Legends and Lattes

 

Legends and Lattes  by Travis Baldree                     Fantasy/LGTBQ+

(from Amazon)  Worn out after decades of packing steel and raising hell, Viv, the orc barbarian, cashes out of the warrior’s life with one final score. A forgotten legend, a fabled artifact, and an unreasonable amount of hope lead her to the streets of Thune, where she plans to open the first coffee shop the city has ever seen.  However, her dreams of a fresh start filling mugs instead of swinging swords are hardly a sure bet. Old frenemies and Thune’s shady underbelly may just upset her plans. To finally build something that will last, Viv will need some new partners, and a different kind of resolve.

(My Review)

This book was delightful!  It totally gave me Gilmore Girls vibes - if Stars Hollows was set in a world full of orcs, succubi and goblins.  It was just so cozy, with Viv, an orc, moving to a small town, wanting to open a coffee shop - no one has ever heard of coffee.  You are introduced to such a sweet cast of characters, the kind that make a small town so unique and quirky.  Of course, not all of the towns people are sweet.  I loved the sense of community, and relationships.  

Five Survive

 

Five Survive by Holly Jackson                            Crime Fiction for Teens

(from Amazon)  Red Kenny is on a road trip for spring break with five friends: Her best friend—the older brother—his perfect girlfriend—a secret crush—a classmate—and a killer.  When their RV breaks down in the middle of nowhere with no cell service, they soon realize this is no accident. They have been trapped by someone out there in the dark, someone who clearly wants one of them dead.  With eight hours until dawn, the six friends must escape, or figure out which of them is the target. But is there a liar among them? Buried secrets will be forced to light and tensions inside the RV will reach deadly levels. Not all of them will survive the night. . . .

(My Review)

Holly Jackson kept the tension high throughout the book.  I could not stop reading.  This was a solid suspenseful read.  It starts out as a fun beginning of a spring break trip with a group of friends, but it quickly escalates, as their RV breaks down.  They find themselves in the middle of nowhere with no cell service, and soon find themselves being attacked.  This book does not stop until the end.

The Ghost Tree

 

The Ghost Tree by Christina Henry                        Historical Fantasy/Horror Fiction

(from Amazon)  When the bodies of two girls are found torn apart in the town of Smiths Hollow, Lauren is surprised, but she also expects that the police won't find the killer. After all, the year before her father's body was found with his heart missing, and since then everyone has moved on. Even her best friend, Miranda, has become more interested in boys than in spending time at the old ghost tree, the way they used to when they were kids.  So when Lauren has a vision of a monster dragging the remains of the girls through the woods, she knows she can't just do nothing. Not like the rest of her town. But as she draws closer to answers, she realizes that the foundation of her seemingly normal town might be rotten at the center. And that if nobody else stands for the missing, she will.

(My Review)  

Very creepy read!  Mutilated girls bodies are found, but the police don't seem that concerned and then soon forget (and so do the whole town).  The latest bodies are found a year after Lauren's father was found, and now the murders are escalating.  The only ones who seem concerned are Lauren and the new police officer who just arrived from out of town.  Is Lauren a key to the murders?  

These Silent Woods

 

These Silent Woods by Kimi Cunningham Grant                Coming of Age/Crime Fiction

(from Amazon)  No electricity, no family, no connection to the outside world.  For eight years, Cooper and his young daughter, Finch, have lived in isolation in a remote cabin in the northern Appalachian woods. And that's exactly the way Cooper wants it, because he's got a lot to hide. Finch has been raised on the books filling the cabin’s shelves and the beautiful but brutal code of life in the wilderness. But she’s starting to push back against the sheltered life Cooper has created for her - and he’s still haunted by the painful truth of what it took to get them there.  The only people who know they exist are Scotland, an overly friendly hermit with murky intentions, and Cooper's old friend, Jake, who visits each winter to bring them food and supplies. But this year, Jake doesn't show up, setting off an irreversible chain of events that reveals just how precarious their situation really is. Suddenly, the boundaries of their safe haven have blurred - and when a stranger wanders into their woods, Finch’s growing obsession with her could put them all in danger. When a shocking disappearance threatens to upend the only life Finch has ever known, Cooper is forced to decide whether to keep hiding - or finally face the sins of his past.  Vividly atmospheric and masterfully tense, These Silent Woods is a poignant story of survival, sacrifice, and how far a father will go when faced with losing it all.

(My Review)

This book was so haunting.  A father, Cooper, and his daughter live off-the-grid deep in the woods.  The reason for their solitude is slowly revealed, as a stranger comes into their lives, and shatters the safety Cooper has created for them.  This book has stayed with me.

Jane of Lantern Hill

 

Jane of Lantern Hill by L.M. Montgomery                      Fiction Classics for Children

(from Amazon)  For as long as she can remember, Jane Stuart and her mother have lived with her controlling grandmother in a dreary mansion in Toronto. Jane always believed her father was dead, so she was shocked to receive an invitation to stay with him for the summer on Prince Edward Island. But from their very first meeting, Jane fell in love with her charming father and his whimsical cottage. During her stay with him, she even found herself daring to dream that there could be such a house back in Toronto - a house where she, Mother, and Father could live together without Grandmother directing their lives - a house that she could come to call home.

(My Review)

I adored this lovely by from the author of Anne of Green Gables.  Set in the same setting, the lovely Prince Edward Island, Jane goes to spend the summer with her father she believed to be dead.  As she gets to know him, she learns to love country life.  She learns to cook, and learning about her father and the wonderful neighbors who live around their sweet cottage.  This summer changes her life so much, that she knows her life cannot go back to the way it was before.  I loved it so much.  Great spring/summer read.

The Book Eaters

 

The Book Eaters  by Sunyi Dean          Paranormal/Urban Fantasy/Romantic Fantasy

(from Amazon)  Out on the Yorkshire Moors lives a secret line of people for whom books are food, and who retain all of a book's content after eating it. To them, spy novels are a peppery snack; romance novels are sweet and delicious. Eating a map can help them remember destinations, and children, when they misbehave, are forced to eat dry, musty pages from dictionaries.  Devon is part of The Family, an old and reclusive clan of book eaters. Her brothers grow up feasting on stories of valor and adventure, and Devon―like all other book eater women―is raised on a carefully curated diet of fairy tales and cautionary stories.  But real life doesn't always come with happy endings, as Devon learns when her son is born with a rare and darker kind of hunger―not for books, but for human minds.

(My Review)

Literally eating books!  This book was unlike any book I've read before.  Devon eats books instead of food.  The story goes back and forth from the present to her past.  In the present, she is trying to protect her son, who has not quite inherited her book-eating, but something quite worse.  As she tries to save her son, she learns more about her past, and the secrets and lies that led her to be forced to live a certain kind of existence.  

Kindred

 

Kindred  by Octavia Butler                  African-American Science Fiction

(from Amazon) “I lost an arm on my last trip home. My left arm.”  Dana’s torment begins when she suddenly vanishes on her 26th birthday from California, 1976, and is dragged through time to antebellum Maryland to rescue a boy named Rufus, heir to a slaveowner’s plantation. She soon realizes the purpose of her summons to the past: protect Rufus to ensure his assault of her Black ancestor so that she may one day be born. As she endures the traumas of slavery and the soul-crushing normalization of savagery, Dana fights to keep her autonomy and return to the present.

(My Review)  

Wow!  What a powerful, thought-provoking story!  Dana is thrust back in time, to a plantation in the 1800's, where she finds herself saving a young boy, Rufus, the slaveowner's son.  She finds herself bouncing back and forth between the present and the past, but finds her journey is tied to Rufus (as well as her the shattering truth as it pertains to her own family).  As an African-American woman, from the twentieth-century, she finds herself caught up in a cycle of trauma and abuse of slavery as she embarks on a mission to ensure the survival of her family line.