Week in Review #33

The Week in Review is where I combine Stacking the Shelves, The Sunday Post and It's Monday! What are you reading?  If you have never joined in on these meme's you can check them out by clicking on the meme and it will take you to the host blog.

Hi everyone! Not much to report on this week. It rained, it was cool and now it's pretty warm as I am writing this...lol.

Still in the mood for killer animal movies so I found one on Freevee I hadn't heard of called The Hatching, it was a crocodile movie set in the UK, I am guess because of the actors. It was okay but had a bit of a silly ending...lol.

Other than that not really anything to report, I am such an introvert and in my free time I read. :)

What you might have missed on my blog

Waiting on Wednesday featuring Nightmare Island

Review of The Nightmare Man

Review of Haru, Zombie Dog Hero

Books I have added

• The Horror of Haglin House - I know it doesn't look like a crime novel but it is...lol. I think it's the first in a new series I think it's the first in the Lady Violet Thorn series and she is a writer. I just really liked the cover...lol.
• West Heart Kill - I am not sure if I will enjoy this one or not but I was curious so grabbed it while it was on Read Now on Netgalley. It sounded like it could be kind of a literary mystery and I don't know if that will be for me...lol. I love the cover of this one two with the gun for a chimney! :)

Books read last week

• The Nightmare Man - This was an interesting horror book! I have been listening to this a little at a time for a while in the mornings. :)
• Cameron Battle an the Escape Plan - This was okay, and it finishes a douology.
• Haru, Zombie Dog Hero - I wanted to like this one more than I did, I might have went on a bit about that in my review. I liked this authors Spirit Hunter series more.
• Who Was Daniel Boone - This was interesting and I think the best way for me to consume biograhies...lol.
• Nessie Quest - This contemporary Middle Grade was so cute and fun! I am pretty hit or miss with contemporary so was glad this was a hit! Characters were just great!
• My Big Fat Zombie Goldfish - Super cute start to a series. Read for Zombieathon a month long readathon on booktube.
• Malamander - Reread as I would like to continue the series but couldn't remember much about this one as it had been a few years. Still a good one.
• Dead City - Another fun zombie book for the readathon. It's the first in a trilogy and I like this author so can't wait to finish up the trilogy.

I listened to all of these except for two of the middle grade books. :)

Currently reading

• Shadow of Night - The second book in the All Souls Trilogy, this is a reread and I will be taking my time with it all month long. Reading the print book and on page 58 of 577.
• Emerald Blaze - The 5th book in the Hidden Legacy series. I am listening to this on 2x speed and should finish it today as I am about 77% into it.
• Skandar and the Unicorn Thief - First book in the Skandar series, trying to work on my backlog of netgalley books, found it on audiobook. Just started on on Saturday night so only 11% to the audio at 2x speed.
• Knightley and Son - Trying to get to some books on my shelves so reading this one in print and it's kind of slow right now and hoping it gets better. I am on page 68 of 308.
• Field of Screams - Just getting started on this one, it's an eARC that comes out in a month or two, I can't remember when. It's a ghost story and it's okay so far but only 11% in to the ebook.
• Fablehaven - Another book off of my shelf that I have had for a long time. It's a bit slow to start but I think it's about to get better as we have finally got to some fairy sightings. :) Reading the print book so page 74 of 351.

What might be up next

How was your week? What did you get?

Early Review of Haru, Zombie Dog Hero

 

I was given this book by Netgalley and the publisher for a fair and honest review.

Eleven-year-old Luke and his dog, Haru, are the best of friends. Totally inseparable. But when their nasty landlord falsely accuses Haru of biting her, Haru is kidnapped! As Luke and his friends go on a serious mission to find and bring Haru home again, they discover mysterious experiments happening at the old laboratory at Painted Lake, owned by an evil multibillionaire named Mr. Thomas Sinclair. And Luke and his friends soon fear that Sinclair’s scientists could be doing illegal testing that may endanger Haru and their whole town. As more strange clues emerge, the boys realize their world is changing fast, and soon Painted Lake is plagued by zombie attacks. But the love between Luke and Haru endures, ultimately helping to save them all.

I really liked this authors Spirit Hunter series so I was excited to see that she had a new book out. I did like it but there was some things that I wasn't a huge fan of as well. 

This has the third person POV from Luke the boy, Haru the dog, and Penelope the cat. It was fairly easy to follow the different POVs. Haru remembers the first time his humans brought him home and how him and Luke done everything together. They are the best of friends. He is a hero to his family and Luke's two best friends as he protected them from a scary raccoon. He is just the best dog. He also doesn't like it when someone is mean to his best buddy Luke. 

Penelope is a stray cat that Luke and his family have sort of adopted even though the mother is allergic. They make sure she has food. One day she went missing and they worried about her then she came back but was covered in some really nasty gunk and it's a good think Luke and his family are super nice people and cleaned her up. It's because of this that she made friends with Haru and Luke. 

In the town of Painted Lake there is a nasty factory that does really bad things that  and has ruined their beautiful lake. The guy that owns it is an old man called Sinclair and he is looking for a fountian of youth type of serum and has scientist working on it. They do experiments on animals but nobody in town really knows what goes on there. Lukes friends, Ben and Max, mother works as a reporter and has been trying to find a good angle on the factory and to find out what is going on but her editor always shuts her down. 

The lady who rents the building that Luke's parents have their store in is a horrible person and a bit on the racist side and hates Haru, so when he tries protecting Luke from her and lunges at her she falls and hurts herself and use that to call the animal shelter, only thing is the guys are not taking him to a shelter but to the factory!! 

So I really liked Luke and his friends, his parents and even his friends parents, of course I loved Haru and Penelope as well. All were great characters. I was even okay with the big environmental/testing on animals issue we got within the story. My problem was that I thought it was a little to detailed on what happened to the poor dogs that turned into zombies. I mean, I know adults including myself that don't like that kind of detail in adult books when it comes to harming animals. (Their bodies steamed as if they were being baked, and large lumps began to form on their faces and torsos.) I mean gross, is it just me or is that to gross for a kids books? Could be just me. I feel like the author could have gotten the point across without the reader having to know exactly what happened to the dogs. :(

Don't get me wrong it was a fun story about a boy and his dog and the bond between them, but trigger warnings for animal abuse/experimentation big time! I know a lot of adults who will not be reading this because of that. I docked it a star for that, so maybe I am being petty, but it's my opinion and I don't like books that hurt dogs. I could handled it if he went into the lab and we are told something bad happened and he came out a zombie, I just don't need details! 

Would I read another book about the zombie dog if it is a series? Sure because I feel like the worst part is over now he can just be a zombie dog hero. :) It left the ending very open ended which is why I don't know if it's a series or not. 

Oh and also we don't get anything zombie until around 89% of the book which for a book called Zombie Dog Hero, I sort of thought there would be much more zombie hero action going on. 

Would I recommend it? It was a decent middle grade book so if you don't mind the animal stuff and you think your kid can handle it, sure. Like I said it would have been 4 stars but I dock stars on adult books with harming of dogs in them, so middle grade is no different. :)

3 stars

Review of The Nightmare Man

 I received this book from Netgalley for a fair and honest review.

I haven't been finding a lot of horror books lately that I really enjoy. I am actually in a horror group on facebook that doesn't think I like anything...lol. That being said I actually liked this one!! 

Blackwood mansion looms, surrounded by nightmare pines, atop the hill over the small town of New Haven. Ben Bookman, bestselling novelist and heir to the Blackwood estate, spent a weekend at the ancestral home to finish writing his latest horror novel, The Scarecrow. Now, on the eve of the book’s release, the terrible story within begins to unfold in real life.

Detective Mills arrives at the scene of a gruesome murder: a family butchered and bundled inside cocoons stitched from corn husks, and hung from the rafters of a barn, eerily mirroring the opening of Bookman’s latest novel. When another family is killed in a similar manner, Mills, along with his daughter, rookie detective Samantha Blue, is determined to find the link to the book—and the killer—before the story reaches its chilling climax.

As the series of “Scarecrow crimes” continues to mirror the book, Ben quickly becomes the prime suspect. He can’t remember much from the night he finished writing the novel, but he knows he wrote it in The Atrium, his grandfather’s forbidden room full of numbered books. Thousands of books. Books without words.

As Ben digs deep into Blackwood’s history he learns he may have triggered a release of something trapped long ago—and it won’t stop with the horrors buried within the pages of his book.

 Ben Bookman writes horror novels and he has been working on a new book and staying in the ancestral home Blackwood manor where he soon learns that there are some murders happening in town that are identical to those in the book. 

The two dectectives in town are a father daughter team and they end up and some really strange and brutal murder sites, that lead them to Ben Bookman. He has no clue what is going on or why the murders are happen like in his book, but it's hard for the cops to understand what is going on.

Ben as well as the cops have to take a deep dive into Ben's history as his brother went missing 13 years ago and Ben has been looking for him since then, but he comes upon some bones he begins to think his brother could be among them. There is something about the Screamer, who takes kids. 

It really is hard to describe what this book is about really, I am having a hard time putting it down without thinking something I say might spoil something, so just going to say that I thought this was very interesting. 

This horror got me to like a lot of the characters so I knew someone was going to die that I didn't want to die, and at the end I was really on edge. I really liked all the characters a lot. They were interesting.

4 stars

Waiting on Wednesday #1

 

I haven't done this kind of post since changing blogs so thought I would start doing them again. Waiting on Wednesday has been around for a while and I know that it was taken over by Wishful Endings and called Can't wait Wednesday so will link to her.

Twelve year-old Serenity Noah has never told anyone about her recurring nightmares -- the haunting images of silver butterflies whose flapping wings drive away all sound, leaving only suffocating silence in their wake. Her parents already favor her "perfect" younger brother, Peace, and she doesn't want to be seen as the "problem" child.

Instead, Serenity's found a productive way to channel her fears: creating a horror movie as scary as her nightmares.

When Peace suddenly becomes afraid of the dark and refuses to sleep alone, their parents take him away for "treatment" on Duppy Island. Serenity has a very bad feeling about the mysterious island and the facility's creepy leader, Dr. Whisper. And when she sees a silver butterfly from her nightmares in the forbidden forest she realizes that something is seriously, dangerously awry.

But nothing could've prepared Serenity for the truth: the island is home to douens -- faceless children with backward feet who are trapped in limbo between the world of the living and the land of the dead. And unless Serenity acts soon, her brother is going to join their ranks...

A Douen!!

Love my middle grade horror and this one sounds really interesting. though I think sometimes the spooky middle grade is a bit to spooky for kids. This is what I will be picturing while reading this one!!!! A Douen  is a entity from Trinidad and Tobago folklore.

 It comes out June 6th from Scholastic Press.

Week in Review #32

The Week in Review is where I combine Stacking the Shelves, The Sunday Post and It's Monday! What are you reading?  If you have never joined in on these meme's you can check them out by clicking on the meme and it will take you to the host blog.

Hi Everyone! The weather sure has been strange this past week. It got cold enough I had to build a fire again...blah! Hoping this coming week will be nicer.

How is April already ending!!!

Not a lot worth noting happened this week. I did watch some more movies, I like Killer Animal movies so watched The Bees and Kiss of the Tarancula both from the 70s, the spider one was better than the bees...lol.

Have a great day and happy reading!

What you might have missed on my blog

Review of Heart of Evil

Books I have added

• It Found Us - This cover is super creepy for a middle grade horror book, but I do love this author!
• Escape From Grimestone Manor - Looked like a fun light spooky middle grade.
• Murder at Merton Library - Can't wait to get to this one! I love this historical mystery series!
• The Camp - Sounded like a fun slasher campfire story.

Books read last week

• Discovery of Witches - Fantastic reread, love the All Souls Trilogy.
• Gone Missing - Another good read from the Kate Burkholder series.
• Thin Ice - This is a little grittier of a cozy mystery and enjoyable. Set in Alaska!
• Daughter Unto Devils - So boring!!!!
• A Killer Carol - Loved this one and so sad it's the last in the series but I finished a series. :)
• Freddie McFright's Chilling Night - This was a cute short middle grade book

Currently reading

• The Nightmare Man - This one has been decent so far. I am about 50% into it.
• Who Was Daniel Boone - My kind of biographies! Short and to the point for Middle Graders...lol. I will finish this one tonight.

What might be up next

A Few books that are on my radar for the first one May! :)

How was your week? What did you get?

Two Bloggers, One Series ~ Heart of Evil (Krewe of Hunters #2)

 So last year I got Barb to try book one in the Krewe of Hunters series (Phantom Evil) and she really enjoyed it so even though I am currently on book 17, I told her I would go back and reread the books with her and so that is what we are doing. I really like this series! Go see what Barb thinks of it so far! 

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Emerging from the bayou like an apparition, Donegal Plantation is known for its unsurpassed dining, captivating atmosphere, haunting legends and now a corpse swinging from the marble angel that marks its cemetery's most majestic vault. A corpse discovered in nearly the same situation as that of Marshall Donegal, the patriarch killed in a skirmish just before the Civil War.

Desperate for help traditional criminologists could never provide, plantation heiress Ashley Donegal turns to an elite team of paranormal investigators who blend hard forensics with rare & often inexplicable intuition. Among the Krewe of Hunters is an old flame, Jake Mallory, a gifted musician with talent stretching far beyond the realm of the physical, and a few dark ghosts of his own.

The evil the team unveils has the power to shake the plantation to its very core. Jake and Ashley are forced to risk everything to unravel secrets that will not stay buried even in death.

This one starts out with a Civil War reenactment that ends in a murder. One on the Yankee's side was not able to play in the reenactment, so they asked Charles from the Southern side to go and play a Yankee and well he wasn't happy about it and whined. So another guy spoke up and said that he would do it and that Charles could play Marshall Donegal and well that probably saved the one guys life but it was death for poor Charles.

When Charles goes missing Ashley Donegal is really worried something bad has happened, like she just knows, but they look all over and can't find him. Her grandfather who knows Harrison (founder of the Krewe) gives him a call and in come the Krewe of Hunters. The krewe is a special team of investigator with some slightly different skills, most of them have some sort of paranormal specialty, whether it's seeing ghost, hearing them, communitcating with them, etc. But they are all law enforcement and are still there to look for the evil in men not really thinking it's a ghost.

One of those team members is Jake who is the first on the scene because he has ties to the Donagals, he is Ashley's ex and can see ghost which is the one thing that ruined their relationship. Now though Ashley is seeing the ghost of her ancestor who is trying to help her out and now she is seeing Jake in a different light. 

When they find Charles body the way it was and then someone else turns up missing then dead and found in the swamps with the gators they are in a hurry to find out who is behind these because it sure isn't a ghost and someone may be after some revenge on the Donagals putting Ashley in danger. 
So I first read this one in 2016 and I will say that though I could recall a few things as reading this I couldn't remember much and enjoyed my second read. I know this series is very formulaic and not for everyone but for me it's just a paranormal comfort read and I haven't disliked one yet...lol. 

I love all those involved in the Krewe, Jackson is still my favorite (Phantom Evil), but I liked Jake. I did find it interesting that Ashley had to see a ghost for herself to help her see that Jake meant nothing bad when he told her what he did when they were together. I loved the ghost of Marshall Donagal he was a hoot!

So I love this series but can see how it would be hit or miss with some, so if you like paranormal romances give it a try and see where you fall.

4 stars

Week in Review #31

The Week in Review is where I combine Stacking the Shelves, The Sunday Post and It's Monday! What are you reading?  If you have never joined in on these meme's you can check them out by clicking on the meme and it will take you to the host blog.

This past week most of my spare time has been used cleaning out a part of our house that seemed to be the catch all for all things. It's an open area room upstairs next to my room that has never been completely fixed (We built our own house and this section sort of just got forgotten) and I want to make it into a library so been cleaning it out slowly since it wreaks havoc on my back.

I needed a Discovery of Witches TV series fix so subscribed to Shudder for a few months so I can watch it. It's probably more of a Matthew Goode fix...lol. :) That is pretty much the only thing I have watched of interest this past week.

Oh and I think Spring is confused because we had a Frost Warning last night and it was 32....burr!

Have a great week and happy reading!

What you might have missed on my blog

Review of The Scottish Ladies Detective Agency

Review of The Grand Sophy

Books I have added

• Murder in the Scottish Hills - I enjoyed The Scottish Ladies Detective Agency and so when I seen another one was coming out next month I had to grab it. :)

Books read last week

• Let's Get Invisible - It's the 6th book in the Goosebump series and I thought it was okay.
• The Grand Sophy - It was okay, Sophy was fun but didn't feel like much of a romance book.
• Breaking Silence - Very dark Amish books, so not cozy...lol. Really like this series though! Kate Burkholder use to be Amish but left and now she is a police chief.
• Spy Camp Graphic Novel - Enjoying my second time reading this series but though Graphic novel form.
• The Five - This was okay, makes me want to read a Ripper book now though. 
• I Want My Hat Back - Cute picture book, read it for Picture This Readathon.
• I Will Chomp You! - Another cute picture book.
• The Scottish Ladies Detective Agency - I enjoyed this one but thought the first part was a bit slow. 

Currently reading

• A Discovery of Witches - I need to speed up my read so I am done by the end of the month but really enjoying my reread.
• Gone Missing -The Fourth book in the Kate Burkholder. Just started this one on chapter 4.
• Cover Her Face - Almost finished, it's okay.
• Gustav Gloom - Just starting this one.
• The World of All Souls - This is interesting, kind of a fictional behind the scenes look at the world of All Souls, like you get all the charcters broken down, more about the world and all that good stuff.

What might be up next

How was your week? What did you get?