January 1937. Clouds of war are gathering over a fogbound London. Twenty-eight year old Jack is poor, lonely, and desperate to change his life, so when he’s offered the chance to join an Arctic expedition, he jumps at it. Spirits are high as the ship leaves Norway: five men and eight huskies, crossing the Barents […]
Book 3 in The Raven Cycle1 There is danger in dreaming. But there is even more danger in waking up. Blue Sargent has found things. For the first time in her life, she has friends she can trust, a group to which she can belong. The Raven Boys have taken her in as one of […]
Tolly has returned to Green Knowe, his great-grandmother’s house, for the Easter break. But he is disappointed to discover that something is different. The painting of his previous playmates has been sent on loan, and may have to be sold in order to finance repairs to the house. And with the painting gone so too […]
Green Knowe series #1 Usually Toseland spends the holidays in boarding school, his father and stepmother are in Burma, but on this occasion he is off to spend Christmas with his great-grandmother. He has never met her before, and understandably, is a little nervous about heading off all by himself. He is seven years old […]
The Moorehawke Trilogy; book 1. Returning home after years in a foreign kingdom Wynter and her father Lorcan are surprised at the changes that have occurred in their absence. The first inklings of how different things are come from a cat and a ghost, because neither of them will speak to Wynter. But there are […]
Tim is about to be released from protective custody. We’re not quite sure what happened him and his sister ten years earlier, but we get a glimpse of them fleeing what seems to be their father. His sister, Kaylie, is working for an auction house. She’s engaged to be married, and seems to be doing […]
Li Lan is seventeen. Her mother died of smallpox when she was very young, her father was so scarred by the disease at the same time that he withdrew from society. Once he had a successful business, but the marks of the pox, and grief at the loss of his wife drove him into seclusion […]
Part of my RIP VIII reading. Book 2 in The Raven Cycle In the first book we learned that Blue Sargent is the only non-psychic in a family full of clairvoyants, although her presence can amplify the gifts of others. She is also doomed, if she kisses her true love he will die. So who […]
Based on the true story. Or so they say. In the 1970s Roger and Carolyn Perron move into a new home with their five daughters. It’s a little run down, needs a bit of work, but its home. But the dog won’t come in to the house, and their very first night their results in […]
via Metafilter Inspired by classic American murder ballads and folk songs such as In the pines and Knoxville Girl this tells the story of a girl, taken by a haint. There isn’t much point in me recapping the plot. There is little enough story to it, but what there is, is well told. Demory’s short […]
Blue is the daughter of a psychic. A non-psychic in a family of those with the gift. But she does make things “stronger” or clearer. So she will often accompany them on their readings. Every year on St. Mark’s Day she goes with her mother to see the shades of the coming year’s dead. This […]
one of the stories in Cracklescape Tanner found an abandoned dresser on the street, thought it would be an addition to his room, and so took it home. But he may have gotten more than he bargained for. First the handle starts to rattle, with no cause that anyone can see. And then he begins […]