Angieville

I haven't wanted to talk about this. With  anyone.  But I think I probably need to. That like Georgina, I need to use my words to break the curse. I think that like Sam, I need to believe in my cure. So I'm going to talk about it here, and maybe you can help. Since pandemic type things got real in my neck of the woods, I haven't been able to read. I haven't been able to  reread . This has (and I am not exaggerating) never happened to me before  in my life.  I know it happens frequently to most everyone. And I have certainly always been a mood reader. It's not in any way uncommon for me to drift from book to book, from shelf to shelf in my library, until I land upon the right thing. But that drifting tends to occur over the course of a few hours. Not ever does it occur over the course of a few days or, God forbid, weeks.  I feel like I'm losing my mind. And, yes, I am fully aware of where this problem likely rates on the triviality scale in the current schem...

I thought I was done with the crying when I finished The Raven King last night at an only slightly ungodly hour. But then this morning I got up and I just didn't know what to do . And when I realized I had to sit down and  write about how this book made me feel , the tears start welling up again. Honestly, Aaron will likely never let me read another series aloud to him again for all the tears he carefully wiped off my cheeks with this one. I am not a huge book crier as a rule, and I did not cry reading the other three. But it wasn't so much the sadness as it was the saying goodbye. I hate saying goodbye. Even though I am a serial rereader, there is no escaping that particular goodbye that comes at the end of a series that has meant . . . more than a lot. That contains characters I have loved the precise way I have loved these ones. These boys. That Blue. This incredible writing that makes me want to prowl the streets at night reciting passages aloud to the stars. I h...

Once again I surface from a haze of mandatory rereading of each and every one of my favorite parts in the previous two novels in the Raven Cycle to write this review of the third and latest installment. I finished Blue Lily, Lily Blue and lay awake in bed, staring at the ceiling, seeing nothing but the quicksilver leaves of Cabeswater, hearing nothing but Adam's soft drawl over the tune of Ronan's inappropriate Irish jigs, and tasting nothing but mint on my tongue. It's a heady experience giving yourself over to one of Maggie's novels and not a decision to be taken lightly. Knowing that she persists in ending each book on a cliffhanger teaser (of sorts), I prepared myself for the worst (though I know she's really saving that for the fourth and final book). And, as ever, as the whole thing crashes to its temporary conclusion, some threads are flung far and wide even as others (the core ones) tighten their hold, both on each other and on me. This is the third b...

To celebrate the release of Strange Country —the third book in Deborah Coates ' rural fantasy/paranormal mystery trilogy (how's that for a mashup of awesome?)—Tor Books has been gracious enough to offer up a set containing the complete trilogy. I have yet to read this series, but two things immediately caught my eye. The first is the enticing Sharon Shinn quote on the cover: Twin Peaks meets Dean Koontz in this tale of a windswept northern prairie town beset by eerie events. Deborah Coates offers a pitch-perfect sense of place, an uncanny knack for dialogue, and a complex heroine who's mad, sad, tenacious, and tough. Yes, please. The second is the term "rural fantasy." In my mind, I place it somewhere in the vicinity of Ilona Andrews ' Edge series, which they termed "rustic fantasy." Either way, I can't wait to start this series and see. This giveaway is open to those with U.S. or Canada mailing addresses. To enter, fill out the Raffl...

I figured I might as well go ahead and write this review while my stomach is still all twisted and jumpy from finishing it last night and being unable to settle down for hours afterward. Truthfully? I was so caught up I had to go pull my copy of The Raven Boys down off the shelf and reread my favorite bits to help me come down off the high of the second book. Honestly. I'm as bad as Ronan coming out of one of his dreams. Only I don't have a Gansey or a Noah to help harness me back to reality. So. You all will be my Gansey and my Noah, yes? Because I need you after the whirling dervish that was this book had its way with my emotions. It's not that I don't know what I'm getting into when I immerse myself in Maggie's latest book. It's that I'm utterly unable (and entirely uninterested) in distancing myself from these boys and this girl I love. And so when the gloves inevitably come off and the humor eases deceptively into anguish, I am left huddled in a ...

It was hard to guess, when the initial information on The Raven Boys was released, which Maggie Stiefvater it would be. I discovered Maggie's writing through her first book-- Lament --and I have never looked back. I've enjoyed her urban fantasy, her fantasy, her paranormal romance, whatever you want to call it, in spades. I am  honestly up for whatever she chooses to write. However, her style does vary from book to book, series to series. And I was very intrigued to find out what we would be getting here, especially as I was somewhere in the vicinity of absolutely floored  by The Scorpio Races . Perfect books always have that effect on me. Particularly ones that come five books in when you think you know an author. The early word was sparse, but inviting. And, as always, she had a great title and  a lovely cover. So it was with grabby hands that I picked up a copy at BEA and took it home with me in my carry-on bag. Blue is the lone normal in a family of female psych...