Review | A Misfortune of Lake Monsters by Nicole M. Wolverton

September 22, 2024 DeAnneLeave a comment

When legends bite back…

Lemon Ziegler wants to escape rural Devil’s Elbow, Pennsylvania to attend college―but that’s impossible now that she’s expected to impersonate the town’s lake monster for the rest of her life. Her family has been secretly keeping the tradition of Old Lucy, the famed (and very fake) monster of Lake Lokakoma, alive for generations, all to keep the tourists coming. Without Lemon, the town dies, and she can’t disappoint her grandparents . . . or tell her best friends about any of it. That includes Troy Ramirez, who has been covertly in love with Lemon for years, afraid to ruin their friendship by confessing his feelings.

When a very real, and very hungry monster is discovered in the lake, secrets must fall by the wayside. Determined to stop the monster, Lemon and her best friends are the only thing standing between Devil’s Elbow and the monster out for blood.

This book was a wild ride. On the surface it seemed like a fun lake monster story, following a trio of teenagers – Lemon, Troy and Darrin – in a town where the claim to fame (and tourism) is a lake monster akin to Nessie or Champ. I really enjoyed that we get a dual POV between Lemon (our main character who has to shoulder a lot of family responsibility) and Troy (one of her best friends who is in love with her). Just when I thought I knew where this story was going it got a lot more twisty and out there. Lemon herself deals with a lot of resentment towards the responsibilities she has to shoulder as well as pressure from her family that results in her feeling like she has to give up all of her aspirations. There are definitely characters I had instant dislike for, her grandfather for example, who had a his way or the highway kind of thinking, but even he had a lot of character growth in the story. Overall this was a thoroughly enjoyable story that had a lot more depth than I expected when it came to the characters.

Happy reading!

Blog Tour | A Quantum Love Story by Mike Chen | Review

February 1, 2024 DeAnneLeave a comment

Mike Chen brings us an epic love story—in a time loop. When strangers Mariana Pineda and Carter Cho get stuck together repeating the same four days, finally reaching Friday might mean having to give up the connection growing between them.

On Thursday at 12:42pm, Carter Cho is working as a technician at a particle accelerator when it explodes, striking him with a green energy—and sending him back in time to Monday morning. And this happens over and over again. Which at first is interesting, but quickly becomes lonely as the world moves through the same motions and only he changes. If he ever wants to get out of the time loop, he needs help.

On one of the loops, he finally manages to bring Mariana Pineda in with him by getting her struck by the same energy at the same moment. Now they have to find out how to get the accelerator to finish its current test so that they can finally reach Friday.

Along the way, Carter and Mariana help each other through grief, decisions about unfulfilling jobs, and confronting difficult pasts—all the while eating lots of great food since their bank accounts and cholesterol reset with every loop. But the longer they stay in the loop, the more they realize that getting out of it, might mean they’ll have to give up the connection growing between them that’s slowly leading to love.

BUY LINKS | Bookshop.org | B&N | Books A Million | Amazon

I’m always intrigued to see how certain sci-fi elements are handled and time loops is one of those things. Sometimes you do run the risk of the stories being very cerebral and harder to understand, but I found this one very accessible and about far ore than the time loop itself.

I did not expect this book to dive into things such as loss and grief but it did. I enjoyed seeing Carter and Mariana’s relationship build over the repeating days and found myself unable to put this one down thanks to the fast paced writing and intriguing concept.

Mike Chen is the New York Times bestselling author of Star Wars: Brotherhood, Here and Now and Then, Light Years from Home and other novels. He has covered geek culture for sites such as Nerdist, Tor.com and StarTrek.com, and in a different life, he’s covered the NHL. A member of SFWA, Mike lives in the Bay Area with his wife, daughter and many rescue animals. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram: @mikechenwriter.

Social Links | Author website | Twitter: @mikechenwriter

Happy reading!

Review | Empty Smiles by Katherine Arden

January 13, 2024 DeAnne2 Comments

It’s been three months since Ollie made a daring deal with the smiling man to save those she loved, and then vanished without a trace. The smiling man promised Coco, Brian and Phil, that they’d have a chance to save her, but as time goes by, they begin to worry that the smiling man has lied to them and Ollie is gone forever. But finally, a clue surfaces. A boy who went missing at a nearby traveling carnival appears at the town swimming hole, terrified and rambling. He tells anyone who’ll listen about the mysterious man who took him. How the man agreed to let him go on one condition: that he deliver a message. Play if you dare.

Game on! The smiling man has finally made his move. Now it’s Coco, Brian, and Phil’s turn to make theirs. And they know just where to start. The traveling carnival is coming to Evansburg.

Meanwhile, Ollie is trapped in the world behind the mist, learning the horrifying secrets of the smiling man’s carnival, trying everything to help her friends find her. Brian, Coco and Phil will risk everything to rescue Ollie—but they all soon realize this game is much more dangerous than the ones before. This time the smiling man is playing for keeps.

The summer nights are short, and Ollie, Coco, Brian, and Phil have only until sunrise to beat him once and for all—or it’s game over for everyone.

I was excited to read the conclusion to this series and find out what would happen with Ollie and her friends. I do feel like we got more of a glimpse of the Smiling Man in this installment, and enjoyed the carnival setting, but in a lot of ways I felt like it was a little disjointed. There were a couple different POV’s and jumping in time just a little. I wanted there to be a more climactic event since this was the last book in the quartet and unfortunately felt like I didn’t get that. I did like a lot of the elements that were throughout the book and the clowns were wonderfully creepy, it just felt a little rushed for my taste. When we finally did get some action towards the end it was over too soon. Still, I’m glad to have read the conclusion and do feel it wrapped up the quartet to satisfaction.

Happy reading!

Review | The Stranger Upstairs by Lisa M. Matlin

January 5, 2024 DeAnneLeave a comment

A social media influencer with a secret past buys a murder house to renovate, but finds more than she bargained for behind the peeling wallpaper in this gothic psychological debut.

Sarah Slade is starting over. As the new owner of the infamous Black Wood House—the scene of a grisly murder-suicide—she’s determined that the fixer-upper will help reach a new audience on her successful lifestyle blog, and distract her from her failing marriage.

But as Sarah paints over the house’s horrifying past, she knows better than anyone that a new façade can’t conceal every secret. Then the builders start acting erratically and experiencing bizarre accidents—and Sarah knows there’s only so long she can continue to sleep in the bedroom with the bloodstained floor and suffer the mysterious footsteps she hears from the attic.

When menacing notes start appearing everywhere, Sarah becomes convinced that someone or something is out to kill her—her husband, her neighbors, maybe even the house itself. The more she remodels Black Wood House, the angrier it seems to become.

With every passing moment, Sarah’s life spirals further out of control—and with it, her sense of reality. Though she desperately clings to the lies she’s crafted to conceal her own secrets, Sarah Slade must wonder . . . was it all worth it? Or will this house be her final unraveling?

I was hooked on the concept of is it a haunted house, could there be an intruder or is the MC going mad, so I was excited to pick it up. I sometimes hesitate when it’s an unreliable narrator, especially when it’s a woman who drinks a lot, since that’s a too common trope. I enjoyed the slow unwinding of Sarah and Joe’s past and what had led them to the point they are at today. I also enjoy the additional perspectives that pop up later and further expand the angles we see the story from. There were definitely some messy spots and lots of twists and turns that keep you guessing until right before the end. I felt the final twist was a good one and not entirely expected. The writing was also compelling and made it an easy book to consume in one sitting.

Happy reading!