A Sudden Light by Garth Stein

A Sudden Light by Garth Stein

For summer vacation 14-year old Trevor Riddell journeys to forested Washington State with his father to Riddell House, the mansion built by their timber baron forefather.  A once grand and extravagant family, the money is all but gone: only the mansion and land remains.  Trevor meets his grandfather and aunt for the first time at the decaying mansion.  As the days go by Trevor explores more of the house and uncovers the mysteries of his family’s history as well as his father’s past.  His father was reluctant to go to face his father and Trevor doesn’t understand how his demented grandfather could have been so awful that his son never wanted to return home.  The answers he uncovers, and the ghosts he meets, makes this summer vacation one he will never forget.

The book is very different from The Art of Racing in the Rain, the author’s extremely popular novel told from the point of view of a dog named Enzo.  There are no dogs in this book, but there are ghosts.  And the haunting of Riddell House is a complex one with many layers and a strict purpose that Trevor is determined to discover.  Set in 1990 the absence of technology enhances the book, we don’t have an adolescent running around trying to film ghosts and tweet his friends back home.  The isolation is complete in an age when long distance telephone calls were the only ways to communicate with distant loved ones.  Trevor, cut off from his mother by distance, and from his father by the traumas of the past, is truly alone to discover the secrets of Riddell House and try to put wrongs right.  An engaging and haunting read for those who normally don’t enjoy ghost stories as well as those who do.

The Intern’s Handbook by Shane Kuhn

The Intern’s Handbook by Shane Kuhn

John Lago works for Human Resources, Inc. (HR, Inc.) which supplies free hardworking labor to major corporations.  John is the most invisible of office workers: the intern.  He gets the menial work done to please the partners and makes a mean cup of Joe awarding him entry into the inner sanctums of the most secure businesses.  This is perfect for John’s real job: assassin.  HR, Inc. is in the business of killing and their clients are always satisfied, or the intern assigned the job is reassigned, permanently.  John is nearing his 25^th birthday, retirement age from HR, Inc. (because who would believe anyone over 25 would willingly work for free).  He has one last job.  Of course this one is going to be a doozy.

The story is framed around The Intern’s Handbook, a helpful guide John is writing to help out new recruits to HR, Inc., as well as transcripts from bugged conversations John has with his girlfriend. Told in first person this is a cinematic rollercoaster ride – twists and turns and action galore!  It’s a really fun and different type of read, with generous amounts of dark humor thrown in, for fans of espionage thrillers and action movies.

Apocalypse Cow by Michael Logan

Apocalypse Cow by Michael Logan

“Forget the cud.  They want blood.”

A secret British government agency is up to no good and a slaughterhouse in Scotland becomes ground zero when an experimental bioweapon gets loose.  During the daily routine slaughter, Terry is about to use his bolt gun on the next bovine in line when he notices a mad look in its eye.  The cow is mad.  Not like Mad Cow Disease mad, but insane and REALLY annoyed.  The crazed cow sneezes and sprays those around him with blood-flecked snot.  It is the beginning of the end.  Rampaging zombie cows slaughter the workers in the abattoir and only one human, Terry, manages to escape with his life.  Unfortunately one cow escaped with his “unlife” as well…

Crude, crass, funny and oh so scary, this is a perfect read for those that like British humor mixed with their gore.  I would have probably found it funnier if it didn’t scare me so much.  Think about it, a zombie virus that infects only mammals except (at least as far as is known) humans.  Think of all the gamboling sheep of the British countryside, now hoards of crazed killing machines.  Nevermind the bunnies.  And forget the sea of rats.   Frankly, I was extremely creeped out by this one.

If you like to laugh while you squirm, scream and cringe you may find an enjoyable Halloween read here.

Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty

Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty

Three mothers, Jane, Madeline and Celeste, all very different in every way, find themselves forming a friendship because their children are all starting kindergarten at the same time.   During orientation a little girl comes out of the classroom crying with red marks on her neck because another child was choking her.  Asked who hurt her, the little girl points at Ziggy, Jane’s small and meek five year old.  So starts a saga of bullying inside and outside of the classroom engulfing the lives of not just the schoolchildren but their parents as well.

I really enjoyed the way the story was structured.  At the end of most chapters there are brief (a sentence or two) transcript pieces from a number of adults about the murder at the Primary School Trivia Night.  The best part?  You don’t know who died until VERY late in the book.  You may guess, but if you’re like me, you keep changing your mind about who died.  And while I eventually stuck to my guns and picked the correct victim, I was blindsided by who the murderer turned out to be.

Moriarty tackles big problems like bullying and domestic violence in her long, but easy to read novel.  Those that like domestic drama, but do not like Picoult would most likely enough Moriarty because she adds one thing Picoult doesn’t: humor.  Even though Moriarty is tackling some very serious issues, and can write a very good dramatic scene, she infuses humor in a lot of the story making the story flow along.

One Kick by Chelsea Cain

One Kick by Chelsea Cain

Kick Lannigan was abducted as a young girl by a stranger and found six years later, miraculously alive, but not at all well.  Since her rescue she has been working on making a safe life for herself, her dog and her brother.  She has tried numerous therapies but the ones that work best include physical defense mechanisms.  Now 21 she is feeling better about her life but still hates herself for what she did.  Kick knows she is the reason that other kids are being abducted and used like she was.  She didn’t notice enough and she destroyed evidence, so now she notices everything.  To help in a small way she drives for hours looking for cars reported in Amber Alerts hoping to find other missing kids and bring them home. The arrival of a strange man on her doorstep changes Kick’s life; she may finally have an opportunity to do something and assuage some of her guilt.

I’m a fan of Cain’s Gretchen and Archie series so I was interested in her new series.  Her main character is extremely damaged but oh so strong.  I was very glad the author didn’t detail what Kick suffered at the hands of her kidnapper.  We know that Kick was in many movies collected by pedophiles, but thankfully we don’t know much about them.  But what we know is more than enough and the fact that this character wakes up and faces each day seems like an amazing thing.  While disturbing it had a satisfying ending and I would read the next in the series.  And for audiobook fans this one zipped by; worked really well in this format.

A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman

A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman

Ove is cranky.  He’s the grumpy old man that lives on your block and patrols the area each morning to make sure everyone is following the rules.  He loathes technology and can’t understand why people today can’t fix things themselves.  He desperately misses his wife and feels life really isn’t worth going through any more.  Then the new neighbors move in and interrupt his sadness by backing their trailer into his mailbox.  And then they keep bothering him, and he keeps helping them because they are obviously hopelessly inept.  Could Ove have found reasons to stay around for a while longer?

I am not a big fan of feel-good books, but every once in a while one will really get to me.  The dark humor of the beginning is bitingly funny and gives way to a blossoming in our understanding of the grump that is Ove.  You will find yourself wanting to talk to that cantankerous curmudgeon you pass on the street to see what his deal is.  Ove is Ove for many reasons, many of which you discover in the pages of this book.

Even though it’s embarrassing to admit I did cry at the end of this book.  It’s got a great poignant, bittersweet and funny (all at the same time) ending that is wonderful.

The Husband's Secret by Liane Moriarty

 The Husband’s Secret by Liane Moriarty

Cecilia Fitzpatrick has it all.  She runs an extremely successful Tupperware business, has organized her house so everything has, and is in, its place and is married to a loving husband and has wonderful children.  All is perfect in Cecilia’s life until she decides to organize her husband’s things in the attic and comes across a letter addressed to her in the event of his death.  The letter was obviously written ages ago and when he phones from his business trip she jokes with him about it.  He gets very quiet and asks her to destroy it.  After much inner struggle, you know what she does.  Yep, she opens it.  And learns the secret her husband has been keeping from the world.

I can’t really say too much more about the book.  You’ll be able to figure out what the general subject of the secret sooner than Cecilia, but she doesn’t open the letter until about halfway through the book.  The writing really moves, you are caught up in the main and secondary storylines and pulled along.  Fans of Jodi Picoult and Chris Bohjalian will find a lot to like in Moriarty’s book.

The Shining by Stephen King

The Shining by Stephen King

Believe it or not, this book came out 37 years ago!  I probably read it about twenty years ago so I decided to read it again before reading the sequel Doctor Sleep.

I’m sure everyone knows the story.  A man, Jack, his wife, Wendy, and young son, Danny, become the winter caretakers for a sweeping hotel in the mountains of Colorado appropriately called The Overlook.  Bad things happen. 

If you have only ever seen the movie you should really read the book.  There is so much here that never made it to the screen.  Shining, the ability that Danny possesses is really glossed over in the movie and here you get to understand what Danny can do.  The Overlook is even scarier in print.  And you would never be able to turn your back on a hedge animal ever again!

A perfect creepy haunted house (hotel!) read!

The Good Girl by Mary Kubica

The Good Girl by Mary Kubica

Mia Dennett, the daughter of a powerful Chicago judge, is kidnapped.  Her kidnapper was hired to hand her off to some thugs and he was concerned that they would kill her.  So instead of handing her over he finds himself taking her to a cabin his family used long ago in the deep woods of Minnesota.  Her mother, Eve, is frantic and her father is stoic, as per usual.  Gabe, the detective assigned to the case and warned not to mess up, grows close to Eve as they try to find her daughter.

The structure of the book is really interesting.  There are three main points of view: Gabe, Eve and Colin (the kidnapper).  Each tells their story as Before (while Mia is gone) and After (Mia returned to her family).  Having the multiple viewpoints and two timelines makes the disjointed storytelling work well to keep the reader off balance.

I listened to this book and I didn’t really like any of the readers.  I stuck with it because of the interesting structure and because no reader was reading for more than ten minutes at a stretch.  There is a zinger of an ending, but I felt it could have come sooner.  This is one I may have enjoyed it more in print format.

We Are All Completely Fine by Daryl Gregory

We Are All Completely Fine by Daryl Gregory

Five victims are brought together by a psychologist specializing in recovery after traumatic events.  Her patients are not your typical victims of violent crime.  Each feels unique and isolated, yet she brings this group together to help one another heal through the similarities in their experiences.  These people have been through a lot, one was kidnapped and mutilated by cannibals, and another had her bones scrimshawed.  (Think about that last one for a bit and try not to shudder.)  But by bringing these singular victims together will the other that has touched them reach out again?

This is a great quick read (less than 200 pages!) to get you in the mood for Halloween.  Spooky and creepy, yet it’s a really interesting dynamic between the characters at group.  Lots of twists and turns and jumps keep you guessing what will happen next.  Very much set in a Lovecraft universe with touches of Cthulhu’s tentacles even though he who must not be named is never actually mentioned. 

What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions by Randall Munroe

What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions by Randall Munroe

Munroe, a NASA roboticist in his past career, is the creator of the webcomic xkcd which has a blog portion called What If.  In the What If blog Munroe answers strange questions with real science broken down into layman’s terms and illustrated with stick figures.  For this book he collected some of his favorite, most popular, and some new questions and answers.   If you have any interest in physics, math, basically anything to do with science, and you have an odd sense of humor (like me apparently), you should probably give this one a chance.   I especially enjoyed his explanation of human genetics using D&D character stats and the way he explained not only the destructive end of the Richter scale, but it’s gentler side as well.

If you were that kid that always asked why? and how? this is the book that will finally give you the answers to the hard questions – like how many people would need to shoot laser pointers at the moon to make it change color and what would happen if you swam in a spent-nuclear-fuel pool?  Trust me, you want to know.

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

Kirsten was a child actress in the days before the collapse.  She was performing in King Lear, a non-speaking role as a younger version of Cordelia, when the famous actor playing Lear died of a heart attack at the beginning of the fourth act.  We pick up her story years later.  Kirsten is now a member of the Traveling Symphony going from town to town and performing Shakespeare and orchestral pieces on alternating nights.  Since the Georgian Flu hit electricity, order and gasoline are non-existent.  Survival is foremost on everyone’s minds, but it is now a time when surviving may not be enough.  Or as the lead caravan of the Symphony reads: Survival is insufficient.  (And yes, that was quoted from Star Trek, a member of the Symphony was a huge fan.)

Probably not the most comforting read with Ebola and enterovirus being so prominent in the news these days, but at least these diseases don’t have the over 99% causality rate of the Georgian Flu in Station Eleven.  This is a story telling of the moments before and the years after everything changed.  How life is becoming the new normal and how it’s not all bad.  And there is one heck of a glimmer of light at the end to leave you with some hope, unlike many “the world has ended” books.

This is also an amazingly well crafted book to be slowly savored.  Characters reoccur and their storylines tie in together in ways you can’t predict and don’t see coming.  What is Station Eleven?  Well, it has nothing and yet EVERYTHING to do with the story.  You’ll just have to read it to find out.

Small Blessings by Martha Woodroof

Small Blessings by Martha Woodroof

English profession Thomas Putnam is resigned to his life.  He loves his work and devotes a great deal of energy to making each class fresh and exciting.  He lives with his wife and mother-in-law; his mother-in-law is the bright spot in his family arrangement.  His wife is extremely delicate, suffering from crippling mental illness.  But Tom has comes to terms with his existence, even though he knows he could be out enjoying his life, and his mother-in-law wouldn’t blame him one bit, he stays put.  Then tragedy strikes.  His wife Marjory dies suddenly.  Thomas must deal with her death, his new life, and a myriad of other things: like the son he never knew he had who arrives on a train the night before the funeral, the book store employee he may have a crush on, and friends and colleagues having breakdowns and epiphanies.

This book really does make Thomas and the people in his life take pause and reflect on all that is wonderful in their lives: blessings both large and small.  While there are some pretty intense issues like alcoholism, suicide and infidelity, the book is humorous and light and just feels like a hug.  These people are so darn nice you want to go work at this small college down south as well.

For fans of Maeve Binchy, for the quirky characters and the goodness in people, and books like The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, which has odd turns of events happening to regular people.