I’ve had a pretty mixed go of things with the Kindle First free book selections, and this one falls slightly above the middle for me. I was in the mood for something with an historical footing, and the off-beat structure of this drew me in very quickly, though it disappointed in the ultimate execution of the story. The story takes place over two timelines, one short afternoon in the present, and over several weeks as recalled by the main character. Yoona, our narrator, is being […]
The original vampire-ess
Bram Stoker may have been the first to perfect the literary vampire, but he was certainly not the first to creep people out with a good monster. Carmilla was here first (by over 20 years), and she is perfectly frightening herself. After a carriage crashes near their remote forest estate, our narrator Laura and her father agree to take in a young woman as their guest while her mother travels on and promises to return for her. Not too surprisingly, young girls in the nearby village […]
Over there, inside the Smoke, pain was joy and anger peace. Violence was love.
The alternative world presented in Smoke is a fascinating idea, and a mix of ideas I was thrilled to be spending time with. In Vyleta’s altered Victorian England sinful thoughts and feelings are manifested as smoke that rises from your skin and leaves a unwashable soot behind. Breathing in the smoke of another can spread their feelings into you, and breed more and darker thoughts. The cleanest of people, who happen also to be the wealthiest, are seen as morally better people, and spend their lives learning […]
The Ghosts of Tragedies Past
I am not particularly partial to psychic-based mysteries, and I don’t know if I would have read this one had I known beforehand that it fell into that category, but I’m glad I went in blind, because I really got swept up in reading this one. Finley is a budding psychic and college student, who rather than listen, is trying to escape the voices and ghosts of people she sees and hears all around her. When Finley starts hearing a strange noise over and over again […]