Karlen's bookshelf: all en-US Wed, 07 May 2025 05:07:14 -0700 60 Karlen's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg Five Bad Deeds 62366916 Acclaimed, internationally bestselling author Caz Frear ratchets up the suspense in this outstanding standalone psychological thriller--a gripping tale of revenge, loyalty, and the secrets hidden between the walls of the most beautiful home in town.

Ellen Walsh has done something very, very bad. If only she knew what it was . . .

Teacher, mother, wife, and all-around good citizen Ellen is juggling nonstop commitments, from raising a teen and two toddlers to job-hunting to finally renovating her dream home, the Meadowhouse. Amidst the chaos, an ominous note arrives in the mail,

People have to learn there are consequences, Ellen.

And I'm going to teach you that lesson.

Right under your nose.

Why would someone send her this? Ellen has no clue. She's no angel--a white lie here, an occasional sharp tongue there--but nothing to incur the wrath of an anonymous enemy. She'd never intentionally hurt anyone.

But intention doesn't matter to someone. Someone blames this supposed "good person" for all the bad they've experienced. And maybe they have reason to? Because few of us get through life without leaving a black mark on someone else's. Could the five bad deeds that come to haunt Ellen explain why things have gone so horribly wrong?

As she races to discover who's set on destroying her reputation and her future, Ellen continues to receive increasingly threatening messages . . . each one hitting closer to everything she cherishes.]]>
352 Caz Frear 0063091127 Karlen 2 3.65 2023 Five Bad Deeds
author: Caz Frear
name: Karlen
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2023
rating: 2
read at: 2025/05/05
date added: 2025/05/07
shelves: 2025, audiobook, crime, domestic-drama, hoopla, mystery
review:
Real Housewives of Thames Lawley. I really wanted to like this one because I loved Frear's Cat Kinsella novels, but this was just goofy.
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Nestlings 65212029 Nat Cassidy is at his razor-sharp best again with his horror novel Nestlings, which harnesses the creeping paranoia of Rosemary's Baby and the urban horror of 'Salem's Lot, set in an exclusive New York City residential building.

Ana and Reid need a break. The horrifically complicated birth of their first child has left Ana paralyzed, bitter, and struggling―with mobility, with her relationship with Reid, with resentment for her baby. Reid dismisses disturbing events and Ana’s deep unease and paranoia, but he can't explain the needle-like bite marks on their baby.]]>
293 Nat Cassidy 1250265258 Karlen 4
I liked that for a while at the beginning I almost expected a haunted house book, and that this gets really tidily accounted for by the end. Also, I appreciate that these are not sleek, sexy vampires sipping blood from a chalice. I mean, they can look pretty when they want to, but the feeding scenes are so gross, man.

Good book.]]>
3.81 2023 Nestlings
author: Nat Cassidy
name: Karlen
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/23
date added: 2025/04/23
shelves: 2025, audiobook, grief-bereavement, horror, mystery, paranormal-supernatural, psychological, suspense-thriller, vampires
review:
I didn't think I would like this one as much as I did (what's the monster? [spoilers removed] Ehh...). However, I also did not expect the intense examination of grief and the discomfort of being thrust into a life you did not ask for and do not want. For someone who has not experienced childbirth and the postpartum period, let alone difficult or traumatizing childbirth and the nightmare of postpartum depression/anxiety/psychosis, Mr. Cassidy does a *FANTASTIC* job of conveying the fear, depression, isolation, ambivalence, peace, hope, and even elation that can be wrapped up in that uniquely average period of time for all parents.

I liked that for a while at the beginning I almost expected a haunted house book, and that this gets really tidily accounted for by the end. Also, I appreciate that these are not sleek, sexy vampires sipping blood from a chalice. I mean, they can look pretty when they want to, but the feeding scenes are so gross, man.

Good book.
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<![CDATA[The Moomins and the Great Flood (The Moomins, #1)]]> 3300083 The Moomins and the Great Flood is the first book about the Moomins, originally published in 1945. It's the story about Moominmamma and Moomintroll's search for the missing Moominpappa and how they found their way to the Moominvalley.]]> 52 Tove Jansson 9515015502 Karlen 0 to-read 4.09 1945 The Moomins and the Great Flood (The Moomins, #1)
author: Tove Jansson
name: Karlen
average rating: 4.09
book published: 1945
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/21
shelves: to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires]]> 44074800 Fried Green Tomatoes and Steel Magnolias meet Dracula in this Southern-flavored supernatural thriller set in the '90s about a women's book club that must protect its suburban community from a mysterious and handsome stranger who turns out to be a blood-sucking fiend.

Patricia Campbell had always planned for a big life, but after giving up her career as a nurse to marry an ambitious doctor and become a mother, Patricia's life has never felt smaller. The days are long, her kids are ungrateful, her husband is distant, and her to-do list is never really done. The one thing she has to look forward to is her book club, a group of Charleston mothers united only by their love for true-crime and suspenseful fiction. In these meetings, they're more likely to discuss the FBI's recent siege of Waco as much as the ups and downs of marriage and motherhood.

But when an artistic and sensitive stranger moves into the neighborhood, the book club's meetings turn into speculation about the newcomer. Patricia is initially attracted to him, but when some local children go missing, she starts to suspect the newcomer is involved. She begins her own investigation, assuming that he's a Jeffrey Dahmer or Ted Bundy. What she uncovers is far more terrifying, and soon she--and her book club--are the only people standing between the monster they've invited into their homes and their unsuspecting community.]]>
410 Grady Hendrix Karlen 0 to-read 3.78 2020 The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires
author: Grady Hendrix
name: Karlen
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/16
shelves: to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[Tuesday Mooney Talks to Ghosts]]> 42478640
Tuesday Mooney is a loner. She keeps to herself, begrudgingly socializes, and spends much of her time watching old Twin Peaks and X-Files DVDs. But when Vincent Pryce, Boston’s most eccentric billionaire, dies—leaving behind an epic treasure hunt through the city, with clues inspired by his hero, Edgar Allan Poe—Tuesday’s adventure finally begins.

Puzzle-loving Tuesday searches for clue after clue, joined by a ragtag crew: a wisecracking friend, an adoring teen neighbor, and a handsome, cagey young heir. The hunt tests their mettle, and with other teams from around the city also vying for the promised prize—a share of Pryce’s immense wealth—they must move quickly. Pryce’s clues can't be cracked with sharp wit alone; the searchers must summon the courage to face painful ghosts from their pasts (some more vivid than others) and discover their most guarded desires and dreams.

A deliciously funny ode to imagination, overflowing with love letters to art, from The Westing Game to Madonna to the Knights of the Round Table, Tuesday Mooney Talks to Ghosts is the perfect read for thrill seekers, wanderers, word lovers, and anyone looking for an escape to the extraordinary.]]>
359 Kate Racculia 0358023939 Karlen 0 3.84 2019 Tuesday Mooney Talks to Ghosts
author: Kate Racculia
name: Karlen
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/14
shelves: 2025, book-club-books, currently-reading
review:

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<![CDATA[Lights Out (Into Darkness, #1)]]> 201017011 “I don’t need another kink.�

That thought pops into my head whenever I pull up my favorite social media app, but alas, every time I scroll, I learn something new about myself, and another one is born. And yes, I know I’m responsible for what the algorithm shows me, but I’m trying to ignore that fact.

Lately, my feed has been dominated by masked men. I’ve favorited videos with them dressed in full cosplay, decked out in futuristic military apparel, and wrapped up like ghouls.

But more than anything else, my FYP is filled with shirtless men wearing ghost masks. Bonus points if they’re heavily tattooed, wielding a knife, or covered in fake blood. At night, I dream about being chased by them, of them catching me and doing deliciously dark things to my more than willing body.

I never could have guessed that by sending one drunken text, those dreams would become my new reality.

Lights Out is a fast-paced dark romance with a morally grey male lead. Some themes and scenes may be disturbing to readers. Please check the TWs at the beginning of the book. ]]>
338 Navessa Allen Karlen 0 4.16 2024 Lights Out (Into Darkness, #1)
author: Navessa Allen
name: Karlen
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at: 2025/04/14
date added: 2025/04/14
shelves: 2025, audiobook, crime, romance, slumber-party
review:

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<![CDATA[The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women]]> 31409135 The incredible true story of the women who fought America's Undark danger

The Curies' newly discovered element of radium makes gleaming headlines across the nation as the fresh face of beauty, and wonder drug of the medical community. From body lotion to tonic water, the popular new element shines bright in the otherwise dark years of the First World War.

Meanwhile, hundreds of girls toil amidst the glowing dust of the radium-dial factories. The glittering chemical covers their bodies from head to toe; they light up the night like industrious fireflies. With such a coveted job, these "shining girls" are the luckiest alive—until they begin to fall mysteriously ill.

But the factories that once offered golden opportunities are now ignoring all claims of the gruesome side effects, and the women's cries of corruption. And as the fatal poison of the radium takes hold, the brave shining girls find themselves embroiled in one of the biggest scandals of America's early 20th century, and in a groundbreaking battle for workers' rights that will echo for centuries to come.

Written with a sparkling voice and breakneck pace, The Radium Girls fully illuminates the inspiring young women exposed to the "wonder" substance of radium, and their awe-inspiring strength in the face of almost impossible circumstances. Their courage and tenacity led to life-changing regulations, research into nuclear bombing, and ultimately saved hundreds of thousands of lives.

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479 Kate Moore 149264935X Karlen 0 to-read 4.13 2016 The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women
author: Kate Moore
name: Karlen
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/14
shelves: to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[Rewild Your Garden: Create a Haven for Birds, Bees and Butterflies]]> 55012469 **A SUNDAY TIMES GARDENING BOOK OF THE YEAR 2020**'A must-read for every gardener who wants to up their game for wildlife and do their bit for the planet.' -- Isabella Tree'A refreshing, uplifting and positive look at the true value of a garden.' -- Alan TitchmarshThe perfect book for any gardener looking to get back in touch with their wild side.The rewilding of public spaces and farmland is vitally important to conservation, but how can we support native species and provide rich habitats on our own doorsteps?In this practical, beautifully illustrated guide horticulturalist and Gardener's World presenter Frances Tophill shows you how to plan and maintain a beautiful garden that will attract bees and birds as well as a throng of unsung garden heroes. Whether you have a small balcony or a large open space, discover the joys of welcoming natural ecosystems back into your garden - along with a host of new visitors.]]> 192 Frances Tophill 152941024X Karlen 0 to-read 4.17 Rewild Your Garden: Create a Haven for Birds, Bees and Butterflies
author: Frances Tophill
name: Karlen
average rating: 4.17
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/07
shelves: to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[A Nature Poem for Every Night of the Year]]> 52730092
Now more than ever we’re all in need of a daily fix of the natural world, to comfort and distract us from the cares of everyday life. Keep this beautiful book by your bedside and enjoy a dreamy stroll through nature every evening, just before you go to sleep. All the great, time-honoured poets are here � William Wordsworth, John Keats, Emily Dickinson, Robert Bridges � along with some newer and less-well known poetic voices. The poems reflect and celebrate the changing read Emily Brontë on bluebells in spring and Edward Thomas’s evocative ‘Adlestrop� in summer, then experience golden autumn with Hartley Coleridge and William Blake's 'To Winter'. Beautifully illustrated with scenes from each season, this wonderful book deserves a place on your bedside table for years to come.]]>
496 Jane McMorland Hunter 1849946221 Karlen 0 to-read 4.02 A Nature Poem for Every Night of the Year
author: Jane McMorland Hunter
name: Karlen
average rating: 4.02
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/07
shelves: to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng]]> 218185743
These days nobody can reach Cora: not her aunt, who wants her to prepare for the Hungry Ghost Festival; not her weird colleagues; and especially not the slack-jawed shadow lurking around her door frame. After all, it can't be real—can it? After a series of unexplained killings in Chinatown, Cora believes someone might be targeting East Asian women, and something might be targeting Cora herself.]]>
304 Kylie Lee Baker 0778368459 Karlen 4 4.23 2025 Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng
author: Kylie Lee Baker
name: Karlen
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/04
date added: 2025/04/04
shelves: 2025, arcs-and-galleys, asian, audiobook, chinese, folklore-and-fairytales, ghosts-and-hauntings, grief-bereavement, horror, mystery, netgalley, paranormal-supernatural, suspense-thriller
review:

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<![CDATA[Old Wives' Tales: The History of Remedies, Charms and Spells]]> 9513220 From goddesses and witches to modern-day doctors—an entertaining history of women healers featuring an A–Z of remedies
 The woman healer is as old as history—for millennia she has been doctor, nurse, and midwife, and even in the age of modern medicine her wisdom is handed down in the form of old wives' tales. Using extensive research into archives and original texts, and numerous conversations with women in city and countryside, Mary Chamberlain presents a stimulating challenge to the history of orthodox medicine and an illuminating survey of female wisdom which goes back to the earliest times. What are old wives� tales? Where do they come from? Do they really work? These questions, and many more, are answered in this fascinating compendium of remedies and cures handed down from mother to daughter from the beginning of time. We may all know that stewed prunes are a cure for constipation, but how many of us were aware that a poultice of chicken manure is a remedy for baldness? Or that eel liver will aid a difficult labor?]]>
240 Mary Chamberlain 0752458094 Karlen 0 to-read 3.78 2010 Old Wives' Tales: The History of Remedies, Charms and Spells
author: Mary Chamberlain
name: Karlen
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/27
shelves: to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[In the Light of the Moon: Thirteen Lunar Tales from Around the World Illuminating Life's Mysteries]]> 15753 208 Carolyn McVickar Edwards 156924443X Karlen 0 to-read 3.63 2003 In the Light of the Moon: Thirteen Lunar Tales from Around the World Illuminating Life's Mysteries
author: Carolyn McVickar Edwards
name: Karlen
average rating: 3.63
book published: 2003
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/27
shelves: to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[Batavia's Graveyard: The True Story of the Mad Heretic Who Led History's Bloodiest Mutiny]]> 128824
The company also sent along a new employee to guard its treasure. He was Jeronimus Corneliszoon, a disgraced and bankrupt man with great charisma and dangerously heretical ideas. With the help of a few disgruntled sailors, he hatched a plot to seize the ship and her riches. The mutiny might have succeeded, but in the dark morning hours of June 3, 1629, the Batavia smashed through a coral reef and ran aground on a small chain of islands near Australia. The captain and skipper escaped the wreck, and in a tiny lifeboat they set sail for Java—some 1,500 miles north—to summon help. More than 250 frightened survivors waded ashore, thankful to be alive. Unfortunately, Jeronimus and the mutineers had survived too, and the nightmare was only beginning.]]>
512 Mike Dash 0609807161 Karlen 0 to-read 4.16 2002 Batavia's Graveyard: The True Story of the Mad Heretic Who Led History's Bloodiest Mutiny
author: Mike Dash
name: Karlen
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2002
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/25
shelves: to-read
review:

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Lost Gods 28819821
Fresh out of jail and eager to start a new life, Chet Moran and his pregnant wife, Trish, leave town to begin again. But an ancient evil is looming, and what seems like a safe haven may not be all it appears . . .

Snared and murdered by a vile, arcane horror, Chet quickly learns that pain and death are not unique to the living. Now the lives and very souls of his wife and unborn child are at stake. To save them, he must journey into the bowels of purgatory in search of a sacred key promised to restore the natural order of life and death. Alone, confused, and damned, Chet steels himself against the unfathomable terrors awaiting him as he descends into death’s stygian blackness.

With Lost Gods, Brom’s gritty and visceral prose takes us on a haunting, harrowing journey into the depths of the underworld. Thrust into a realm of madness and chaos, where ancient gods and demons battle over the dead, and where cabals of souls conspire to overthrow their masters, Chet plays a dangerous game, risking eternal damnation to save his family.]]>
496 Brom 0062095706 Karlen 0 to-read 4.22 2016 Lost Gods
author: Brom
name: Karlen
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/24
shelves: to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[Electric Life: The Hidden Radiance of Everything]]> 220908979 304 Sander Funneman 1250868408 Karlen 0 to-read 4.33 Electric Life: The Hidden Radiance of Everything
author: Sander Funneman
name: Karlen
average rating: 4.33
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/14
shelves: to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[Frozen in Time: The Fate of the Franklin Expedition]]> 832619
The Franklin expedition was not alone in suffering early and unexplained deaths. Indeed, the expeditions of both Back (1837) and Ross (1849) were forced to retreat because of the rapacious illness that stalked their ships. The authors make the case that this illness was due to the crews� overwhelming reliance on a new technology: tinned foods. This not only exposed the seamen to lead, an insidious poison, but also left them vulnerable to scurvy.

The revised "Frozen in Time" will also update the research outlined in the original edition, and will introduce independent confirmation of Dr. Beattie’s lead hypothesis, along with corroboration of his discovery of physical evidence for both scurvy and cannibalism. In addition, the book includes a new introduction written by Margaret Atwood, who has long been fascinated by the role of the Franklin Expedition in Canada’s literary conscience.

Includes never before seen photographs from the exhumations on Beechey Island and rarely seen historical illustrations.]]>
288 Owen Beattie 1553650603 Karlen 0 to-read 4.06 1987 Frozen in Time: The Fate of the Franklin Expedition
author: Owen Beattie
name: Karlen
average rating: 4.06
book published: 1987
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/13
shelves: to-read
review:

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Craven Manor 37824221
Alarm bells start ringing when he arrives at Craven Manor. The mansion’s front door hangs open, and leaves and cobwebs coat the marble foyer. It’s clear no one has lived there in a long time.

But an envelope waits for him inside the doorway. It contains money, and promises more.

Daniel is desperate. Against his better judgement, he moves into the groundskeeper’s cottage behind the crypt. He’s determined to ignore the strange occurrences that plague the estate.

But when a candle flickers to life in the abandoned tower window, Daniel realises Craven Manor is hiding a terrible secret� one that threatens to bury him with it.]]>
298 Darcy Coates 0994630638 Karlen 0 3.79 2017 Craven Manor
author: Darcy Coates
name: Karlen
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at: 2025/03/10
date added: 2025/03/10
shelves: 2025, audiobook, book-club-books, ghosts-and-hauntings, hoopla, horror, paranormal-supernatural
review:

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Model Home 205363963
The three Maxwell siblings keep their distance from the lily-white gated enclave outside Dallas where they grew up. When their family moved there, they were the only Black family in the neighborhood. The neighbors acted nice enough, but right away bad things, scary things—the strange and the unexplainable—began to happen in their house. Maybe it was some cosmic trial, a demonic rite of passage into the upper-middle class. Whatever it was, the Maxwells, steered by their formidable mother, stayed put, unwilling to abandon their home, terrors and trauma be damned.

As adults, the siblings could finally get away from the horrors of home, leaving their parents all alone in the house. But when news of their parents' death arrives, Ezri is forced to return to Texas with their sisters, Eve and Emanuelle, to reckon with their family’s past and present, and to find out what happened while they were away. It was not a “natural� death for their parents . . . but was it supernatural?

Rivers Solomon turns the haunted-house story on its head, unearthing the dark legacies of segregation and racism in the suburban American South. Unbridled, raw, and daring, Model Home is the story of secret histories uncovered, and of a queer family battling for their right to live, grieve, and heal amid the terrors of contemporary American life.]]>
304 Rivers Solomon 0374607133 Karlen 0 to-read 3.72 2024 Model Home
author: Rivers Solomon
name: Karlen
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/05
shelves: to-read
review:

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Helen House 62831518 Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya Karlen 0 to-read 4.13 2022 Helen House
author: Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya
name: Karlen
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/05
shelves: to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[Finding Franklin: The Untold Story of a 165-Year Search]]> 31819037 279 Russell A. Potter 0773599622 Karlen 0 to-read 4.06 2016 Finding Franklin: The Untold Story of a 165-Year Search
author: Russell A. Potter
name: Karlen
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/28
shelves: to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex]]> 17780
In the Heart of the Sea brings to new life the incredible story of the wreck of the whaleship Essex - an event as mythic in its own century as the Titanic disaster in ours, and the inspiration for the climax of Moby-Dick. In a harrowing page-turner, Nathaniel Philbrick restores this epic story to its rightful place in American history.

In 1820, the 240-ton Essex set sail from Nantucket on a routine voyage for whales. Fifteen months later, in the farthest reaches of the South Pacific, it was repeatedly rammed and sunk by an eighty-ton bull sperm whale. Its twenty-man crew, fearing cannibals on the islands to the west, made for the 3,000-mile-distant coast of South America in three tiny boats. During ninety days at sea under horrendous conditions, the survivors clung to life as one by one, they succumbed to hunger, thirst, disease, and fear.

Philbrick interweaves his account of this extraordinary ordeal of ordinary men with a wealth of whale lore and with a brilliantly detailed portrait of the lost, unique community of Nantucket whalers. Impeccably researched and beautifully told, the book delivers the ultimate portrait of man against nature, drawing on a remarkable range of archival and modern sources, including a long-lost account by the ship's cabin boy.

At once a literary companion and a page-turner that speaks to the same issues of class, race, and man's relationship to nature that permeate the works of Melville, In the Heart of the Sea will endure as a vital work of American history.]]>
302 Nathaniel Philbrick 0141001828 Karlen 0 to-read 4.16 2000 In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex
author: Nathaniel Philbrick
name: Karlen
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2000
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/28
shelves: to-read
review:

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Erebus: The Story of a Ship 36992483
On the first, she ventured further south than any human had ever been. On the second, she vanished with her 129-strong crew in the wastes of the Canadian Arctic.

Her fate remained a mystery for over 160 years.

Then, in 2014, she was found.

This is her story.]]>
334 Michael Palin 184794812X Karlen 0 to-read, hoopla 4.26 2018 Erebus: The Story of a Ship
author: Michael Palin
name: Karlen
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/28
shelves: to-read, hoopla
review:

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<![CDATA[May We Be Spared to Meet on Earth: Letters of the Lost Franklin Arctic Expedition]]> 59478726 440 Russell A. Potter 0228011396 Karlen 0 to-read 4.70 May We Be Spared to Meet on Earth: Letters of the Lost Franklin Arctic Expedition
author: Russell A. Potter
name: Karlen
average rating: 4.70
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/28
shelves: to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[Into the Ice: The Northwest Passage, the Polar Sun, and a 175-Year-Old Mystery]]> 216522761 New York Times bestselling author Mark Synnott has climbed with Alex Honnold. He’s scaled Mt. Everest. But in 2022, he realized there was a dream he’d never realized—to sail the Northwest Passage in his own boat, a feat only four hundred or so sailors had ever accomplished—and in doing so, try to solve the mystery of what happened to legendary nineteenth-century explorer Sir John Franklin and his ships, HMS Erebus and Terror.

Only a few hundred vessels have ever transited the Northwest Passage, stretching through Canada’s north from Maine to Alaska—and substantially fewer have completed the treacherous journey in a fiberglass-hulled boat like Polar Sun. But Mark Synnott was determined to add his name to the list, and in doing so, also investigate a 175-year-old mystery, that of what happened to the legendary captain Sir John Franklin and his crew aboard the legendary HMS Erebus and HMS Terror.

In this pulse-pounding travelogue, Mark Synnott paints a vivid portrait of the modern-day Arctic like you’ve never seen before. With human-caused climate change warming the region twice as fast as any other part of our planet, Synnott offers a fresh and exciting look at the journey itself, but also of the history of the land and the people who live there today. At the same time, he searches for the tomb of Franklin, who, along with his entire 128-man crew, perished after their ships became trapped in the ice near King William Island.

In Into the Ice, Mark and his crew must race against time and horrific storms to investigate legends, and in the end, try to find the answer to why any of us would risk it all in the name of exploration.]]>
432 Mark Synnott 0593471520 Karlen 0 to-read 3.93 2025 Into the Ice: The Northwest Passage, the Polar Sun, and a 175-Year-Old Mystery
author: Mark Synnott
name: Karlen
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/28
shelves: to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[Realm of Ice and Sky: Triumph, Tragedy, and History's Greatest Arctic Rescue]]> 211003941 Two-time National Outdoor Book Award-winning author Buddy Levy's thrilling narrative of polar exploration via airship�and the men who sacrificed everything to make history.

Arctic explorer and American visionary Walter Wellman pioneered both polar and trans-Atlantic airship aviation, making history’s first attempts at each. Wellman has been cast as a self-promoting egomaniac known mostly for his catastrophic failures. Instead he was a courageous innovator who pushed the boundaries of polar exploration and paved the way for the ultimate conquest of the North Pole—which would be achieved not by dogsled or airplane, but by airship.

American explorer Dr. Frederick Cook was the first to claim he made it to the North Pole in 1908. A year later, so did American Robert Peary, but both Cook’s and Peary’s claims had been seriously questioned. There was enough doubt that Norwegian explorer extraordinaire Roald Amundsen—who’d made history and a name for himself by being first to sail through the Northwest Passage and first man to the South Pole—picked up where Walter Wellman left off, attempting to fly to the North Pole by airship. He would go in the Norge, designed by Italian aeronautical engineer Umberto Nobile. The 350-foot Norge flew over the North Pole on May 12, 1926, and Amundsen was able to accurately record and verify their exact location.

However, the engineer Nobile felt slighted by Amundsen. Two years later, Nobile returned, this time in the Italia, backed by Prime Minister Benito Mussolini. This was an Italian enterprise, and Nobile intended to win back the global accolades and reputation he believed Amundsen had stripped from him. The journey ended in disaster, death, and accusations of cannibalism, launching one of the great rescue operations the world had ever seen.

Realm of Ice and Sky is the thrilling narrative of polar exploration via airship―and the men who sacrificed everything to make history.]]>
384 Buddy Levy 1250289181 Karlen 0 to-read 4.17 2025 Realm of Ice and Sky: Triumph, Tragedy, and History's Greatest Arctic Rescue
author: Buddy Levy
name: Karlen
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/28
shelves: to-read
review:

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The Terror 3974 Terror have every expectation of triumph. As part of the 1845 Franklin Expedition, the first steam-powered vessels ever to search for the legendary Northwest Passage, they are as scientifically supported an enterprise as has ever set forth. As they enter a second summer in the Arctic Circle without a thaw, though, they are stranded in a nightmarish landscape of encroaching ice and darkness. Endlessly cold, with diminishing rations, 126 men fight to survive with poisonous food, a dwindling supply of coal, and ships buckling in the grip of crushing ice. But their real enemy is far more terrifying. There is something out there in the frigid darkness: an unseen predator stalking their ship, a monstrous terror constantly clawing to get in.

When the expedition's leader, Sir John Franklin, meets a terrible death, Captain Francis Crozier takes command and leads his surviving crewmen on a last, desperate attempt to flee south across the ice. With them travels an Inuit woman who cannot speak and who may be the key to survival, or the harbinger of their deaths. But as another winter approaches, as scurvy and starvation grow more terrible, and as the terror on the ice stalks them southward, Crozier and his men begin to fear that there is no escape.]]>
769 Dan Simmons 0316017442 Karlen 4 4.06 2007 The Terror
author: Dan Simmons
name: Karlen
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2007
rating: 4
read at: 2022/12/14
date added: 2025/02/28
shelves: 2024, 500plus-club, audiobook, historical-fiction, horror, nature, paranormal-supernatural, history, true-crime-disaster-tragedy, currently-reading
review:

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Where the Crawdads Sing 36809135
But Kya is not what they say. A born naturalist with just one day of school, she takes life's lessons from the land, learning the real ways of the world from the dishonest signals of fireflies. But while she has the skills to live in solitude forever, the time comes when she yearns to be touched and loved. Drawn to two young men from town, who are each intrigued by her wild beauty, Kya opens herself to a new and startling world—until the unthinkable happens.

In Where the Crawdads Sing, Owens juxtaposes an exquisite ode to the natural world against a profound coming of age story and haunting mystery. Thought-provoking, wise, and deeply moving, Owens’s debut novel reminds us that we are forever shaped by the child within us, while also subject to the beautiful and violent secrets that nature keeps.

The story asks how isolation influences the behavior of a young woman, who like all of us, has the genetic propensity to belong to a group. The clues to the mystery are brushed into the lush habitat and natural histories of its wild creatures.]]>
384 Delia Owens 0735219117 Karlen 0 4.35 2018 Where the Crawdads Sing
author: Delia Owens
name: Karlen
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at: 2025/02/27
date added: 2025/02/27
shelves: 2025, audiobook, book-club-books, domestic-drama, historical-fiction, just-hug-your-children, nature, the-american-south
review:

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Victorian Psycho 213395480
Whether creeping across the moonlit lawns in her undergarments or gently tormenting the house staff, Winifred struggles at every turn to stifle the horrid compulsions of her past until her chillingly dark imagination breaches the feeble boundary of reality on Christmas morning.

Wielding her signature sardonic wit and a penchant for the gorgeously macabre, Virginia Feito returns with a vengeance in Victorian Psycho.]]>
208 Virginia Feito 1631498630 Karlen 4 3.61 2025 Victorian Psycho
author: Virginia Feito
name: Karlen
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/25
date added: 2025/02/25
shelves: 2025, arcs-and-galleys, gothic, horror, just-hug-your-children, netgalley
review:
This was a lot of fun. It's weird and gross and genuinely funny (if you like very dark humor). The main character is likable despite the fact that she's horrible and, well, a complete psycho. It reminded me a bit of See What I Have Done by Sarah Schmidt in tone and atmosphere, and in the story being told from the first-person perspective of a woman gone mad (be prepared for some did-that-actually-happen-or-not moments; there's several moments of hallucinations and fever-dream imagery). I liked it.
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Listen to Your Sister 211004179 For fans of Jordan Peele’s films, Stranger Things, and The Other Black Girl, Listen To Your Sister is a laugh-out-loud, deeply terrifying, and big-hearted speculative horror novel from electrifying debut talent Neena Viel.

Twenty-five year old Calla Williams is struggling since becoming guardian to her brother, Jamie. Calla is overwhelmed and tired of being the one who makes sacrifices to keep the family together. Jamie, full of good-natured sixteen-year-old recklessness, is usually off fighting for what matters to him or getting into mischief, often at the same time. Dre, their brother, promised he would help raise Jamie–but now the ink is dry on the paperwork and in classic middle-child fashion, he’s off doing his own thing. And through it all, The Nightmare never stops haunting Calla: recurring images of her brothers dying that she is powerless to stop.

When Jamie’s actions at a protest spiral out of control, the siblings must go on the run. Taking refuge in a remote cabin that looks like it belongs on a slasher movie poster rather than an AirBNB, the siblings now face a new threat where their lives–and reality–hang in the balance. Their sister always warned them about her nightmares. They really should have listened.]]>
352 Neena Viel 1250906326 Karlen 4 3.26 2025 Listen to Your Sister
author: Neena Viel
name: Karlen
average rating: 3.26
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/21
date added: 2025/02/21
shelves: 2025, african-american, arcs-and-galleys, domestic-drama, ghosts-and-hauntings, grief-bereavement, horror, just-hug-your-children, netgalley, paranormal-supernatural
review:

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Phases: Poems 213558179 In this electrifying debut poetry collection—written with the ferocity of Rita Dove’s groundbreaking Thomas and Beulah—a critically acclaimed award-winning talent explores a wide range of emotions, from anxiety to ecstasy reflecting the moon's phases, from Waning Gibbous to Full.

Both intimate and intricately structured Tramaine Suubi’s remarkable work is inspired by the moon—its phases� effects on water, the Earth, and our bodies. Phases relishes in the beauty of change, even that caused by heartbreak. Suubi’s refreshing, vulnerable verse begs to be underlined, memorized, and shared; each of her poems operate as love letters to the cyclical healing that occurs in nature, in our bodies, and in the bodies that have come before us. ]]>
160 Tramaine Suubi 0063344912 Karlen 3 *An ARC of this book was provided by NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for my honest review.*

This is a not-bad debut collection. Some of the poems felt like filler and could have been left out. Some were pretty trite. However, when the author gets it right, they really get it. I think their next collection will be one to watch for.]]>
3.90 Phases: Poems
author: Tramaine Suubi
name: Karlen
average rating: 3.90
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/14
date added: 2025/02/14
shelves: 2025, african, arcs-and-galleys, netgalley, poetry
review:
*An ARC of this book was provided by NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for my honest review.*

This is a not-bad debut collection. Some of the poems felt like filler and could have been left out. Some were pretty trite. However, when the author gets it right, they really get it. I think their next collection will be one to watch for.
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At Dark, I Become Loathsome 210906882 From Eric LaRocca—Bram Stoker Award–nominated and Splatterpunk Award–winning author of Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke—c´Ç³¾±ð²õ At Dark, I Become Loathsome, a grim yet gentle, horrifying yet hopeful, intense tale of death, trauma, and love.

“If you’re reading this, you’ve likely thought that the world would be a better place without you.�

A single line of text, glowing in the darkness of the internet. Written by Ashley Lutin, who has often thought the same—and worse—in the years since his wife died and his young son disappeared. But the peace of the grave is not for him—it’s for those he can help. Ashley has constructed a peculiar ritual for those whose desire to die is at war with their yearning to live a better life.

Struggling to overcome his own endless grief, one night Ashley finds connection with Jinx—a potential candidate for Ashley’s next ritual—who spins a tale both revolting and fascinating. Thus begins a relationship that traps the two men in an ever-tightening spiral of painful revelations, where long-hidden secrets are dragged, kicking and screaming, into the light.

Only through pain can we find healing. Only through death can we find new life.]]>
178 Eric LaRocca Karlen 4 3.32 2025 At Dark, I Become Loathsome
author: Eric LaRocca
name: Karlen
average rating: 3.32
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/12
date added: 2025/02/12
shelves: 2025, arcs-and-galleys, crime, grief-bereavement, horror, lgbt, netgalley
review:
This is an incredible book that I would not recommend to anyone, ever, without a whole list of content warnings and the knowledge that they are *actually* interested in extreme horror. It's heartbreaking. It's gross. It is also so compelling, an artful and unflinching examination of the worst parts of grief. I don't know if I can say I enjoyed reading it, but I'm certainly not sorry I did.
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Antiracist Baby 52535437 Antiracist Baby introduces the youngest readers and the grown-ups in their lives to the concept and power of antiracism. Providing the language necessary to begin critical conversations at the earliest age, Antiracist Baby is the perfect gift for readers of all ages dedicated to forming a just society.]]> 24 Ibram X. Kendi 0593110412 Karlen 0 4.04 2020 Antiracist Baby
author: Ibram X. Kendi
name: Karlen
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at: 2020/07/16
date added: 2025/02/07
shelves: 2020, african-american, childrens, picture-books, social-justice, sydney-and-aoife-books
review:

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Exiles 222683916 A hidden darkness stirs in this locked-room mystery from the author of William.

There are many ways to die on Mars. Only one way to find the truth.

The human crew sent to prepare the first-ever colony on Mars arrives to find their brand new base half-destroyed and the three robots sent to set it up in disarray—the machines have formed alliances, chosen their own names, and picked up some truly disturbing beliefs. Each must be interrogated. Their stories analyzed. But one of them is missing.

In this barren, hostile landscape, even machines have nightmares, and the line between human and artificial intelligence blurs. The astronauts will need to examine their own stories and wrestle their own demons before it’s too late.

In this wicked, taut, one-sitting read, Mason Coile blends science fiction and psychological horror in a story that terrifies and unnerves as it engages some of humanity’s deepest questions.]]>
224 Mason Coile 0593851633 Karlen 5 *An ARC of this book was provided to me by NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for my honest review.*

It's early in the year for me to like a book this much. This reads like a movie, so descriptive you can see it without getting bogged down in detail. Fast-paced and genuinely frightening.]]>
3.96 2025 Exiles
author: Mason Coile
name: Karlen
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2025
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/07
date added: 2025/02/07
shelves: 2025, arcs-and-galleys, fantasy, horror, mystery, netgalley, sci-fi, suspense-thriller, that-cover-tho
review:
*An ARC of this book was provided to me by NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for my honest review.*

It's early in the year for me to like a book this much. This reads like a movie, so descriptive you can see it without getting bogged down in detail. Fast-paced and genuinely frightening.
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William 203164421 Psychological horror meets cyber noir in this delicious one-sitting read � a haunted house story in which the haunting is by AI.

Henry is a brilliant engineer who, after untold hours spent in his home lab, has achieved the breakthrough of his career � he’s created an artificially intelligent consciousness. He calls the half-formed robot William.

No one knows about William. Henry’s agoraphobia keeps him inside the house, and his fixation on his project keeps him up in the attic, away from everyone, including his pregnant wife, Lily.

When Lily’s coworkers show up, wanting to finally meet Henry and see the new house � the smartest of smart homes � Henry decides to introduce them to William, and things go from strange to much worse. Soon Henry and Lily discover the security upgrades intended to keep danger out of the house are even better at locking it in.]]>
224 Mason Coile 0593719603 Karlen 0 to-read 3.51 2024 William
author: Mason Coile
name: Karlen
average rating: 3.51
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/04
shelves: to-read
review:

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Blob: A Love Story 212994452 'A modern-day Mrs. Caliban, BLOB is a book that looks at identity and desire in profoundly interesting ways'
Kevin Wilson, author of Nothing to See Here

A hilarious and moving debut novel about a young woman who decides to turn a sentient blob into her perfect boyfriend...

The daughter of a Taiwanese father and white mother, Vi Liu has never quite fit into her Midwestern college town. Now at twenty-three, after getting dumped and dropping out of college, Vi works as a front desk attendant at a hotel where she refills cucumber water samovars and fends off overtures of friendship from her bubbly blond coworker, Rachel. But when Vi decides to accompany Rachel to a local drag show, her life changes forever. In the alley outside the bar, next to a trash can, is a blob with beady black eyes. Unable to leave it behind, Vi picks up the creature and, in a moment of drunken desperation, takes it home with her.

As her pet blob becomes sentient, Vi realizes it obeys her commands and she decides to mold the blob into her ideal partner. She feeds it sugary cereal and a stream of pop culture, and soon the creature transforms into a movie-star handsome white man. But as Vi's desire to be loved unconditionally threatens to spiral out of control, she is forced to confront her lonely childhood, the ex-boyfriend who has unfriended her, and the racial marginalization that has defined her relationships. Ultimately, Vi embarks on a journey of self-discovery and learns that it's impossible to control those you love.

Blending the familiar with the fantastical, BLOB tells a witty, heartfelt story of what it means to be human.

'An inventive, utterly unique debut'
Kimberly King Parsons, author of Black Light
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256 Maggie Su 0063358646 Karlen 4 3.38 2025 Blob: A Love Story
author: Maggie Su
name: Karlen
average rating: 3.38
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/24
date added: 2025/01/24
shelves: 2025, arcs-and-galleys, audiobook, domestic-drama, fantasy, humor, magical-realism, netgalley
review:

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<![CDATA[The Good Mother Myth: Unlearning Our Bad Ideas About How to Be a Good Mom]]> 211003829 Timely and thought-provoking, Nancy Reddy unpacks and debunks the bad ideas that have for too long defined what it means to be a "good" mom.

When Nancy Reddy had her first child she found herself suddenly confronted with the ideal of a perfect mother—a woman who was constantly available, endlessly patient, and immediately invested in her child to the exclusion of all else. Reddy had been raised by a single working mother, considered herself a feminist, and was well on her way to a PhD. Why did doing motherhood "right" feel so wrong?

For answers Reddy turned to the mid-20th century social scientists and psychologists whose work still forms the basis of so much of what we believe about parenting. It seems ludicrous to imagine modern moms taking advice from mid-century researchers, yet their bad ideas about so-called “good� motherhood have seeped pervasively into our cultural norms. In The Good Mother Myth, Reddy debunks the flawed lab studies, sloppy research, and straightforward misogyny of researchers from Harry Harlow, who claimed to have discovered love by observing monkeys in his lab, to the famous Dr. Spock, whose bestselling parenting guide included just one illustration of a father interacting with his child. Blending history of science, cultural criticism, and memoir, The Good Mother Myth pulls back the curtain on the flawed social science behind our contemporary understanding of what makes a good mom.]]>
256 Nancy Reddy 1250336643 Karlen 0 3.66 2025 The Good Mother Myth: Unlearning Our Bad Ideas About How to Be a Good Mom
author: Nancy Reddy
name: Karlen
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at: 2025/01/21
date added: 2025/01/21
shelves: 2025, arcs-and-galleys, audiobook, feminism, history, netgalley, nonfiction, parenting
review:

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The Measure 58884736
"A story of love and hope as interweaving characters display: how all moments, big and small, can measure a life. If you want joy, love, romance, and hope—read with us." —Jenna Bush Hager
A luminous, spirit-lifting blockbuster that asks: would you choose to find out the length of your life?

Eight ordinary people. One extraordinary choice.

It seems like any other day. You wake up, drink a cup of coffee, and head out.

But today, when you open your front door, waiting for you is a small wooden box. The contents of this mysterious box tells you the exact number of years you will live.

From suburban doorsteps to desert tents, every person on every continent receives the same box. In an instant, the world is thrust into a collective frenzy. Where did these boxes come from? What do they mean? Is there truth to what they promise?

As society comes together and pulls apart, everyone faces the same shocking choice: Do they wish to know how long they’ll live? And, if so, what will they do with that knowledge?

The Measure charts the dawn of this new world through an unforgettable cast of characters whose decisions and fates interweave with one another: best friends whose dreams are forever entwined, pen pals finding refuge in the unknown, a couple who thought they didn’t have to rush, a doctor who cannot save himself, and a politician whose box becomes the powder keg that ultimately changes everything.

Enchanting and deeply uplifting, The Measure is an ambitious, invigorating story about family, friendship, hope, and destiny that encourages us to live life to the fullest.]]>
353 Nikki Erlick 0063204207 Karlen 0 3.96 2022 The Measure
author: Nikki Erlick
name: Karlen
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at: 2025/01/21
date added: 2025/01/21
shelves: 2025, audiobook, book-club-books, grief-bereavement, magical-realism
review:

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The Dangers of Smoking in Bed 53215250 Following the "propulsive and mesmerizing" ( New York Times Book Review ) Things We Lost in the Fire comes a new collection of singularly unsettling stories, by an Argentine author who has earned comparisons to Shirley Jackson and Jorge Luis Borges.

Mariana Enriquez has been critically lauded for her unconventional and sociopolitical stories of the macabre: populated by unruly teenagers, crooked witches, homeless ghosts, and hungry women, they walk the uneasy line between urban realism and horror. The stories in her next collection are as terrifying as they are socially conscious, and press into being the unspoken -- fetish, illness, the female body, the darkness of human history -- with unsettling urgency. A woman is sexually obsessed with the human heart; a lost, rotting baby crawls out of a backyard and into a bedroom; a pair of teenage girls can't let go of their idol; an entire neighborhood is cursed to death by a question of morality they fail to answer correctly.

Written against the backdrop of contemporary Argentina, and with resounding tenderness towards those in pain, in fear, and in limbo, this new collection from one of Argentina's most exciting writers finds Enriquez at her most sophisticated, and most chilling.]]>
208 Mariana Enríquez 0593134079 Karlen 0 currently-reading 3.78 2009 The Dangers of Smoking in Bed
author: Mariana Enríquez
name: Karlen
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/21
shelves: currently-reading
review:

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<![CDATA[Fifty Beasts to Break Your Heart: And Other Stories]]> 150247444
The stories in Fifty Beasts to Break Your Heart are about the abomination that resides within us all. That churning, clawing, hungry the desire to be loved, and seen, and known. And the terror of those things to be loved too well, or not enough, or for long enough. To be laid bare before your sweetheart, to their horror. To be known and recognized as the monstrous thing you are. 

Two young women working at a sinister roadside attraction called the Eternal Staircase explore its secrets—and their own doomed summer love. A group of witchy teens concoct the perfect plan to induce the hated new girl into their ranks. A woman moves into a new house with her acclaimed artist boyfriend and finds her body slowly shifting into something specially constructed to accommodate his needs and whims. And two outcasts, a vampire and a goat woman, find solace in each other, even as the world's lack of understanding might bring about its own end.

In these lush, beautifully written stories, GennaRose Nethercott explores love in all its diamond-dark facets to create a collection that will redefine what you see as a beast, and make you beg to have your heart broken.]]>
259 GennaRose Nethercott 0593314182 Karlen 0 to-read 3.76 2024 Fifty Beasts to Break Your Heart: And Other Stories
author: GennaRose Nethercott
name: Karlen
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/17
shelves: to-read
review:

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Maggie's Grave 55276075
Forty-seven residents are all that remain.

There's nothing to do there, nothing to see, except for a solitary grave near the top of the mountain.

MAGGIE WALL BURIED HERE AS A WITCH reads the faded inscription.

But sometimes the dead don't stay buried. Especially when they have unfinished business.

A relentless folk-horror nightmare from the author of The Forgotten Island, Maggie's Grave will disturb and shock in equal measure.]]>
268 David Sodergren Karlen 0 to-read 4.03 2020 Maggie's Grave
author: David Sodergren
name: Karlen
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/15
shelves: to-read
review:

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The Haar 60840449
Muriel McAuley has lived in the Scottish fishing village of Witchaven all her life. She was born there, and she intends to die there.

But when an overseas property developer threatens to evict the residents from their homes and raze Witchaven to the ground in the name of progress, all seems lost� until the day a mysterious fog bank creeps inland.

The Haar.

To some it brings redemption� to others, it brings only madness and death. What macabre secrets lie within� The Haar.

Romantic and deranged, The Haar is a gore-soaked folk horror fairy tale from David Sodergren, author of The Forgotten Island and Maggie’s Grave.]]>
206 David Sodergren Karlen 4 4.08 2022 The Haar
author: David Sodergren
name: Karlen
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/14
date added: 2025/01/14
shelves: 2025, audiobook, grief-bereavement, horror, paranormal-supernatural
review:

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<![CDATA[Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland]]> 40163119
Patrick Radden Keefe's mesmerizing book on the bitter conflict in Northern Ireland and its aftermath uses the McConville case as a starting point for the tale of a society wracked by a violent guerrilla war, a war whose consequences have never been reckoned with. The brutal violence seared not only people like the McConville children, but also I.R.A. members embittered by a peace that fell far short of the goal of a united Ireland, and left them wondering whether the killings they committed were not justified acts of war, but simple murders.

Patrick Radden Keefe writes an intricate narrative about a notorious killing in Northern Ireland and its devastating repercussions.]]>
441 Patrick Radden Keefe 0385521316 Karlen 0 to-read, audible 4.47 2018 Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland
author: Patrick Radden Keefe
name: Karlen
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/14
shelves: to-read, audible
review:

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<![CDATA[The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder]]> 61714633 From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Killers of the Flower Moon, a page-turning story of shipwreck, survival, and savagery, culminating in a court martial that reveals a shocking truth. The powerful narrative reveals the deeper meaning of the events on the Wager, showing that it was not only the captain and crew who ended up on trial, but the very idea of empire.

On January 28, 1742, a ramshackle vessel of patched-together wood and cloth washed up on the coast of Brazil. Inside were thirty emaciated men, barely alive, and they had an extraordinary tale to tell. They were survivors of His Majesty's Ship the Wager, a British vessel that had left England in 1740 on a secret mission during an imperial war with Spain. While the Wager had been chasing a Spanish treasure-filled galleon known as "the prize of all the oceans," it had wrecked on a desolate island off the coast of Patagonia. The men, after being marooned for months and facing starvation, built the flimsy craft and sailed for more than a hundred days, traversing nearly 3,000 miles of storm-wracked seas. They were greeted as heroes.

But then . . . six months later, another, even more decrepit craft landed on the coast of Chile. This boat contained just three castaways, and they told a very different story. The thirty sailors who landed in Brazil were not heroes - they were mutineers. The first group responded with countercharges of their own, of a tyrannical and murderous senior officer and his henchmen. It became clear that while stranded on the island the crew had fallen into anarchy, with warring factions fighting for dominion over the barren wilderness. As accusations of treachery and murder flew, the Admiralty convened a court martial to determine who was telling the truth. The stakes were life-and-death--for whomever the court found guilty could hang.

The Wager is a grand tale of human behavior at the extremes told by one of our greatest nonfiction writers. Grann's recreation of the hidden world on a British warship rivals the work of Patrick O'Brian, his portrayal of the castaways' desperate straits stands up to the classics of survival writing such as The Endurance, and his account of the court martial has the savvy of a Scott Turow thriller. As always with Grann's work, the incredible twists of the narrative hold the reader spellbound.]]>
331 David Grann 0385534264 Karlen 0 to-read, hoopla 4.14 2023 The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder
author: David Grann
name: Karlen
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/14
shelves: to-read, hoopla
review:

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<![CDATA[Moon of the Crusted Snow (Moon, #1)]]> 39082248
The community leadership loses its grip on power as the visitors manipulate the tired and hungry to take control of the reserve. Tensions rise and, as the months pass, so does the death toll due to sickness and despair. Frustrated by the building chaos, a group of young friends and their families turn to the land and Anishinaabe tradition in hopes of helping their community thrive again. Guided through the chaos by an unlikely leader named Evan Whitesky, they endeavor to restore order while grappling with a grave decision.

Blending action and allegory, Moon of the Crusted Snow upends our expectations. Out of catastrophe comes resilience. And as one society collapses, another is reborn.]]>
213 Waubgeshig Rice 1770414002 Karlen 0 to-read, horror 3.83 2018 Moon of the Crusted Snow (Moon, #1)
author: Waubgeshig Rice
name: Karlen
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/10
shelves: to-read, horror
review:

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Florida Woman 58787293
Jamie is a Florida Woman. She grew up on the beach, thrives in humidity, has weathered more hurricanes than she can count, and now, after going viral for an outrageous crime she never meant to commit in the first place, she has the requisite headline to her name. But when the chance comes for her to escape viral infamy and imminent jail time by taking a community service placement at Atlas, a shelter for rescued monkeys, it seems like just the fresh start Jamie needs to finally get her life back on track � until it’s not.

Something sinister stirs in the palmetto woods surrounding her cabin, and secrets lurk among the three beguiling women who run the shelter and affectionately take Jamie under their wing for the summer. She hears the distant screams of monkeys each night; the staff perform cryptic, lakeside sacrifices to honor Atlas; and the land, which has long been abandoned by citrus farmers and theme park developers alike, now proves to be dangerously, relentlessly untamed.

As Jamie ventures deeper into the offbeat world and rituals of Atlas, her summer is soon set to inspire an even stranger Florida headline than she ever could’ve imagined.]]>
352 Deb Rogers 1335426892 Karlen 0 to-read, horror 3.55 2022 Florida Woman
author: Deb Rogers
name: Karlen
average rating: 3.55
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/10
shelves: to-read, horror
review:

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<![CDATA[The Messy Lives of Book People]]> 57938945 Have you ever wished you were someone else?

Mother of two Liv Green barely scrapes by as a maid to make ends meet, often finding escape in a good book while daydreaming of becoming a writer herself. So she can't believe her luck when she lands a job housekeeping for her personal hero, megabestselling author Essie Starling, a mysterious and intimidating recluse. The last thing Liv expected was to be the only person Essie talks to, which leads to a tenuous friendship.

But when Essie dies suddenly, a devastated Liv is astonished to learn of her last wish: for Liv to complete Essie's final novel. But to do so Liv will have to step into Essie's shoes, and as Liv begins to write, she uncovers secrets from the past that reveal a surprising connection between the two women--one that will change Liv's own story forever...]]>
352 Phaedra Patrick 0778312003 Karlen 0 to-read, horror 3.64 2022 The Messy Lives of Book People
author: Phaedra Patrick
name: Karlen
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/10
shelves: to-read, horror
review:

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The Woman in the Library 56803179 In every person's story, there is something to hide...

The ornate reading room at the Boston Public Library is quiet, until the tranquility is shattered by a woman's terrified scream. Security guards take charge immediately, instructing everyone inside to stay put until the threat is identified and contained. While they wait for the all-clear, four strangers, who'd happened to sit at the same table, pass the time in conversation and friendships are struck. Each has his or her own reasons for being in the reading room that morning—it just happens that one is a murderer.

Award-winning author Sulari Gentill delivers a sharply thrilling read with The Woman in the Library, an unexpectedly twisty literary adventure that examines the complicated nature of friendship and shows us that words can be the most treacherous weapons of all.]]>
292 Sulari Gentill Karlen 0 to-read, hoopla 3.46 2022 The Woman in the Library
author: Sulari Gentill
name: Karlen
average rating: 3.46
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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Not Good for Maidens 58724694 Salem’s Lot meets The Darkest Part of the Forest in this horror-fantasy retelling of Christina Rossetti’s “Goblin Market.�

Lou never believed in superstitions or magic--until her teenage aunt Neela is kidnapped to the goblin market.

The market is a place Lou has only read about--twisted streets, offerings of sweet fruits and incredible jewels. Everything--from the food and wares, to the goblins themselves--is a haunting temptation for any human who manages to find their way in.

Determined to save Neela, Lou learns songs and spells and tricks that will help her navigate this dangerous world and slip past a goblin's defenses--but she only has three days to find Neela before the market disappears and her aunt becomes one of them forever.

If she isn't careful, the market might just end up claiming her too.]]>
352 Tori Bovalino Karlen 0 to-read, hoopla 3.64 2022 Not Good for Maidens
author: Tori Bovalino
name: Karlen
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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All the Living and the Dead 58724737
We are surrounded by death. It is in our news, our nursery rhymes, our true-crime podcasts. Yet from a young age, we are told that death is something to be feared. How are we supposed to know what we’re so afraid of, when we are never given the chance to look?

Fueled by a childhood fascination with death, journalist Hayley Campbell searches for answers in the people who make a living by working with the dead. Along the way, she encounters mass fatality investigators, embalmers, and a former executioner who is responsible for ending sixty-two lives. She meets gravediggers who have already dug their own graves, visits a cryonics facility in Michigan, goes for late-night Chinese with a homicide detective, and questions a man whose job it is to make crime scenes disappear.

Through Campbell’s incisive and candid interviews with these people who see death every day, she Why would someone choose this kind of life? Does it change you as a person? And are we missing something vital by letting death remain hidden? A dazzling work of cultural criticism, All the Living and the Dead weaves together reportage with memoir, history, and philosophy, to offer readers a fascinating look into the psychology of Western death.]]>
288 Hayley Campbell 1250281849 Karlen 0 to-read, hoopla 4.25 2022 All the Living and the Dead
author: Hayley Campbell
name: Karlen
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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Racing with Rich Energy 60857686 292 Elizabeth Blackstock 147668880X Karlen 0 to-read, hoopla 3.32 Racing with Rich Energy
author: Elizabeth Blackstock
name: Karlen
average rating: 3.32
book published:
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Death at Whitewater Church (Inishowen Mysteries, #1)]]> 26075925
Solicitor Benedicta 'Ben' O'Keeffe is acting for the owners of the church, and although an unwelcome face from her past makes her reluctant to get involved initially, when Conor's brother dies in strange circumstances shortly after coming to see her, she finds herself drawn in to the mystery. Whose is the skeleton in the crypt and how did it get there? Is Conor Devitt still alive, and if so is there a link? What happened on the morning of his wedding to make him disappear?

Negotiating between the official investigation, headed up by the handsome but surly Sergeant Tom Molloy, and obstructive locals with secrets of their own, Ben unravels layers of personal and political history to get to the truth of what happened six years before.]]>
336 Andrea Carter 1472122569 Karlen 0 to-read, hoopla 3.64 2015 Death at Whitewater Church (Inishowen Mysteries, #1)
author: Andrea Carter
name: Karlen
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Ice Ghosts: The Epic Hunt for the Lost Franklin Expedition]]> 35167721 416 Paul Watson 0393355861 Karlen 0 to-read, horror 3.70 2017 Ice Ghosts: The Epic Hunt for the Lost Franklin Expedition
author: Paul Watson
name: Karlen
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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Howls from the Dark Ages 59697194
Including a lineup of authors both established and emerging, HOWL Society Press presents the first-ever anthology of historical horror from the medieval period, fittingly introduced by the writer who arguably started it all: Christopher Buehlman, author of the medieval horror epic Between Two Fires.

"The Crowing" by Caleb Stephens
"Angelus" by Philippa Evans
"Palette" by J.L. Kiefer
"Brother Cornelius" by Peter Ong Cook
"In Thrall to This Good Earth" by Hailey Piper
"In Every Drop" by Lindsey Ragsdale
"Deus Vult" by Ethan Yoder
"The Final Book of Sainte Foy's Miracles" by M.E. Bronstein
"A Dowry for Your Hand" by Michelle Tang
"The Mouth of Hell" by Cody Goodfellow
"The Lady of Leer Castle" by Christopher O'Halloran
"Schizzare" by Bridget D. Brave
"The King of Youth vs. The Knight of Death" by Patrick Barb
"The Forgotten Valley" by C.B. Jones
"The Fourth Scene" by Brian Evenson
"White Owl" by Stevie Edwards
"A Dark Quadrivium" by David Worn
"The Lai of the Danse Macabre" by Jessica Peter]]>
352 P.L. McMillan 1736780042 Karlen 0 to-read, hoopla 3.69 2022 Howls from the Dark Ages
author: P.L. McMillan
name: Karlen
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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His Black Tongue 59415256
Dead things have been found in the fields of Enfaire, a God-fearing town north of Reams. Not just dead things but twisted forms� unholy shapes. And there are rumours, too—of a blasphemous union and of fell creatures that haunt the night. Yet, even as plague and witch pyres blacken the sky, the town remains untouched by the malady that has already claimed thousands and will claim thousands more.

It is here, in Enfaire, that an old Franciscan friar and his ward take shelter from a storm. It is here, in a little town on the edge of civilization, that they will have their faith truly tested.

His Black Tongue is a tale of medieval horror, plunging the reader into the plague-torn land of 14th century France, when pestilence and death walked hand-in-hand, and life was little more than a sputtering candle, waiting to be put out. But there are worse things than death, than sickness and decay� and it comes upon leathery black wings.

Includes The Bone Fields novella and the short stories The Knights of the Non-Euclidean Table and Necropolis.]]>
179 Mitchell Lüthi Karlen 0 to-read, hoopla 3.33 2021 His Black Tongue
author: Mitchell Lüthi
name: Karlen
average rating: 3.33
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Old Man's War (Old Man's War, #1)]]> 36510196
The good news is that humanity finally made it into interstellar space. The bad news is that planets fit to live on are scarce-- and alien races willing to fight us for them are common. So: we fight. To defend Earth, and to stake our own claim to planetary real estate. Far from Earth, the war has been going on for decades: brutal, bloody, unyielding.

Earth itself is a backwater. The bulk of humanity's resources are in the hands of the Colonial Defense Force. Everybody knows that when you reach retirement age, you can join the CDF. They don't want young people; they want people who carry the knowledge and skills of decades of living. You'll be taken off Earth and never allowed to return. You'll serve two years at the front. And if you survive, you'll be given a generous homestead stake of your own, on one of our hard-won colony planets.

John Perry is taking that deal. He has only the vaguest idea what to expect. Because the actual fight, light-years from home, is far, far harder than he can imagine--and what he will become is far stranger.]]>
318 John Scalzi Karlen 0 4.25 2005 Old Man's War (Old Man's War, #1)
author: John Scalzi
name: Karlen
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2005
rating: 0
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shelves: book-club-suggestions, to-read, hoopla
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Matterhorn 6411016
Intense, powerful, and compelling, Matterhorn is an epic war novel in the tradition of Norman Mailer's The Naked and the Dead and James Jones's The Thin Red Line. It is the timeless story of a young Marine lieutenant, Waino Mellas, and his comrades in Bravo Company, who are dropped into the mountain jungle of Vietnam as boys and forced to fight their way into manhood. Standing in their way are not merely the North Vietnamese but also monsoon rain and mud, leeches and tigers, disease and malnutrition. Almost as daunting, it turns out, are the obstacles they discover between each other: racial tension, competing ambitions, and duplicitous superior officers. But when the company finds itself surrounded and outnumbered by a massive enemy regiment, the Marines are thrust into the raw and all-consuming terror of combat. The experience will change them forever.

Written over the course of thirty years by a highly decorated Vietnam veteran, Matterhorn is a visceral and spellbinding novel about what it is like to be a young man at war. It is an unforgettable novel that transforms the tragedy of Vietnam into a powerful and universal story of courage, camaraderie, and sacrifice: a parable not only of the war in Vietnam but of all war, and a testament to the redemptive power of literature.

A graduate of Yale University and a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, Karl Marlantes served as a Marine in Vietnam, where he was awarded the Navy Cross, the Bronze Star, two Navy Commendation Medals for valor, two Purple Hearts, and ten air medals. This is his first novel. He lives in rural Washington State.]]>
663 Karl Marlantes 0979528534 Karlen 0 to-read, hoopla 4.23 2010 Matterhorn
author: Karl Marlantes
name: Karlen
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2010
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Jutland: The Unfinished Battle]]> 32331581 “A compelling, dramatic account of the Royal Navy's last great sea battle.� —Robert K. Massie, Pulitzer Prize–winning and New York Times–bestselling author of Dreadnought   More than a century later, historians still argue about this controversial and misunderstood World War I naval battle off the coast of Denmark. It was the twentieth century’s first engagement of dreadnoughts—and while it left Britain in control of the North Sea, both sides claimed victory and decades of disputes followed, revolving around senior commanders Admiral Sir John Jellicoe and Vice Admiral Sir David Beatty.   This book not only retells the story of the battle from both a British and German perspective based on the latest research, but also helps clarify the context of Germany’s inevitable naval clash and the aftermath after the smoke had cleared.]]> 428 Nicholas Jellicoe 1848323220 Karlen 0 to-read, hoopla 4.04 2016 Jutland: The Unfinished Battle
author: Nicholas Jellicoe
name: Karlen
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Labyrinth of Ice: The Triumphant and Tragic Greely Polar Expedition]]> 43263275 Based on the author's exhaustive research, the incredible true story of the Greely Expedition, one of the most harrowing adventures in the annals of polar exploration.

In July 1881, Lt. A.W. Greely and his crew of 24 scientists and explorers were bound for the last region unmarked on global maps. Their goal: Farthest North. What would follow was one of the most extraordinary and terrible voyages ever made.

Greely and his men confronted every possible challenge—vicious wolves, sub-zero temperatures, and months of total darkness—as they set about exploring one of the most remote, unrelenting environments on the planet. In May 1882, they broke the 300-year-old record, and returned to camp to eagerly await the resupply ship scheduled to return at the end of the year. Only nothing came.

250 miles south, a wall of ice prevented any rescue from reaching them. Provisions thinned and a second winter descended. Back home, Greely's wife worked tirelessly against government resistance to rally a rescue mission.

Months passed, and Greely made a drastic choice: he and his men loaded the remaining provisions and tools onto their five small boats, and pushed off into the treacherous waters. After just two weeks, dangerous floes surrounded them. Now new dangers awaited: insanity, threats of mutiny, and cannibalism. As food dwindled and the men weakened, Greely's expedition clung desperately to life.

Labyrinth of Ice tells the true story of the heroic lives and deaths of these voyagers hell-bent on fame and fortune—at any cost—and how their journey changed the world.]]>
400 Buddy Levy 1250182190 Karlen 0 to-read, hoopla 4.43 2019 Labyrinth of Ice: The Triumphant and Tragic Greely Polar Expedition
author: Buddy Levy
name: Karlen
average rating: 4.43
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[The Day the World Stops Shopping: How Ending Consumerism Saves the Environment and Ourselves]]> 54870131 Consuming less is our best strategy for saving the planet—but can we do it? In this thoughtful and surprisingly optimistic book, journalist J. B. MacKinnon investigates how we may achieve a world without shopping.

We can’t stop shopping. And yet we must. This is the consumer dilemma.

The economy says we must always consume even the slightest drop in spending leads to widespread unemployment, bankruptcy, and home foreclosure.

The planet says we consume too much: in America, we burn the earth’s resources at a rate five times faster than it can regenerate. And despite efforts to “green� our consumption—by recycling, increasing energy efficiency, or using solar power—we have yet to see a decline in global carbon emissions.

Addressing this paradox head-on, acclaimed journalist J. B. MacKinnon asks, What would really happen if we simply stopped shopping?  Is there a way to reduce our consumption to earth-saving levels without triggering economic collapse? At first this question took him around the world, seeking answers from America’s big-box stores to the hunter-gatherer cultures of Namibia to communities in Ecuador that consume at an exactly sustainable rate. Then the thought experiment came shockingly the coronavirus brought shopping to a halt, and MacKinnon’s ideas were tested in real time.

Drawing from experts in fields ranging from climate change to economics, MacKinnon investigates how living with less would change our planet, our society, and ourselves. Along the way, he reveals just how much we stand to An investment in our physical and emotional wellness. The pleasure of caring for our possessions. Closer relationships with our natural world and one another. Imaginative and inspiring, The Day the World Stops Shopping will embolden you to envision another way.]]>
336 J.B. MacKinnon 0062856022 Karlen 0 to-read, hoopla 4.16 2021 The Day the World Stops Shopping: How Ending Consumerism Saves the Environment and Ourselves
author: J.B. MacKinnon
name: Karlen
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[What You Are Looking For Is in the Library]]> 91274427 For fans of The Midnight Library and Before the Coffee Gets Cold, this charming Japanese novel shows how the perfect book recommendation can change a reader's life.

What are you looking for?

This is the famous question routinely asked by Tokyo’s most enigmatic librarian, Sayuri Komachi. Like most librarians, Komachi has read every book lining her shelves—but she also has the unique ability to read the souls of her library guests. For anyone who walks through her door, Komachi can sense exactly what they’re looking for in life and provide just the book recommendation they never knew they needed to help them find it.

Each visitor comes to her library from a different juncture in their careers and dreams, from the restless sales attendant who feels stuck at her job to the struggling working mother who longs to be a magazine editor. The conversation that they have with Sayuri Komachi—and the surprise book she lends each of them—will have life-altering consequences.

With heartwarming charm and wisdom, What You Are Looking For Is in the Library is a paean to the magic of libraries, friendship and community, perfect for anyone who has ever found themselves at an impasse in their life and in need of a little inspiration.]]>
304 Michiko Aoyama 1335005625 Karlen 0 to-read, hoopla 4.07 2020 What You Are Looking For Is in the Library
author: Michiko Aoyama
name: Karlen
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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Feed Them Silence 60784259 Lee Mandelo dives into the minds of wolves in Feed Them Silence, a novella of the near future.

What does it mean to "be-in-kind" with a nonhuman animal? Or in Dr. Sean Kell-Luddon’s case, to be in-kind with one of the last remaining wild wolves? Using a neurological interface to translate her animal subject’s perception through her own mind, Sean intends to chase both her scientific curiosity and her secret, lifelong desire to experience the intimacy and freedom of wolfishness. To see the world through animal eyes; smell the forest, thick with olfactory messages; even taste the blood and viscera of a fresh kill. And, above all, to feel the belonging of the pack.

Sean’s tireless research gives her a chance to fulfill that dream, but pursuing it has a terrible cost. Her obsession with work endangers her fraying relationship with her wife. Her research methods threaten her mind and body. And the attention of her VC funders could destroy her subject, the beautiful wild wolf whose mental world she’s invading.]]>
105 Lee Mandelo 1250824508 Karlen 0 to-read, hoopla 3.48 2023 Feed Them Silence
author: Lee Mandelo
name: Karlen
average rating: 3.48
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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Small Things Like These 58662236
Already an international bestseller, Small Things Like These is a deeply affecting story of hope, quiet heroism, and empathy from one of our most critically lauded and iconic writers.]]>
128 Claire Keegan 0802158749 Karlen 0 to-read, hoopla 4.13 2021 Small Things Like These
author: Claire Keegan
name: Karlen
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[The Watchers (The Watchers, #1)]]> 58321103
Mina finds herself in a room with a wall of glass, and an electric light that activates at nightfall, when the Watchers come above ground. These creatures emerge to observe their captive humans—and terrible things happen to anyone who doesn't reach the bunker in time.

Afraid and trapped among strangers, Mina is desperate for answers. Who are the Watchers? Why are these creatures keeping them imprisoned? And, most importantly, how can she escape?]]>
310 A.M. Shine 1801102120 Karlen 0 to-read, hoopla 3.82 2021 The Watchers (The Watchers, #1)
author: A.M. Shine
name: Karlen
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[I'm Sorry for My Loss: An Urgent Examination of Reproductive Care in America]]> 203751764
More than a million women lose a pregnancy each year, whether through miscarriage, stillbirth, or termination for medical reasons. For most, the experience often casts a shadow of isolation, shame, and blame. In the aftermath of the 2022 decision to overturn Roe v Wade, 25 million women of childbearing age live in states with laws that restrict access to abortion, including for those who never wanted to end their pregnancies. How did we get here?

Rebecca Little and Colleen Long, childhood friends who grew up to be journalists, both experienced late-term loss, and together they take an incisive, deeply reported look at the issue, working to shatter taboos that have made so many pregnant women feel ashamed and alone. They trace the experience of pregnancy loss and reproductive care from America's founding to the present day, exposing the deep impact made by a dangerous tangle of laws, politics, medicine, racism, and misogyny. Combining powerful personal narratives with exhaustive research, I'm Sorry for My Loss is a comprehensive examination on how pregnancy loss came to be so stigmatized and politicized, and why a system of more compassionate care is critical for everyone.]]>
496 1728292751 Karlen 0 to-read, hoopla 4.40 2024 I'm Sorry for My Loss: An Urgent Examination of Reproductive Care in America
author: Rebecca Little and Colleen Long
name: Karlen
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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Diavola 126918202 Jennifer Thorne skewers all-too-familiar family dynamics in this sly, wickedly funny vacation-Gothic. Beautifully unhinged and deeply satisfying, Diavola is a sharp twist on the classic haunted house story, exploring loneliness, belonging, and the seemingly inescapable bonds of family mythology.

Anna has two rules for the annual Pace family destination vacations: Tread lightly and survive.

It isn’t easy when she’s the only one in the family who doesn’t quite fit in. Her twin brother, Benny, goes with the flow so much he’s practically dissolved, and her older sister, Nicole, is so used to everyone—including her blandly docile husband and two kids—falling in line that Anna often ends up in trouble for simply asking a question. Mom seizes every opportunity to question her life choices, and Dad, when not reminding everyone who paid for this vacation, just wants some peace and quiet.

The gorgeous, remote villa in tiny Monteperso seems like a perfect place to endure so much family togetherness, until things start going off the rails—the strange noises at night, the unsettling warnings from the local villagers, and the dark, violent past of the villa itself.

(Warning: May invoke feelings of irritation, dread, and despair that come with large family gatherings.)]]>
296 Jennifer Marie Thorne Karlen 0 to-read, hoopla 3.84 2024 Diavola
author: Jennifer Marie Thorne
name: Karlen
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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My Darling Dreadful Thing 193544852
Spirits are drawn to salt, be it blood or tears.

Roos Beckman has a spirit companion only she can see. Ruth—strange, corpse-like, and dead for centuries—is the light of Roos' life. That is, until the wealthy young widow Agnes Knoop visits one of Roos' backroom seances, and the two strike up a connection.

Soon, Roos is whisked away to the crumbling estate Agnes inherited upon the death of her husband, where an ill woman haunts the halls, strange smells drift through the air, and mysterious stone statues reside in the family chapel. Something dreadful festers in the manor, but still, the attraction between Roos and Agnes is undeniable.

Then, someone is murdered.

Poor, alone, and with a history of 'hysterics', Roos is the obvious culprit. With her sanity and innocence in question, she'll have to prove who—or what—is at fault or lose everything she holds dear.

"A Sapphic seance of preternatural proportions, My Darling Dreadful Thing summons a stunning new literary voice to be reckoned with. Johanna van Veen reaches beyond the veil to conjure up a gothic shocker like no other."—Clay McLeod Chapman, author of What Kind of Mother and Ghost Eaters

©2024 Johanna van Veen (P)2024 Tantor]]>
375 Johanna van Veen 1728281547 Karlen 0 to-read, hoopla 3.85 2024 My Darling Dreadful Thing
author: Johanna van Veen
name: Karlen
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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NOS4A2 15729539 NOS4A2 is a spine-tingling novel of supernatural suspense from master of horror Joe Hill, the New York Times bestselling author of Heart-Shaped Box and Horns.

Victoria McQueen has a secret gift for finding things: a misplaced bracelet, a missing photograph, answers to unanswerable questions. On her Raleigh Tuff Burner bike, she makes her way to a rickety covered bridge that, within moments, takes her wherever she needs to go, whether it’s across Massachusetts or across the country.

Charles Talent Manx has a way with children. He likes to take them for rides in his 1938 Rolls-Royce Wraith with the NOS4A2 vanity plate. With his old car, he can slip right out of the everyday world, and onto the hidden roads that transport them to an astonishing � and terrifying � playground of amusements he calls “Christmasland.�

Then, one day, Vic goes looking for trouble—and finds Manx. That was a lifetime ago. Now Vic, the only kid to ever escape Manx’s unmitigated evil, is all grown up and desperate to forget. But Charlie Manx never stopped thinking about Victoria McQueen. He’s on the road again and he’s picked up a new passenger: Vic’s own son.]]>
692 Joe Hill 0062200577 Karlen 0 to-read, hoopla 4.06 2013 NOS4A2
author: Joe Hill
name: Karlen
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2013
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Demon Copperhead 60194162 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780063251922.

"Anyone will tell you the born of this world are marked from the get-out, win or lose."

Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, this is the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father's good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. In a plot that never pauses for breath, relayed in his own unsparing voice, he braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses. Through all of it, he reckons with his own invisibility in a popular culture where even the superheroes have abandoned rural people in favor of cities.

Many generations ago, Charles Dickens wrote David Copperfield from his experience as a survivor of institutional poverty and its damages to children in his society. Those problems have yet to be solved in ours. Dickens is not a prerequisite for readers of this novel, but he provided its inspiration. In transposing a Victorian epic novel to the contemporary American South, Barbara Kingsolver enlists Dickens' anger and compassion, and above all, his faith in the transformative powers of a good story. Demon Copperhead speaks for a new generation of lost boys, and all those born into beautiful, cursed places they can't imagine leaving behind.]]>
560 Barbara Kingsolver Karlen 0 to-read, hoopla 4.46 2022 Demon Copperhead
author: Barbara Kingsolver
name: Karlen
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Before the Coffee Gets Cold (Before the Coffee Gets Cold, #1)]]> 44421460 What would you change if you could go back in time?

In a small back alley in Tokyo, there is a café which has been serving carefully brewed coffee for more than one hundred years. But this coffee shop offers its customers a unique experience: the chance to travel back in time.

In Before the Coffee Gets Cold, we meet four visitors, each of whom is hoping to make use of the café’s time-travelling offer, in order to: confront the man who left them, receive a letter from their husband whose memory has been taken by early onset Alzheimer's, to see their sister one last time, and to meet the daughter they never got the chance to know.

But the journey into the past does not come without risks: customers must sit in a particular seat, they cannot leave the café, and finally, they must return to the present before the coffee gets cold . . .

Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s beautiful, moving story explores the age-old question: what would you change if you could travel back in time? More importantly, who would you want to meet, maybe for one last time?]]>
213 Toshikazu Kawaguchi 1529029589 Karlen 0 to-read, hoopla 3.66 2015 Before the Coffee Gets Cold (Before the Coffee Gets Cold, #1)
author: Toshikazu Kawaguchi
name: Karlen
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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The Fisherman 29901930
Soon, though, the men find themselves drawn into a tale as deep and old as the Reservoir. It's a tale of dark pacts, of long-buried secrets, and of a mysterious figure known as Der Fisher: the Fisherman. It will bring Abe and Dan face to face with all that they have lost, and with the price they must pay to regain it.]]>
266 John Langan 1939905214 Karlen 0 to-read, hoopla 3.86 2016 The Fisherman
author: John Langan
name: Karlen
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/10
shelves: to-read, hoopla
review:

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Weyward 127280850
2019: Under cover of darkness, Kate flees London for ramshackle Weyward Cottage, inherited from a great aunt she barely remembers. With its tumbling ivy and overgrown garden, the cottage is worlds away from the abusive partner who tormented Kate. But she begins to suspect that her great aunt had a secret. One that lurks in the bones of the cottage, hidden ever since the witch-hunts of the 17th century.

1619: Altha is awaiting trial for the murder of a local farmer who was stampeded to death by his herd. As a girl, Altha’s mother taught her their magic, a kind not rooted in spell casting but in a deep knowledge of the natural world. But unusual women have always been deemed dangerous, and as the evidence for witchcraft is set out against Altha, she knows it will take all of her powers to maintain her freedom.

1942: As World War II rages, Violet is trapped in her family's grand, crumbling estate. Straitjacketed by societal convention, she longs for the robust education her brother receives––and for her mother, long deceased, who was rumored to have gone mad before her death. The only traces Violet has of her are a locket bearing the initial W and the word weyward scratched into the baseboard of her bedroom.

Weaving together the stories of three extraordinary women across five centuries, Emilia Hart's Weyward is an enthralling novel of female resilience and the transformative power of the natural world.]]>
392 Emilia Hart 1250842727 Karlen 0 to-read, hoopla 4.02 2023 Weyward
author: Emilia Hart
name: Karlen
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/10
shelves: to-read, hoopla
review:

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Our Wives Under the Sea 58724816 Leah is changed. A marine biologist, she left for a routine expedition months earlier, only this time her submarine sank to the sea floor. When she finally surfaces and returns home, her wife, Miri, knows that something is wrong. Barely eating and lost in her thoughts, Leah rotates between rooms in their apartment, running the taps morning and night. Whatever happened in that vessel, whatever it was the crew was supposed to be studying before they were stranded, Leah has carried part of it with her, onto dry land and into their home. As Miri searches for answers, desperate to understand what happened below the water, she must face the possibility that the woman she loves is slipping from her grasp.

By turns elegiac and furious, wry and heartbreaking, Our Wives Under the Sea is an exploration of the unknowable depths within each of us and the love that compels us, nevertheless, toward one another. Fathomlessly inventive and original, Julia Armfield’s debut novel is a portrait of marriage as we’ve never seen it before.]]>
228 Julia Armfield 1250229898 Karlen 0 to-read, hoopla 3.69 2022 Our Wives Under the Sea
author: Julia Armfield
name: Karlen
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/10
shelves: to-read, hoopla
review:

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Godkiller (Fallen Gods, #1) 61244268
Joined by a disillusioned knight on a secret quest, they must travel to the ruined city of Blenraden, where the last of the wild gods reside, to each beg a favour.

Pursued by demons, and in the midst of burgeoning civil war, they will all face a reckoning � something is rotting at the heart of their world, and only they can be the ones to stop it.]]>
304 Hannah Kaner 0008521468 Karlen 0 to-read, hoopla 3.85 2023 Godkiller (Fallen Gods, #1)
author: Hannah Kaner
name: Karlen
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/10
shelves: to-read, hoopla
review:

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Snow 6969112
During the drive, they pick up a man wandering through the snow, who claims to be searching for his lost daughter. He is disoriented and his story seems peculiar. Strangest of all are the mysterious slashes cut into the back of the man’s coat, straight down to the flesh�

When they arrive at the nearest town, it appears deserted. Windows dark, cars abandoned, fires burning unattended. But Todd and the rest of the travelers soon learn the town is far from deserted, and that they are being watched…]]>
311 Ronald Malfi 0843963557 Karlen 0 to-read, hoopla 3.65 2010 Snow
author: Ronald Malfi
name: Karlen
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/10
shelves: to-read, hoopla
review:

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<![CDATA[Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil]]> 215020997 ALL first edition copies will be signed by the author! Signed copies available while supplies last.

From V. E. Schwab, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue: a new genre-defying novel about immortality and hunger.

This is a story about hunger.
1532. Santo Domingo de la Calzada.
A young girl grows up wild and wily—her beauty is only outmatched by her dreams of escape. But María knows she can only ever be a prize, or a pawn, in the games played by men. When an alluring stranger offers an alternate path, María makes a desperate choice. She vows to have no regrets.

This is a story about love.
1827. London.
A young woman lives an idyllic but cloistered life on her family’s estate, until a moment of forbidden intimacy sees her shipped off to London. Charlotte’s tender heart and seemingly impossible wishes are swept away by an invitation from a beautiful widow—but the price of freedom is higher than she could have imagined.

This is a story about rage.
2019. Boston.
College was supposed to be her chance to be someone new. That’s why Alice moved halfway across the world, leaving her old life behind. But after an out-of-character one-night stand leaves her questioning her past, her present, and her future, Alice throws herself into the hunt for answers . . . and revenge.

This is a story about life�
how it ends, and how it starts.


USA Today, 15 Most Anticipated of 2025
BookBub, Most Anticipated of 2025 (and Reader’s Pick)
Readers Digest, 20 Most Anticipated Books This Year
Paste Magazine, Most Anticipated Fantasy Books of 2025
BookRiot, Most Anticipated Books of 2025
Men's Health, 25 Best & Most Anticipated Books of 2025
The Nerd Daily, SFF to Devour in 2025
Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ, Readers' Most Anticipated Books of 2025]]>
560 Victoria E. Schwab 1035064642 Karlen 0 to-read 4.39 2025 Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil
author: Victoria E. Schwab
name: Karlen
average rating: 4.39
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/10
shelves: to-read
review:

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The Starving Saints 217896248 From the nationally bestselling author of The Luminous Dead and The Death of Jane Lawrence, a transfixing, intensely atmospheric fever dream of medieval horror.

Aymar Castle has been under siege for six months. Food is running low and there has been no sign of rescue. But just as the survivors consider deliberately thinning their number, the castle stores are replenished. The sick are healed. And the divine figures of the Constant Lady and her Saints have arrived, despite the barricaded gates, offering succor in return for adoration.

Soon, the entire castle is under the sway of their saviors, partaking in intoxicating feasts of terrible origin. The war hero Ser Voyne gives her allegiance to the Constant Lady. Phosyne, a disorganized, paranoid nun-turned-sorceress, races to unravel the mystery of these new visitors and exonerate her experiments as their source. And in the bowels of the castle, a serving girl, Treila, is torn between her thirst for a secret vengeance against Voyne and the desperate need to escape from the horrors that are unfolding within Aymar’s walls.

As the castle descends into bacchanalian madness—forgetting the massed army beyond its walls in favor of hedonistic ecstasy—these three women are the only ones to still see their situation for what it is. But they are not immune from the temptations of the castle’s new masters� or each other; and their shifting alliances and entangled pasts bring violence to the surface. To save the castle, and themselves, will take a reimagining of who they are, and a reorganization of the very world itself.]]>
352 Caitlin Starling 0063418819 Karlen 0 to-read 4.02 2025 The Starving Saints
author: Caitlin Starling
name: Karlen
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/07
shelves: to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[This Is Why We Lied (Will Trent, #12)]]> 199793571 The next thrilling suspense featuring Will Trent and Sara Linton from Karin Slaughter, New York Times bestselling author of Pretty Girls and After That Night!

Everyone here is a liar, but only one of us is a killer�

A secluded cabin retreat

For GBI investigator Will Trent and medical examiner Sara Linton, McAlpine Lodge seems like the ideal getaway to celebrate their honeymoon. Set on a gorgeous, off-the-grid mountaintop property, it’s the perfect place to unplug and reconnect. Until a bone-chilling scream cuts through the night.

A murderer in their midst

Mercy McAlpine, the manager of the Lodge, is dead. With a vicious storm raging and the one access road to the property washed out, the murderer must be someone on the mountain. But as Will and Sara investigate the McAlpine family and the other guests, they realize that everyone here is lying�.Lying about their past. Lying to their family. Lying to themselves.

Who killed Mercy McAlpine?

It soon becomes clear that normal rules don’t apply at McAlpine Lodge, and Will and Sara are going to have to watch their step at every turn. Trapped on the resort, they must untangle a decades-old web of secrets to discover what happened to Mercy. And with the killer poised to strike again, the trip of a lifetime becomes a race against the clock…]]>
464 Karin Slaughter 0063336723 Karlen 4 4.18 2024 This Is Why We Lied (Will Trent, #12)
author: Karin Slaughter
name: Karlen
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/07
date added: 2025/01/07
shelves: 2025, audiobook, crime, favorites, mystery, police-procedural, series, the-american-south
review:

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The Bedmakers 203621092 172 Chad Lutzke 1957133716 Karlen 0 to-read 4.04 2024 The Bedmakers
author: Chad Lutzke
name: Karlen
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/02
shelves: to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[The Wild Robot (The Wild Robot, #1)]]> 26030734
When robot Roz opens her eyes for the first time, she discovers that she is all alone on a remote, wild island. She has no idea how she got there or what her purpose is—but she knows she needs to survive. After battling a violent storm and escaping a vicious bear attack, she realizes that her only hope for survival is to adapt to her surroundings and learn from the island's unwelcoming animal inhabitants.

As Roz slowly befriends the animals, the island starts to feel like home—until, one day, the robot's mysterious past comes back to haunt her.

From bestselling and award-winning author and illustrator Peter Brown comes a heartwarming and action-packed novel about what happens when nature and technology collide.]]>
282 Peter Brown 0316381993 Karlen 0 to-read 4.19 2016 The Wild Robot (The Wild Robot, #1)
author: Peter Brown
name: Karlen
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/02
shelves: to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[Leviathan Wakes (The Expanse, #1)]]> 8855321
Jim Holden is XO of an ice miner making runs from the rings of Saturn to the mining stations of the Belt. When he and his crew stumble upon a derelict ship, the Scopuli, they find themselves in possession of a secret they never wanted. A secret that someone is willing to kill for—and kill on a scale unfathomable to Jim and his crew. War is brewing in the system unless he can find out who left the ship and why.

Detective Miller is looking for a girl. One girl in a system of billions, but her parents have money and money talks. When the trail leads him to the Scopuli and rebel sympathizer Holden, he realizes that this girl may be the key to everything.

Holden and Miller must thread the needle between the Earth government, the Outer Planet revolutionaries, and secretive corporations—and the odds are against them. But out in the Belt, the rules are different, and one small ship can change the fate of the universe.]]>
592 James S.A. Corey 1841499889 Karlen 0 to-read 4.30 2011 Leviathan Wakes (The Expanse, #1)
author: James S.A. Corey
name: Karlen
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/02
shelves: to-read
review:

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Wild Dark Shore 211004089
Dominic Salt and his three children are caretakers of Shearwater, a tiny island not far from Antarctica. Home to the world’s largest seed bank, Shearwater was once full of researchers. But with sea levels rising, the Salts are now its final inhabitants, packing up the seeds before they are transported to safer ground. Despite the wild beauty of life here, isolation has taken its toll on the Salts. Raff, eighteen and suffering his first heartbreak, can only find relief at his punching bag; Fen, seventeen, has started spending her nights on the beach among the seals; nine-year-old Orly, obsessed with botany, fears the loss of his beloved natural world; and Dominic can’t stop turning back toward the past, and the loss that drove the family to Shearwater in the first place.

Then, during the worst storm the island has ever seen, a woman washes up on shore. As the Salts nurse the woman, Rowan, back to life, their suspicion gives way to affection, and they finally begin to feel like a family again. Rowan, long accustomed to protecting her heart, begins to fall for the Salts, too. But Rowan isn’t telling the whole truth about why she set out for Shearwater. And when she discovers the sabotaged radios and a freshly dug grave, she realizes Dominic is keeping his own dark secrets. As the storms on Shearwater gather force, the characters must decide if they can trust each other enough to protect the precious seeds in their care before it’s too late—and if they can finally put the tragedies of the past behind them to create something new, together.]]>
303 Charlotte McConaghy 1250827957 Karlen 0 to-read 4.25 2025 Wild Dark Shore
author: Charlotte McConaghy
name: Karlen
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/02
shelves: to-read
review:

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The Frozen River 112975658 A gripping historical mystery inspired by the life and diary of Martha Ballard, a renowned 18th-century midwife who defied the legal system and wrote herself into American history.

Maine, 1789: When the Kennebec River freezes, entombing a man in the ice, Martha Ballard is summoned to examine the body and determine cause of death. As a midwife and healer, she is privy to much of what goes on behind closed doors in Hallowell. Her diary is a record of every birth and death, crime and debacle that unfolds in the close-knit community. Months earlier, Martha documented the details of an alleged rape committed by two of the town’s most respected gentlemen—one of whom has now been found dead in the ice. But when a local physician undermines her conclusion, declaring the death to be an accident, Martha is forced to investigate the shocking murder on her own.

Over the course of one winter, as the trial nears, and whispers and prejudices mount, Martha doggedly pursues the truth. Her diary soon lands at the center of the scandal, implicating those she loves, and compelling Martha to decide where her own loyalties lie.

Clever, layered, and subversive, Ariel Lawhon’s newest offering introduces an unsung heroine who refused to accept anything less than justice at a time when women were considered best seen and not heard. The Frozen River is a thrilling, tense, and tender story about a remarkable woman who left an unparalleled legacy yet remains nearly forgotten to this day.]]>
432 Ariel Lawhon 0385546874 Karlen 0 to-read 4.37 2023 The Frozen River
author: Ariel Lawhon
name: Karlen
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/02
shelves: to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[Unruly: The Ridiculous History of England's Kings and Queens]]> 152034931 A rollicking history of England's earliest kings and queens, a story of narcissists, excessive beheadings, middle-management insurrection, uncivil wars, and more, from award-winning British actor and comedian David Mitchell

Think you know the kings and queens of England? Think again.

In Unruly , David Mitchell explores how early England’s monarchs, while acting as feared rulers firmly guiding their subjects� destinies, were in reality a bunch of lucky bastards who were mostly as silly and weird in real life as they appear to us today in their portraits.

Taking us right back to King Arthur ( he didn’t exist), Mitchell tells the founding story of post-Roman England right up to the reign of Elizabeth I ( she dies), as the monarchy began to lose its power. It’s a tale of bizarre and curious ascensions, inadequate self-control, and at least one total Cnut, as the English evolved from having their crops stolen by the thug with the largest armed gang to bowing and paying taxes to a divinely anointed King.

How this happened, who it happened to, and why the hell it matters are all questions Mitchell answers with brilliance, wit, and the full erudition of a man who once studied history—and is damned if he’ll let it off the hook for the mess it’s made of everything. 

A funny book that takes history seriously, Unruly is for anyone who has ever wondered how the monarchy came to be—and who is to blame.
]]>
433 David Mitchell 0593728491 Karlen 0 to-read 4.13 2023 Unruly: The Ridiculous History of England's Kings and Queens
author: David Mitchell
name: Karlen
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/02
shelves: to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession]]> 62873378 One of the most remarkable true-crime narratives of the twenty-first the story of the world’s most prolific art thief, Stéphane Breitwieser.

In this spellbinding portrait of obsession and flawed genius, the best-selling author of The Stranger in the Woods brings us into Breitwieser’s strange world—unlike most thieves, he never stole for money, keeping all his treasures in a single room where he could admire them.

For centuries, works of art have been stolen in countless ways from all over the world, but no one has been quite as successful at it as the master thief Stéphane Breitwieser. Carrying out more than two hundred heists over nearly eight years—in museums and cathedrals all over Europe—Breitwieser, along with his girlfriend who worked as his lookout, stole more than three hundred objects, until it all fell apart in spectacular fashion.

In The Art Thief, Michael Finkel brings us into Breitwieser’s strange and fascinating world. Unlike most thieves, Breitwieser never stole for money. Instead, he displayed all his treasures in a pair of secret rooms where he could admire them to his heart’s content. Possessed of a remarkable athleticism and an innate ability to circumvent practically any security system, Breitwieser managed to pull off a breathtaking number of audacious thefts. Yet these strange talents bred a growing disregard for risk and an addict’s need to score, leading Breitwieser to ignore his girlfriend’s pleas to stop—until one final act of hubris brought everything crashing down.

This is a riveting story of art, crime, love, and an insatiable hunger to possess beauty at any cost.]]>
224 Michael Finkel 0525657320 Karlen 0 to-read 3.92 2023 The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession
author: Michael Finkel
name: Karlen
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/02
shelves: to-read
review:

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The September House 64623481 A woman is determined to stay in her dream home even after it becomes a haunted nightmare in this compulsively readable, twisty, and layered debut novel.

When Margaret and her husband Hal bought the large Victorian house on Hawthorn Street—for sale at a surprisingly reasonable price—they couldn’t believe they finally had a home of their own. Then they discovered the hauntings. Every September, the walls drip blood. The ghosts of former inhabitants appear, and all of them are terrified of something that lurks in the basement. Most people would flee.

Margaret is not most people.

Margaret is staying. It’s her house. But after four years Hal can’t take it anymore, and he leaves abruptly. Now, he’s not returning calls, and their daughter Katherine—who knows nothing about the hauntings—arrives, intent on looking for her missing father. To make things worse, September has just begun, and with every attempt Margaret and Katherine make at finding Hal, the hauntings grow more harrowing, because there are some secrets the house needs to keep.]]>
352 Carissa Orlando 0593548612 Karlen 0 to-read 3.87 2023 The September House
author: Carissa Orlando
name: Karlen
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/02
shelves: to-read
review:

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How to Sell a Haunted House 59414094 Grady Hendrix takes on the haunted house in a thrilling new novel that explores the way your past—and your family—can haunt you like nothing else.

When Louise finds out her parents have died, she dreads going home. She doesn’t want to leave her daughter with her ex and fly to Charleston. She doesn’t want to deal with her family home, stuffed to the rafters with the remnants of her father’s academic career and her mother’s lifelong obsession with puppets and dolls. She doesn’t want to learn how to live without the two people who knew and loved her best in the world.

Most of all, she doesn’t want to deal with her brother, Mark, who never left their hometown, gets fired from one job after another, and resents her success. Unfortunately, she’ll need his help to get the house ready for sale because it’ll take more than some new paint on the walls and clearing out a lifetime of memories to get this place on the market.

But some houses don’t want to be sold, and their home has other plans for both of them…]]>
419 Grady Hendrix 0593201264 Karlen 0 to-read 3.65 2023 How to Sell a Haunted House
author: Grady Hendrix
name: Karlen
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/02
shelves: to-read
review:

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The Silent Patient 40097951
Alicia’s refusal to talk, or give any kind of explanation, turns a domestic tragedy into something far grander, a mystery that captures the public imagination and casts Alicia into notoriety. The price of her art skyrockets, and she, the silent patient, is hidden away from the tabloids and spotlight at the Grove, a secure forensic unit in North London.

Theo Faber is a criminal psychotherapist who has waited a long time for the opportunity to work with Alicia. His determination to get her to talk and unravel the mystery of why she shot her husband takes him down a twisting path into his own motivations—a search for the truth that threatens to consume him....

The Silent Patient is a shocking psychological thriller of a woman’s act of violence against her husband—and of the therapist obsessed with uncovering her motive.]]>
336 Alex Michaelides 1250301696 Karlen 0 to-read 4.17 2019 The Silent Patient
author: Alex Michaelides
name: Karlen
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/02
shelves: to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[Catch Me (Detective D.D. Warren, #6)]]> 11720382
Charlene doesn’t plan on going down without a fight. She has taken up boxing, shooting, and running. She also wants Boston’s top homicide detective, D. D. Warren, to handle the investigation.

But as D.D. delves deeper into the case, she starts to question the woman’s story. Instinct tells her that Charlene may not be in any danger at all. If that’s true, the woman must have a secret—one so terrifying that it alone could be the greatest threat of all.]]>
400 Lisa Gardner 0525952764 Karlen 3 4.18 2012 Catch Me (Detective D.D. Warren, #6)
author: Lisa Gardner
name: Karlen
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2012
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/30
date added: 2024/12/30
shelves: 2024, audiobook, crime, just-hug-your-children, mystery, police-procedural
review:

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What the Woods Took 203578707 Yellowjackets meets Girl, Interrupted when a group of troubled teens in a wilderness therapy program find themselves stranded in a forest full of monsters eager to take their place.

Devin Green wakes in the middle of the night to find two men in her bedroom. No stranger to a fight, she calls to her foster parents for help, but it soon becomes clear this is a planned abduction—one everyone but Devin signed up for. She’s shoved in a van and driven deep into the Idaho woods, where she’s dropped off with a cohort of equally confused teens. Finally, two camp counselors inform them that they've all been enrolled in an experimental therapy program. If the campers can learn to change their self-destructive ways—and survive a fifty-days hike through the wilderness—they’ll come out the other side as better versions of themselves. Or so the counselors say.

Devin is immediately determined to escape. She’s also determined to ignore Sheridan, the cruel-mouthed, lavender-haired bully who mocks every group exercise. But there’s something strange about these woods—inhuman faces appearing between the trees, visions of people who shouldn't be there flashing in the leaves—and when the campers wake up to find both counselors missing, therapy becomes the least of their problems. Stranded and left to fend for themselves, the teens quickly realize they’ll have to trust each other if they want to survive. But what lies in the woods may not be as dangerous as what the campers are hiding from each other—and if the monsters have their way, no one will leave the woods alive.

Atmospheric and sharp, What the Woods Took is a poignant story of transformation that explores the price of becoming someone—or something—new.]]>
336 Courtney Gould 1250340675 Karlen 0 to-read 3.88 2024 What the Woods Took
author: Courtney Gould
name: Karlen
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/13
shelves: to-read
review:

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Open Throat 62039259 A lonely, lovable, queer mountain lion narrates this star-making fever dream of a novel.

A queer and dangerously hungry mountain lion lives in the drought-devastated land under the Hollywood sign. Lonely and fascinated by humanity’s foibles, the lion spends their days protecting the welfare of a nearby homeless encampment, observing obnoxious hikers complain about their trauma, and, in quiet moments, grappling with the complexities of their gender identity, memories of a vicious father, and the indignities of sentience. “I have so much language in my brain,� our lion says, “and nowhere to put it.�

When a man-made fire engulfs the encampment, the lion is forced from the hills down into the city the hikers call “ellay.� As the lion confronts a carousel of temptations and threats, they take us on a tour that spans the cruel inequalities of Los Angeles and the toll of climate grief, while scrambling to avoid earthquakes, floods, and the noise of their own conflicted psyche. But even when salvation finally seems within reach, they are forced to face down the ultimate question: Do they want to eat a person, or become one?

In elegiac prose woven with humor, imagination, sensuality, and tragedy, Henry Hoke’s Open Throat is a marvel of storytelling, a universal journey through a wondrous and menacing world told by a lovable mountain lion. Both feral and vulnerable, profound and playful, Open Throat is a star-making novel that brings mythmaking to real life.]]>
160 Henry Hoke 037460987X Karlen 5 4.02 2023 Open Throat
author: Henry Hoke
name: Karlen
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/05
date added: 2024/12/05
shelves: 2024, animals, audiobook, cats, magical-realism, nature, novellas-short-stories-essays
review:

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<![CDATA[Rest Is Resistance: A Manifesto]]> 60382737
From the founder and creator of The Nap Ministry, Rest Is Resistance is a battle cry, a guidebook, a map for a movement, and a field guide for the weary and hopeful. It is rooted in spiritual energy and centered in Black liberation, womanism, somatics, and Afrofuturism. With captivating storytelling and practical advice, all delivered in Hersey's lyrical voice and informed by her deep experience in theology, activism, and performance art, Rest Is Resistance is a call to action and manifesto for those who are sleep deprived, searching for justice, and longing to be liberated from the oppressive grip of Grind Culture.]]>
224 Tricia Hersey 0316365211 Karlen 0 to-read 4.06 2022 Rest Is Resistance: A Manifesto
author: Tricia Hersey
name: Karlen
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/03
shelves: to-read
review:

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The God of the Woods 199698485 When a teenager vanishes from her Adirondack summer camp, two worlds collide

Early morning, August 1975: a camp counselor discovers an empty bunk. Its occupant, Barbara Van Laar, has gone missing. Barbara isn’t just any thirteen-year-old: she’s the daughter of the family that owns the summer camp and employs most of the region’s residents. And this isn’t the first time a Van Laar child has disappeared. Barbara’s older brother similarly vanished fourteen years ago, never to be found.

As a panicked search begins, a thrilling drama unfolds. Chasing down the layered secrets of the Van Laar family and the blue-collar community working in its shadow, Moore’s multi-threaded story invites readers into a rich and gripping dynasty of secrets and second chances. It is Liz Moore’s most ambitious and wide-reaching novel yet.]]>
490 Liz Moore Karlen 0 to-read 4.15 2024 The God of the Woods
author: Liz Moore
name: Karlen
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/03
shelves: to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[The Daughters' War (Blacktongue, #0)]]> 195790571
The goblins have killed all of our horses and most of our men.

They have enslaved our cities, burned our fields, and still they wage war.

Now, our daughters take up arms.

Galva � Galvicha to her three brothers, two of whom the goblins will kill � has defied her family’s wishes and joined the army’s untested new unit, the Raven Knights. They march toward a once-beautiful city overrun by the goblin horde, accompanied by scores of giant war corvids. Made with the darkest magics, these fearsome black birds may hold the key to stopping the goblins in their war to make cattle of mankind.

The road to victory is bloody, and goblins are clever and merciless. The Raven Knights can take nothing for granted � not the bonds of family, nor the wisdom of their leaders, nor their own safety against the dangerous war birds at their side. But some hopes are worth any risk.]]>
416 Christopher Buehlman 1250887674 Karlen 5 4.23 2024 The Daughters' War (Blacktongue, #0)
author: Christopher Buehlman
name: Karlen
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/11/23
date added: 2024/11/23
shelves: 2024, audiobook, fantasy, series, horror
review:

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Hidden Pictures 58724923 A wildly inventive spin on the supernatural thriller, about a woman working as a nanny for a young boy with strange and disturbing secrets.

Mallory Quinn is fresh out of rehab when she takes a job as a babysitter for Ted and Caroline Maxwell. She is to look after their five-year-old son, Teddy.

Mallory immediately loves it. She has her own living space, goes out for nightly runs, and has the stability she craves. And she sincerely bonds with Teddy, a sweet, shy boy who is never without his sketchbook and pencil. His drawings are the usual fare: trees, rabbits, balloons. But one day, he draws something different: a man in a forest, dragging a woman’s lifeless body.

Then, Teddy’s artwork becomes increasingly sinister, and his stick figures quickly evolve into lifelike sketches well beyond the ability of any five-year-old. Mallory begins to wonder if these are glimpses of a long-unsolved murder, perhaps relayed by a supernatural force.

Knowing just how crazy it all sounds, Mallory nevertheless sets out to decipher the images and save Teddy before it’s too late.]]>
372 Jason Rekulak 1250819342 Karlen 0 4.12 2022 Hidden Pictures
author: Jason Rekulak
name: Karlen
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at: 2024/02/24
date added: 2024/11/12
shelves: audiobook, book-club-books, ghosts-and-hauntings, horror, mystery, paranormal-supernatural, suspense-thriller, 2024
review:

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<![CDATA[The Contemporary Reverse Harem Collection: Books 1-5]]> 42747869 5 steamy, full length Reverse Harem Romance stories of badass alpha males and the women they make their own.

The Inheritance
Life was good. I was tending bar, making enough to get by, paying my rent, and enjoying the occasional cocktail with my best gay boyfriend, Matty. And then I got the call.
The old coot who used to hang out in my bar? Turned out he was a millionaire, and he just left me all his money.
With a catch, of course. I only get his money if I’m 25 years old (check), and married (not checked; not by a landslide). And--I only have 30 days to pull this off.

The Renovation
When Carter, my hunky neighbor spies me wrestling with a chunk of dry rot on the front porch of my piece of sh*t, moneypit, rundown not-so-home-sweet-home, help seems on the way.
Especially when Tanner, Wyatt, and Dig join the team just before the scumbag bank closes in.
Who knew home repair could get so sexy?
And it turned out my house was not the only thing that desperately needed some attention. They get to work fixing me…I mean the house…right up.

The Promotion
Imagine you want a promotion more than anything at the boring-as-sh*t law firm where you’ve slaved for years. You’ve kissed a*s. You’ve smiled when you’ve felt like stabbing someone. You’ve pulled all nighters and saved your boss time and again.
And still that’s not enough. There’s one last thing you need to do.
Would you do it?

The Gallery
They say don’t go into business, or to bed, with friends. But what if those friends are four hardcore rich and handsome alpha players?
Did I really think I could keep it clean with guys like that?
And when reality set it, I realized dirty is much more fun.
That’s my kind of business.

The Collection
I know better than to trust a bunch of pretty faces.
But when these our gorgeous men walk off the runway and into my life, I find it's not just the hours and lousy pay in fashion that are, um, hard.
And what do these guys have in common?
ME.

These books are interconnected stand-alones, and can be read in any order.
Also available in audio.

TIME FOR YOUR NEXT BINGE READ!
From Mika Lane, a 5-book collection of the dirty, steamy Contemporary Reverse Harem series is here. These hot, over-the-top romances center around bad-boys with a penchant for pursuing and protecting the women who give them a run for their money. If you love outrageously naughty stories as a way to indulge your not-so-secret bad girl side, this boxset is for you.]]>
903 Mika Lane Karlen 0 3.76 2018 The Contemporary Reverse Harem Collection: Books 1-5
author: Mika Lane
name: Karlen
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at: 2024/11/12
date added: 2024/11/12
shelves: 2024, audiobook, romance, series, dnf
review:

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The House of the Witch 211203330 Now: When Adrianna arrives at the small, run-down cottage, near the sea in rural Norfolk, she can’t help but breathe a sigh of relief. Here she can forget her life in the city, and the problems she’s left behind there, at least for a while.

But � like Adrianna herself � the cottage holds secrets. And when Adrianna finds a mysterious bundle of notes hidden under a floorboard, she can’t shake the idea that they’ve been waiting for her. Especially when � in the rambling, overgrown garden � she then finds a strangely-carved stone, drawing her into a centuries-old mystery�

1646: Between her work as the village midwife and the medicines she sells from her cottage, Ursula has no need for a man. But this ideal leaves her unprotected in a world where just one accusation of witchcraft can mean certain death. So when she catches the eye of a powerful new local doctor, she must use every part of her cunning, or risk becoming his prisoner�

Can the two women � their paths bound by place and history � each find the keys to their own destiny?]]>
330 Clare Marchant 1836030401 Karlen 0 4.25 The House of the Witch
author: Clare Marchant
name: Karlen
average rating: 4.25
book published:
rating: 0
read at: 2024/11/12
date added: 2024/11/12
shelves: 2024, audiobook, book-club-books, feminism, ghosts-and-hauntings, historical-fiction, magical-realism, magic, witches
review:

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Between Two Fires 13543121
Is it delirium or is it faith? She believes she has seen the angels of God. She believes the righteous dead speak to her in dreams. And now she has convinced the faithless Thomas to shepherd her across a depraved landscape to Avignon. There, she tells Thomas, she will fulfill her mission to confront the evil that has devastated the earth, and to restore to this betrayed, murderous knight the nobility and hope of salvation he long abandoned.

As hell unleashes its wrath, and as the true nature of the girl is revealed, Thomas will find himself on a macabre battleground of angels and demons, saints, and the risen dead, and in the midst of a desperate struggle for nothing less than the soul of man.]]>
432 Christopher Buehlman 1937007863 Karlen 5 4.20 2012 Between Two Fires
author: Christopher Buehlman
name: Karlen
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2012
rating: 5
read at: 2017/05/11
date added: 2024/11/11
shelves: 2017, fantasy, historical-fiction, horror, paranormal-supernatural, medieval, favorites, audiobook
review:

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The Only One Left 62703226 At seventeen, Lenora Hope
Hung her sister with a rope


Now reduced to a schoolyard chant, the Hope family murders shocked the Maine coast one bloody night in 1929. While most people assume seventeen-year-old Lenora was responsible, the police were never able to prove it. Other than her denial after the killings, she has never spoken publicly about that night, nor has she set foot outside Hope’s End, the cliffside mansion where the massacre occurred.

Stabbed her father with a knife
Took her mother’s happy life


It’s now 1983, and home-health aide Kit McDeere arrives at a decaying Hope’s End to care for Lenora after her previous nurse fled in the middle of the night. In her seventies and confined to a wheelchair, Lenora was rendered mute by a series of strokes and can only communicate with Kit by tapping out sentences on an old typewriter. One night, Lenora uses it to make a tantalizing offer�I want to tell you everything.

“It wasn’t me,� Lenora said
But she’s the only one not dead


As Kit helps Lenora write about the events leading to the Hope family massacre, it becomes clear there’s more to the tale than people know. But when new details about her predecessor’s departure come to light, Kit starts to suspect Lenora might not be telling the complete truth—and that the seemingly harmless woman in her care could be far more dangerous than she first thought.]]>
383 Riley Sager 0593183223 Karlen 0 to-read 4.12 2023 The Only One Left
author: Riley Sager
name: Karlen
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/06
shelves: to-read
review:

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<![CDATA[Hidden Libraries: The World’s Most Unusual Book Depositories]]> 209456170
Book swap your latest read in a cool 1950s style fridge in New Zealand or hike through the ethereal woodlands of Eas Mor in Scotland where a hidden library in a small log cabin awaits. Each entry shares the library's mission and impact on the local community and offers fascinating stories from its resident caretaker.

Inside Hidden Libraries:

- 50 enchanting, obscure and astounding libraries from around the world
- Fascinating insider knowledge and unique stories from each library's resident caretaker
- Captivating photos accompany every entry and the exact location of each hidden library is revealed

Featured libraries include:
North America - Idaho: Little Free Library in a Cottonwood Tree; California: The Prison Library Project.
South America - Argentina: The Weapon of Mass Instruction; Colombia: The Biblioburro.
Africa - Egypt: St Catherine's Monastery; Mali: The Timbuktu Manuscripts.
Asia & the Middle East - China: The Lonely Library; Philippines: Reading Club 2000.
Europe - England: Phone Booth Library; Norway: The Future Library.
Oceania & Beyond - Antarctica: The Little Free Library at the South Pole; Outer Space: The International Space Station Library

Written by Diana Helmuth, an award winning author who writes about subjects including travel, nature, and philosophical trends

From the rare to the romantic, this extraordinary guide to our planet's hidden libraries makes the ultimate gift for literature lovers, adventurers, and dreamers alike. Nothing brings people together quite like a good book.]]>
208 DC Helmuth 1837582726 Karlen 0 to-read 4.28 Hidden Libraries: The World’s Most Unusual Book Depositories
author: DC Helmuth
name: Karlen
average rating: 4.28
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/06
shelves: to-read
review:

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All Hallows 60784620 Stranger Things, this horror drama from NYT bestselling author Christopher Golden follows neighborhood families and a mysterious, lurking evil on one Halloween day.

It’s Halloween night, 1984, in Coventry, Massachusetts, and two families are unraveling. Up and down the street, horrifying secrets are being revealed, and all the while, mixed in with the trick-or-treaters of all ages, four children who do not belong are walking door to door, merging with the kids of Parmenter Road. Children in vintage costumes with faded, eerie makeup. They seem terrified, and beg the neighborhood kids to hide them away, to keep them safe from The Cunning Man. There’s a small clearing in the woods now that was never there before, and a blackthorn tree that doesn’t belong at all. These odd children claim that The Cunning Man is coming for them...and they want the local kids to protect them. But with families falling apart and the neighborhood splintered by bitterness, who will save the children of Parmenter Road?

New York Times bestselling, Bram Stoker Award-winning author Christopher Golden is best known for his supernatural thrillers set in deadly, distant locales...but in this suburban Halloween drama, Golden brings the horror home.

All Hallows. The one night when everything is a mask...]]>
325 Christopher Golden 125028029X Karlen 3 3.51 2023 All Hallows
author: Christopher Golden
name: Karlen
average rating: 3.51
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2024/11/04
date added: 2024/11/04
shelves: 2024, arcs-and-galleys, audiobook, horror, netgalley, paranormal-supernatural
review:

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