Welcome back! Are y’all ready for more recommendations?
For those who don’t know, I talk about books a lot in various corners of the book world from working at an independent bookstore to writing freelance book reviews. Here are some titles I recommended to readers in the last couple weeks.
Did you get any good recommendations lately? Let me know!
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A Marvellous Light
Granted we ran a review of this one, but I wanted to highlight this one again. I’ve been hand-selling it like crazy and suggesting it to anyone who loves TJ Klune’s newer stuff or Casey McQuiston.
Robin Blyth has more than enough bother in his life. He’s struggling to be a good older brother, a responsible employer, and the harried baronet of a seat gutted by his late parents’ excesses. When an administrative mistake sees him named the civil service liaison to a hidden magical society, he discovers what’s been operating beneath the unextraordinary reality he’s always known.
Now Robin must contend with the beauty and danger of magic, an excruciating deadly curse, and the alarming visions of the future that come with it—not to mention Edwin Courcey, his cold and prickly counterpart in the magical bureaucracy, who clearly wishes Robin were anyone and anywhere else.
Robin’s predecessor has disappeared, and the mystery of what happened to him reveals unsettling truths about the very oldest stories they’ve been told about the land they live on and what binds it. Thrown together and facing unexpected dangers, Robin and Edwin discover a plot that threatens every magician in the British Isles—and a secret that more than one person has already died to keep.
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This book is available from:
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
We also may use affiliate links in our posts, as well. Thanks!A Marvellous Light by Freya Marske
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Atlas of Dark Destinations
I peeked at this book when we got one single copy into the store. It’s great for anyone who loves history and more macabre subject matter. This is more of a bigger coffee table book and was neat to thumb through. Each day I get closer to buying it for myself.
Reaching some of the darkest and most unsettling corners of the world, this is a compendium of travel destinations like no other. Author Peter Hohenhaus has visited and photographed all the places featured in the book, and brings his first-hand knowledge to the reader. Dark tourism has seen a surge in popularity in the last decade and this is the first book to bring together 300 destinations in a readable and fascinating guide. From nuclear bunkers and disaster sites to strange medical museums and eerie catacombs, this book has something for everyone who seeks a travel experience with true meaning.
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This book is available from:
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
We also may use affiliate links in our posts, as well. Thanks!Atlas of Dark Destinations by Peter Hohenhaus
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The Cipher
I often recommend this one for someone who loves dark police procedurals. I get tired of main characters who are men, detectives, and whose personal lives are falling apart and they’re either a workaholic, alcoholic, or both.
To a cunning serial killer, she was the one that got away. Until now…
FBI Special Agent Nina Guerrera escaped a serial killer’s trap at sixteen. Years later, when she’s jumped in a Virginia park, a video of the attack goes viral. Legions of new fans are not the only ones impressed with her fighting skills. The man who abducted her eleven years ago is watching. Determined to reclaim his lost prize, he commits a grisly murder designed to pull her into the investigation…but his games are just beginning. And he’s using the internet to invite the public to play along.
His coded riddles may have made him a depraved social media superstar—an enigmatic cyber-ghost dubbed “the Cipher”—but to Nina he’s a monster who preys on the vulnerable. Partnered with the FBI’s preeminent mind hunter, Dr. Jeffrey Wade, who is haunted by his own past, Nina tracks the predator across the country. Clue by clue, victim by victim, Nina races to stop a deadly killer while the world watches.
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This book is available from:
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
We also may use affiliate links in our posts, as well. Thanks!The Cipher by Isabella Maldonado
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The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter
This one makes for a fantastic audiobook with all of its characters. But if you also know someone who loves books that play with form, all the interjections via marginalia and footnotes make this something extra special.
Based on some of literature’s horror and science fiction classics, this is the story of a remarkable group of women who come together to solve the mystery of a series of gruesome murders—and the bigger mystery of their own origins.
Mary Jekyll, alone and penniless following her parents’ death, is curious about the secrets of her father’s mysterious past. One clue in particular hints that Edward Hyde, her father’s former friend and a murderer, may be nearby, and there is a reward for information leading to his capture…a reward that would solve all of her immediate financial woes.
But her hunt leads her to Hyde’s daughter, Diana, a feral child left to be raised by nuns. With the assistance of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, Mary continues her search for the elusive Hyde, and soon befriends more women, all of whom have been created through terrifying experimentation: Beatrice Rappaccini, Catherin Moreau, and Justine Frankenstein.
When their investigations lead them to the discovery of a secret society of immoral and power-crazed scientists, the horrors of their past return. Now it is up to the monsters to finally triumph over the monstrous.
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This book is available from:
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
We also may use affiliate links in our posts, as well. Thanks!The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter by Theodora Goss
I recently read the Theodora Goss. The cover just leapt from the shelf, and then I thought who wouldn’t want to read a Victorian historical paranormal written by a woman named Theodora. Bitchery it is a great read featuring the daughters or creations of all those mad scientists of the age: Victor Frankenstein, Dr. Jekyll AND Mr. Hyde, etc.
Oh, and Sherlock Holmes and Watson, in case the above wasn’t enough catnip.
If you’re an Audible member, The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter is on sale for $5. It’s narrated by Kate Reading, who is a very talented narrator!
I enjoyed A Marvellous Light!
I DNF’d The Strange Case Of The Alchemist’s Daughter early on because the callousness with which Mary treats very young abuse survivor Diana was upsetting to me – don’t know whether this is acknowledged or changes later on – so heads up for that.
For those who are NOT Audible members, The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter is also on sale at chirpbooks.com for $4.99 for the next two days.
I enjoyed the Goss book, though it did feel very much like a first book in a series (which it is), or the “assembling of the misfits,” rather than a complete narrative arc. And Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson aren’t used terribly much (but I’m a major Sherlockian, so that might be my own personal peeve).
I didn’t continue on with the second or third. Has anybody here? Recommended or no?