The unnamed narrator of this novella is a small time con artist who specializes in aura reading and sensual massage at Spiritual Palms. When Susan Burke hires her to cleanse her Victorian home of negative energy, which she believes is driving her teenage stepson Miles to violence against his new baby brother, our protagonist sees it as a way to make an easy buck and potentially gain some new clients. But after several harrowing experiences in the Burke home, the psychic realizes that she might […]
Recent Reads: A Summer of (Mostly) Thrillers
I have been really busy with my own writing and art project this year, so haven’t been posting regularly on my blog. But I did want to share some capsule book reviews of what I’ve been reading lately. Agatha Christie, The Monogram Murders – billed as a “new” Hercule Poirot mystery, by British mystery author Sophie Hannah. It wasn’t a bad read, but was it Poirot? For fans of Christie’s most famous and famously fastidious detective, there were definite pleasant notes scored, with nods to […]
Shed your tears, for there is no succor here.
Spoilers abound. I’ve never before hated such a good book. There was nothing enjoyable in here. It was gross, and full of despair, and unsettling. Reading this was like bathing in a fetid pool of sewage left out in an Arizona summer. I’d rather eat rancid fish than live in this world any longer. I’d sooner spend the rest of my life watching Michael Bay movies than read this book again. Which isn’t to say it’s a bad book. It’s not. It was well written, […]
“Smile, it can’t be that bad! Yeah, actually it can.”
I read Gone Girl a couple of years ago and while at the time I thought it was okay, the farther I get from it, the less I like it. It was a runaway hit, as we all know, but it just didn’t quite live up to the hype for me. So when I found a copy of Dark Places at the local library book shop, I figured I would give Gillian another shot. But just like Gone Girl, she lost me at the ending, […]