Skip to main content

Posts

Reading Check In: Birthright by Nora Roberts

Finally finished the book club book for the month, Birthright by Nora Roberts. I honestly had a blast with this one. You get a nice little bit who dunnit, a couple of well developed romances, and plenty of soapy twists and turns. This was at a period when Nora Roberts was really coming into her own, and you could feel her getting a better grasp of her pacing. The story follows several characters connected to a controversial archeological dig in a small New England town. While the back of the book would make you think that the dig was the central focus, the true focus is very different. I kind of don't want to spoil it here, as. I liked not really knowing the full plot as I went into it. Made the reveals more fun.  It isn't perfect, with some lag towards the end where things should be ramping up. I had a similar problem with Sanctuary , which was a slightly earlier book. When we are supposed to be getting into the swing of things things would screech to a halt for a misplaced lo...
Post a Comment
Read more
Recent posts

General Update! - Reading Slump

 The thing I didn't want to have happen of course happened. I hit a reading slump. Something in my brain just clicked off and said, nope. Don't know what it is, or why, but it hit and it hit hard. Hence me not posting a lot on my reading diary.  I am slowly making my way through my office book club book, Birthright  by Nora Roberts. I can tell you that one is good just for that fact that not even my slump has kept me from enjoying it! It was 100% not the book I thought it was going to be, but I am enjoying the heck out of the book it is turning in to. This book feels like it came out when Nora Roberts was really hitting her stride. I think it came out either right before or after Midnight Bayou. I adore that book (and the TV movie), and feel like she was finding a good balance in her writing style there. Especially compared to something like Sanctuary , which was a fun thriller, but lacked the balance between the love scenes and moving the plot along. Birthright  is ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Manga Recs: Gyo by Junji Ito

  Gyo  is not Ito's best work, but it is one of his most interesting. While most of his stories are surreal and dread filled, Gyo is a full on creature feature. It hits differently than a lot of his stuff, while still keeping with his wonderful, creepy visuals.  The plot is straight out of a SyFy original movie, with robotic legged fish coming from the ocean and invading the land. You have a whole bevy of killer sea creatures on robotic legs, a virus that has some very nasty side effects, and even a mad scientist. This one is like Ito is playing out a love for B-movies that you don't see in some of his better loved works like Uzumaki. The closest I can think of in comparison is Remina  maybe? Gyo kind of got buried when it first got released. Uzumaki  had made such a splash, but when Gyo  hit, it was so different that I remember critics not being as warm to it. It didn't get bad reviews by any means, but it for sure was considered lesser than. I guess it is...
Post a Comment
Read more

Book Recs: Night Thunder by Ruby Jean Jensen

I am a big horror nut, and that includes the books I read. So, when Paperbacks from Hell came out, I of course started snapping up any old school paperbacks I could find. If it was sold on wire rack in a grocery store, I wanted it. One of the authors I had a really hard time finding books for was Ruby Jean Jensen.  She was a prolific horror paperback writer, starting out doing gothic romance, she shifted to horror and ended up doing most of her work for Zebra in the 1980's and 1990's. Her book covers were typical Zebra, with creepy dolls, kids and more skeletons than you can shake a stick at. The books themselves weren't groundbreaking, but she sold well enough to create her own little cult audience. By the time I was even aware of her existence most of her books were long since out of print, with Zebra's horror line shutting down in 1996. With the publication of Paperbacks from Hell  her books, and the books of many other similar authors, went from being easy used book...
Post a Comment
Read more

Manga Mayhem: My Dad's the Queen of All VTubers?! Complete Series

I had picked up the first volume of this series almost a year ago when I was back home visiting family. I got volume 2 pretty quickly after that, and then I sat on reading the last volume for way too long. I think I have a problem with finishing series. Like, my brain just doesn't want them to be over. So, I pushed back whatever is going on in in my skull, and I finally got around to finishing this little three volume comedy series. I don't know why it took me so long to pick up volume 3, but I am so glad I did.  The basic premise of My Dad's the Queen of All VTubers?! is that a high school student finds out that his dad is secretly a super popular "female" VTuber. One that he himself had been obsessed with. Once that cat is out of the bag hijinks ensue as everyone is pulled into the wild world of being a VTuber.  The series is mostly a series of comical sketches with very little over all narrative moving from chapter to chapter. I think the sitcom approach works ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Manga Mayhem: A Small Batch

 This is going to be a much smaller manga batch, as I have been juggling a little more this week so I haven't been able to read as much.   I did read The Strange House  vol. 2, and I am fricken loving this series so far. I'm kind of sad that I can't find the movie in English anywhere, but that also means I won't have the story spoiled for me. The first volume was a lot of the characters speculating about what could have happened. The second volume starts to introduce some solid facts into the story. This is a pretty small story, with really only three main characters, and the books just fly by. I cannot recommend this one enough for someone looking for a decent horror manga!  I also revisited a series I haven't read in years. I checked out Case Closed vol. 23. I binged the first 22 volumes one summer probably ten years ago. Reading that much Case Closed  back to back was a bad idea, as the series can start to feel repetitive. After a long break, though, I w...
Post a Comment
Read more

Office Book Club Pick: Birthright by Nora Roberts

 I was the one who had to put books up for a vote for March, so I went with a theme. Trash with a Capital T. I wanted books that the people I went to college with would look down on. Nora Roberts won out this time, and let me tell you, she is someone who got a good deal of hate back when I was studying Fiction Writing back in the early 2000's.  Now that I have read several books from her both as Nora Roberts and as J.D. Robb, I don't fully understand the hate. I actually don't get it at all. Is she the most amazing word smith to ever grace the printed page? No. Are her books entertaining and engrossing? Yes. In the grand scheme of things I would rather read a book that engages me than something that is intentionally impenetrable because... smart? I don't mean this to sound anti-intellectual. I have read many books that people would consider serious literature and loved them. I also found them engaging and thought-provoking. Beloved by Toni Morrison is a stunningly beaut...
Post a Comment
Read more