The Pandava sisters’ stories are exciting and laugh-out-loud funny.
I just finished listening to Aru Shah and the Nectar of Immortality by Roshani Chokshi (narrated by Soneela Nankani) a few days ago, and I loved it! I sure hope this book series continues in some fashion because I am not ready for this to be the last Pandava adventure. Here are five reasons why I love this series.
Continue reading “Five Reasons Why I Love the Aru Shah Series”I loved this book! I loved the main character and first person mental dialogue. It reminds me of Craig Johnson’s Walt Longmire series. I also loved that I learned tidbits of information about various native cultures around the world.
Padoskoks is the second in the Jacob Neptune series and is set in both the Adirondacks (NY) and Puget Sound (WA).
Continue reading “Padoskoks”By Simon R. Green
Place: Publisher & Year: New York: Ace Books, 2010
Genres: Fantasy, contemporary fantasy, urban fantasy, dark fantasy, paranormal, adventure
Series: Ghost Finders Novel; 1
ISBN: 9780441019168
Audience: Adult
Number of pages: 260
Setting: London, England
Time period: Contemporary
Plot summary: The Carnacki Institute specializes in getting rid of ghosts and other unwelcome supernatural beings. When the Oxford Circus Tube Station of London’s Underground becomes haunted by an exceptionally evil force, the Institute sends in its best B-Team to deal with the situation. (The A-Teams were too far away). This trio of misfits must save London (and the world) from pure evil, even as agents from a rival institute attempt to kill them. Continue reading “Ghost of a Chance”
By Taylor Stevens
Place: Publisher & Year: New York: Crown Publishers, 2011
Genres: Thriller, adventure, suspense
Series: Vanessa Michael Munroe; 1
ISBN: 9780307717092
Audience: Adult
Number of pages: 307
Setting: Mainly set in Equatorial Guinea and Cameroon, Africa. Also set in Houston, Texas and Frankfurt, Germany, with brief stints in Ankara, Turkey and Paris, France.
Time period: Contemporary
Plot summary: When a Texas oil man’s daughter goes missing in Africa, he attempts to find her but discovers nothing. Four years later, he hires Vanessa “Michael” Munroe to try to learn what happened to her. This is outside of Munroe’s usual line of work, which is gathering expensive information for both corporations and governments. However, Munroe is quite familiar with much of Africa, and agrees to accept the assignment. Munroe soon discovers that there is more to this assignment than she was led to believe. Continue reading “The Informationist: A Thriller”
By Suzanne Collins
Place: Publisher & Year: New York: Scholastic Press, 2010
Genres: Science fiction, adventure, dystopian, thriller
Series: The Hunger Games; 3
ISBN: 9780439023511
Audience: Young adult
Number of pages: 392
Setting: Panem – mainly District 13 & the Capitol, but also Districts 12, 8, and 2
Time period: Sometime in the future
Plot summary: Katniss must face the reality of her new situation. She and her family are all alive and living underground in the rebel District 13. Peeta has been captured by the Capitol. The rebels of District 13 want Katniss to become the face of the revolution; they want her to become the “Mockingjay”, a role which has already been designed for her without her knowledge or acceptance. The questions are: what does Katniss want? And how will she go about getting it? Continue reading “Mockingjay”
By Suzanne Collins
Place: Publisher & Year: New York: Scholastic Press, 2009
Genres: Science fiction, adventure, dystopian, thriller
Series: The Hunger Games; 2
ISBN: 9780439023498
Audience: Young adult
Number of pages: 391
Setting: Panem – mainly District 12 & the Capitol
Time period: Sometime in the future
Plot summary: When Katniss returns to District 12 after surviving the Capitol’s Hunger Games, all she wants is for her life to be as it was prior to the games. Unfortunately, this can never be. As victors, she and Peeta must live as such. And while the Capitol’s audience was quite convinced by Katniss and Peeta’s undying love for one another throughout the games, President Snow was not. He tells Katniss this personally just prior to her and Peeta’s Victory Tour through the districts. He also mentions that some of the districts have had uprisings and threatens to harm Katniss’s family if she doesn’t comply with his wishes. Continue reading “Catching Fire”
By Diana Gabaldon; illustrated by Hoang Nguyen
Place: Publisher & Year: New York: Del Rey, 2010
Genre: Historical fiction, fantasy, adventure, time travel fantasy, historical fantasy, romance
Format: Graphic novel
Series: Outlander Graphic Novels; 1
ISBN: 9780345505385
Audience: Adult
Number of pages: Unpaginated
Setting: Scotland
Time period: 1743
Plot summary: Young Jaime Fraser returns to Scotland after living in exile. He is met by his godfather, Murtagh, who tries to guide Jaime back to his home – Lallybroch. Jaime isn’t ready to head home, though. He’s much more interested in the mysterious Sassenach that Murtagh saved from the English Captain Black Jack Randall. Continue reading “The Exile: an Outlander Graphic Novel”
By Suzanne Collins
Place: Publisher & Year: New York: Scholastic Inc., c2008, 2009
Genres: Science fiction, adventure, dystopian, thriller
Series: The Hunger Games; 1
ISBN: 9780439023528
Intended audience: Young adult
Number of pages: 374
Setting: District 12 & the Capitol, Panem
Time period: Sometime in the future – after “the Dark Days, the uprising of the districts against the Capitol” (p. 18).
Plot summary: When Katniss Everdeen’s younger sister, Prim, is selected as a tribute for District 12 in the Capitol’s televised Hunger Games, Katniss volunteers to go instead. With her hunting skills, Katniss has a better chance of surviving the games than her twelve year old sister. In spite of this, it will take all of Katniss’s wits and a good amount of luck, to make it through the games alive. Continue reading “The Hunger Games”
By David Morrell
Place: Publisher & Year: New York: Vanguard Press, 2009
Genres: Adventure, suspense, thriller, paranormal
ISBN: 9781593155803
Intended audience: Adult
Number of pages: 423 (including Afterword, Acknowledgements, and About the Author)
Setting: Rostov, TX
Time period: Contemporary
Plot summary: When Santa Fe police officer, Dan Page, returns home one day he discovers that his wife, Tori, has suddenly left him. As he tries to figure out why she left and where she is, he learns that she stopped in the small West Texas town of Rostov while driving to visit her mother in San Antonio, Texas. While few people have ever heard of Rostov, the few that have know that the town is infamous for the inexplicable lights which appear at night outside of town. Even though the government has been secretly studying the lights and their effects for years, nobody knows what cause the lights and not everyone can see them.
As Dan attempts to understand Tori’s fascination with the lights, a crazed gunman starts shooting at a busload of people who were viewing the lights. It turns out that this is not the first time that someone has responded violently to the effects of the lights; however, this is the first time that the violence is mentioned in conjunction with the lights on national news. As curiosity draws even more people to the town of Rostov, events become even crazier from the unexplained phenomena. Continue reading “The Shimmer”
By Ben Bo
Place: Publisher & Year: Minneapolis: Lerner Sports, 2000
Genres: General fiction, adventure, paranormal
ISBN: 9780822533085
Intended audience: Young adult
Number of pages: 159 (161 including Editor’s Note)
Setting: Mulligan, Ireland (County Sligo) and Storm Island, Florida (near Cape Canaveral)
Time period: Contemporary
Plot summary: Jonah Ebbers has one good thing in his life – the surf at Craxkull Point. This is where he heads when he needs to get away from his alcoholic father, the kids at school, and the voices in his head. When he is in the water, riding a wave, he is at peace with the world. Unfortunately, he can’t surf forever. The strange voice and girlish apparition he can almost see at times is disturbing him more frequently, on top of his father making a fool of himself at the tavern and spending all of their money on alcohol. Jonah wants a normal life with a future worth looking forward to, but he will have to examine his past to find it. Continue reading “Skullcrack”
Dun and Red 