The first murder takes place in 1999 as employees at Blockbuster close up for the night. As I worked for over ten years at Blockbuster, I enjoyed reliving the store descriptions. Not so much, as that might be unseemly, given the blood letting and all. Gives a whole new meaning to “make it a Blockbuster night”.
Read MoreThis is a filthy and funny book with lots of beautiful illustrations and visuals that will assist you in…let’s call them your endeavors. My Valenties’s gift to you!! You are welcome…
Read MoreAre you sitting down readers? True confession time. At the tender age of ten(ish), I would sneak my Mother’s Harlequin Romance books out of her nightstand stash when I ran out of Nancy Drew’s to read. That’s not all. When I would trot off to the library for my next installment of middle grade novels, I would take out more of them. Batting my blue eyes and smoothly claiming that they were for my mother. They were not! Romance fiction has come a long way since those days and it’s having a renaissance! So let’s celebrate!
Read MoreAre you sitting down readers? True confession time. At the tender age of ten(ish), I would sneak my Mother’s Harlequin Romance books out of her nightstand stash when I ran out of Nancy Drew’s to read. That’s not all. When I would trot off to the library for my next installment of middle grade novels, I would take out more of them. Batting my blue eyes and smoothly claiming that they were for my mother. They were not! Romance fiction has come a long way since those days and it’s having a renaissance! So let’s celebrate!
Read MoreLucky never wanted to be a thief, or a liar, and certainly not an eleven-year-old con artist. She has tried so hard, every day of her life, to say as many true things as she possibly could. But those around her have not made it easy, especially her father who trained her to be his partner in crime.
Read MoreKaty is left reeling and unmoored after the death of her beloved mother. She makes the life changing decision to go on their planned trip of a lifetime alone. She never expects to meet a younger version of her mother while basking in the beauty of Italy!
Read MoreGrowing up in an Italian family, the percentage of lineage of no consequence whatsoever; it’s going to start loud and get louder. The food will be abundant, the cooking will be nonstop, the debates about meals will be heated and you had best bring a hearty appetite. Or suffer the “Look”. Tucci gets it!
Read MoreIf you’ve been a faithful follower of Cracking The Spine, you are undoubtedly aware that I love a reimagining of a classic story, especially fairytales. In this tale, our protagonist is fully aware that she is stuck inside a version of Sleeping Beauty. Which, any way you slice it, is the worst of the fairy tales.
Read MoreWhile I didn’t love this book as much as his first, I will say this about Mr. Michaelides, he has a way with the shocking twist. Seriously, you can be just be naively turning pages, thinking you have a notion of what’s to come and then BAM! A knockout punch you never saw coming.
Read MoreIt’s rare that you are just humming along in your daily consumption of the written word and get gob smacked by something that just happened in the book you are holding in your unsuspecting hands.
Read MoreIt is widely believed that this series launched the Urban Fantasy genre, no small feat and worth a read still to this day. It follows a vampire and a private investigator over the course of several books as they face foes of the supernatural kind. With biting wit and a little heart!
Read MoreThere is nothing I can say that will do this book justice, no grouping of words that can embody how I felt at its conclusion. This is a staggeringly beautiful and powerful story; it will imbed itself in you, it will linger long after the final page is turned, and it will break you a little. If you are lucky. If you allow it to.
Read MoreIf you are looking for a mystery that is not a full-frontal assault on your intellect, look elsewhere! This stellar contribution to the genre is a mystery within a mystery, a nesting dolls level of unpacking will be required.
Read MoreSamantha Irby is a black lady with a white wife living in a red state. She is a self-described middle-aged depressed lady with chronic diarrhea and a snarky voice. That is a lot of fodder for saucy and hilarious musings on the mundanities of life.
Read MoreMind. Blown. This tightrope of a novel accomplishes one of the things that I love the most. It plucks you up from the humdrum banality of your day to day life and drops you smack into a big ol world of what the f*ck is happening and where the f&ck am I?
Read MoreFirst off let me tell you that Aisha and I have a lot in common. Book nerd, brassy, sassy, foul language aficionados, high ranking members of the out crowd and mentors of the linguistics of sarcasm. I may have a girl crush. We might even be soul mates…
Read MoreOften when I read, I find passages that take up residence in my head. Buried among all the wonderful research here was the following. Feminism is a trick mirror that carries the illusion of flawlessness as well the self-flagellating option to constantly find fault.
Read MoreIt’s been said that the science fiction works of Becky Chambers are not only considered gentle, heartwarming stories that seek to sooth our troubled souls, they also aim to blow up the entire genre. She in fact has defined a new subcategory, hopepunk. She is an author not to be missed!
Read MoreWhile I may sob uncontrollably at mushy commercials, I don’t emote much when it comes to my books. But I know that readers are always searching for a good tearjerker, one that can leave them with an appropriately weighty book hangover. While these books didn’t move me to a full-on snotty cry, I definitely felt them deeply. Somewhere in the vicinity of my heart.
Read MoreCinderella is tired of being trapped in a bad marriage and seeks out a witch for a resolution. While you might expect that she asks for a love potion to win back her Prince Charming, that is not the case in this fairytale twist!
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