A Dark Romance

Rating: 5/5

Review: Well, this was certainly a powerful novel. I can't believe that this is the author's first book! The details were amazing, and even hard to bare at times. I could see the burning of flesh far too vividly in my mind, but I suppose that's what held me captive. It definitely gives you a new outlook on life, and even love. The stories that were interwoven with the main one could be a bit tedious at times, but not overly so. Take the time to read this one, and I am sure you won't regret it.

Book Description: The narrator of The Gargoyle is a very contemporary cynic, physically beautiful and sexually adept, who dwells in the moral vacuum that is modern life. As the book opens, he is driving along a dark road when he is distracted by what seems to be a flight of arrows. He crashes into a ravine and suffers horrible burns over much of his body. As he recovers in a burn ward, undergoing the tortures of the damned, he awaits the day when he can leave the hospital and commit carefully planned suicide—for he is now a monster in appearance as well as in soul.

A beautiful and compelling, but clearly unhinged, sculptress of gargoyles by the name of Marianne Engel appears at the foot of his bed and insists that they were once lovers in medieval Germany. In her telling, he was a badly injured mercenary and she was a nun and scribe in the famed monastery of Engelthal who nursed him back to health. As she spins their tale in Scheherazade fashion and relates equally mesmerizing stories of deathless love in Japan, Iceland, Italy, and England, he finds himself drawn back to life—and, finally, in love. He is released into Marianne's care and takes up residence in her huge stone house. But all is not well. For one thing, the pull of his past sins becomes ever more powerful as the morphine he is prescribed becomes ever more addictive. For another, Marianne receives word from God that she has only twenty-seven sculptures left to complete—and her time on earth will be finished.

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

Rating: 4/5

Review: I am so glad that I finally read this Christmas classic! The movies that I have seen certainly do it justice. The book had a little bit more detail, of course, and the particular version I was reading had a few interesting facts on every page to go along with it. I can definitely see why this is such a beloved classic.

Book Description: One of the best-loved and oft-quoted stories of "the man who invented Christmas"--English writer Charles Dickens--A Christmas Carol debuted in 1843 and has touched millions of hearts since. Cruel miser Ebeneezer Scrooge has never met a shilling he doesn't like. . .and hardly a man he does. And he hates Christmas most of all. When Scrooge is visited by his old partner, Jacob Marley, and the ghosts of Christmas Past, Christmas Present, and Christmas Yet to Come, he learns eternal lessons of charity, kindness, and goodwill.

Greywalker by Kat Richardson

Rating: 4/5

Review: This was an interesting take on the paranormal genre. I loved the lead character, Harpor Blaine, and the Danzingers (Ben and Mara), who help her figure out what's happening to her. There wasn't a whole lot of suspense, but there was plenty of action. I can't wait to read the next book in the series.

Book Description: PI Harper Blaine sees a strange shift in clientele in Richardson's dizzy urban fantasy debut. After being dead for two minutes as a result of a clobbering by an angry perp, Harper discovers icky side effects complicate her Seattle life in unexpected ways—she sees ghosts and attracts otherworldly business as she pops in and out of a shadowy overlapping world. Harper seeks the assistance of Ben Danziger, self-proclaimed "ghost guy" and linguistics professor, and his wife, Mara, a witty Irish witch. They educate Harper on the Grey, "a place between our world and the next." Harper tries to maintain a normal life, dating a sexy antiques expert while battling wits with Seattle's vampire king, but being a Greywalker means she can only "pass for human."

In God We Trust; All Others Pay Cash by Jean Shepherd

Rating: 4/5

Review: This was a fun, light, read. There were only a few stories that had actually been featured in the movie, A Christmas Story, however. Yes, there is the famous "you'll shoot your eye out" scene. Shepherd's writing definitely takes the reader back in time to a small Indiana town in the 1930s and 40s. Each childhood tale is filled with humorous nostalgia. I still like the movie better, though, as it has long become a yearly tradition in my family.

Book Description: Shepherd's wildly witty reunion with his Indiana hometown, disproves the adage "You can never go back." Bending the ear of Flick, his childhood-buddy-turned-bartender, Shepherd recalls passionately his genuine Red Ryder BB gun, confesses adolescent failure in the arms of Junie Jo Prewitt, and relives a story of man against fish that not even Hemingway could rival. From pop art to the World's Fair, Shepherd's subjects speak with a universal irony and are deeply and unabashedly grounded in American Midwestern life, together rendering a wonderfully nostalgic impression of a more innocent era when life was good, fun was clean, and station wagons roamed the earth.