Nevermore: Strawberry Girl, Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires, Unlikely Thru-Hiker

 

Nevermore 5-5-26                Reported by Rita

 

Strawberry Girl by Lois Lenski

The land was theirs, but so were its hardships. Strawberries - big, ripe, and juicy. Ten-year-old Birdie Boyer can hardly wait to start picking them. But her family has just moved to the Florida backwoods, and they haven't even begun their planting. Don't count your biddies 'fore they're hatched, gal young un! her father tells her. Making the new farm prosper is not easy. There is heat to suffer through, and droughts, and cold snaps. And, perhaps most worrisome of all for the Boyers, there are rowdy neighbors, just itching to start a feud.

Slightly weird, but fascinating.     -AH     5 stars 

 

The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix

Fried Green Tomatoes and Steel Magnolias meet Dracula in this Southern-flavored supernatural thriller set in the '90s about a women's book club that must protect its suburban community from a mysterious and handsome stranger who turns out to be a blood-sucking fiend.

Funny at times - it was pretty good.       -MH     4 stars

 

The Unlikely Thru-Hiker: An Appalachian Trail Journey by Derick Lugo

Derick Lugo had never been hiking. He didn't even know if he liked being outside all that much. He certainly couldn't imagine going more than a day without manicuring his goatee. But with a job overseas cut short and no immediate plans, this fixture of the greater New York comedy circuit began to think about what he might do with months of free time and no commitments. He had heard of the Appalachian Trail and knew of its potential for danger and adventure, but he had never seriously considered attempting to hike all 2,190 miles of it. Until that summer left him with a wide-open schedule and a burning curiosity to know: Could he do it? The Unlikely Thru-Hiker is the story of how a young black man from the city, unfamiliar with both the outdoors and thru-hiking culture, sets off with an extremely overweight pack and a willfully can-do attitude to conquer the infamous trail. What follows are lessons on preparation, humility, and nature's wild unpredictability. But this isn't a hard-nosed memoir of discouragement. What sets Lugo apart from the typical walk in the woods is his refusal to let any challenge squash his inner Pollyanna. Through it all, Lugo perseveres with humor, tenacity, and an unshakeable commitment to grooming--earning him the trail name "Mr. Fabulous"--that sees him from Springer Mountain in Georgia to Katahdin in Maine.

 

I thought this was sweet, and I appreciate how respectful the author is of the region. It's a great book.      -HM       5 stars

 

 

Other Books Mentioned

 

The Book of Vice by Peter Sagel

The Edge of Nowhere by William Johnstone

The Aviator's Wife by Melanie Benjamin

Tom Paine's War by Jack Kelly

Brooklyn by Colm Tobin

The Patron Saint of Lost Dogs by Nick Trout

How the Heather Looks: A Joyous Journey to the British Sources of Children's Books by Joan Bodger

A Short History of Ancient Rome: Experience the Daily Life and Dramatic Conquests of the Roman Empire by Pascal Hughes

 

 

New Books

 

Death in the Palace by Barbara Hambly

The Widow Hamilton by Mollie Ann Cox

Starry and Restless by Julia Cooke

Murder Mindfully by Karsten Dusse

North of Ordinary by Sue Aikens

You Only Live Nine Times by Gwen Cooper

Why I Love Horror: Essays on Horror Literature edited by Becky Siegel Spratford

Reviewed by Jeanne

I am not really much of a horror reader.  I am definitely not a horror movie fan.  I will read and watch atmospheric things, like Something Wicked This Way Comes (both book and movie) or We Have Always Lived in the Castle. But when Halloween rolls around, I find myself wanting to read something a bit spooky. That’s why this book caught my eye. With horror being such a popular genre, I’m interested in why people want to write horror, and why people want to read it. This book has a lot of answers to that question.

Editor Spratford brought together nineteen contemporary horror writers and let them write a personal essay on what moves them to write this genre.  These are the newer authors; don’t expect Stephen King, Dean Koontz, F. Paul Wilson, or any of the long-established writers.  Even so, there were many names I knew, including Grady Hendrix, Alma Katsu, Tananarive Due, Jennifer McMahon, and Stephen Graham Jones. Some I didn’t, but all had interesting things to say. Many wrote to make sense of the world, often in response to childhood trauma; others wrote about the influences that led them to write horror, such as a particular movie or book.  Some speculated on the purpose horror plays in our lives and why people are drawn to it as a genre. 

I enjoyed the different ways the authors approached the question, and the different writing styles. Most of all, I enjoyed learning about some of the new authors.  Reading the essays of the ones I knew gave me some insight into their books; the others either sounded intriguing or else let me know that we weren’t on the same page (no pun intended.)  

I found this to be an interesting and entertaining read.  I will say that Grady Hendrix’s story raised a few hairs on the back of my head, too.

New in January!

Winter may bring on the blues, but things are starting to look up. Not only are we starting to gain about a minute of daylight per day, but there are new books to start the new year.  Here are some of the titles people are looking forward to with anticipation:

The Mitford Affair by Marie Benedict

Benedict is known for her fiction about women who may not have gotten their due, including chemist Rosalind Franklin (Her Hidden Genius), physicist Mileva Einstein, wife of Albert, (The Other Einstein), and Hedy Lamar, the beautiful actress who was also a scientist (The Only Woman in the Room). In January she takes on the Mitford sisters in The Mitford Affair. Stylish, charming, and well-connected, the sisters became entangled in the politics of the 1930s with sometimes devastating consequences. The Mitfords have continued to fascinate for decades. They’ve even been used as fictional detectives. 

The Mitford Secret by Jessica Fellowes

This is the sixth and final book in the mystery series that uses the six Mitford sisters as characters. The series starts in the 1920s with The Mitford Murders, set in the Golden Age of mysteries.  Fellowes is the niece of Julian Fellowes, creator of Downton Abbey, and knows the time period well.

Code 6 by James Grippando

Well known for his page turning thrillers, Grippando’s newest book features Kate Gamble, daughter of the owner of Buck Technologies. Her father’s work includes data integration that is used by the CIA and other counter-terrorism agencies. When someone Kate cares about is kidnapped, the ransom demand is for some of her father’s most secret technology.

How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix

Hendrix is one of the hot names in horror, with best-selling books like The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires and The Final Girl Support Group. The advance reviews on this one indicate that he breathes new life (pun intended, alas!) into the haunted house trope.

 

The Villa by Rachel Hawkins

Lifelong friends Emily and Chess decide a girls vacation in Italy is just the thing for them to relax and reconnect.  They’re staying at a luxury villa with a somewhat checkered past: it was where a great horror novel was written, a best-selling record album created, and the site of a brutal murder—all in the same year. Hawkins is also the author of The Wife Upstairs and Reckless Girls.

Other books coming out in January:

Hunter, Stephen  The Bullet Garden (Earl Swagger)

Koontz, Dean The House at the End of the World

Krentz, Jayne Ann Sleep No More

Kubica, Mary  Just the Nicest Couple

Patterson, James  Countdown

Patterson, James House of Wolves

Perry, Thomas  Murder Book

Preston & Child, The Cabinet of Dr. Leng

Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex  Spare

Steel, Danielle  Without a Trace

Taylor, Brad  The Devil’s Ransom (Pike Logan)

Nevermore: Blessings, Final Girl Support Group, Man Named Doll, Dude?

 

 Reported by Garry

Blessings by Anna Quindlen was our first book reviewed this week.  A baby is left at the doorstep of the estate of the elderly Lydia Blessing late one night.  The arrival of the baby sets off a series of events in the household that reveal long-hidden secrets and tragedies of past and present, as well as redemption and healing.  Our reader said that this novel, set in modern times, was a great book and that she could hardly put it down.

 

The Final Girl Support Group by Grady Hendrix was our irreverent second novel reviewed this week.  Hendrix, who also wrote the Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires and My Best Friend’s Exorcism brings his sense of wit and horror to a story about Lynnette Tarkington, a young woman who has survived a massacre.  She meets weekly with other survivors who are trying to put their lives back together – until one goes missing.  Our reader said that this book was laugh-out-loud funny in places and nail-bitingly scary in others.  If you like to read books that have a strong nostalgia streak to them, but don’t take themselves too seriously, this may be a great choice!

 

A Man Named Doll by Jonathan Ames introduces us to Happy Doll, a retired Navy Seal/LAPD officer turned part-time private eye/part time security guard at a Thai massage spa.  Happy, who prefers to go by “Hank,” is  charming but somewhat inept and has a tendency to act first and ask questions later.  This leads to trouble when one of the spa customers gets out of control and Happy intervenes with disastrous results that simply lead to more disasters. 

 

Dude? Where’s My Walking Stick? is a memoir by Kevin Moore, recounting his trek across 1300 miles of  the Southern Alps – a formidable set of mountains on the southern island of New Zealand.  Unprepared and over-confident, Moore spent 69 days on the trail, traversing streams, valleys, mountains and fields, and making life-long friends along the way.  Our reader loved this book about hiking the beauty of New Zealand and finding one’s self on the journey.

 

Also mentioned:

When I Fell from the Sky by Julianne Koepcke

Night Fall by Nelson DeMille

Complete Idiot’s Guide to Zen Living by Gary McClain and Eve Adamson

The Four Tendencies by Gretchen Rubin

Cashelmara by Susan Howatch

The Angel Makers by Jessica Gregson

Buttons and Blows by Gayle Leeson

Kill the Queen by Jennifer Estep

Heart of Joy:  The Transforming Power of Self-Giving by Mother Theresa and Jose Luis Gonzalez-Balado

The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame

Bring Your Baggage, and Don’t Pack Light by Hellen Ellis

The Flatshare by Beth O’Leary

Crooked Hallelujah by Kelli Jo Ford

Radar Girls by Sara Akerman

Forest of Vanishing Stars by Kristin Harmel