Daniel Church: "The Ravening" (ARC Review)

Title: The Ravening [on Amazon | on Goodreads]
Series: None
Author: Daniel Church [Site | Goodreads]
Genres: Supernatural, Thriller/Mystery
Year: 2024
Age: 18+
Stars: 4/5
Pros: Intriguing premise. Badass and resourceful heroine. Tight action. Fascinating dreamworld.
Cons: The supernatural aspect is a lot less prominent than one would expect, until late in the story. The main character can be abrasive and goes from mistrust to love in a jiffy. The "historical" interpolations are a bit tedious and not really necessary. There's a questionable sex scene, and a string of repetitions ("babe", "girl" "stupid cow") that get old fast.
WARNING! Blood, gore, violence, murder, dismemberment, near-drowning, fire. Familial trauma, kidnapping, imprisonment, forced pregnancy, attempted suicide, homophobia, bullying, copious swearing. Contains a detailed F/F sex scene.
Will appeal to: Those who enjoy a mixture of thriller and supernatural with plenty of action. Those who can get behind a tough female character without a maternal bone in her body.

Blurb: Jenna's life has always been a fight. From the traumatic and mysterious loss of her mother on a dark woodland road when she was fifteen, to the abusive and controlling boyfriend she's recently escaped, she has learned that trust hurts you in the end. Now Jenna's found what she hopes is happiness with her new girlfriend, Holly. But the world is full of darkness - some of it ancient, some of it closer to home... Evil, and those who serve it, will not let Jenna go. (Amazon excerpt)

Review: First off...DISCLAIMER: I requested this title on Edelweiss. Thanks to Watkins Publishing LTD/Angry Robot for providing an ecopy. This didn't influence my review in any way.

MAGICAL CRESCENDO

I'll be honest: I expected The Ravening to be less of an action-y thriller and more of a "classic" supernatural haunting. But though I would have liked to spend more time in the dreamworld Church created because it was super-cool (and because that's how I roll 😉), I appreciated how he slowly introduced more and more supernatural cues into a seemingly average (well, in a manner of speaking) abduction-and-escape story, only to finally give the fantastical elements center stage and reveal the mythological foundations of his narrative (I'm not going to be more specific in order to avoid spoilers, but basically, Church put a wild and creative spin on a well-known classical myth). It's a testament to the author's ability to weave a tale that never lets up - and to come up with a flawed, yet relatable and strong heroine - if I was able to enjoy a story employing one of my less favourite narrative devices (the aforementioned abduction-and-escape), so chances are that those of you who aren't fond of this kind of stories will be entertained enough to read on, and get to the supernatural bits in all their glory 🙂. [...]

B.C. Johnson: "Deadgirl: Gravedust" (ARC Review)

Title: Deadgirl: Gravedust [on Amazon | on Goodreads]
Series: Deadgirl (5th of 5 books, but there's also a novella about a side character that is chronologically book 2.5 in the series - though best read after book 3 if you want to avoid a spoiler about its ending)
Author: B.C. Johnson [Site | Goodreads]
Genres: Afterlife, Supernatural, Urban Fantasy
Year: 2024
Age: 14+
Stars: 5/5
Pros: Imaginative plot. Excellent pacing. Emotional kaleidoscope. Flawed yet lovable characters who manage to feel realistic in the middle of mayhem.
Cons: Darker than the previous installments. A certain twist brings some issues with it.
WARNING! Horror, gore and heartbreak (both for the characters and the readers). Guns, knifes/swords, rats, fires/burns, vampirism (on people and animals, the latter off-page), eye and leg injury, near-drowning, suicide (off-page). Lots of language.
Will appeal to: Those who love peculiar undead protagonists. Those who enjoy a mix of cinematic action and strong feelings. Those who like brave, resourceful teens who don't pose as heroes, but are set on saving the world whatever the price (and manage to love a lot in the process).

Blurb: For Lucy and her friends, the end is here. The deals they've made have fallen apart, and their enemies prepare a final attack on everything Team Deadgirl holds dear. An army of monsters out of a nightmare arrives on their doorstep, but Lucy, Morgan, Zack, and Daphne are scattered, unprepared, and alone. When an old villain turns out not to be as dead as they appeared - which is sort of Lucy's thing - the team again faces the one girl they were never able to defeat. And she isn't just seeking revenge against Lucy. She's after something far worse. (Amazon)

Review:  First off...DISCLAIMER: I received this novel from the author in exchange for an honest review. And the author being B.C. Johnson, you all know I've been campaigning for his first Deadgirl book with all my might since 2013, when I read the original version. Also, B.C. Johnson and me have stayed in touch, if sporadically, for the whole time. I'm not what you would call a friend of his though, only a fan of his work. And an unbiased one. As usual, this review is the love child of my penchant for quirky, uniquely worded books and B.C. Johnson's ability to deliver them.

EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE

How do you review the last book in a saga you've been invested in for almost twelve years? How do you find the words to say goodbye to a world and a cast that you aren't, will never be ready to let go, and yet (you agree, you see the point) went out with a spectacular, incredibly satisfying bang? First thing first - Deadgirl: Gravedust is what every series ending should be: high-octane, twist-serving, and emotionally destroying, but in a good way. (Wait, is there a good way? You bet there is). In this last installment, Johnson puts every idea, mood, plot thread, side character (alive and dead) that have ever been incorporated into the story to fruition, which is an impressive feat in itself, and shows how he's been playing the long game all along, though the first Deadgirl was just a standalone novel with sequel(s) potential when it was published (well, the author had ideas for those sequels, but I don't know how structured at the time - what I know is, he changed a bunch of them during his writing journey. And yet...). Gravedust is a colossal showdown (not only because it could be a legit superhero blockbuster, only with teens), and it's a chorus line's last bow after a terrific performance, because all of this has been as much about Lucy - the girl who stubbornly refused to die on her first date - as it has been about all her friends and family and allies, in more ways than one. Whether a character in this book is alive or dead, just bruised or badly injured in the end - and regardless of their lives still being a work in progress, because of course they are, and clear-cut endings are a lie - we get closure about them, or as much closure as we can. And it's funny, and it's sad, and it's beautiful. [...]

Isabel Strychacz: "House of Thorns" (ARC Review)

Title: House of Thorns [on Amazon | on Goodreads]
Series: None
Author: Isabel Strychacz [Site | Goodreads]
Genres: Supernatural, Thriller/Mystery
Year: 2024
Age: 14+
Stars: 4/5
Pros: Fresh, atmospheric take on the haunted/magical/evil house trope. Engaging (if sometimes flawed) characters.
Cons: The first section is a bit lackluster. There's some confusion about the protagonist's age. The addiction theme is ultimately brushed aside.
WARNING! Grief, panic attacks, anxiety/PTSD, drug and alcohol abuse (offscreen), near-drowning, death of a parent who no longer lives with the family.
Will appeal to: Those who like creepy, but not downright gruesome stories. Those who enjoy sisterly dynamics and a pinch of childhood-friends romance. Most of all, those who are fond of mysterious houses and shifting realities.

Blurb: Five years ago, the Peartrees fled their home - the infamous ancestral Brier Hall - and never looked back. But her oldest sister went missing that night, and there’s been no sign of her since. In the aftermath, the Peartrees are traumatized and get by however they can. Lia’s remaining sister Ali says yes to any bad idea, and Lia tries so desperately to be the perfect daughter that it’s tearing her apart. But as the five year anniversary of the night they left nears, Lia begins seeing her missing sister everywhere. When Ali disappears with no warning except a cryptic phone call, Lia is sure she’s gone back to Brier Hall. Lia must go home one final time and face what haunts her in an effort to find her sisters and uncover the truth of her past. (Amazon excerpt)

Review: First off...DISCLAIMER: I requested this title on Edelweiss. Thanks to Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers (Simon Teen) for providing a temporary ecopy. This didn't influence my review in any way.

ON THE HOUSE

I've been reading so many supernatural (or in one case, multiverse) books with houses at their center lately, and yet each and every one of them has managed to bring something different (and creative) to the table. I can happily report that House of Thorns is no exception. I'll be honest...it's a bit of a slow burn, and at first I thought it was a fairly run-of-the-mill modern gothic story, but when the mystery about the house started to get unraveled, I was hooked. Told from teen and kid Lia's perspectives, with the interpolation of some chapters from Brier Hall's point of view (which is not a gimmick, but a narrative device that does add a pivotal angle to the story, plus it's really cool), House of Thorns is a novel that blurs the lines between the past and the present, the haunter and the haunted - and even the ultimately familiar trope at its core feels fresh and exciting (OK, a bit heartbreaking too) in this context. While on the surface a tale of (strained) sisterly relationships and childhood trauma, on a deeper level HOT is about the need to belong and to find someone who will fill our empty spaces, a need embodied by the emotional entanglement between a young woman and a house who loves her back - if in a twisted way. Which makes for a melancholic and creepy narrative that works very well with the supernatural, time-bending quality of the story and the sisterhood theme. [...]

Taste the Books: Review Morsels #52 Emet North, Cheryl Isaacs, Sofia Ajram

Intro

Hello beauties!

Welcome again to my own brand of mini reviews! I never thought I'd do minis, until I recapped a few of my long reviews in some digest post in 2014, and then guest-posted some shorties for a blogging event in 2015. And Karen from For What It's Worth started praising my short recs/recaps 😊. Just to be clear,  I'm NOT taking a break from writing long reviews - no such luck LOL (though for anthologies, shorter books or books that I didn't enjoy/I don't have enough to say about, I decided to stick to minis). But while I'm making up my mind about a new book I've read, I might as well give you the short version 😉. Just be warned - this feature will be VERY random!

Note: all the mini blurbs (in italics) are of my own creation.

Tell Me Something Tuesday: What Day in Your Life Would You Like to Relive?

Tell Me Something Tuesday is a weekly meme created by Heidi at Rainy Day Ramblings in order to discuss a wide range of topics from books to blogging (and some slightly more personal matters throw in for good measure). After Heidi stopped blogging (apparently for good), five of us took over as hosts while providing new questions. The current team is composed of Berls at Because Reading Is Better Than Real Life, Jen at That's What I'm Talking About, Karen at For What It's Worth, Linda at Book Girl of Mur-y-Castell and Roberta at Offbeat YA. This week's question is...

WHAT DAY IN YOUR LIFE WOULD YOU LIKE TO RELIVE?

Truth be told...none. As Lewis Carroll would put it,

"It’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then." (Alice in Wonderland)

If I could go back (as in, shove my grown-up mind in my younger body, I assume?) to one of the (few) capital-happy days of my life (like when I met my once-favourite singer for the first time), I would indeed be a different person, or the people in it would mean nothing to me anymore because I've become too far-removed from them, or I would be aware that the joy I felt back then was based on false premises. There isn't a single happy day that I can think of that wouldn't be tainted by the turn my life has taken since then, or by my present awareness of things I didn't realise at the time, or by my knowing I should have taken a different path, sometimes even in that very moment, and built a better life for myself. So...if you asked me, would you like to go back to a certain day and tell your younger self to live her life differently, I'd say yes, please, take me back NOW. But the happy days of the past are better left alone. That naive, hopeful girl will never come back anymore.

Sarah Hollowell: "What Stalks Among Us"

Title: What Stalks Among Us [on Amazon | on Goodreads]
Series: None
Author: Sarah Hollowell [Site | Goodreads]
Genres: Supernatural, Contemporary
Year: 2023
Age: 14+
Stars: 4.5/5
Pros: Spectacular premise that delivers all along. Lots of (often literal) twists and turns. Powerful friendship dynamic. Fat rep. Addresses lots of important topics (see the WARNING! section).
Cons: A couple of plot points ended up being red herrings of sorts or getting no explanations.
WARNING! (TW list provided by the author): Physical, emotional, and psychological abuse; aspects of abuse including victim blaming, isolation, manipulation, and gaslighting; mental illness (depression, anxiety, PTSD), self-harm (cutting), death, violence (gunshots, stabbing, strangulation), gore and body horror.
Will appeal to: Those who are in for a time-looping supernatural mystery with a strong contemporary core.

Blurb: Best friends and high school seniors Sadie and Logan ditch their end-of-year field trip to the amusement park in favor of exploring some old, forgotten backroads. The last thing they expect to come across is a giant, abandoned corn maze. When they stumble on the corpses in the maze, identical to them in every way (if you can ignore the stab and gunshot wounds) they quickly realize they’ve not only entered this maze before, they’ve died in it too. A lot. And no matter what they try, they can’t figure out what - or who - is hunting them. (Amazon excerpt)

Review: I requested this book on NetGalley last year to no avail. It turns out that (regardless of my small following, that might very well have been the reason for the rejection) I was a potential champion for it all along, because I kept it on my radar, I ultimately read it all the same and I loved it! (It doesn't hurt that it matches my blog aesthetic so well LOL).

A-MAZE ME

You know that feeling when a book has got an exciting premise, except the story doesn't make it justice? Well, nothing of the sort happened here. What Stalks Among Us (genius title, BTW) delivered on all counts, keeping me on my toes with all the twist and turns of the plot and the setting alike. I was invested in the mystery and the outcome (plus other aspects that I'll talk about later), but regardless, navigating the maze was a ton of fun in itself, a never-ending source of surprises and exhilarating moments. Also, the maze had a timey-wimey quality that I dug a lot, with intersecting temporal planes and even a number of loops - not to mention, it sometimes reacted to its visitors' (or better, prisoners') presence in very specific ways. I have to admit that not every one of the labyrinth's peculiarities made complete sense (neither did its genesis - knowing what I know now, I would have expected something different than a corn maze at the very least): e. g., I'm not sure how two instances of the same character could coexist, since it seemed at odds with the premise, and Sadie's connection to the maze and the significance of the sheep skeleton were never explained (though I have a theory about the former...but then again, it's contradicted by what happened with another character). But on the whole, the worldbuilding was well-executed and full of interesting angles (and paths...and more angles...see what I did here? 😉). [...]

Offbeat Offline: August 2024

Welcome to Offbeat Offline, where I bring you up-to-date with what went on in my life during the month just gone, give you a sneak peek of my next shenanigans, and share my favourite posts of late!

What happened last month to yours truly? THE HEAT. And...oops...a new eye problem for me, because of course. That's it. Well, I mean, my husband's ulcer is slowly but steadily getting better at last...but goodness, THE HEAT. I've been numb for the whole month, barely reading, barely reviewing, eating the usual assortment of quick/cold dishes, with the who-cares attitude of a cavewoman (primordial-instincts-only mode activated). Seriously, THE HEAT 🥵 😭. And then, the eye.