All Kinds of Lives August Newsletter
All Kinds of Lives (August 2023) by Shilpa Jacobie and Max McConnell
All Kinds of Lives (August 2023) by Shilpa Jacobie and Max McConnell
Content warning for this review: the book being reviewed is pretty gross, it’s a horror book. Discussing the content of the book may be a little gross too. If you like being grossed out, you may enjoy this book! If not, you may want to check out something else. A novella written in pieces, a…
Filled with suspense and social commentary, Jackal filled me with dread and outrage throughout the book. This debut novel by Erin E. Adams takes place in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, the author’s hometown, which is largely white and racially segregated. Jackal follows 32 year old Liz Rocher as she travels back to the town for her best…
All Kinds of Lives (July 2023) by Shilpa Jacobie and Max McConnell
Autumn tends to be the season that gets the most credit for being the spooky season, but summer offers its own opportunities for thrills and chills- summer camp shenanigans, vacations gone wrong, cult rituals, and more! Now that it’s officially summer, I wanted to compile a list of some great horror books and movies set…
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer (LGBTQ) Pride Month is currently celebrated each year in the month of June to honor the 1969 Stonewall Uprising in Manhattan, which was a tipping point for the Gay Liberation Movement in the United States. This month-long celebration demonstrates how LGBTQ Americans have strengthened our country, by using our…
What happens when an act of violence done to you turns you into a monster? Rachel Harrison’s Such Sharp Teeth tries to answer that question with a authentic story of unresolved childhood trauma and post-traumatic stress told through a horrific and fantastical werewolf horror story, with a touch of humor and dash of romance. As…
All Kinds of Lives (April 2023) by Shilpa Jacobie and Max McConnell
Leech is a gothic science fiction horror story that is about a young doctor from the Interprovincial Medical Institute that takes on a mysterious medical case at an isolated chateau after the baron’s former physician passes away suddenly. The young doctor will take on a challenging assignment at the baron’s chateau due to a mysterious…
April 11th is national pet day! To celebrate at the Peabody Institute Library of Danvers, we have compiled a discovery list of books and movies that our pets recommend! Tessie Recommends: The Beagle Handbook by Dan Rice Here is detailed advice for owners of this cheerful breed, which is adaptable as a hunter or a…
All Kinds of Lives (February 2023) by Shilpa Jacobie and Max McConnell
All Kinds of Lives (January 2023) by Shilpa Jacobie and Max McConnell
November is Native American Heritage Month. The National Congress of American Indians tells us: [t]he month is a time to celebrate rich and diverse cultures, traditions, and histories and to acknowledge the important contributions of Native people. Heritage Month is also an opportune time to educate the general public about tribes, to raise a general…
This gothic chilling ghost story tells about the eccentric Winterbourne Hall that resides in the English countryside in Cornwall by the sea. The book is set in time periods in 1947 Cornwall and present day New York City. We are introduced to Alice Miller in the beginning of the story where she discovers a job…
Richardson’s The Damned, first book in the Darkest Hour Trilogy, (it sometimes appears as the Darkest Hand Trilogy) is a fascinating combination of alternate history, church murder mystery, and horror thriller all wrapped up in a nice dark fiction package. The book opens in the trenches east of Arras in the opening days of an…
Reviewed by Kim Five boys and their scoutmaster set off for a small Canadian island for some bonding, etc. Everything is going well until “Typhoid Tom” as he comes to be known comes ashore and events quickly spiral out of control. I bought The Troop because of all the positive feedback and I had already heard…
Reviewed by Kim Christopher Golden hasn’t written a horror novel for quite awhile, but he certainly hasn’t lost the knack for it. If you haven’t read Snowbound yet, don’t go into it expecting immediate action. This is the type of horror story that slowly and suspensefully builds to a crescendo. It starts with what happened…
Publisher’s Summary: “Jack Gabert went to India to serve his Queen. He returned to London a violently changed man, infected with an unnatural sickness that altered his body and warped his mind. Eileen Callaghan left an Irish convent with a revolver and a secret. She knows everything and nothing about Jack’s curse, but she cannot…
Judas Coyne, lead singer for a metal band, has been living in semi-retirement on a farm in New York with his young goth girlfriend Georgia. Coyne has a collection of occult and morbid items, so when his assistant asks him if he’d like to buy a dead man’s suit (ghost included), Coyne doesn’t think twice.…
Harm None ~ M. R. Sellars Rowan Gant, self-proclaimed witch, is brought in to help his best friend, Detective Ben Storm, solve a brutal murder that involves elements of Witchcraft. As the number of horribly gruesome murders grows, Rowan is drawn into relentless visions and nightmares that, bit by bit, offer painful clues as to…
If you like books that take place close to home, we’ll give you a heads-up on titles you may want to check out with Read This’ new Local Connection feature. This time we’ve found one for all of you horror/police procedural fans: Alexandra Sokoloff’s June release, Book of Shadows, features two Boston homicide detectives and…
Funny, cute, totally different, with a bit of the bizarre thrown in, this is how I’ve been describing this book to friends. If you’re expecting a complete re-telling of Ms Austen’s classic, you will be disappointed. The author has instead kept much of the original work intact and thrown in his zombie mayhem for good…
In this latest entry of the Dresden series, Harry winds up helping Morgan of all people, prove his innocence of murdering a White Council member. I’ve been looking forward to reading this as soon as I heard that Morgan would be coming to Harry for assistance. In my opinion, this is one of the best books…
The invitation is signed “Jaenelle Angelline,” and it summons her family to an entertainment she had specially prepared. Surreal SaDiablo, former courtesan and assassin, arrives first. But when she enters the house, Surreal finds herself trapped in a living nightmare created by the tangled webs of Black Widow witches…and if she uses Craft to defend…
This is a mission unlike anything my vampire boss, Vayl, and I have ever been on. It’s not our usual take them out and run; it’s an undercover mission that needs the whole gang: a psychic, an interpreter, and a weapons specialist. We’re joining a Special Ops team to nail the Wizard, a major terrorist…
Technically, Patricia Brigg’s Mercy Thompson series has been on my radar for some time; those who know me kept insisting I read them. And, wouldn’t you know, when I finally got around to it I ended up devouring the first two (with the third in progress) in a matter of days. Moon Called 1st in…
The “Master” is back!!!! A terrible construction accident takes Edgar Freemantle’s arm and scrambles his memory and mind, leaving him with little but rage as he begins the ordeal of rehabilitation. His marriage that produced two lovely daughters suddenly ends, and Edgar begins to wish that he hadn’t survived. His psychologist suggest a “geographic cure”,…
Jaz Parks has enough trouble in her personal life. What she doesn’t need is more trouble with her vampire boss and another mission. This time she has to retrieve a vital piece of biotechnology by killing the maniac who stole it: an ancient Chinese vamp. Their cover in this mission: professional entertainers at the Corpus…
Dean Koontz has expanded in recent years from his straight horror. Some of his fans like this and some don’t. I happen to belong to the former group and his newest offering is along the same vein. Amy Redwing heads a rescue group for Golden Retrievers. Dogs are literally her life. Brian McCarthy while not…
I’m Jaz Parks. My boss is Vayl, born in Romania in 1744. Died there too, at the hand of his vampire wife, Liliana. But that’s ancient history. For the moment Vayl works for the C.I.A. doing what he does best–assassination. And I help. You could say I’m an Assistant Assassin. But then I’d have to…
I loved the first book in this series and the second definitely didn’t disappoint. There was one extremely tear-inducing moment though. In this entry, Zoe Redbird is coming to terms with her new life and evolving powers. She also has some complications popping up in her personal life in the forms of 3 men. If…
I enjoyed Devil May Cry much more than the last couple of Dark-Hunter books. This book focuses on Katra, the secret daughter of the Goddess Artemis, and Sin, an ancient Sumerian God who has had his powers stripped. Sherrilyn Kenyon also gives you much more background and history of Ash and Artemis. While the book…
Have you ever read the glowing reviews of a book, yet when you read it you hated it and found yourself wondering what was wrong with you? Well, that’s how Divine By Blood made me feel. It’s the last book in the trilogy (first are Divine By Mistake and Divine By Choice). I loved the…
After much arguing, Kate talks her life partner Willy into having a baby by way of artificial insemination. To Kate’s surprise, she is contacted personally by a mysterious company who offers their services. After the first try, even though Kate is told she is not pregnant, she starts experiencing the symptoms of a mother in…
This series just gets better and better! “The Wheel of Darkness” opens with both Pendergast and Constance recovering from their final battle with Pendergast’s evil brother Diogenes. They travel to Tibet, where after staying at a monastary and learning new meditation techniques from the mystical monks there, they are asked to retrieve a sinister artifact…
Sunny’s other two books (Mona Lisa Blossoming & Mona Lisa Awakening) dealt with the Monere, who are decendants of a race of people who came to Earth after the Moon became uninhabitable. Where the Mona Lisa books were extremely similar to Anne Bishop’s “Black Jewel” series and Laurell K. Hamilton’s books, what set them apart…
Fear not! Laurell K Hamilton – and, therefore, Anita Blake – is getting back to her roots. Let there be rejoicing! But not too much; Jean-Claude isn’t in The Harlequin nearly enough. Ah, but let me backtrack a bit. First off, if you will, a synopsis: “Anita Blake is about to face the challenge of…
Zoe Redbird is not having one of her better days. She’s trying to break up with her boyfriend, her best friend is driving her crazy, and then, a vampyre Marks her. Zoe enters The House of Night where, as she undergoes the change, she will train to become an adult vampyre. Of course not everyone…
For a book that centers on signs of the zodiac with “superheroes” attached to each one, this a surprisingly dark fantasy in which there is no guaranteed happy ending. The story’s heroine, Joanna Archer, (can you guess what her sign is?) has survived a brutal attack at age 16 and has spent the last few…
Technically, The Dead Girls’ Dance is considered a young adult novel. But don’t let that put you off. Rachel Caine knows how to tell a good story and she creates wonderful characters. If you’re a fan of either of those concepts (and you don’t mind vampires) give her Morganville Vampire series a shot. (In case…