. Hopefully.

I genuinely love each and every Mercy Thompson book. But thirteen books in the action from book to book kind of merges into one long adventure. In the beginning it was easier to separate them because you'd have a vampire-centric book, followed by a fae-centric book, followed by a werewolf-centric book. Now it's a free-for-all with vampires and fairies and goblins and werewolves and what have you in each and every story. I count the tibicena as a what have you. Conversely the Alpha and Omega series is easier to distinguish each volume because they don't all take place in the the same location like Mercy with the tri-cities and vary in quality so drastically. All this is basically stated in an effort for me to point out that the way this series is structured it's hard to write a review for an individual book. What can I say that I haven't said before? I love this series. Each and every new volume is a highlight of my calendar year. I literally do not know what I would do without Mercy or Anna and Charles showing up once a year to share their adventures with me. But this adventure, this one is going down as a favorite. Why? The atmosphere! The tension! The artifact! The humor! The stakes! When people think of werewolves and vampires they tend to think of Halloween, but this is the first story that really leans into this. There's a corn maze, there's murders, there's a sentient sickle, there's an urban legend come to life! So much right there just screams Halloween to me. But the way that Patricia Briggs plays with the humor inherent in horror is what made me just so giddy. The wielder of the Soul Taker, the Harvester, has a big showdown with Mercy, as you'd expect. But this showdown has the staging of Wes Craven. There's terror but there's humor. The Harvester comes across like Ghostface in the the Scream movies when they stumble. Their facade of pure unadulterated terror slips for a second and you see them as human. But then Ghostface's superhuman abilities return and the fight continues. The obvious Scream homages are what made this my favorite book in the series in recent years. It just felt so right. And it didn't hurt that I had recently rewatched all the Scream movies. And while those moments might be my favorite in the entire book, the fact that they save the day and still end on an ominous note was a chef's kiss. As I said before, these books merge, one after the other, and what is coming, that will make the Harvester look like a walk in a corn maze.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Alpha and Omega, Anna Cornick, Charles Cornick, Cosplay, Ghostface, Mercy Thompson, Patricia Briggs, Scream, Sentient Artifact, Sickle, Soul Taken, Stefan, Tri-Cities, Vampires, Werewolves, Wes Craven, Wulfe, Zee

Kill Creek by Scott Thomas
Published by: Inkshares
Publication Date: January 21st, 2020
Format: Kindle, 432 Pages
Rating: ★
To Buy

Sam McGarver's career could use a little help. He has gotten nowhere on his new novel, spending hours watching the cursor blink on his computer screen. Sam tells himself, and his agent, that he's concentrating on his teaching and healing from his separation, but really it's because he's rattled by the past and the present making it so that he just can't move forward. In desperation he agrees to a PR stunt for the streaming service WriteWire. The founder, Wainwright, is a billionaire's son who is desperate to make his own mark on the world. He's famous for "events" that he elaborately stages and streams to his millions of viewers worldwide. Yet he longs to be taken seriously and to that end his newest endeavor is a little more pared down yet artistically thematic. He has invited four of the most distinguished horror authors to partake in a roundtable interview on Halloween in the notorious haunted house on kill creek, last owned by the Finch sisters, and immortalized in the book Phantoms of the Prairie: A True Story of Supernatural Terror. Like Sam, the three other authors have their reasons for being there, Sebastian Cole is a legend past his prime and facing irrelevance, Daniel Slaughter is losing ground with his Christian fanbase who used to devour his teen tales of terror that always ended with a morality lesson, and T.C. Moore has been cut as screenwriter from her own book's adaptation, a book ironically called Cutter. They all expect Wainwright to pull some kind of stunt. Yet despite the cutting questions it's all above board and they leave the next morning. What happens next will haunt them for the rest of their lives.

H.P. Lovecraft, R.L. Stine, Laurell K. Hamilton, and Stephen King get together at a haunted house for a PR stunt. A clever conceit that if hewed to, instead of ending up a gore filled version of Burnt Offerings, would have set a new meta benchmark in haunted house horror. But the promise of the first few chapters, of Sam's lectures being the literary equivalent of Scream, are all but forgotten as you force yourself to just get the book over and done with. All the witty banter and badinage between the four authors is so delightful that every time the book strays from the quartet Thomas's editors should have told him to cut it because anything beyond that grouping is extraneous. I started to think that being run over by a bus wouldn't be that bad a fate because then my part in this story would be over. My main problem was that while the house is the epicenter of the evil Thomas lets the evil wander a little too far afield. The house almost becomes an afterthought while it should be the focal point, the fulcrum on which the whole book hinges. When they literally just left the house halfway through the book I was yelling at them that this isn't how it's supposed to happen. Yet while this is my main problem it is far from my only problem. You can tell this is the first book Thomas has written because it feels at times so amateurish and heavy-handed. Sam's dark secret? The mystery of the third floor bedroom? I knew what was going on the second they were mentioned. And as for the number of horror films and books he just straight up rips off? If he had kept the light, meta approach, this could have been humorous, instead it felt lazy. And as for a professional photographer using an HP PhotoSmart Printer, I'm not even going to go there.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Burnt Offerings, Going Gothic, Gothic, H.P. Lovecraft, Haunted House, Kansas, Laurell K Hamilton, Meta, PR Stunt, R.L. Stine, Scream, Stephen King, Supernatural

The Final Girl Support Group by Grady Hendrix
Published by: Berkley
Publication Date: July 13th, 2021
Format: Hardcover, 352 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"In horror movies, the final girls are the ones left standing when the credits roll. They made it through the worst night of their lives...but what happens after?

Like his bestselling novel The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires, Grady Hendrix’s latest is a fast-paced, frightening, and wickedly humorous thriller. From chain saws to summer camp slayers, The Final Girl Support Group pays tribute to and slyly subverts our most popular horror films - movies like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and Scream.

Lynette Tarkington is a real-life final girl who survived a massacre. For more than a decade, she’s been meeting with five other final girls and their therapist in a support group for those who survived the unthinkable, working to put their lives back together. Then one woman misses a meeting, and their worst fears are realized - someone knows about the group and is determined to rip their lives apart again, piece by piece.

But the thing about final girls is that no matter how bad the odds, how dark the night, how sharp the knife, they will never, ever give up."

I really wanted to read Grady Hendrix's first book but was waived off by many people I trust for it's white savior issues. I hope this one is issue free.

Steel Fear by Brandon Webb and John David Mann
Published by: Bantam
Publication Date: July 13th, 2021
Format: Hardcover, 464 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"The moment Navy SEAL sniper Finn sets foot on the USS Abraham Lincoln to hitch a ride home from the Persian Gulf, it's clear something is deeply wrong. Leadership is weak. Morale is low. And when crew members start disappearing one by one, what at first seems like a random string of suicides soon reveals something far more sinister: There's a serial killer on board. Suspicion falls on Finn, the newcomer to the ship. After all, he's being sent home in disgrace, recalled from the field under the dark cloud of a mission gone horribly wrong. He's also a lone wolf, haunted by gaps in his memory and the elusive sense that something he missed may have contributed to civilian deaths on his last assignment. Finding the killer offers a chance at redemption...if he can stay alive long enough to prove it isn't him."

It's like Jack the Ripper written by Michael Crichton!

The Shadow by James Patterson and Brian Sitts
Published by: Grand Central Publishing
Publication Date: July 13th, 2021
Format: Hardcover, 400 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"Before Alex Cross, before Michael Bennett, before Jack Reacher, there was The Shadow! The world’s bestselling author, James Patterson, reimagines one of America’s iconic thriller heroes.

Only two people know that 1930s society man Lamont Cranston has a secret identity as the Shadow, a crusader for justice. One is his greatest love, Margo Lane, and the other is fiercest enemy, Shiwan Khan. When Khan ambushes the couple, they must risk everything for the slimmest chance of survival...in the future.

A century and a half later, Lamont awakens in a world both unknown and disturbingly familiar. The first person he meets is Maddy Gomes, a teenager with her own mysterious secrets, including a knowledge of the legend of the Shadow.

Most disturbing, Khan's power continues to be felt over the city and its people. No one in this new world understands the dangers of stopping him better than Lamont Cranston. And only the Shadow knows that he’s the one person who might succeed before more innocent lives are lost."

I might have become a tad Shadow obsessed when I was younger because of the Alec Baldwin movie... so am I ready for this book? Hell yas!

Hollywood Heroine by Sarah Kuhn
Published by: DAW
Publication Date: July 13th, 2021
Format: Paperback, 400 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"The fifth book in the smart, snarky, and action-packed Heroine series continues the adventures of Asian-American superheroines Evie Tanaka, Aveda Jupiter, and Bea Tanaka in a demon-infested San Francisco.

Over the years, the adventures of superheroines Aveda Jupiter and Evie Tanaka have become the stuff of legend--and now they'll be immortalized in their very own TV show!

The pair head to LA for filming, but Aveda struggles to get truly excited. Instead, she's preoccupied wondering about the fate of the world and her role in it. You know, the usual. Now that Otherworld activity has been detected outside the Bay Area, Aveda can't help but wonder if the demon threat will ever be eradicated.

When the drama on set takes a turn for the supernatural, Evie and Aveda must balance their celebrity commitments with donning their superhero capes again to investigate. And when the evil they battle reveals a larger, more nefarious plot, it's time for the indomitable Aveda Jupiter to rise to the occasion and become the leader she was meant to be on a more global scale - and hopefully keep some semblance of a personal life while doing so."

Note to cover artist: Look at a real pregnant lady. 

Silence in the Library by Katharine Schellman
Published by: Crooked Lane Books
Publication Date: July 13th, 2021
Format: Hardcover, 352 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"Regency widow Lily Adler didn't expect to find a corpse when visiting a family friend. Now it's up to her to discover the killer in the charming second installment in the Lily Adler mysteries.

Regency widow Lily Adler has finally settled into her new London life when her semi-estranged father arrives unexpectedly, intending to stay with her while he recovers from an illness. Hounded by his disapproval, Lily is drawn into spending time with Lady Wyatt, the new wife of an old family friend. Lily barely knows Lady Wyatt. But she and her husband, Sir Charles, seem as happy as any newly married couple until the morning Lily arrives to find the house in an uproar and Sir Charles dead.

All signs indicate that he tripped and struck his head late at night. But when Bow Street constable Simon Page is called to the scene, he suspects foul play. And it isn't long before Lily stumbles on evidence that Sir Charles was, indeed, murdered.

Mr. Page was there when Lily caught her first murderer, and he trusts her insight into the world of London's upper class. With the help of Captain Jack Hartley, they piece together the reasons that Sir Charles's family might have wanted him dead. But anyone who might have profited from the old man's death seems to have an alibi...until Lily receives a mysterious summons to speak with one of the Wyatts' maids, only to find the young woman dead when she arrives.