Invisible City by Julia Dahl

by Carol4 Comments
I almost didn't get pass the first hour of this audiobook. Rebekah is young. The story is told in the first person and I had a tough time relating to her. I don't need to hear about her and her roommate's marijuana use, about her sex life, especially no details please. I understand that her mommy abandoned her, but she was like 6 months old at the time. Yes, I get that she has anxiety issues, but she dwells on everything - she's young, 22, only months out of journalism school and still relatively new to New York. I was going to tire of her quickly, but once the actual mystery kicked in it was a lot better. I will say the narrator had the perfect voice for Rebekah. It was like Rebekah was telling me the story. She did well with the other characters to, but she was best at Rebekah, which is how it should be in a first...
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The Silkworm by Robert Galbraith

by Carol6 Comments
Now this was a good one. I already knew I liked Cormoran Strike, the detective, from his first outing, The Cuckoo's Calling. He's the same basic guy here. The publicity from that case has worn off a little, but business is going well, even if he's working mostly divorce cases or for rich guys he doesn't really respect. It's money. And we do get to see a bit of him working on the other cases, not enough to distract from the plot, but enough to remind us that he doesn't just have one case to focus on. Robin, his assistant, is starting to come into her own, we're learning a bit more about her, what she wants and what she's capable of. Then a plain, poor-looking woman, asks him to find here missing husband, author Owen Quine. He's gone missing after his latest, as yet unpublished, novel was leaked, a book that is going to make a lot of people bad. It's...
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The Cuckoo’s Calling by Robert Galbraith

by Carol11 Comments
I wasn't going to read The Cuckoo's Calling, something about Rowling writing it under a secret pseudonym that just happens to leak out when the book doesn't sell well rubbed me wrong. But the library had the audio available when I needed a book to quickly add to my player, so I decided to give it a chance. I was pleasantly surprised. In a lot of ways it's the standard detective story. Our detective, Cormoran Strike, is a big, tough guy with a gruff exterior. He's definitely down on his luck, but his backstory is interesting. He's a war hero and the son of a rock star father who he doesn't have any contact with. I got a little tired of hearing about how uncomfortable his prosthesis was though. But at heart he's a good guy who wants to help those who need him. His assistant Robin is competent and caring, but a little disappointing somehow. Maybe she just doesn't get...
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Thursday’s Tale: The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum

by Carol3 Comments
In his introduction to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, which was first published in 1900, Baum wrote that the story "aspires to being a modernized fairy tale, in which the wonderment and joy are retained and the heart-aches and nightmares are left out.” It has been considered the first American fairy tale because of its references to clear American locations like Kansas and Omaha. While agreeing with authors like Carroll about fantasy literature and its importance for children along with numerous illustrations, Baum also wanted to create a story that had recognizable American elements in it like farming and industrialization. It's a mix of fantasy: witches and wizards, and the everyday: scarecrows, puppy dogs. I have watched three movie versions of the Wizard of Oz over the years - the classic from 1939, the Muppet version, and last year's Oz the Great and Powerful. Each has aspects of the original story, but none capture the whole adventure. We all know Dorothy is...
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Grim Shadows by Jenn Bennet

by Carol4 Comments
I have to admit that at first I was a bit annoyed with the male lead, Lowe Magnusson. When he first meets Hadley Bacall, he just keeps going on and on about her rear-end. Thankfully he eventually moved on to noticing her as a person. And they are a good match. Lowe is a con-artist, liar and a thief, but he has a truly good heart. Who doesn't love that type of bad boy, the kind that's just bad enough to be interesting but isn't going to intentionally hurt the people he cares about? Hadley has spent her life proving she's worthy and trying to keep her spirits at bay. Because they do want to kill someone, they're just waiting for her to get angry enough to let them. And she comes close - Lowe is quite good at pushing people's buttons. While this is a romance, Lowe and Hadley are also on a mission. They need to collect the pieces of an artifact, but...
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Thursday’s Tale: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving

by Carol4 Comments
I know "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" is not actually a folk tale, but it has become so familiar to us, so much a part of our culture, that I think it still fits in my rather loose Thursday Tales collection. I've read the story of the schoolmaster, Ichabod Crane several times and I love the descriptions of the area and the locals. It really sets the stage for the story. They are given to all kinds of marvelous beliefs, are subject to trances and visions, and frequesntly see strange sights and hear music and voices in  the air. The whole neighborhood abounds with local tales, haunted spots, and twilight superstitions; stars shoot and meteors glare oftener across the valley than in any other part of the country, and the nightmare, with her whole ninefold, seems to make it the favorite scene of her gambols. The dominant spirit however that haunts this enchanted region, and seems to be commander-in-chief of all the...
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