August 21, 2023 · 10:12 am

An Anniversary Giveaway at Long and Short Reviews

Banner for the 16th Anniversary Party for the renowned book review site, Long and Short Reviews. Text on the blue banner reads: “16th Anniversary Party. August 21-25, 2023. Win $100 Amazon GC’s and more! Dozens of winners.” There are four balloons floating next to the text and little stars and confetti strewn throughout it as well to give it a celebratory feel as most book blogs don’t last this long!

 

Long and Short Reviews is celebrating their 16th anniversary this week.

Just like in previous years, they are hosting a virtual party on their website that includes a giveaway of Amazon gift cards and many other prizes.

If you want to join in and possibly win something cool, go to their website and fill out the Rafflecopter on as many posts as you wish.  There will be dozens of new posts every day this week, so keep checking back.

Every genre is represented: picture books, middle grade, young adult, non-fiction, inspirational, romance, erotica, mystery, science fiction, fantasy, horror, mainstream fiction, and more.

No matter what you like to read, someone will be discussing it over there.

They’re also promoting indie and small press books this week, so this is also a fantastic opportunity to get to know some new authors and find some hidden gems in your favourite genre or genres. I’ve had wonderful experiences doing that and can’t wait to see what’s in store this time.

The comment sections in previous years have been delightfully talkative and friendly, too, and I expect the same this year.

I hope to see all of my readers over there!

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August 17, 2023 · 1:00 am

A Review of How (Not) to Play With Magic

Book cover for How (Not) to Play With Magic by Elizabeth A. Reeves. Image on cover is a drawing of a red-headed, curly-haired white woman who has her hands on her hips and is looking saucily at the audience. She’s wearing a purple witch’s hat with a gold buckle on it and a purple, low-cut dress with puffy sleeves and a gold belt. Title: How (Not) to Play With Magic

Author: Elizabeth A. Reeves

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: March 18, 2013

Genres: Fantasy, Contemporary

Length: 25 pages

Source: I received a free copy from the author.

Rating: 3 Stars

Blurb:

A Cindy Eller Short story.

Cindy Eller is a witch and a baker. She is making a name for herself in the world of desserts with her new and unique flavor profiles.

But juggling her weird family and trying to keep her magic a secret from her roommates is a daily challenge.

And her twin sisters, Starrie and Rainey Skye won’t hesitate to bring the trouble right to her door.

Review:

Food can do a lot of things, but it can’t reverse a spell.

This short story had a gentle, goofy sense of humour that I adored. Cindy’s sisters were very good at getting into mischief despite being old enough to know better, so I was glad to see the main character be so patient with her family even as she shook her head and tried to fix their problem. There was a slice of life aspect to their troubles that made me smile.

It would have been helpful to have more plot and character development in this piece. So much time was spent describing stuff like what the characters were eating that there wasn’t enough space left in these twenty-five pages to keep the rest of it moving at a good pace. As much as I wanted to choose a higher rating, I don’t want my readers to walk into this without a clear understanding of what they’re getting into and how it was paced. This can be a positive thing for readers who are craving something lighthearted and leisurely, but it might be less fun for those of us who prefer more action.

On a positive note, the food descriptions made me hungry. I enjoy books that talk about what the characters are eating and drinking. That makes it just a little easier to imagine what it would be like to sit down at a kitchen table with them and share a meal, and it also gave me some insight into Cindy’s personality and interests due to her love of sweets and high standards for what she wanted to eat.

How (Not) to Play With Magic is a good choice for anyone who is looking for kind fiction.

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August 16, 2023 · 1:00 am

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: A Documentary I Liked

Hosted by Long and Short Reviews.

Click here to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and here to see the full list of topics for the year.

A photo of a dinosaur skeleton against a black backrgroudn. The skeleton has been pieced back together and is standing up straight and tall as if the dinosaur is still alive. You all may remember how much I like nonfiction. I enjoy watching documentaries about science, history, medicine, and other topics just as much as I do reading about them.

I think documentaries are the perfect thing to watch whenever you need a distraction for any reason. You can learn so much about the world through them!

I’ve been anticipating this week’s topic so much that I’m going to give two answers to it. (Honestly, I wanted to give like a dozen…but I won’t overwhelm all of you with my enthusiasm for documentaries).

 

 

I recommend Prehistorical Planet to dinosaur fans age 5 and older

Poster for season two of the documentary Prehistoric Planet. It shows a close-up drwaing of a dinosaur’s eye. The dinosaur has blue feathers and a yellow-brown iris. You can see the reflection of a flying dinosaur in this dinosaur’s eye which is cool.Prehistoric Planet is a 2022 and 2023 British-American miniseries about what life was like for dinosaurs and other animals in the Late Cretaceous period. It’s based on the latest scientific research of that era and was filled with information about how those creatures hunted (or tried to avoid being hunted), found mates, built nests, and raised their young.

If there are any elementary-aged or older kids in your lives who love dinosaurs, this is something they can enjoy just as much as adults do. The second season just came out in May, and the writing felt like it was meant to appeal to viewers from a wide variety of ages and backgrounds which is delightful. This one is for everyone!

 

I recommend Shiny Happy People to teen and adult viewers only.

Poster for the documentary Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets. Image on cover shows a photo of the Duggar Family that has a happy smiley face covering the actual face of every single member of the family.

Shiny Happy People is a 2023 documentary about the Duggar family and their relationship with the Institute of Basic Life Principles which was founded by Bill Gothard.

The Duggars have been a staple of reality TV programs on The Learning Channel since the early 2000s due to their frugal lifestyle and having 19 children.

They cultivated a wholesome image, but there were years of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse going on behind the scenes both in this family and in Gothard’s organization in general.

This was not an easy thing to watch by any means, but it was educational. I especially appreciated the sections that pointed out some of subtle signs people can inadvertently give off when they’re being abused but trying to hide it as other programs on this topic will often only mention the biggest red flags of something like that going on.

There were so many people who could have reported these crimes but either never did it or were not listened to when they did. I think there’s something to be said for being aware of what to look for and alerting child protective services when warranted. Sometimes it takes more than one report for the authorities to take action.

Anyway, these are the two most recent documentaries that I loved. I hope you all like them, too, if you watch them!

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August 15, 2023 · 1:00 am

Top Ten Tuesday: Characters from Different Books Who Should Team Up


Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

A humorous photo of two people who are each holding a pet. One is holding a chihuahua and the other is holding a siamese cat. The animals are positioned so that they can look at each other, but they are instead looking at the photographer with puzzled expressions on their little faces. I read books from so many different genres, styles, and eras that it’s often hard for me to imagine what various characters might think of each other.

It’s like grabbing two random pets and expecting them to be friends. Maybe it will work, or maybe they’ll fight like, well, cats and dogs.

Some books dive deeply into character development. Others barely skim the surface of it in favour of adding in extra action scenes. There are also cases where the characters are all well-rounded but so wildly dissimilar that I don’t know how much time they’d even be willing to spend in the same room.

(My theory is that those of you who tend to stick to one genre for most of your reading time are going to have an easier time coming up with matches. Let’s see if I’m right!)

With that being said, here are my picks:

 

1. Anne Shirley from L.M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables series and Ove from Fredrik Backman’s A Man Called Ove.

The Ove we first met would probably be irritated by how talkative Anne could be when she was a child, but I think these two would eventually get along well if they’d met when Anne was older and a little quieter. She was almost always good at softening out the edges of grumpy people, and I think he’d be amused by some of her fanciful ideas about how life should work.

 

2. Yetu from Rivers Solomon’s The Deep and Ariel from The Little Mermaid

They’d be good friends, I think. Well, other than the fact that Ariel wanted to be human and Yetu most definitely did not.

 

 

3. Fatima from Nnedi Okorafor‘s Remote Control and Charlie from Stephen King’s Firestarter 

They were both young girls who had been given powers far beyond their comprehension that they needed to learn how to use safely. Wouldn’t it be interesting to see what they thought of each other?

 

4. Yetu from Rivers Solomon’s The  Deep and Fatima from Nnedi Okorafor’s Remote Control

 

I hope it’s okay to pick the same characters more than once, because I also think it would be cool to see how Yetu and Fatima got along. They both had a strong desire for justice that I think would become even more noticeable if they teamed up.

 

Anyway, that’s my short list. I look forward to seeing what everyone else has to say.

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August 10, 2023 · 1:00 am

Graveyard Romance: A Review of The Ghost and the Real Girl

Book cover for The Ghost and the Real Girl by Avery Carter. Image on cover shows a black and white drawing of the profile of a woman’s face. Her hair has been piled on top of her head in a Victorian-style puffy bun, and she has a scarf with a few sprigs of flowers tired around her neck. There is also an oval border around this drawing that has roses, vines, and leaves sprouting around it. Title: The Ghost and the Real Girl

Author: Avery Carter

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: October 31, 2022

Genres: Fantasy, Paranormal, LGBTQ+, Romance, Historical

Length: 124 pages

Source: I received a free copy from the author.

Rating: 4 Stars

Blurb:

“There was never a good night to rob a grave, but the night of a full moon was certainly the worst…”

When Sera is hired to rob a 200 year old grave, the last thing she expects is the ghost of Lady Clementine de Quill rising up to scold her for it. Though her world is full of magical echoes from a not-so-distant past, a ghost is completely unheard of. What’s more, no one else can see or hear Clem. Sera tries everything to get rid of her– selling the items she took from her grave, bathing in saltwater, even putting herself through a religious smoke cleansing from the Church of the Wheel. Nothing works, and Sera finally resigns herself to having a ghost follow her around for the rest of her life.

Despite their differences, a partnership begins to bloom between the streetwise gravedigger and the cultured noblewoman. Just as they realize that maybe they aren’t so different after all, Clem starts to fade, flickering in and out for longer and longer stretches of time. Sera begins to realize that with each time Clem vanishes, there’s a chance that she won’t come back. There’s only one problem: she can’t imagine life without her anymore.

Review:

Who says cemeteries have to be scary places?

The romantic storyline was handled perfectly. This is something I’m saying as someone who usually steers clear of that genre, so don’t let that label dissuade you from reading this if you’re the same way. The author did an excellent job of creating two unique, realistically flawed characters and giving them a ton of time to pursue other goals in life before the slightest hint of romance filled the air. Having all of those things established ahead of time made it much easier for me to understand why these characters ended up becoming romantically interested in each other.  I loved this portion of the plot just as much as the rest of it.

There were a few spots where the pacing sagged a little due to how much character development and  world-building the author needed to do. While I appreciated it later on, I did find myself feeling a little restless in that moment when the storyline slowed down and I wasn’t sure why. Keep the slow moments in mind as you read.  I wish certain scenes had been sped up a little, but there is a payoff coming if you persevere!

I was impressed with the world building, though. It’s hard to create a complex society in a shorter work like a novella, but I was immersed in Sera and Clementine’s world by the end of the first scene. More details were released over time, of course, and I relished the opportunity to expand my understanding of where they came from and how their society had evolved in the few hundred years between Clementine’s death and Sera deciding to dig up Clementine’s grave.

The Ghost and the Real Girl made me yearn for more.

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August 9, 2023 · 1:00 am

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: The Strangest Dream I’ve Had Recently

Hosted by Long and Short Reviews.

Click here to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and here to see the full list of topics for the year.

Five little green plants are growing in five glass test tubes as the tubes sit in a test tube tray on a white counter in the sunlight. Back in May I dreamed that I was standing in a laboratory watching scientists work. I may have been a scientist, too, although the dream logic wasn’t very clear on that.

We had a limited amount of time left to solve the biggest problem humanity has ever faced: the plants were revolting.

That is to say, every single plant on Earth had become sentient and was furious with humanity.

Not only were we eating the plants themselves, we were stealing their children (seeds) and eating them, too.

Plantkind had run out of patience with us. They were so angry, in fact, that they made a unanimous decision to stop reproducing forever.

The scientists I was working with had captured a plant specimen and was attempting to find her seeds. When they realized she had none, they decided to try reasoning with her. She was about the size of a small doll, dark green, and almost too angry to speak with us.

Didn’t she realize that her species, too, would die out if there were no seeds left?

She knew and didn’t care. So far the scientists had only strengthened her resolution to carry out her plan and encourage every other plant to do the same.

And then I woke up.

(Aren’t dreams odd sometimes?)

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August 8, 2023 · 1:00 am

Top Ten Tuesday: Books I Want to Read Because of Top Ten Tuesday


Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

Photo of a young woman with straight black hair and olive skin standing in a bookstore. Her ethnicity isn’t perfectly clear, but she could be Asian or Middle Eastern. She’s reading a hardback novel while standing in front of a display of books that has been arranged in a large circle formation that perfectly frames her chest, shoulders, and head. It gives the effect of looking through a mirror or a portal and seeing her on the other side. It’s very cool.

Originally, I was planning to give credit to the people who introduced me to these books in previous Top Ten Tuesday posts.

The problem with that plan is that a) I usually can’t remember who talked about them first, and b) most of these books have been mentioned by multiple Top Ten Tuesday bloggers before, during, and after their release dates.

Therefore, I’m giving credit to everyone has who blogged about these books.

Thank you for bringing these titles to the attention of the rest of us. You’ve enriched my TBR list and no doubt the reading lists of lots of other folks, too.

Here are some of the many books that came to my attention thanks to you.

1. Starter Villain by John Scalzi

2. Babel by R.F. Kuang

3. Camp by Lev A.C. Rosen

4. Anna, A Child of the Poorhouse by Pat Mattaini Mestern

5. Horrorstör by Grady Hendrix

6. Godkiller (Godkiller, #1) by Hannah Kaner

7.  Daisy Fay and the Miracle Man by Fannie Flagg

 

 

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August 3, 2023 · 1:00 am

A Review of South of Okeechobee

Book cover for South of Okeechobee by Daniel Powell. The cover looks like a piece of cloth that has greatly yellowed and frayed with age. On the left hand side, there is a black streak that looks like mold or maybe a small burn mark. That is the sum total of the imagery on the cover. Title: South of Okeechobee

Author: Daniel Powell

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: January 6, 2014

Genres: Fantasy, Contemporary, Historical

Length: 16 pages

Source: I received a free copy from the author

Rating: 5 Stars

Blurb:

Somewhere in the River of Grass lives a sad and solitary creature. Once a man, this cursed monster now haunts the margins of human imagination, forever searching for his murdered love…

A rip-roaring slice of Florida Folklore, “South of Okeechobee” is an origin story of one of the American South’s great mythological creatures: the Florida Skunk Ape. Blending prohibition, cryptozoology, southern magic, and a little bit of moonshinin’, “South of Okeechobee” is pure, high-octane Florida gothic…

This short story (4500 words) originally appeared in the collection The Silver Coast and Other Stories.

Review:

Content Warning: Prohibition, bootlegging, mild violence, and murder.

Not every feud is a harmless one.

I wasn’t aware of the legend of the Florida Skunk Ape before reading this story, but no prior knowledge is necessary in order to enjoy it. The characters share everything important early on, and the last few details can be picked up by the final scene or by looking this creature up online if you must know everything about it in advance. There’s something to be said for folklore that makes so few assumptions about the audience already knows, and I was glad I could walk into this without needing to do any homework in advance.

Sixteen pages was the perfect length for this story. There was exactly enough plot and character development to keep all of them interesting, and I was left feeling satisfied with where everything had ended up by the time I read the final scene. It can be hard to write a story that fits the parameters so perfectly, so I must tip my cap to Mr. Powell for pulling it off. There’s not a single thing I would have changed about what he wrote. He did everything perfectly here in my opinion and I will definitely be keeping an eye out for what he comes up with next.

There were a few gems here for those of us who have lived in small towns and know how important social standing can be there. When you see the same people every day, little things can snowball into big conflicts easily if anyone involved chooses to make a big deal out of someone breaking a social norm for that community in even the tiniest way. None of those moments were strictly necessary in order to understand the main storyline, but they sure added some nice depth to the plot and gave readers who understand this experience something to chuckle about.

South of Okeechobee was a wild ride.

 

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August 2, 2023 · 1:00 am

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: A Job I Wouldn’t Be Good At

Hosted by Long and Short Reviews.

Click here to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and here to see the full list of topics for the year.

A neon sign lit up against a black night sky in a city. You can see a skyscraper next to the sign. The words “Peninsula Night Club” are in neon blue on the sign. The word “liquor” is larger than all other words and in neon orange on the sign. The word “dancing” is on the bottom of the sign and in neon pink. If any of you secretly own a nightclub and are looking for people to work late hours and pressure your patrons into buying watered-down alcohol while the DJ blares eardrum-rattling music all night long, I am not a good candidate for the role for the following reasons:

1) I am a morning person who needs an early-ish bedtime and a stable sleep schedule in order to function properly and stave off ugly sleep-deprivation migraines,

2)  Migraines give me horrible noise sensitivity, so I would not be able to  remain in a noisy environment if I’m at any point in the migraine cycle.  I also really don’t want to suffer permanent hearing loss from dangerously noisy work,

3) Sales is not something I’m naturally good at,

4) When I worked roles that involved sales in the past, I only said truthful things to my customers and respected their boundaries if they didn’t want to upgrade to a more expensive model of whatever they were shopping for or add extra items to their order. I  never pressured them to buy anything they weren’t interested in and actually got in trouble sometimes for not selling stuff that my customers never wanted or needed in the first place,

5) I haven’t touched alcohol in years, wouldn’t know what to recommend other than telling everyone to go drink a strawberry margarita*, and would be perfectly honest every time someone asked if the drinks were watered down or otherwise deceptively advertised.

*Back when I did occasionally drink alcohol, it was at most two or three glasses of it per year, and strawberry margaritas were one of the handful of drinks that might entice me. I liked the fruit and the fruit juice in them a thousand times more than the alcohol, though, so now I just ask for a freshly-squeezed orange juice or something for rare celebratory moments instead.

So there it is. You now all know my weaknesses and what sort of job I’d be terrible at. Please make your hiring decisions accordingly. 😉

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August 1, 2023 · 1:00 am

Top Ten Tuesday: Forgotten Backlist Titles


Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

Two pretty black women are wearing sundresses and having a picnic on a blanket in the park. The one on the left is wearing a straw hat and reading a book to her companion while the other one sips a glass of wine and smiles. This is the time of year when Toronto is so hot and humid that I generally get a lot of reading done, from new releases to classics to backlist titles that I meant to read a year or two ago but never got around to it.

I don’t know about all of you, but I sure appreciate having books to fall back on as entertainment options while I wait for cooler days ahead.

Here are five backlist books I loved and five more I hope to maybe get started on over the next several weeks of summer.

The Backlist Books I Loved:

Book cover for A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr. Image on cover shows a saint standing on a hill behind dazzling yellow light. He is clutching something and looking up expectedly at the sky.

1. A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller

Genre: Science Fiction, Post-apocalyptic

What It’s About: Cloistered monks who rebuilt society after a devastating nuclear war.

 

Book cover for The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters. Image on cover shows a shadowy photo of a grand old house that is now decaying into ruin because the owners can no longer afford to maintain or repair it.

2. The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters

Genre: Historical Fiction, Gothic

What It’s About: An English physician who befriends a formerly-wealthy family in the mid-to-late 1940s. The family lives in a crumbling mansion that may be haunted.

Book cover for The Annals of a Country Doctor by Carl Matlock, MD. Image on cover shows a drawing of a red house. There are a few large trees growing next to it and a flock of geese flying in the sky above in a v formation.

 

3. The Annals of a Country Doctor by Carl Matlock, MD

Genre: Memoir, Medicine

What It’s About: The funny, touching, and sometimes bittersweet memories of a rural medicine physician in the 1970s.

 

Book cover for The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison. Image on cover shows a painting of a young black girl sitting next to a window with her face half turned out to see the street. She is wearing an old-fashioned red sweater and a small hat.

4. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

Genre: Fiction

What It’s About: Race, loneliness, and a young girl coming of age.

Book cover for Dracula by Bram Stoker. Image on cover is mostly in shadow, but in the top third you can see the frightening red face of a vampiric monster leering at you from the shadows.

5. Dracula by Bram Stoker

Genre: Science Fiction, Horror

What It’s About: An arrogant man named Jonathan who ignored countless warnings and travelled deep into Transylvania to help Count Dracula purchase a house. What Jonathan didn’t know was that Dracula was a vampire.

 

The Backlist Books I Hope I Will Love:

 

Book cover for Hey, Hun: Sales, Sisterhood, Supremacy, and the Other Lies Behind Multilevel Marketing by Emily Lynn Paulson. The title and author are written in a 1970s font that is various shades of pink and red. On top of the title there is a tube of lipstick that has been digitally superimposed on top o an eye that is in the centre of three triangles of various sizes with the smallest one being inside of a bigger one, and the bigger one being inside of the biggest one. The triangles and lipstick are also superimposed on a red circle that has three little stars around it in roughly even spacing from one another.

1.  Hey, Hun: Sales, Sisterhood, Supremacy, and the Other Lies Behind Multilevel Marketing  by Emily Lynn Paulson

Genre: Nonfiction

What It’s About: How multi-level marketing schemes deceive their customers.

Piñata (Hardcover) by Leopoldo Gout book cover. Image on cover shows a drawing of a creature wearing a hood and a hat that is comprised of about a dozen spikes coming out of what appears to be a human skull.

2. Piñata by Leopoldo Gout

Genre: Fantasy, Horror

What It’s About: A modern-day retelling of a classic piece of traditional Mexican lore.

 

After Sappho by Selby Wynn Schwartz book cover. Image on cover is a drawing of various Greek women sitting around a table reading, talking, and resting.

3. After Sappho by Selby Wynn Schwartz

Genre: Historical, LGBTQ+

What It’s About: The lives of queer women at various points in history.

 

This Is Not My Home by Vivienne Chang book cover. Image on cover shows a drawing of a young Chinese girl wearing a yellow blouse. She’s standing on a balcony and you can see other apartment buildings in the background. Her mouth is open, and inside of her mouth is the title of the book in yellow letters.

4. This Is Not My Home by Vivienne Chang

Genre: Children’s (picture book)

What It’s About:  The difficulties of moving to a new area and making new friends.

Meet Me in Mumbai by Sabina Khan book cover. Image on cover shows drawing of the heads of two Indian women facing away from each other as well as the ghostly face of a woman who is looking at neither of them.

5. Meet Me in Mumbai by Sabina Khan

Genre: Young Adult

What It’s About: The main character’s transracial adoption, queer family, and coming of age experiences.

 

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