Two Quotes of the Day, B&N Bookclub Picks Mrs Everything, Cool Idea of the Day, Dime a Demon by Devon Monk, Spellswept by Stephanie Burgis, Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens, Harmony by Lilith Saintcrow and Hold Me Closer Necromancer by Lish McBride,

I am ridiculously overdue for a new post, but it has been a busy and trying two weeks. Today I am battling my Crohns and what feels like a cold. So, while I wait for my sinuses to unclog, I will post my latest news and reviews. 

I read this book with my book group, and though I had some problems with the moms and the kids in the book, I did enjoy the peek into this society in the 70s.

TV: Little Fires Everywhere

"It's been a little over a year since Reese Witherspoon and Kerry Washington announced they were bringing Celeste Ng's bestselling novel Little Fires Everywhere http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz40964204 to the screen and now we have our first look at their upcoming Hulu series," the Hollywood Reporter wrote. Joining Witherspoon and Washington in the cast are Joshua Jackson, Jade Pettyjohn, Jordan Elsass, Gavin Lewis and Megan Stott.

The book was a Witherspoon book club pick in 2107, "and the actress quickly scooped up the rights for adaptation through her production company, Hello Sunshine," THR reported. The show will be produced in conjunction with ABC Signature Studios and Kerry Washington's Simpson Street. Liz Tigelaar (Life Unexpected, Bates Motel) is the writer and showrunner on Little Fires Everywhere, with Ng on board as a producer.

 Excellent quote, and I totally agree. I love independent bookstores, and wish that we had one nearby where I live.

Quotation of the Day

'Amazon Doesn't Play with My Kids'

British bookseller Rachael Rogan, owner of Rogan's Books http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz40965836> in Bedford, "says that locals send her e-mails with a link to Amazon asking her to order a book. When she tells them they could buy it cheaper if they ordered it themselves, she says they tell her: 'Amazon doesn't play with my kids; Amazon doesn't bring authors to Bedford; Amazon doesn't recommend books when my child is going through hell and needs something to lift them up.' "-Stephen Moss in a Guardian piece headlined "Unputdownable! The bookshops Amazon couldn't kill

I have a copy of Mrs Everything that I plan on delving into this week. I hope it's as good as her first big novel, Good in Bed, which I really enjoyed.

B&N's June Book Club Pick: Mrs. Everything

Barnes & Noble has chosen Mrs. Everything by Jennifer Weiner (Atria) as its June national book club selection. The novel will be the focus of a book club night at B&N stores around the country on Tuesday, July 16, at 7 p.m.

Liz Harwell, B&N's senior director of merchandising, trade books, said, "Bestselling author and New York Times columnist Jennifer Weiner has written a powerful novel that follows an American family across five tumultuous decades and is a perfect mix of powerful, poignant, and funny. Our Barnes & Noble Exclusive Edition, with an enlightening behind-the-scenes essay from Jennifer Weiner and reader's guide, gives Book Club attendees even more to think about and discuss."

I love the idea of a bookstore Time Capsule, and I would love to be around to open it up 50 years from now and see how current people react to the things we found to be important in this era.

Cool Idea of the Day: Vroman's Time Capsule

Contest winners Alan Liao and Haydn Schlinger, with Joel Sheldon and Sherri Gallentine. Vroman's Bookstore http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz40965879 in Pasadena, Calif., last week held a ceremony to mark the burial of a time capsule in the wall of the store, at the spot where its new wine bar is under construction. Among the contributions were pennies stamped with the store's logo, added by Vroman's chair Joel Sheldon; a letter to future booksellers by head book buyer Sherri Gallentine; bookmark designs by the winners of the store's 2019 Kids Bookmark Contest; and a Polaroid commemorating the event, which was broadcast live on Vroman's Facebook http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz40965880 page. Assistant promotional director Gilbert Martinez said, "We look forward to the moment when these kids and their families, and former employees, can be here when Vroman's of 2069 digs up the capsule in celebration of another half a century serving Pasadena!"

This is another great quote that resonates with me. I totally agree with Alexander McCall Smith on the joys of holding and reading a physical book! I just recently read two and a half books on a Kindle, and it diminished my enjoyment of the stories to not be able to smell the pages and see the printing and hold the actual tome. 

Quotation of the Day

'Preserving the Pleasures of the Bookshop'

"When real bricks and mortar booksellers disappear we are denied the chance to browse. How many times do we enter a bookshop and discover an author we've never heard of, or a book that we would never have thought existed but that we feel we would like to read? In a real shop, you can start a life-time love affair with the works of a newly-discovered author, obscure or well-known....

"These local bookshops, intimate in scale in an age of the big and the characterless, are little fortresses dedicated to defending an artifact that survives because we love it so much--the book. Electronic books are all very well, but you can't touch the text; you can't smell the paper; you can't put it on a shelf to remind you of what it says; you can't wrap it up and give it as a present; you can't kiss its cover in gratitude. Actual bookshops survive because we love the physicality of the book--and want a real, physical existence rather than a virtual one. Still. Just."

--Bestselling author Alexander McCall Smith in an opinion piece for the Scotsman, headlined "Preserving the pleasures of the bookshop "

Dime a Demon by Devon Monk is the latest book in her Ordinary Oregon series, and since I couldn't wait for the paperback to come out, I bought the Kindle version, which my husband downloaded to an older model Kindle Fire that he got at a garage sale for $10. I love nearly all of Monks series, of course, so I devoured this sweet book in one sitting, though my enjoyment was decreased by the Kindle's inability to keep the battery charged for more than a few hours. So it would turn off and I'd have to plug it in a couple of times before I was done with the book, which was irritating at best. Still, this tale of Myra and her demon lover was delicious and well told in Monk's excellent prose. Here's the blurb: Myra Reed’s life is going great. Being a cop is great. Guarding the library of arcane secrets is great. Even dealing with the monsters and gods vacationing in the little beach town of Ordinary, Oregon is great.
Then the demon, Bathin, strolls into town and steals Myra’s sister’s soul.

So much for great.

Luckily, Myra has a plan to evict the demon and save her sister’s soul. Step one: shut down the portals to hell popping up in town. Step two: get rid of the pink know-it-all unicorn. Step three: don’t die while teaching Death how to be a cop. Oh, and there’s a step four. Absolutely, positively, no matter what, do not fall in love with the handsome, charming, jerk of a demon she’s trying to kick out of town. Logically, it’s a good plan. But when it comes to Bathin, Myra’s very illogical heart has some plans of its own.
 

Myra is the bookish sister, and in the 5th Ordinary Oregon book, we get to see her secret magical library, filled with ancient books and books that have become embodied so they're walking and talking and making tea. Truly, a bibliophiles dream come true! Then there's the super hot demon Bathin, who falls in love with Myra, though she tries her best not to fall in love with him. Add to that Bathin's mother, who appears as a pink unicorn, and all sorts of havoc and hijinks ensue. I loved the characters, the prose, the witty, swift plot and the entire town of Ordinary. I would love to visit such a place. Anyway, this book gets an A, and I'd recommend it to anyone who has read any of the previous books in the series.

Spellswept by Stephanie Burgis is really more of a novelette or an expanded short story than it is a novel. However, having read two other books in the Harwood Spellbook  series, I couldn't resist this prequel...I just wish I would have gotten it from the library and not paid almost $10 for it. Anyway, here's the blurb: In the world of the Harwood Spellbook, 19th-century Angland is ruled by a powerful group of women known as the Boudiccate - but in order to become a member of that elite group, any ambitious young politician must satisfy tradition by taking a gentleman mage for her husband.Amy Standish is a born politician...but Jonathan Harwood is her greatest temptation. On the night of the Harwoods' Spring Solstice Ball, in an underwater ballroom full of sparkling fey lights and danger, Amy will have to fight the greatest political battle of her life to win a family and a future that she could never have imagined.It will take an entirely unexpected kind of magic to keep everything from crashing down around her.Warning: this novella contains forbidden romance, dangerous magic, and political intrigue in an underwater ballroom. What could possibly go wrong?

This was a slight, but enjoyable story that I wanted more of, but was glad to have read Amy's story anyway. Burgis' world building is excellent and inclusive, and her prose is delightfully crisp and lovely. The plot zips along and you can read this 81 page book in about an hour. I'd give it a B for brevity and recommend it to anyone who has read any of the other books in the series.

Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens has been on the bestseller list for months now, and it has gotten loads of great reviews and TV interviews for the author. I am usually not enamored of "bestseller" books because they tend to involve a lot of soap opera level drama and sexual voyeurism, with lots of gore and usually violence against women. It's almost a formula for certain bestselling authors, and I find it boring and predictable, not to mention lionizing reprehensible characters by giving them a 'cool' cache that is supposed to fascinate the reader (not me, I find such characters disgusting and frightening). So I wasn't surprised when this book began with a child who was witness to constant, continual abuse against her mother and siblings, until all of them abandoned her as a child of four (!!) to deal with her hideous, cruel, drunken father all by herself. Though one of her brothers apologizes much later, (and her mother tries, in a very wimpy way, to send for her once), I could barely stomach the idea of a little girl nearly starving to death and trying to learn to clean and cook for her father and herself without any help at all, knowing that one wrong word could send her father into a fury in which he'd physically and mentally abuse her. Fortunately, there is a local person of color, Jumpin' and his wife, who help little Kya with food and clothing, and a local fisherman's son Tate teaches her to fish and navigate the swamp in an old boat, (he also teaches her to read), so Kya can sketch the wildlife and grow up in their family's tiny shack when her father abandons her as well. Here's the blurb: For years, rumors of the "Marsh Girl" have haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet town on the North Carolina coast. So in late 1969, when handsome Chase Andrews is found dead, the locals immediately suspect Kya Clark, the so-called Marsh Girl. But Kya is not what they say. Sensitive and intelligent, she has survived for years alone in the marsh that she calls home, finding friends in the gulls and lessons in the sand. Then the time comes when she yearns to be touched and loved. When two young men from town become intrigued by her wild beauty, Kya opens herself to a new life--until the unthinkable happens.

Perfect for fans of Barbara Kingsolver and Karen Russell, Where the Crawdads Sing is at once an exquisite ode to the natural world, a heartbreaking coming-of-age story, and a surprising tale of possible murder. Owens reminds us that we are forever shaped by the children we once were, and that we are all subject to the beautiful and violent secrets that nature keeps.

The latter part of the book is taken up with a "To Kill a Mockingbird" style trial, in which the local Southern prejudiced people try to hang a crime on the 'wild' child who was different enough to make them all uncomfortable, especially when the town football hero and rich asshat decides to lie to Kya and use her for sex while never intending to marry out of his social class. I won't spoil the little twist at the end, but I did see it coming a mile away. That said, though it was predictable, the prose was lush and gorgeously poetic while the plot marched along with grace and precision. I will admit that I cried at the end, and I would give the book an A, and recommend it to anyone who likes Southern fiction and To Kill A Mockingbird, or the stories of Flannery O'Connor. 

Harmony by Lillith Saintcrow is a stand alone book that is something of a departure for the author of urban paranormal fantasy and steampunk fantasy novels (all of which I have read and loved). Harmony tells the story of a teenage girl and her father who are  grieving the loss of Val's mother and struggling to get by when they become involved with a strange religious cult outside of town. Here's the blurb: After an accident claims her unconventional mother, Val Smith has to live with her boring, reliable father. Grief and change aren't good for anyone, but Val and her dad are doing okay--until they visit a place like paradise. Harmony Home is safe, secure, and secluded, a place where where everyone belongs to everyone else. For a commune it's pretty okay, at least at first. There are strange things--the metal boxes in the clearing, the Red House where secrets are kept, and little Sarah, who pushes buttons inside people to "make them glow." Val and her dad are honored, temporary guests, at least at first, and it's exciting to be special, to be chosen. By the time Val's uneasy, it's too late. Even heaven can be a trap, and Val's going to need all her new talents to break free...

Warning, SPOILERS follow! Though I was glad that Val finally woke up and realized that the cult leader was insane, she did so too late to save her dad, and ends up on the lamb with her boyfriend Owen and his little sister Sarah and the evil Clover, (the cult leaders second in command) who beguiled her father and got them mixed up in the cult in the first place! While Clover appears to care for Val and the other two "talented" healer children, I wouldn't trust her as far as I could throw her, as she seemed perfectly okay with allowing the evil cult leader to lock Val up against her will and kill her father in hopes of forcing Val to resurrect him with her powers. If I were Val, I would be looking or ways to get away from the mind control and manipulation that Clover metes out throughout the novel. But all we know at the end is that Clover is driving them away from Harmony home that is burning to the ground. While I enjoyed the paranormal fantasy aspect of this book, as well as Saintcrow's sterling prose and lightening fast plots, the creep cult thing nearly put me off the whole book halfway through. Still, I'd give it a B+, and recommend it to anyone who likes books like Stephen King's Carrie. 

Hold Me Closer Necromancer by Lish McBride is dark urban fantasy that veers close to horror, but manages to keep within Shadowhunter (The Mortal Instruments, Cassandra Clare), territory, thankfully. Though I found the book hard to get into at first, mainly because the main characters are idiot slacker skateboarder guys who work at a fast food restaurant together and have little or no ambition. These kinds of guys are not my speed, so I got fairly impatient with them at first. Fortunately it's discovered that the protagonist, Sam (short for Samhain, because his mother is a witch) is actually a necromancer whose powers have been blocked since he was a child, and he's now being incarcerated and abused by another powerful adult necromancer named Douglas. Here's the blurb:

Sam leads a pretty normal life. He may not have the most exciting job in the world, but he's doing all right―until a fast food prank brings him to the attention of Douglas, a creepy guy with an intense violent streak.
Turns out Douglas is a necromancer who raises the dead for cash and sees potential in Sam. Then Sam discovers he's a necromancer too, but with strangely latent powers. And his worst nightmare wants to join forces . . . or else.
With only a week to figure things out, Sam needs all the help he can get. Luckily he lives in Seattle, which has nearly as many paranormal types as it does coffee places. But even with newfound friends, will Sam be able to save his skin?

First of all, if you can read the title of this book and not start singing choruses of Elton John's "(Hold Me Closer)Tiny Dancer," you are a better person than I. I kept hearing that song on an endless loop in my head during the entire novel. I did find the sexist trope of the protagonist guy having sex with his fellow incarcerated person, a fae hybrid werewolf, and then saving her, (with the help of her big bad brother werewolves, of course) to be ridiculous and annoying. But that said, it was good to see that all the slacker guys were there in force to try and help their best friend fight for his life. What I didn't understand was how his mother could block his powers, only tell him about them when she's confronted by her son, and then do NOTHING to help keep him safe from the big bad sociopathic necromancer Douglas. Seriously? WORST mom ever. The very least she could have done was to unbind him so he'd have a fighting chance BEFORE he was abducted by Douglas. Of course, Sam's father is also an asshat who denies he's Sam's father and refuses to believe he has passed on the necromancer genes to his two daughters, Sam's stepsisters.I did like that the book was set in Seattle and surrounding areas, and that the prose is witty, cynical and very readable, with a plot that moves fast once you get beyond the first couple of chapters. I'd give this novel a B,and recommend it to anyone who likes dark urban fantasy with a sense of humor. Fans of Lilith Saintcrow and Bill and Teds Excellent Adventure will really appreciate this goofy fantasy.