Book: Hamnet

 Book: Hamnet

Author: Maggie O'Farrell

Pages: 320

This is my 217th read for the year

What Amazon Says:

England, 1580: The Black Death creeps across the land, and ever-present threat, infection the healthy, the sick, the old and the young alike.  The end of days is near, but life always goes on.  A young Latin ttor - penniless and bullied by a violent father - falls in love with an extraordinary, eccentric young woman.  Agnes is a wild creature who walks her family's land with a falcon on her glove and is known throughout the countryside for her unusual gifts as a healer, understanding plants and poitons better than she does people.  Once she settles with her husband on Henley Street in Stratford-upon-Avon, she becomes a fiercely protective mother and a steadfast, centrifugal force in the life of her young husband, whose career on the London stage is just taking off when his beloved young son succumbs to a sudden fever.

Stars: 4

Book: Ink and Shadows

 Book: Ink and Shadows

Author: Ellery Adams

Pages: 304

This is my 216th read for the year

What Amazon Says:

Known for her window displays, Nora Pennington decides to showcase fictional heroines like Roald Dahl's Matilda and Madeline Miller's Circe for Halloween.  But a family-values group disapproves of the magical themes and wastes no time launching a modern-day witch hunt.  Suddenly, former friends and customers are targeting not only Nora and Miracle Books, but a new shopkeeper, Celeste, who's been selling CBD oil products.  Noral and her friends in the Secret, Book, and Scone Society are doing their best to put an end to the strife - but then someone puts and end to a life.  Declared an accident, the ruling can't explain the old book page covered with strange symbols and disturbing drawings left under Nora's doormat.  It's up to Nora and the Secret, Book, and Scone society to sort out the clues before more bodies turn up and the secrets from Celeste's past come back to haunt them all.

Stars: 3.5 

Book: King Sorrow

 Book: King Sorrow

Author: Joe Hill

Pages: 896

This is my 215th read for the year

What Amazon Says:

Arthur Oakes is a reader, a dreamer, and a student at Rackham College, Maine, renowned for its frosty winters, exceptional library, and beautiful buildings.  But his idyll - and burgeoning romance with Gwen Underfoot - is shattered when a local drug dealer and her partner corner him into one of the worst crimes he can imagine:  stealing rare books from the college library.  Trapped and desperate, ARthur turns to his closest friends for comfort and help.  Together they dream up a wild, fantastical scheme to free Arthur from the cruel trap in which he finds himself.  Wealthy, irrepressible Colin Wren suggests using the unnving Crane journal (bound in the skin of its author) to summon a dragon to do their bidding.  The others - brave, beautiful Alison Shiner; the battling twins Donna and Donovan McBridge; and brainy, bold Gwen - don't hesitate to join Colin in an effort to smash reality and bring a creature of the impossible into our world.  But there's nothing simple about dealing with dragons, and their pace to save Arthur becomes a terrifying bargain in which the 6 must choose a new sarifice for King Sorrow every year - or become his next meal.

Stars: 4.5

Book: The Violin Conspiracy

 Book: The Violin Conspiracy

Author: Brendan Slocumb

Pages: 352

This is my 214th read for the year

What Amazon Says

Growing up Black in rural North Carolina, Ray McMillian's life is already mapped out.  But Ray has a gift and a dream - he's determined to become a world-class professional violinist, and nothing will stand in his way.  Not his mother, who wants him to stop making such a racket; not the fact that he can't afford a violin suitable to his talents; not even the racism inherent in the world of classical music.  When he discovers that his beat-up, family fiddle is actually a pricelss Stradivarius, all his dreams suddenly seem within reach, and together, Ray and his violin take the world by storm.  But on the ee of the renowned and cutthroat Tchaikovsky Competition - the Olympics of classical music - the violin is stolen, a ransom note for 5 million dollars left in its place.  Without it, Ray feels like he's lost a piece of himself.  As the comptetition approaches, Ray must not only reclaim his precious violin, but prove to himself - and the world - that no matter the outcome, there has always been a truly great musician within him.

Not well written.  Was a bit all over the place.  I liked the idea of it.  Author is a musician, but just not a great writer.  Unrealistic in some aspects of the book

Stars: 2.5

Book: The Letter Slot

 Book: The Letter Slot

Author: Owen King

Pages: 40

This is my 213th read for the year

What Amazon Says:

A helping hand, a fateful cost.  In this ominous short story, the cost of living keeps rising - an it collects payment from the soul.  Sensing his mother's failing health, a struggling teenager pours out his worries in a letter and drops it through the mail slot of an abandoned show house.  He's surprised when a response arrives, promising good fortune for the price of just one name: someone he hates.  He'd give anything for his mother.  But the true cost may be more than he's willing to pay.

Stars: 4

Book: The Loop

 Book: The Loop

Author: Jeremy Johnson

Pages: 320

This is my 212th read for the year

What Amazon Says:

Turner Falls is a small tourist town nestled in the hills of central Oregon.  When a terrifying outbreak rapidly develops, this idyllic town becomes the epicenter of an epidemic of violence.

Stars: 2

Book: Sherlock Holmes and The Christmas Demon

 Book: Sherlock Holmes and The Christmas Demon

Author: James Lovegrove

Pages: 384

This is my 211th read for the year

What Amazon Says:

It is 1890, and in the days before Christmas Sherlock Holmes and Dr John Watson are visited at Baker Street by a new client.  Eve Allerthorpe - eldest daugheter of a grand but somewhat eccentric Yorkshire-based dynasty - is greatly distressed, as she believes she is being haunted by a demonic Christmas spirit.  Her late mother told her terrifying tales of the sinister Black Thurrick, and Eve is sure that she has seen the creature from her bedroom window.  What is more, she has begun to receive mysterious parcels of birch, twigs, the Black Thurrick's calling card....  Eve stands to inherit a fortune if she is sound in mind, but it seems that something - or soeone - is threatening her sanity.  Holmes and Watson travel to the Allerthorpe family seat at Fellscar Keep to investigate, but soon discover that there is more to the case than at first appeared.  There is another spirit haunting the family, and when a member of the household is found dead, the companions realise that no one is beyond suspicion.

Stars: 4