His Tesoro by Emilia Rossi
His Tesoro by Emilia Rossi felt like an important read to me as I was reading it, so much so that I created a draft of this review at about 50 pages in so that I would be sure to actually write a review and not just shrug it off. You can’t tell it from the cover, but this is a pretty spicy dark mafia romance. (Or, maybe you can, since this is often how spicy book covers are styled these days.) You may be […]
Libra by Don DeLillo
Poisoner In Chief: Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA Search for Mind Control by Stephen Kinzer
The Ghost by Robert Harris
Recently, I read three different books featuring CIA chicanery (two were fictional). This was unintentional but I figured since the themes were similar, I’d just batch review them rather than do individual ones. Libra***** This was a re-read. I liked it the first time. I loved it now that I: a. had a better since of the Oswald timeline after reading Posner’s Case Closed and b. could appreciate the meta-narrative structure in a way I couldn’t before. This is the only DeLillo book I can really […]
Heart Shaped Box by Joe Hill
“Buy my step-father’s ghost.” You’d think this was a novel idea, but it is something you can find on ebay today. I was going to link something here but got the heebie jeebies just searching for haunted items and don’t need the bad vibes right now. Although I have to wonder, does it increase the value of an item to describe it as haunted? In either case, buyer beware! Heart Shaped Box is Hill’s first full-length novel, published in 2007 (he also published a collection […]
The Duke Who Didn’t: Wedgeford Trials Book 1 by Courtney Milan
cbr16bingo And Also —for the Part 1 square For CBR15 I read Courtney Milan’s The Brothers Sinister series (based on recommendations from fellow Cannonballers) and loved it. When I initially asked for advice on where to start with Milan’s work, The Duke Who Didn’t came up frequently. While The Brothers’ Sinister series deals a lot with women’s rights and the suffrage movement, this start to the Wedgeford Trials series has a focus on minorities in England, discrimination, and appropriation. Milan, as ever, is careful and […]
Take the Lead by Alexis Daria
3.5 stars Smart Bitches Summer Bingo: Reality TV CBR16 Bingo: Disco (so much dancing in this book) Gina Morales has been a dancer for four seasons of the popular reality dancing show The Dance Off, but she’s never even made it to the finals. She dreams of stardom but doesn’t like the behind-the-scenes machinations on the show. She may be a beautiful Latina woman, but refuses to be roped into any kind of ‘Showmance’. She wants to be taken seriously as a dancer and choreographer. […]
Starter Villain by John Scalzi
Many people fantasize about an estranged relative dying and leaving them a fortune or a thriving business. Few people would indulge in this fantasy if the estranged relative’s business were villainy, and if, in addition to the job, they inherited a long list of enemies. This is the situation Charlie Fitzer finds himself in when his Uncle Jake dies and he’s visited by his uncle’s second-in-command, Mathilda Morrison. Even before Morrison shows up, Charlie has problems. Once a successful journalist, he’s now an underemployed substitute […]
