Are you guys reading anything spooky for October? We are going to have really bad weather here today, and it's supposed to cool things down a bit. I'm hoping it will feel a bit like fall this month. I'm having to read all of the spooky things while it feels like summer out.
In case you missed it last week, I posted my review of Gone Girl.
I'm in the middle of a couple of anthologies: Widowmakers and Vampires Don't Sparkle. I'm also reading Kendare Blake's Girl of Nightmares.
I'm not sure what I have lined up next. I've been in a pretty weird reading mood lately.
I'd love to hear what you're reading this week. Be sure to let me know in the comments or leave me a link!
This post is being shared as part of Book Journey's It's Monday! What Are You Reading?
Monday, October 13, 2014
Tuesday, October 7, 2014
Book Review | Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

Gone Girl is a mystery novel from Gillian Flynn.
Book DescriptionOn a warm summer morning in North Carthage, Missouri, it is Nick and Amy Dunne’s fifth wedding anniversary. Presents are being wrapped and reservations are being made when Nick’s clever and beautiful wife disappears. Husband-of-the-Year Nick isn’t doing himself any favors with cringe-worthy daydreams about the slope and shape of his wife’s head, but passages from Amy's diary reveal the alpha-girl perfectionist could have put anyone dangerously on edge. Under mounting pressure from the police and the media—as well as Amy’s fiercely doting parents—the town golden boy parades an endless series of lies, deceits, and inappropriate behavior. Nick is oddly evasive, and he’s definitely bitter—but is he really a killer?
I'm not sure I've had another reading experience quite like this book.
On one hand, I hated the characters. All of them. The entire time. When I met Amy on the pages, I thought "Please let this be the girl who is gone".
On the other hand, I couldn't stop compulsively reading the thing. I've never been so glued to a book I hated so much.
Gillian Flynn is a fantastic writer.
I've been going back and forth on how I want to rate Gone Girl, and the ending is my deciding factor. If the ending had lived up to my compulsive reading to get there, I'd be all over recommending this book to the page turning masses, but in the end I'm going with a solid 3 stars.
Gone Girl is a good pick if you are in the mood for some compulsive reading or have a deep love for twisty plots. It will keep you guessing (and guessing). You'll hate it, but you might also really love it.
6/10: Good Read

Labels:
6/10 Rating,
Book Reviews,
Gillian Flynn,
Mystery
Monday, October 6, 2014
October 6 | Currently Reading
October! I kicked off October with a review of The Shunned House. It's a perfect book for October. I also posted my September wrap up and the books that made it on to my wishlist last week.
After reading The Shunned House, I started reading Gone Girl. I am almost to the very end. This is one messed up book! I also started reading Widowmakers which is great so far.
I'm not sure what I'm going to read next. I'm thinking I might finally pick up Girl of Nightmares. We'll see.
I'd love to hear what you're reading this week. Be sure to let me know in the comments or leave me a link!
This post is being shared as part of Book Journey's It's Monday! What Are You Reading?
After reading The Shunned House, I started reading Gone Girl. I am almost to the very end. This is one messed up book! I also started reading Widowmakers which is great so far.
I'm not sure what I'm going to read next. I'm thinking I might finally pick up Girl of Nightmares. We'll see.
I'd love to hear what you're reading this week. Be sure to let me know in the comments or leave me a link!
This post is being shared as part of Book Journey's It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

Labels:
Currently Reading
Thursday, October 2, 2014
Book Review | The Shunned House by H.P. Lovecraft

The Shunned House is a novella from H.P. Lovecraft.
Book Description
Most of them died! Almost all who lived in that house passed away after becoming sick. This has been going for over one hundred years. Dr. Whipple decided to find out why and spend a night with his uncle in that house. What will happen is left up for you to explore and enjoy the story of this house, the shunned house!
If you are looking for a book to read this October, The Shunned House is an excellent choice. I could not have kicked off this month any better.
"We never - even in our wildest Halloween moods - visited this cellar by night."
The Shunned House is a house on Benefit Street where a large number of people passed away. Due to the smells, the humid environment, and the amount of fungus present in the house, it was declared to simply have "unhealthy" conditions. At worst, the house was deemed "unlucky". No one (with the exception of the narrator's uncle) suspected anything supernatural was going on.
Once the narrator learned of his uncle's suspicions, they decided to investigate the house.
I really, really enjoyed The Shunned House. I could read spooky house stories all day, every day, but there were some great stand out moments that will stick with me.
If you love literary horror and you haven't read this yet, put The Shunned House on your list. It's one you will want to read. At 48 pages, it also makes a great atmospheric read for those who are just looking to up their spookiness level around Halloween.
8/10: Great Read

Labels:
8/10 Rating,
Book Reviews,
H.P. Lovecraft,
Horror
Wednesday, October 1, 2014
On My Wishlist {5}

These are all of the books that made it on to my wishlist this week:
Widowmakers: An Anthology of Dark Fiction edited by Pete Kahle
widowmaker [wid-oh-may-ker]
noun
1. A thing with the potential to kill men.
2. A dead branch caught precariously high in a tree which may fall on a person below.
3. A dark fiction anthology of prodigious size; large enough to use as a doorstop... or crush a man's skull.
A few months ago one of our own, James Newman, was severely injured in a freak accident. He's known universally in the horror fiction community as a truly great guy, and, when the news broke of the incident there was no shortage of people who wanted to help. Inside the pages of this collection, you will find tales that are lighthearted mixed in with stories that will fuel your nightmares, each one with the potential to be a WIDOWMAKER.
The following 47 fellow authors and poets have contributed their words to this benefit anthology and 100% of the proceeds will go to help the Newman family. Enjoy this massive collection and thank you for your aid.
(You can see the impressive list of authors here.) This time of year is perfect for horror anthologies. I plan to read Widowmakers throughout the month of October.
Hunting Monsters by S.L. Huang
“Happy birthday, child. Careful not to shoot any grundwirgen.”
Ever since she was a small girl, she has learned to be careful on the hunt, to recognize the signs that separate regular animals from human-cursed grundwirgen. To harm a grundwirgen is a crime punishable by death by the King's decree - a fatal mistake that her Auntie Rosa and mother have carefully prepared her to avoid.
On her fifteenth birthday, when her mother is arrested and made to stand trial for grundwirgen murder, everything she thought she knew about her family and her past comes crashing down.
Auntie Rosa has always warned her about monsters. Now, she must find and confront them to save her mother, no matter the cost.
This is the first short story being published by The Book Smugglers. I can't wait to check it out.
Wayfaring Stranger by James Lee Burke
From “America’s best novelist” (The Denver Post): A sprawling thriller drenched with atmosphere and intrigue that takes a young boy from a chance encounter with Bonnie and Clyde to the trenches of World War II and the oil fields along the Texas-Louisiana coast.
It is 1934 and the Depression is bearing down when sixteen-year-old Weldon Avery Holland happens upon infamous criminals Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow after one of their notorious armed robberies. A confrontation with the outlaws ends as Weldon puts a bullet through the rear window of Clyde’s stolen automobile.
Ten years later, Second Lieutenant Weldon Holland and his sergeant, Hershel Pine, escape certain death in the Battle of the Bulge and encounter a beautiful young woman named Rosita Lowenstein hiding in a deserted extermination camp. Eventually, Weldon and Rosita fall in love and marry and, with Hershel, return to Texas to seek their fortunes.
There, they enter the domain of jackals known as the oil business. They meet Roy Wiseheart—a former Marine aviator haunted with guilt for deserting his squadron leader over the South Pacific—and Roy’s wife Clara, a vicious anti-Semite who is determined to make Weldon and Rosita’s life a nightmare. It will be the frontier justice upheld by Weldon’s grandfather, Texas lawman Hackberry Holland, and the legendary antics of Bonnie and Clyde that shape Weldon’s plans for saving his family from the evil forces that lurk in peacetime America and threaten to destroy them all.
Burke is making it onto my wishlist a lot lately. The reviews for this are great, and frankly I'm drawn to books that are set in my backyard.
One Pot: 120+ Easy Meals from Your Skillet, Slow Cooker, Stockpot, and More by Martha Stewart
The editors of Martha Stewart Living take 30-minute meals and everyday food to the next level with one-pot meals; more than 120 innovative, comfort-food recipes make use of just a pot, a sheet pan, a skillet, a slow cooker, or a pressure cooker for meals that are delicious, satisfying, and quick to clean up, too.
MSLO's latest cookbook features something everyone wants more of: all-in-one meals. Packed with 120 gorgeous images and recipes for one-pot wonders (including their food hack for One-Pan Pasta that went viral over the summer), this cookbook helps you get in and out of the kitchen with only one vessel to clean. From chicken and vegetables that roast on the same sheet pan to skillet lasagna, baked risotto, soups, and down-home casseroles, this is the volume that gives you the biggest flavor payoff with the smallest efforts. Here, too, are a dozen recipes for one-bowl desserts that can be ready when you are.
A girl's gotta eat!
The Rule Of Thoughts (The Mortality Doctrine #2) by James Dashner
From the New York Times bestselling author of the Maze Runner series comes The Rule of Thoughts, the exciting sequel to The Eye of Minds. Fans of the Divergent series by Veronica Roth and The Hunger Games will love the new Mortality Doctrine series.
Michael completed the Path. What he found at the end turned everything he'd ever known about his life completely upside down.
He barely survived. But it was the only way VirtNet Security could track down the cyber-terrorist Kaine - and to make the Sleep safe for gamers once again. And, the truth Michael discovered about Kaine is more terrifying than even the worst of their fears.
Kaine is a tangent, a computer program that has become sentient (come alive?). And Michael's completing the Path was the first stage in turning Kaine's master plan, the Mortality Doctrine, into a reality.
And the takeover has already begun.
I had no idea this book was released until I came across it on Goodreads yesterday. I really enjoyed the first book in this series. It reminded me of Ready Player One.
The Black by Paul Elard Cooley
Under 30,000 feet of water, the exploration rig Leaguer has discovered an oil field larger than Saudi Arabia, with oil so sweet and pure, nations would go to war for the rights to it. But as the team starts drilling exploration well after exploration well in their race to claim the sweet crude, a deep rumbling beneath the ocean floor shakes them all to their core. Something has been living in the oil and it's about to give birth to the greatest threat humanity has ever seen.
"The Black" is a techno/horror-thriller that puts the horror and action of movies such as Leviathan and The Thing right into readers' hands. Ocean exploration will never be the same."
UNDERWATER HORROR! My wishlist is so happy lately! The Black sounds down right PERFECT. I need this book. Now.
Are any of these books on your wishlist? Have you read them? I'd love to hear your thoughts and/or recommendations.

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Wishlist
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