In Pursuit of My Own Library

Today Murphy's Law just seriously took me to the cleaners. What I look forward to for the night is some time with a good book ( The Young Dread  releases today) and good cuddle with my poodles. So, I'll complete some catharsis and write up a review on a very special book. The Contrary Tale of the Butterfly Girl by Ishbelle Bee The second in the Peculiar Adventures of John Loveheart, Esq. series. If you recall, I could not rave enough about the first novel (review here ) this summer. The second in the series did not disappoint. These novels are seriously fantastic in their disturbing glory. I somehow end up at the last sentence wondering about my sanity. Should I really find these novels so good? Am I disturbed? The answers are yes and no. Sometimes you just need a good dark fairytale to shake the doldrums from your day. This go around John Loveheart falls in love. What do you get when a completely mad man falls in love with a brutalized, desensitized woman? The most wo

With November comes chilly mornings and nights with plenty of rainy sessions in between. Bad for my motivation to knock things off my to-do list. Great for my to-read pile dwindling. The Land of the Green Men by Carolyne Larrington I'll have to give this one 3 stars. The author has clearly done years of research on the vast array of folktales around the British Isles, scouring oral history, preserved documents, and theses about all that history. She even brings modern fantasy big shots who use the very same mythic legends to develop their own tales for the modern reader to the argument table. An attempt to bring the ever changing, developing youth in touch with their rustic roots of wonder and awe. The part that is lacking for me is the heart, though. The whole essay lacks the essence of the fairy livelihood. It misses out on the actual wonder and awe part. All of it reads like a semi-dry lecture paper that gets buried at the back of the library to collect dust. And this

Like the snazzy new decorations on the blog? I felt that is was time to start getting festive with the theme. I hope everyone had an excellent Halloween. It is such a wonderful holiday. I thought about what review to post that would coincide with the creepy and really just could not choose an exact book to match, there are just too many good ones. Instead, I handed out treats to the little ones at work dressed in full Harry Potter regalia. Sweet nerd moments. And now we are into November. Crazy! Arrows of Darkness by B.I. Woolet The series continues to be a wonderful fairy tale in the constellations. The story opens pretty painfully but with something that is unfortunately all too prominent these days for young readers. You can tell from the title and opening chapter that this novel is going to deal with the darker side of our hearts.  While sadness rains down upon his family, Jackson eagerly pushes forward to his dear Arcas where there is no personal pain just hopeful long