“It is a truth universally acknowledged that first impressions are a bitch. In a sea of college freshmen, Elizabeth Bennet feels more like a den mother than a returning student. She’d rather be playing Exploding Kittens than dodge-the-gropers at a frat party, but no way was she letting her innocent, doe-eyed roommate go alone. Everything…
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The Dirty Streets of Heaven by Tad Williams
“Bobby Dollar is an angel—a real one. He knows a lot about sin, and not just in his professional capacity as an advocate for souls caught between Heaven and Hell. Bobby’s wrestling with a few deadly sins of his own—pride, anger, even lust. But his problems aren’t all his fault. Bobby can’t entirely trust his…
The Power of Books: A Killer Has Been Caught!
Michelle McNamara, late wife of actor Patton Oswalt, passed away from cancer before finishing this book, but her hard work has paid off. Today, more than forty years after the suspect began his spree of killing and raping, DNA has confirmed the identity of the man responsible and he is now in custody in Sacramento,…
My Favorite Things: Pride and Prejudice (the novel)
Confession time: I am an unapologetic Austenite, and yet I can’t remember precisely when I first encountered this eminently readable author. I know that the first book of hers that I read was Pride and Prejudice, but for the life of me, I have no idea when that was. I think it may have been…
Rule 34 by Charles Stross
“Meet Edinburgh Detective Inspector Liz Kavanaugh, head of the Innovative Crime Investigation Unit, otherwise known as the Rule 34 Squad. It’s responsible for monitoring the Internet, following trends to determine whether people are engaging in harmless fantasies—or illegal activities. Usually their job uncovers those operating on the extreme fringes of the run-of-the-mill porn that still,…
Waiting on Wednesday: The Fandom
“Cosplay ready, Violet and her friends are at Comic-Con. They can’t wait to meet the fandom of mega movie, The Gallows Dance. What they’re not expecting is to be catapulted by freak accident into their favourite world – for real. Fuelled by love, guilt and fear, can the friends put the plot back on track…
Brazen by Katherine Longshore
“Mary Howard has always lived in the shadow of her powerful family. But when she’s married off to Henry Fitzroy, King Henry VIII’s illegitimate son, she rockets into the Tudor court’s inner circle. Mary and “Fitz” join a tight clique of rebels who test the boundaries of court’s strict rules with their games, dares, and…
Dead Iron by Devon Monk
Genre classifications are getting a little more fluid of late, I think. There are so many books that defy categorization that it can be a challenge to describe what kind of book I’m reading at any given time. Obviously, not all mash-ups work, but Devon Monk’s Age of Steam series has welded several disparate story…
Embassytown by China Mieville
Science fiction has a reputation—sometimes rightly, sometimes wrongly—of being little more than space opera. But it’s also true that all science fact must begin as science fiction, and thus the genre is a prime vehicle for exploring ideas and concepts. China Mieville has previously confined himself mostly to fantasy novels, but with Embassytown, he makes…
The Alienist Episode One: The Boy on the Bridge
TNT’s limited series The Alienist, based on the book of the same name by Caleb Carr, follows three main characters: Dr. Lazlo Kreizler, our titular alienist, who seeks to understand the minds of those afflicted with mental illness; John Moore, an illustrator for the New York Times, who assists Kreizler by lending his eyes and…