The Winter Over

"Wintering over means when the final flight leaves today, it'll be the last plane the crew will see until mid-November, two hundred and seventy days from now. For most of that time, the South Pole is in complete darkness, outside temperatures can drop to as low as one hundred degrees below zero, and the base is, in effect, completely cut off from the rest of the planet."

Why I wanted to read this one:
The Antarctica setting! I've always been fascinated by extreme environments --those exotic and strange places that I will NEVER actually ever go see for myself-- and this book takes place in one of the most extreme spots on the planet. Matthew Iden really gives you a feel for the dark and the cold and the danger of winter in Antarctica. I loved every description and interesting detail. Especially the ice tunnels! That, along with his cast of slightly crazy characters, from the Polies to the Fingies, who are wintering over at the Shackleton South Pole Research Station make this a fascinating read.

What else I loved about this book:
The mystery and the menace! The death of a colleague two days before the last flight out puts mechanical engineer, Cass Jennings, on edge. Was her death an accident? Or something else? Then, when other things start to go wrong at the station, Cass begins to suspect there might be something more sinister going on. But is she right? Or is she just being paranoid? Because winter in Antarctica can play games with your mind. I loved the build up of tension and suspense in this novel. And the way it kept me guessing to the end. For me, this was a 4-star read.

Happy Reading!

Similar reads:

The Day is Dark by Yrsa Sigurdardottir

Frozen Solid by James M. Tabor

Subterranean by James Rollins

My Last Continent by Midge Raymond

IT Book Tag

This tag is based on Stephen King's IT and was created by ChucklestheScot. I thought it looked like a lot of fun, so I decided to play along. You post a book for every character from the novel. Don't worry if you haven't read the book--I've only seen the movies myself--Chuckles gives key words for each character to help you choose a matching title. Something I found very helpful in choosing my ten books. So, here's the list of characters from IT and my corresponding reads:

1. Bill (stutters, family death, bike, silver, UK, flu)

I picked Paperboy by Vince Vawter for this character, because he, too, stutters, just like Bill.

2. Georgie (dead or missing child, boat, rain, flood, balloon fairground)

I went with The Child Finder by Rene Denfield for this one, because there's a missing child in it, and half the chapters are told from her perspective.

3. Ben (young love, library, troll, poem, dead parent, books, dam, exams)

When I saw the words dead parent, troll, library and exams, I immediately thought of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling. Because it has ALL that in it and more.

4. Bev (female author or MC, domestic violence, abuse, love triangle, fashion)

Since I avoid books with love triangles or about domestic violence I had to go with a female MC...and one of my all-time favorites is Elizabeth from The Paper Bag Princess by Robert Munsch. And the fact that she's a girl who could care less about fashion seemed like an added bonus.

5. Mike (racism, farm, dog, photographs, rocks, crime investigation, fire)

The combination of racism and dogs instantly brought Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward to mind. Plus, they kind of live on a farm. 

6. Richie (loudmouth, werewolf, glasses, voices, radio, TV, cinema)

So, for this one, I went with a book where glasses play a large role:  A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle. It was one of my favorite books growing up, ever since my 5th grade teacher read it to our class.

7. Eddie (illness, protective parent, physical injury, driving, hospital)

I chose Mustaches for Maddie by Chad Morris and Shelly Brown because the main character is diagnosed with a brain tumor and ends up in the hospital, which seemed like a good fit for this one.

8. Stan (Jewish, suicide, birds, bath religion, park, notebook, boy scout)

The Troop by Nick Cutter is the only book I haven't read, but it is on my TBR list and it happens to be about a boy scout troop who runs into something creepy and deadly in the woods....sounds good, doesn't it?

9. Henry (bully, mental illness, tunnel, asylum, junkyard, knife, escape, assassin)

So it was the junkyard connection which made me choose The Winter of the Robots by Kurtis Scaletta for this character's matching book, because the kids in this middle grade novel discover something unusual hiding in the neighborhood junkyard. 

10. Pennywise (shapeshifter, clown, serial killer, monster, fear, carnival)

Whenever I think of fear and carnivals, I always think of Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury. Which is why I chose this as my last book for this list. (Although I'm not a huge fan of this particular cover.)

Thanks, Chuckles, this was fun!

Everyone else...feel free to play along. 

Happy Reading!

A little ghostly fun...

        "My name is Rose Marshall. ... I was born in 1936. .... I made it all the way to 1953, sixteen short years of chances and choices and opportunities. And then it was over. I died on a hot summer night in my junior year of high school, driven off the road by a man who should never have been there. My body was battered almost past recognition by the accident. My spirit fared a little better, sweet sixteen for the rest of time...
       "I'm the phantom prom date, the woman at the diner, the girl in the green silk gown, and the walking girl of Route 42. But most of all, I'm the ghost of Sparrow Hill Road."

Seanan McGuire's Sparrow Hill Road reads like a collection of short stories, each chapter another ghostly tale with Rose Marshall the thread that connects them all. Rose travels the ghost roads, saving the people she can, escorting the others on their way to their next life, and avoiding Bobby Cross, the man responsible for taking her life. Her encounters with the living and dead, while not scary, are entertaining. And I liked the world McGuire has created with its strict ghostly rules and strange assortment of spirits and specters. (Although I really wish she'd given the routewitches a bigger role to play! They intrigued me.) I thought this was a fun read, although the non-linear jumps from past to present and back again throughout the entire novel really slowed the narrative for me. But that's my only complaint.

Happy Reading!

Favorite Authors...

It's not always easy for me to narrow down the list of books that I love to just a few favorites, but oddly enough, I find it a lot easier to choose my favorite authors. Although even that list always ends up being a lot longer than ten. So, here's my "short list" of favorite authors--those authors who I love enough to want to read every single book they've ever written, and still wish for more:

Jane Austen

I know, this seems like the too-obvious first choice,

but I can't help it. I've read her books many times

and I love them all.

Patricia A. McKillip

I love this author for her lyrical prose

and her magical stories. 

Henry James

I know he's not for everyone, but I have been an unabashed

Henry James fan ever since I first read Portrait of a Lady.

Mary Stewart

...who first introduced me to romantic suspense 

the way it should be done.

Barbara Michaels

...who added a thread of the supernatural to her suspense novels,

which I completely love.

Rosamunde Pilcher

The opposite of dark and eerie, I love Pilcher's

quietly romantic novels. Especially when they're set

in Cornwall or Scotland.

James Rollins

...whose every book is a fun and exciting adventure!

Simone St. James

...who writes the kind of Gothic ghost stories I love.

Agatha Christie

...who never disappoints.

Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child
...who always keep me reading late into the night!








And the other authors who I couldn't bear to leave off my list:

Susanna Kearsley

Sharon Bolton

Edith Wharton

Kay Hooper

Katie Fforde

Ray Bradbury

Barbara Pym

Dawn Powell

Simon R. Green
Benedict Jacka
C.S.Harris
Patricia Briggs
Victoria Thompson
Arturo Perez-Reverte
Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Daniel Silva
Lois Duncan

And many, many more!

Happy Reading!

The Wolves of Winter

Lynn and her family moved from Chicago to Alaska when she was twelve, before the nuclear bombs fell. They thought they'd be safe there. Until the flu pandemic began. When her father succumbed to the deadly outbreak, Lynn and her mother, older brother, and her Uncle Jeryl, headed for the Yukon.

I was sixteen when we left Eagle, Alaska. When things got bad, when everyone seemed to be leaving, we up and left too. We headed into the Yukon Territory. To the trees, hills, mountains, valleys, rivers, snow, snow, snow, snow, snow. The vast wilderness of nothing.....It really was a beautiful place. You just had to get over the freezing weather, the darkness, the loneliness, the cabin fever, the boredom--oh God, the boredom--the shitty food, and the repetitive routine.

Now Lynn is 23, and her boring routine is unexpectedly interrupted when she meets an enigmatic stranger in the woods while she's out hunting. His name is Jax and he's got a dog with him he calls Wolf. And he's hiding a dark past.

Something was off about this man. I knew the potential danger I was in. Alone with a strange man, in the middle of nowhere, too far away to call for help. What a stupid idea it was to invite him back to the cabins. Why had I done that? God, it was so exciting.

Jax is not the only stranger who's come to the Yukon. Immunity, the government group from before the war, is searching for Jax. But he's not the only one they're interested in. Soon, Lynn and her entire family find themselves fighting for their lives.

What had happened to the world had made animals or monsters of us all. Survivors or murderers. Sometimes the line between the two was blurry....

MY THOUGHTS:  Compelling characters, lyrical prose, and Lynn's poignant relationship with her dad are three of the reasons why I liked this postapocalyptic novel by Tyrell Johnson so much. The two twists at the end weren't completely unexpected, but they worked. And I liked how Johnson wove pieces of Lynn's past throughout the entire novel, including her grief for her dad and snippets of the Walt Whitman poems he loved so much.  It made her feel like a real person. I also really liked Jax and Wolf. For me, The Wolves of Winter, is a 4-star read. The fact that I got to read it along with Melody made it even better. Be sure to check out Melody's review of this awesome book, too.

Happy Reading!

P.S. Whenever Melody and I do a "buddy read" she always asks me some questions at the end. Here they are, along with my answers:

Q. With the war and the flu pandemic, do you think Lynn and her family, as well as Jax, would be happier living on their own even if it means they have to hide forever?

A.  They might be safer hiding and living on their own, but even before they met Jax they didn't seem very happy in their isolation. I mean, look how excited Lynn got when she saw Jax just because he was someone new. And Jax didn't come across as a super happy person out there on his own. I think people need love and friendship and other people to laugh with in order to be truly happy.

Q. The author has painted a scary world in The Wolves of Winter. What do you think is the scariest in this story?

A. For me, the scariest part is the fact that almost everything bad that happened in this story--the nuclear bombs, the flu virus, the fires--were all engineered by humans. It's scary to think about how good people are at destroying one another.

Crampton Hodnet

While Barbara Pym wrote this novel in 1939, it wasn't published until after her death in 1985. But it's not because this novel is lacking in anyway. It's as funny and delightful as all her others. Even the title, Crampton Hodnet, is an inside joke between two of her main characters.

This novel takes place in North Oxford and revolves around Miss Doggett, "a formidable woman of seventy (whose) chief work in life was interfering in other people's business", her meek yet sensible companion, Jessie Morrow, and Mr. Latimer, the young and handsome curate who comes to board with them. (Because all of Pym's novels need a curate!) Then there's the Clevelands:  Francis, an established professor who's writing a book he'll never finish and who is also Miss Doggett's nephew, his placid wife, Margaret, and their daughter, Anthea, "a tall, slender girl with golden hair curling onto her shoulders and a gentle, pretty face, not too intelligent but just right for one whose only occupation in life so far had been to fall in love and be fallen in love with." And then there's Barbara Bird, one of Francis Cleveland's students at Oxford who happens to be falling in love with him.

At its heart, Crampton Hodnet is a novel of "unsuitable romantic entanglements" written in that perceptively witty and uniquely satirical Barbara Pym way. It's charming. And humorous. And I liked it a lot.

Happy Reading!

Haiku Reviews...

Caroline: Little House, Revisited by Sarah Miller

The journey, prairie,

log home, Pa, Mary and Laura--

all through Caroline's eyes.

(Historical Fiction .... 363 pages .... 4.5/5 stars. 

Check out Nadia's review for more.)

Slashback (Cal Leandros #8) by Rob Thurman

An Ancient evil

has come hunting; Nik and Cal

must stop it....or die trying.

(An urban fantasy novel with my two favorite brothers and lots of mayhem and monsters .... 337 pages .... 4/5 stars)

Hidden (Alex Verus #5) by Benedict Jacka

When a fellow mage

goes missing, it's Alex & Co.

to the rescue. Again.

(Urban fantasy .... 298 pages .... 4.5/5 stars .... I love this series!)

Happy Reading!