ELITIST BOOK REVIEWS

McKayla’s aunt Avril has always been a little odd. She travels the world as a psychic for the FBI, to the chagrin of McKayla’s mother, who doesn’t like it when she talks magic with her daughters. Now, Avril is visiting Sun Valley in small-town Idaho where McKayla and her family live in order to investigate a serial killer who – it appears – possesses her victims. McKayla goes with her aunt during a case to interview the widow of a murder victim. There she discovers that maybe Aunt Avril’s psychic abilities are magic and run in the family because McKayla can feel the window’s emotions–she’s empathic.

But that’s not even the strangest thing, because despite outward tears the widow’s inside emotions are not what McKayla expects a widow to be experiencing: she’s not sad, she’s angry.
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Chuck Gannon’s FIRE WITH FIRE (EBR Review) was easily the best science fiction novel I read in 2013. The first book in the Tales of the Terran Republic series would be right at home on a shelf amongst the hallowed Golden Age classics. FIRE WITH FIRE is a cerebral thriller – Caine makes his fair share of thrilling escapes – but the real draw to the story is the depth and intellectual complexity that Gannon brings to a First Contact scenario. As a follow-up, TRIAL BY FIRE (Amazon) is no disappointment.
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There’s something wrong with the world. Don’t you think? There’s so much garbage out there that could just be better. Like more sword fights would be nice. And massive dragonmen with bad tempers. And belly-grown demons that rip their way up through your gullet and out your mouth. And… and… and… ah, who am I kidding? What would a world like that be like? Mass chaos, I tell you. Mass chaos. And I know it all too well. For I have read it, and that world is the brilliance of Sam Sykes.
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Jacob’s grandfather was kind of an odd guy. When Jacob was a kid, his grandfather would tell him all sorts of stories about the kids in the Welsh children’s home he lived in after escaping pre-war Europe. Then he would show Jacob all sorts of strange photographs (see cover picture of levitating girl) of the other peculiar children he lived with. As Jacob grew older he began to realize that these stories couldn’t have been memories, but were tall tales to entertain an imaginative grandson.

Or were they?

After witnessing his grandfather’s death, Jacob’s parents are convinced that it was so traumatic that he hallucinated the monster-like creature Jacob saw. Jacob is able follow the clues of his grandfather’s last words, and convinces his father to take him to the island where Miss Peregrine’s home for children resides. Instead of answers, Jacob instead finds an abandoned relic from 60 years before. While there he meets someone from his grandfather’s past, and Jacob begins to realize that maybe his grandfather wasn’t completely bonkers after all.
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Burton and Swinburne, huzzah! Can I tell you how excited I was to read this novel? Ridiculously. These novels have been part of my staple, my core, my life-blood’s source for brilliant storytelling. Each time I return to them, they never fail to impress and entertain me. Hilarity, imagination, and excitement all wrapped up with a neat little bow.
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My first introduction to Adam Nevill as a writer was by a guy across the pond named James on his blog Speculative Horizons. His was a book-review blog (now retired) that I really enjoyed reading because we seemed to have similar tastes in books. Somewhere along the way, Orbit UK came along in 2010 and snatched James up as an editorial assistant. He reviewed Apartment 16 by Adam Nevill on his blog shortly before signing off, and although I never picked the book up at the time, James’s positive opinion of Mr. Nevill stuck with me. So much so, that when I recently happened across another of his books, I immediately picked it up and started to read.

THE HOUSE OF SMALL SHADOWS (Amazon) is a strong, slow-building, atmospheric novel that, honestly, took me a while to get into. I’d just come off the soaringly-high buzz of a Mark Hodder book, and the sudden gear shift from fifth to sub-first nearly caused a car wreck, to say the least. However, once I got into the groove of things, my world took a hard left turn into creepy town.
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Syl was the first of the alien Illyri to be born on Earth sixteen years ago after their (mostly) peaceful conquest of the planet. Her father is a diplomat living in Edinburgh, where earthlings persist in fighting off their conquerors, despite bringing peace and advanced medicine to Earth. On her sixteenth birthday Syl sneaks out of the castle to explore the streets, an activity fraught with danger as she soon learns when a café explodes before her eyes.

Paul may only be a teenager, but he’s been a part of the Resistance for years, gathering intel, learning to fight, and helping others on missions. He’s old enough now to start leading his own missions, as well as mentoring his younger brother, Steven. After the café explosion, he sees a young woman on the street and takes her to safety, never learning she’s Illyri. He may be part of the Resistance, but the bombing killed civilians, so he knows it wasn’t his people. Unfortunately, his proximity to the bombing causes suspicion.

The chain of events continues from there as a result of that chance meeting. Their lives will never be the same.
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I’ve heard a lot about Robert McCammon’s novel, THE FIVE (Amazon). Mostly, I heard that it was “different”. I finally got around to reading it, and everyone was right. THE FIVE is different. But it was still easily recognizable as a McCammon novel. It was still Horror, though in a different way than we are used to seeing from the author. And it was still awesome.

So yeah. Business as usual for McCammon.
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