Snowflakes and Spider Silk

I'm really squeamish. When I was five years old, I'd get freaked out every time I saw a movie with people getting shot (goddamn those 90s action flicks!). All the blood blooming on people's shirts just sent me into hysterics. My dad decided to lighten the blow by telling me all that red stuff was just ketchup. I promptly proceeded to hysterically scream, "IT'S JUST KETCHUP IT'S JUST KETCHUP WAAAAAAH" I haven't improved much since, but I've discovered something new this week. When one of the surgeons I worked with asked me if I wanted to watch an operation, I said sure! I was a little nervous about all the blood, and the surgeon kept warning me that if I needed to step out, it was totally fine. Apparently even tough men have been known go weak in the knees when they see the blood involved in heart surgery. But I was totally fine! There really was a lot of blood, but somehow seeing a bunch of surgeons and nurses fixing someon...

Title:  The Hollow City Author:  Dan Wells Genre: Mystery, psychological thriller, science fiction My rating: 4 of 5 stars Goodreads Summary: Dan Wells won instant acclaim for his three-novel debut about the adventures of John Wayne Cleaver, a heroic young man who is a potential serial killer. All who read the trilogy were struck by the distinctive and believable voice Wells created for John. Now he returns with another innovative thriller told in a very different, equally unique voice. A voice that comes to us from the  realm of madness. Michael Shipman is paranoid schizophrenic; he suffers from hallucinations, delusions, and complex fantasies of persecution and horror. That’s bad enough. But what can he do if some of the monsters he sees turn out to be real? Who can you trust if you can't even trust yourself? The Hollow City is a mesmerizing journey into madness, where the greatest enemy of all is your own mind. Before this book, I'd read and loved Dan Wel...

Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by  The Broke and the Bookish . This week's theme:  Ten Characters Who Are Fellow Book Nerds This theme is so much fun! I'm a little sad that I can't come up with 10 off the top of my head though. Here are the characters I did come up with!   Liesel Meminger  from The Book Thief! This girl is fearless and doesn't let the persecution of Nazi Germany keep her from reading books that she wants to read.   Celaena Sardothien  from the Throne of Glass series: her two big splurges are always pretty clothes and more books than she can carry!   Jean and Ezri from Red Seas Under Red Skies: They began to fall in love when they started quoting novels to each other. Awwwwwwww :)   Hermione Granger, of course! I don't think this one needs any explanation ;)   Matilda  from the Roald Dahl book. I loved this one as a kid!   Scout Finch  f...

The Republic of Thieves read-along begins today! If you're just joining in, check out  the intro post  for the schedule and other details! This is going to be a shorter post than usual, because I haven't had time to put together a nice long one and I already covered  my thoughts on the end of Red Seas Under Red Skies  last week. Anyways... What we're reading this week Republic of Thieves | Prologue, Ch1-2 (and interludes between Ch2 and 3) Recap from last week Zamira is double crossed by one of her own and Ezri sacrifices herself in the melee that ensues, Jean is heartbroken and swears revenge; Locke and Jean get the better of Stragos, rob Requin's office, an then discover the paintings were fake. Oh, and only Jean has been cured of the latent poison. Observations/Theories/Questions Is it just me, or did the end of that book move at a break-neck pace? Just when you think everything is going smoothly, we run into twist after twist and betra...

If you haven't finished Red Seas Under Red Skies yet, well, spoiler alert! There's a certain expectation when it comes to a story about a con .  The roguish main characters start off with a scene showing off their amazing abilities, we learn a bit more of  their backstory and personal demons as they plot to pull a job, stuff hits the fan and everything that can go wrong does go wrong... but against all odds, our MCs manage to make the heist happen and escape in more or less one piece. Speaking of pulling heists... Well, about that... In Red Seas Under Red Skies, there's no room for happy endings.  In the last 10% of the book, not only does Jean lose the love of his life, Locke is still dying of Stragos' latent poison, and after all their effort and scheming to keep two very intimidating masters happy, Locke and Jean find out that the gods-damned paintings were fake. I suppose the only silver lining is that Locke did indeed get to sack ...

Title:  Black-Eyed Susans Author:  Julia Heaberlin Genre: Mystery, psychological thriller, adult My rating: 4 of 5 stars Goodreads Summary : I am the star of screaming headlines and campfire ghost stories. I am one of the four Black-Eyed Susans. The lucky one. As a sixteen-year-old, Tessa Cartwright was found in a Texas field, barely alive amid a scattering of bones, with only fragments of memory as to how she got there. Ever since, the press has pursued her as the lone surviving “Black-Eyed Susan,” the nickname given to the murder victims because of the yellow carpet of wildflowers that flourished above their shared grave. Tessa’s testimony about those tragic hours put a man on death row. Now, almost two decades later, Tessa is an artist and single mother. In the desolate cold of February, she is shocked to discover a freshly planted patch of black-eyed susans—a summertime bloom—just outside her bedroom window. Terrified at the implications—that she sent the wrong ...

Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by  The Broke and the Bookish . This week's theme:  Top Ten Books that Celebrate Diversity/Diverse Characters This week's theme is a bit of a reminder kick to start writing those DiverSFFy posts again! I have definitely been reading diverse fantasy and science fiction, but I haven't been spot-lighting them as much as I should. This post should tide you over for diverse SFF recs until I get around to writing full posts! Gender-bending and Gender Fluid characters         Racially/Ethnically Diverse characters     LGBTQ spectrum characters     And these don't even include my list of feminist fantasy books! Keep an eye out for more recs in the future :)

Red Seas Under Red Skies continues... If you're just joining in, check out  the intro post  for the schedule and other details! What we're reading this week Red Seas Under Red Skies |  Chapters 13-Epilogue Recap from last week Jabril and the rest figure out that Locke and Jean are frauds, and toss them overboard. The two get picked up by The Poison Orchid and are reunited with their crew as scrub watch on Captain Zamira Drakasha's ship. Jean and Ezri Delmastro hit it off, Locke warms up to the pirate life, and Zamira gets on board with the plan to get back at Stragos.  Observations/Theories/Questions THE PIRATES ARE FINALLY HERE! I adore Captain Drakasha and Lieutenant Delmastro, because not only are they fierce and independent women, they are exceptionally intimidating pirates and fiends! It's a lot of fun to see the dynamic between Locke and Drakasha, because they both are used to getting their own way and being the one in charge; it...