Almost Midnight collects two short stories by Rainbow Rowell that have appeared elsewhere, and features beautiful illustrations throughout by Simini Blocker. In Midnights, Mags and Noel meet one New Year’s Eve and become fast friends. The story follows them on subsequent Eves for a few years and we see that Mags has more than friendly feelings towards Noel. Unfortunately he keeps kissing other girls at midnight. In this latest year Mags decides she’s had enough and hides out so she doesn’t have to witness him […]
40 stories for 40 years.
What a fun ode to one of my favorite movies. Seriously, who came up with this idea? It’s great. For the fortieth anniversary of Star Wars (now ponderously titled Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope), forty authors who are Star Wars- or nerd-adjacent take side or peripheral characters from the original film and write short stories from their perspectives. These stories are all told in chronological order, from the death of the captain of the Tantive IV all the way to the awards ceremony at the end of the […]
Apparently Santa leaves the ass-kicking to his wife
So, this is the second time I’ve received an ARC and am reading and posting my review after the publication date. Oops. To be fair, I kept looking for this one in my email, but I somehow missed it. But then I found it, so here we go! Mrs. Claus: Not the Fairy Tale They Say is an anthology of short stories all about Mrs. Claus. So, perfect for the holiday season! Rhonda Parrish was inspired by an ad she saw about a non-traditional Mrs. […]
I had expected it to be bigger, and cleaner, and more colorful. But still, it is a jewel.
The trope of the opposite sex being alien is so old that’s it’s already so far gone that it’s on another planet all of its own. Nevertheless that’s the premise of this book. Men are from Mars and women are from Venus. Or rather, Enn is from Earth and all the girls at the party are from…somewhere? Spacy-thing. Doesn’t matter. His friend Vic drags him to a party with the advice “You just gotta talk to them.” It’s an old joke and it really is […]



