Review: Welcome to Night Vale - Jeffrey Cranor and Joseph Fink

'People are beautiful when they do beautiful things.'

Title: Welcome to Night Vale

Author: Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor

ISBN: 9780062351425

Publication Date: October 20, 2015

Publisher: Harper Perennial

Source: publisher

From Goodreads:

Located in a nameless desert somewhere in the great American Southwest, Night Vale is a small town where ghosts, angels, aliens, and government conspiracies are all commonplace parts of everyday life. It is here that the lives of two women, with two mysteries, will converge.

Nineteen-year-old Night Vale pawn shop owner Jackie Fierro is given a paper marked "King City" by a mysterious man in a tan jacket holding a deer skin suitcase. Everything about him and his paper unsettles her, especially the fact that she can't seem to get the paper to leave her hand, and that no one who meets this man can remember anything about him. Jackie is determined to uncover the mystery of King City and the man in the tan jacket before she herself unravels.

Night Vale PTA treasurer Diane Crayton's son, Josh, is moody and also a shape shifter. And lately Diane's started to see her son's father everywhere she goes, looking the same as the day he left years earlier, when they were both teenagers. Josh, looking different every time Diane sees him, shows a stronger and stronger interest in his estranged father, leading to a disaster Diane can see coming, even as she is helpless to prevent it.

Review: Prisoner of Love - Cathy Skendrovich

'The gun bounced so much in her shaky grasp that if she did fire, he'd likely be the one to catch the bullet.'

Title: Prisoner of Love

Author: Cathy Skendrovich

ISBN: 9781633754119

Publication Date: October 19, 2015

Publisher: Entangled Publishing

Source: NetGalley

It was supposed to be a girls-only weekend in the California mountains. But when Lucy Parker is carjacked by an escaped prisoner, her fun weekend takes a nighmarish turn. Now she's caught up in a dangerous world of stolen money, vicious drug dealers, and murder, and the only thing keeping her alive is her oh-so-hot captor.

Imprisoned for a crime he didn't commit, undercover cop Jake Dalton wants answers-now. Worse, he's dragged Lucy into the mix, and she's now guilty by association. With their lives on the line, the race is on to get to Las Vegas before they're killed...and they're running out of time.

Review: Breath - Jean Lowe Carlson

Title: Breath 

Author: Jean Lowe Carlson

Series: Three Days of Oblenite #1

Release Date: 23 March 2013

Goodreads | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Smashwords 

Summary:

Gryffine Toulunnet is cursed to steal life with her kiss. Repressed and miserable, she is free of her curse but once a year, upon the heady death-festival of Rollows. Until her curse marks dashing barman Jessup Rohalle as her soulmate in a single night of passion. Destined to meet again, Jessup finds Gryffine and opens her restricted life into pleasure, causing Gryffine to fight her curse's isolation. But Gryffine's dark draw to kill is shared by another, a man bitterly cursed like she, a secret that Jessup can never know. And only her dark lover understands her suffering.

Potential Triggers: Menage a trois, murder

Review: Choose Your Own Autobiography - Neil Patrick Harris

'The last thing you see is Joss Whedon running to you wailing, "No, Neil!  Not before we shoot Dr. Horrible 2:  The Desolation of Moist!"'

Title: Choose Your Own Autobiography

Author: Neil Patrick Harris

ISBN: 9780385347013

Publication Date: October 14, 2014

Publisher: Three Rivers Press

Source: Blogging For Books

From Goodreads:

Seeking an exciting read that puts the “u” back in “aUtobiography”?  Look no further than Neil Patrick Harris: Choose Your Own Autobiography! In this entertaining and innovative memoir, Neil Patrick Harris shares intimate and hilarious stories about everything from his early days in LA, life on the How I Met Your Mother set, secrets from backstage at award shows, and family life with David, Harper, and Gideon.  In a fresh spin on the typical celebrity narrative, he lets you, the reader, choose which path you want him to follow.  All this plus magic tricks, cocktail recipes, embarrassing pictures from his time as a child actor, and even a closing song!

Review: The Flux - Ferrett Steinmetz

"Maybe we do need to kill people.  Do you want to be the person who does that?"

Title: The Flux

Author: Ferrett Steinmetz

ISBN: 9780857664631

Publication Date: October 6, 2015

Publisher: Angry Robot

Source: NetGalley

Love something enough, and your obsession will punch holes through the laws of physics.  That devotion creates a myriad of unique magics: videogamemancers, culinomancers, bureaucromancers.

But when 'mancers battle, cities tremble...

Review: Dear Mister Essay Writer Guy - Dinty W. Moore

"When you are not writing, be thoroughly not writing; when you are writing, be writing through and through."

Title: Dear Mister Essay Writer Guy

Author: Dinty W Moore

ISBN: 978160774809

Publication Date: August 18, 2015

Publisher: Ten Speed Press

Source: Blogging For Books

Wry and sarcastic, Dear Mister Essay Writer Guy is a delightful book to have on your shelf--even if you're not a writer.  Filled with questions about em-dashes, Facebook, Zebras, cocktail napkins, and polar bears, to name a few, Moore responds with essays in a myriad of forms, which will delight readers.

I really enjoyed the blend of humor and helpful that Moore employed throughout his answers.  Even his illustrations sprinkled throughout the book tie into the questions he's asked to answer; polar bears included.

As a writer myself, even though I write fiction primarily, I found myself giggling as I read through the different responses to the questions provided by some of today's top contemporary essayists.  Definitely a fun gift idea for the writer in your circle.

-Book provided by Blogging For Books, in exchange for a review

Review: The Girl with All the Gifts - M.R. Carey

"I'm coming back.  I'll take care of you."

Title: The Girl With All the Gifts

Author: M.R. Carey

ISBN: 9780356500157

Publication Date: June 19, 2014

Publisher: Orbit

Source: Purchased

Every morning, a girl waits in her cell for the men with guns to arrive and strap her into a wheelchair.  After she's strapped down, unable to move, she's brought to a classroom filled with other children strapped into chairs.  The girl jokes that she won't bite, thinking the men with the guns don't like her; but they don't laugh.

Review: The Night Circus - Erin Morgenstern

"The circus arrives without warning."

Title: The Night Circus

Author: Erin Morgenstern

ISBN: 9780385534635

Publication Date: September 13, 2011

Publisher: Doubleday

Source: ARC from publisher

With those few words you are welcomed to Le Cirque des Reves, The Circus of Dreams; and circus of dreams it is, though the title barely does justice to this compelling debut novel.

Set within the turn of the nineteenth century, The Night Circus follows an ethereal circus of black-and-white striped tents as it tours the world. Twisted within the acrobats, contortionists, carousel, and Ice Garden are two young illusionists bound to one another in a contest that neither knows the rules to.