Friday Face Off (2) - Summer

So I'm back with another round of Friday Face Off, hosted by Books by Proxy  This week is summer themed and I'm probably pushing the limits of interpretation but here it goes!

Summer Solstice – the longest day of the year – Pagan rituals/standing stones/blazing suns – a cover with your own interpretation

1. English - Random House (2005)

2.  English - Ballantine Books (2013)

3.  English - Doubleday Books (1974)

4.  Portuguese - Darkside Books (2015)

5.  Spanish - Circulo de Lectores (1974)

6. Arabic (1973)

When I think of summer, I tend to think of beaches and sharks.  This remains one of my favorite movies and even though I've not read the book, I do own a copy.  I think my favorite is #2 which is the one I bought a few years back.  I'm not sure about #3.  It really doesn't look like a shark to me and #4 is just terrifying.

What's your favorite and what do you think of when it comes to summer?

2 Bloggers 1 Series - Discovery of Witches (aka - Stormi Made Me Do It!)

I'm not entirely sure how this SECOND series buddy read came about. I think Stormi and I were talking about the TV series - how much she loved it and how I wanted to watch it but always wanted to read the books first.  I said I even owned the first and she said she read it some time ago but wanted to reread it now.  And thus, the buddy read of the All Souls Trilogy was born.  Don't fret, we haven't abandoned Kate Daniels, that's still going on as well.  So read on to see what I thought of the first book in the series and then then hop over to Stormi's at  Books, Movies, Reviews! Oh My! and read her opinion.

TITLE: A Discovery of Witches (All Souls Trilogy #1)

AUTHOR: Deborah Harkness 

PUBLISHER: Viking Penguin

PUBLISHING DATE: February 2011

FROM GOODREADS: Deep in the stacks of Oxford's Bodleian Library, young scholar Diana Bishop unwittingly calls up a bewitched alchemical manuscript in the course of her research. Descended from an old and distinguished line of witches, Diana wants nothing to do with sorcery; so after a furtive glance and a few notes, she banishes the book to the stacks. But her discovery sets a fantastical underworld stirring, and a horde of daemons, witches, and vampires soon descends upon the library. Diana has stumbled upon a coveted treasure lost for centuries-and she is the only creature who can break its spell. 

MY THOUGHTS: I am really so glad that I picked this up.  I had considered it forever but it was really Stormi's excitement over the series that I found contagious which prompted me to move on.  "A Discovery of Witches" kind of read like a historical fiction to me when it really wasn't.  However, it is laced with academics and historical talks and events so I guess my feelings were understandable.  Diana Bishop comes from a long line of witches.  She has made a life for herself as a college professor in alchemy and eschewed all witchcraft except in dire circumstances, such as an overflowing washing machine, because she wanted to make it on her own accord.  Also, her parents, powerful witches in their own right, were brutally killed when she was very young.

One day, while preparing for a lecture in Oxford, she is able to access a bespelled ancient manuscript.  She doesn't realize it as first but soon she has captured the attention of numerous, witches, vampires and daemons.  Before long Diana runs into Matthew Clermont, an ancient vampire, who vows to help Diana but also falls for her in the process.  Together they try to piece together what is going on while staying alive.

"A Discovery of Witches" is full on complex characters, some are wonderful, some are downright awful, and a lot are morally grey.  However, it was so interesting to get to know them and learn about their histories and what "makes them tick."  I liked Matthew right away and was slow to warm to Diana, but I eventually did.  I also disliked Matthew's mother Ysabeau tremendously but even she turned that around and by the end, I had started liking her too.  Some of the best characters are the side characters - Marthe the housekeeper, Marcus, Matthew's son, and Em and Sarah, Diana's aunts.  To be honest, I would tell people to read the book so they can get a good taste of Em and Sarah's home - that alone is worth the price of reading this one.

So overall you could say I really enjoyed this book.  It did kind of lag in the beginning but that is probably to be expected with a book of over 570 pages. There is a lot to set up in this world.  There is quite a bit of romance but it's not over-the-top or thrown in your face.  And while I honestly thought I was through with romantic vampires, this book changed my mind.  Perhaps because Matthew is so complex and because even though he can be quite romantic, he doesn't hide that he is a vampire by nature which means he sometimes does mean and ruthless things.

My copy of the next book in this series arrived earlier this week so I'm all set to continue on with our buddy read next month.  With how "A Discovery of Witches" ended, I'm very anxious to start "Shadow of Night."

RATING: 4 PAWS

COYER CHALLENGE UPDATE:  Read an entire series (book 1 of 3)

Can't Wait Wednesday (215)

Can't Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted at Wishful Endings to spotlight highly anticipated books.  It is based on the Waiting on Wednesday meme which used to be hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine.

FROM GOODREADS: A dinosaur detective in the land of unwanted ideas battles trauma, anxiety, and the first serial killer of imaginary friends.

Most ideas fade away when we're done with them. Some we love enough to become Real. But what about the ones we love, and walk away from? 

Tippy the triceratops was once a little girl's imaginary friend, a dinosaur detective who could help her make sense of the world. But when her father died, Tippy fell into the Stillreal, the underbelly of the Imagination, where discarded ideas go when they're too Real to disappear. Now, he passes time doing detective work for other unwanted ideas - until Tippy runs into The Man in the Coat, a nightmare monster who can do the impossible: kill an idea permanently. Now Tippy must overcome his own trauma and solve the case, before there's nothing left but imaginary corpses. 

WHY I CAN'T WAIT:  So you never know what book you'll find popping up each Wednesday right?  Sometimes you get mysteries, sometimes horror and sometimes dogs.  Well this time, you're getting something weird, which happens from time to time as well.  I just need to know more about this book and feel that the only way to do it is read it!  I may just fall in love with Tippy!

WHAT BOOK CAN'T YOU WAIT FOR THIS WEEK????

TTT - Most Anticipated Releases for 2019 (July - December)

The top 10 weekly meme used to be hosted by The Broke and the Bookish they  handed over the reins to ThatArtsyReaderGirl who can be found HERE.  Each week she will focus on lists which cover various topics related to books and reading.

This week's topic is anticipated releases for the 2nd half of the year.  Everyone likes to plan new reads so this should be fun.  It will also likely be dangerous to the TBR/Wishlist.

THE INSTITUTE - Stephen King (09-10-19)

🐾

FULL THROTTLE - Joe Hill (10-01-19)

🐾

THE BEAUTIFUL ONES - Prince (10-29-19)

🐾

MY NAME IS PRINCE - Randee St. Nicholas (10-15-19)

🐾

HEX LIFE  - Anthology (10-01-19)

🐾

THE REMAKING - Clay McLeod Chapman (10-08-19)

🐾

BLIND SEARCH (Mercy & Elvis #2) - Paula Munier (11-05-19)

🐾

THE TWISTED ONES - T. Kingfisher (10-01-19)

🐾

WORD TO THE WISE (Library Lovers #10) - Jenn McKinlay (09-03-19)

🐾

MISTLETOE - Alison Littlewood (11-14-19)

So I probably could have kept going but these are the ones that immediately jumped out at me.  King and Hill are auto-buys as are the Prince books.  

What made your list this week?

Chop Shop - Andrew Post (Blog Tour)

Once again I'm thrilled to be participating in a blog tour for one of Flame Tree Press's newest titles.  Read on to find out why I'll definitely be keeping an eye on Andrew Post in the future.

TITLE: Chop Shop

AUTHOR: Andrew Post

PUBLISHER: Flame Tree Press

PUBLISHING DATE: June 13, 2019

FROM GOODREADS: Frank Goode used to be a doctor, until he got caught selling prescription medication he stole from work. But once a sawbones always a sawbones, Frank now operates a back-alley surgery shop out of his living room pulling slugs out of wannabe gangsters and offering the local working girls discount STD testing. When a unsanctioned hit goes down in his home, Frank is left scrambling to both get rid of the corpse and invent a believable story for the dead enforcer's highly concerned (crime) family to explain the dead man's whereabouts. According to his friend and equipment supplier, Ted, getting rid of the body is no problem. Because Ted is affiliated with "the network," a group of human body part traffickers. Frank jumps at the chance to rid his house of the 185-pound piece of evidence, but that still doesn't explain to the Russian mob what happened to their buddy... Meanwhile, Amber Hawthorne and Jolene Morris, business partners and roommates at the Hawthorne Funeral Home, are drowning in debt. People are complaining about the makeup jobs they're giving deceased loved ones--the word clownish has been used--and both young women have a little trouble keeping their partying habits in line. When they start selling body parts on the black market to keep their business alive (Jolene much more reluctantly than Amber), their new buyers seem friendly and trustworthy enough at first. That is until the dead gangster they've recently parted up turns out to have been full of disease. Now Amber and Jolene's buyers want something else to make up for lost profits, leaving the two undertakers to learn sometimes running a business can cost an arm and a leg. 

MY THOUGHTS: When I first started reading "Chop Shop," I had no idea what was waiting for me. What I discovered was fast-paced thriller that leaves the reader little time to breath before the next big thing happens.

Frank Goode runs an emergency room for questionable characters from his dining room after losing his medical license and going to prison for his illegal activities in a Minnesota clinic.  One night Frank helps a young lady associated with a local crime organization, and has no idea how much he'll come to regret that decision.  Along the way Frank receives help from Ted, a childhood friend who also may be in over his head and best friends, Amber and Jolene, who run the local funeral home.  Before long, Amber and Jolene are mixed up in selling red-market body parts and Frank ends up being the one client they may wish had never knocked on their door.

I actually found the characters in "Chop Shop" pretty likable despite their lack of morality.  Post did a wonderful job making them highly flawed, but despite their flaws, I never felt the three of them were irredeemable.  Jolene and Amber went to college together and I believe their friendship is one of the biggest strengths in the whole novel.  Although down on their luck and cutting up a dead mobster in their basement, I was still cheering for them to come out on top.  So while "Chop Shop" is full of action, I actually think I enjoyed getting to know the characters more.

Now speaking of action, there is a ton of it within this novel's pages.  Two Minnesota crime families are at war and the causalities are high.  This book is not for the squeamish.  But it is for people who enjoy mobster movies and classics such as "Scarface" and "Goodfellows."  I have a soft spot for mobster movies which is perhaps one reason why this book was such a good fit for me.  "Chop Shop" is classified as horror but there is nothing supernatural here.  Post paints of vivid and mesmerizing picture of the most horrific thing out there - humans.

RATING: 5 PAWS

Andrew Post was born in Erie, Pennsylvania(imagine Eraserhead but in color). While he was honing his craft as a writer (those early stories were awful) he worked in a gift shop in one of the scuzziest hotels in the Midwest, he cleaned rental cars (also gross), he was a butcher (despite being a vegetarian),and in 2013 his first novel, the cyberpunk thriller, Knuckleduster, was published. No one really seemed to care much but he kept at it and has since published a handful of other works to varying degrees of resulting public interest with a few seeing translations and one almost became a movie (that lit agent has since been fired). 

For Chop Shop, Andrew was inspired by the (early) films of Quentin Tarantino, Guy Ritchie,and Martin Scorsese, as well as the deliberately over the-top horror films of the 80s like Peter Jackson's Braindead. That was the goal with Chop Shop: a comedic crime caper with buckets of gore.

 Andrew lives in a sleepy river town in Minnesota where he may or may not be planning aquatic "accidents"to befall the many othe rauthors who live in the area and he has been mistaken for Rob Zombie on no less than ten separate occasions. 

COYER CHALLENGE:  Read a book with no magical or futuristic elements.

What's Happening...(06-15-19)

So I'm doing things a tad bit differently this year and will be combining all of my regular weekend posts.  This will enable me to add more content on Fridays and it is just starting to make more sense.  I'll still be linking up with Stacking the Shelves at Tynga's Reviews and Sunday Post at Caffeinated Reviewer.  Both blogs are awesome so make sure you check them out.

So I'm happy to say that this past week was much quieter than the one before. Here's hoping it stays that way!  Mr. Barb and Cass are doing fine.  I need to start taking Cass on longer walks because I've noticed him getting bored more often so I pledge to do that this weekend.  He ended up breaking my heart Saturday night.  We still have Booker's bed, blanket and favorite stuffed animals in the bedroom in a corner.  Saturday I went to bed before Mr. Mike and was reading.  Cass was on the bed but all of a sudden he jumped down, went and grabbed Booker's moose, brought it back up on the bed, curled up and went to sleep.  Poor guy!

We've not really been watching anything good but I did see the first episode of "Big Little Lies:Season 2" and really liked it.  "NOS4A2" is okay but I'm withholding my verdict on it.  However, the trailer for Stephen King's "Doctor Sleep" dropped this week and I'm so excited. I think it looks good.  Now "The Shining" is my favorite King book and I enjoyed the movie as well, but I never felt it needed a sequel.  When I read "Doctor Sleep" I pretty much considered it a stand alone and it worked for me.  In case you haven't had time to see it, here it is!

 

 I managed some reading this past week and need to kick it in gear this weekend. I'd love to finish both of these over the weekend and while I'm optimistic, I may be OVERLY optimistic. We'll see how it goes. 

I also ended up buying a few books.  I had a $5.00 ebook credit on Amazon and then won a $5.00 GC during a COYER Twitter party so I grabbed some books I had on my wishlist!  I've been eyeing "Fat Camp" for a long time which seems like a throwback to 80's slasher films.  I also had to grab Alan Baxter's "Hidden City" after seeing some glowing reviews for it this week and mention of a "loyal doggo" in it.  And finally, don't tell Cass but I grabbed the first in a Psychic Cat mystery - "The Cat of Amontillado."

So there you have it, my week in a nutshell.  Did you add any new books or watch any good movies this weekend???

Friday Face Off - Something Sweet

So I've kind of followed this meme, which is hosted by Books by Proxy  In all honestly, I've seen Lynn, Tammy and Mogsy do it on their blogs and always thought it looked like fun.  Today's topic was one I could get on board with and even if I only participate here and there, I might as well give it a shot.  Each week there is a theme which allows you to feature different covers of the same book to see which people prefer.  So on with the post!

Coraline opened the box of chocolates. The dog looked at them longingly.” – A cover featuring something sweet

 1 - Atlas-Cotact (2008)

2- Bokautgafan Tindur (2008)

3 - Harper Collins (2008)

4 - Harper Perrenial Canada (2008)

5- Harper Torch (2008)

6 - Harper Collins Published Ltd (2009)

What's sweeter than a dog (so now you know why I had to participate this week).  I actually think #4 is the cutest and it's the copy I searched the hardest for to add to my collection.  I also like #6 because the dog is adorable and he's balancing a little race care on his nose.

Which edition do you like best and are you going to see the movie?