Rest Easy....Mr. Poe

"Once Upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary,

Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore"

- The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe 

I happened across Edgar Allan Poe in my pre-teen years; and my love for his work has remained. Like most of us, I was introduced to him by way of the poem The Raven. I have made a tradition of reading is short story "The Tell-Tale Heart" every Halloween. Poe is close to my heart for several reasons. Chief among them is that Poe always came across to me as a lost and lonely soul; and I guess on some level that spoke to me. Because of Poe (and Stephen King) I became very interested in writing within the horror, thriller and mystery genre.

Here are some of my favorite quotes by Edgar Allan Poe:

Book Review: Revival by Stephen King

                                       

Its not the kind of Revival: My review of Stephen King's Revival

King is one of those authors who I can not seem to get enough of. In fact, I have read three of his books this summer. Revival had been on my TBR for a few months. This book was not at all what I expected. It was not at all what I thought it would be. I was a little disappointed because it was very anti-climatic. 

Revival revolves around the life of Jamie and his relationship with his former Pastor. Charles Jacobs; who has been casting a shadow over Jamie's life seen the day they first meant at Jamie's boyhood home. Charles Jacob seems like a nice man, though he is a little odd. He has an attraction to electricity and loves to give the kids at the church lessons and lectures on the subject. He even goes so far as to weave Christian theology into it the lessons. Jacob's seems harmless until his young wife and son are killed in a car accident. 

After that everything changes, and he loses his faith; and during his final sermon at the town church Jamie seems to lose his faith as well. The sermon is so bad, so full of grief, that Jacob's is fired and forced out of town. 

Jamie does not think he will ever meet or see Jacob's again, until years later, when he is traveling with a band. Getting high on heroin and living rough does he meeting Jacob's at a fair. Jacob's is using electricity to create stunning portraits of young and attractive women. However, it is discovered, that being a subject of one of these photos might cause you some trouble.

It is during this chance meeting that Jacob's convinces Jamie to allow him to "cure" him of his drug addiction. Jamie will do anything to get his life back and does not think that it could hurt, or that their would be any real side effects. Oh, how wrong he was. 

Jamie has one or two weird incidents, but does not connect them to his "cure". Its not until much later in the book that he connects it all to Jacob's. Who, seems to have regained his faith, and is now "healing" afflicted people at tent revivals. 

My favorite scene of the book was at the end, when suddenly it all clicks into place. Jamie accepts that he is the key to this mystery and while scared he knows he has to face the darkness thats coming.

Revival was a great book, with a creepy villain, and the tale was will weaved. However, something was missing. We only got a small look at the evil that lurked behind Jacob's greatest experiment. I think it would be very easy for King to open this can of worms again. Maybe the ending is just a foreshadowing to another novel. I sure hope so because I want to know about "mother".

I gave Revival 3/5 stars on Goodreads.

Quotes I loved:

"When you want to feel better, call something a piece of shit. It usually works."

"There's no proof of these after life destinations; no backbone of science; there is only the bald assurance, coupled with our powerful need to believe that it all makes sense...Religion is the theological equivalent of a quick-buck insurance scam, where you pay in your premium year after year, and then, when you need the benefits you paid for..so religiously, you discover the company that took your money, does not, in fact, exist."

"Question: Death, where is thy sting? Answer: Every-fucking-where."

"I thought he was fuckin' dead. All the coke he snorted, he should be."

"That's how you know you're home, I think, no matter how far you've gone from it or how long you've been in some other place. Home is where they want you to stay longer."

"Sometimes death is natural, a mercy that puts an end to suffering. But all too often it comes   as an assassin, full of senseless cruelty and lacking and vestige of compassion"

🍁......My Fall Wishlist....🍂

Sometimes a girl just have to have a few books to buy to make the next few months exciting! Of course, I have more than enough books. But here are the top for books I can't wait to buy....

Synopsis:

Sometimes I believe the baby will never stop crying.

Sixteen-year-old Amanda Verner fears she is losing her mind. When her family move from their small mountain cabin to the vast prairie, Amanda hopes she can leave her haunting memories behind: of her sickly Ma giving birth to a terribly afflicted baby; of the cabin fever that claimed Amanda's sanity; of the boy who she has been meeting in secret. . .
But the Verners arrive on the prairie to find their new home soaked in blood. So much blood. And Amanda has heard stories - about men becoming unhinged and killing their families, about the land being tainted by wickedness.

With guilty secrets weighing down on her, Amanda can't be sure if the true evil lies in the land, or within her soul . . .

Synopsis: 

Cora is a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. Life is hell for all the slaves, but especially bad for Cora; an outcast even among her fellow Africans, she is coming into womanhood—where even greater pain awaits. When Caesar, a recent arrival from Virginia, tells her about the Underground Railroad, they decide to take a terrifying risk and escape. Matters do not go as planned—Cora kills a young white boy who tries to capture her. Though they manage to find a station and head north, they are being hunted.
     In Whitehead’s ingenious conception, the Underground Railroad is no mere metaphor—engineers and conductors operate a secret network of tracks and tunnels beneath the Southern soil. Cora and Caesar’s first stop is South Carolina, in a city that initially seems like a haven. But the city’s placid surface masks an insidious scheme designed for its black denizens. And even worse: Ridgeway, the relentless slave catcher, is close on their heels. Forced to flee again, Cora embarks on a harrowing flight, state by state, seeking true freedom.
     Like the protagonist of Gulliver’s Travels, Cora encounters different worlds at each stage of her journey—hers is an odyssey through time as well as space. As Whitehead brilliantly re-creates the unique terrors for black people in the pre–Civil War era, his narrative seamlessly weaves the saga of America from the brutal importation of Africans to the unfulfilled promises of the present day. The Underground Railroad is at once a kinetic adventure tale of one woman’s ferocious will to escape the horrors of bondage and a shattering, powerful meditation on the history we all share.

Synopsis: 

Those are the last words Jason Dessen hears before the masked abductor knocks him unconscious. 
 
Before he awakens to find himself strapped to a gurney, surrounded by strangers in hazmat suits. 
 
Before a man Jason’s never met smiles down at him and says, “Welcome back, my friend.”  
 
In this world he’s woken up to, Jason’s life is not the one he knows. His wife is not his wife. His son was never born. And Jason is not an ordinary college physics professor, but a celebrated genius who has achieved something remarkable. Something impossible.
 
Is it this world or the other that’s the dream? And even if the home he remembers is real, how can Jason possibly make it back to the family he loves? The answers lie in a journey more wondrous and horrifying than anything he could’ve imagined—one that will force him to confront the darkest parts of himself even as he battles a terrifying, seemingly unbeatable foe.
 

Synopsis:

Chilling real-life accounts of witches, from medieval Europe through colonial America, compiled by the "New York Times "bestselling author of "The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane "and "Conversion" 
From a manual for witch hunters written by King James himself in 1597, to court documents from the Salem witch trials of 1692, to newspaper coverage of a woman stoned to death on the streets of Philadelphia while the Continental Congress met, "The Penguin Book of Witches" is a treasury of historical accounts of accused witches that sheds light on the reality behind the legends. Bringing to life stories like that of Eunice Cole, tried for attacking a teenage girl with a rock and buried with a stake through her heart; Jane Jacobs, a Bostonian so often accused of witchcraft that she took her tormentors to court on charges of slander; and Increase Mather, an exorcism-performing minister famed for his knowledge of witches, this volume provides a unique tour through the darkest history of English and North American witchcraft. 
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

*all descriptions came from Google Books*

Book Blitz for December 2014

Hey Bookies...Here are some new books that I discovered over the past few weeks. Each book will be have its price listed and a brief synopsis of the book. All Prices are from amazon.com. Well here goes nothing!

Stitching Snow by R.C. Lewis (Hardcover $14.21)

Synopsis:

Princess Snow is missing.

Her home planet is filled with violence and corruption at the hands of King Matthias and his wife as they attempt to punish her captors. The king will stop at nothing to get his beloved daughter back—but that’s assuming she wants to return at all. Essie has grown used to being cold. Temperatures on the planet Thanda are always sub-zero, and she fills her days with coding and repairs for the seven loyal drones that run the local mines. When a mysterious young man named Dane crash-lands near her home, Essie agrees to help the pilot repair his ship. But soon she realizes that Dane’s arrival was far from accidental, and she’s pulled into the heart of a war she’s risked everything to avoid. With the galaxy’s future—and her own—in jeopardy, Essie must choose who to trust in a fiery fight for survival.

A Thousand Pieces of You by Claudia Grey (Hardcover $11.37)

Synopsis:

Marguerite Caine’s physicist parents are known for their radical scientific achievements. Their most astonishing invention: the Firebird, which allows users to jump into parallel universes, some vastly altered from our own. But when Marguerite’s father is murdered, the killer—her parent’s handsome and enigmatic assistant Paul—escapes into another dimension before the law can touch him. Marguerite can’t let the man who destroyed her family go free, and she races after Paul through different universes, where their lives entangle in increasingly familiar ways. With each encounter she begins to question Paul’s guilt—and her own heart. Soon she discovers the truth behind her father’s death is more sinister than she ever could have imagined.  A Thousand Pieces of You explores a reality where we witness the countless other lives we might lead in an amazingly intricate multiverse, and ask whether, amid infinite possibilities, one love can endure.

A City of a Thousand Dolls by Miraim Forster (Paperback $9.18)

Synopsis:

An exotic treat set in an entirely original, fantastical world brimming with deadly mystery, forbidden romance, and heart-stopping adventure. Nisha was abandoned at the gates of the City of a Thousand Dolls when she was just a child. Now sixteen, she lives on the grounds of the isolated estate, where orphan girls apprentice as musicians, healers, courtesans, and, if the rumors are true, assassins. Nisha makes her way as Matron’s assistant, her closest companions the mysterious cats that trail her shadow. Only when she begins a forbidden flirtation with the city’s handsome young courier does she let herself imagine a life outside the walls. Until one by one, girls around her start to die. Before she becomes the next victim, Nisha decides to uncover the secrets that surround the girls’ deaths. But by getting involved, Nisha jeopardizes not only her own future in the City of a Thousand Dolls—but her own life.

The Fall by Bethany Griffin (Hardcover $11.82)

Synopsis:

She has spent her life fighting fate, and she thought she was succeeding. Until she woke up in a coffin.

Ushers die young. Ushers are cursed. Ushers can never leave their house, a house that haunts and is haunted, a house that almost seems to have a mind of its own. Madeline’s life—revealed through short bursts of memory—has hinged around her desperate plan to escape, to save herself and her brother. Her only chance lies in destroying the house. In the end, can Madeline keep her own sanity and bring the house down?The Fall is a literary psychological thriller, reimagining Edgar Allan Poe’s classic The Fall of the House of Usher.

The Carrier of the Mark by Leigh Fallon (Paperback $7.27)

Synopsis:

When Megan Rosenberg moves to Ireland, everything in her life seems to fall into place. After growing up in America, she's surprised to find herself feeling at home in her new school. She connects with a group of friends, and she is instantly drawn to darkly handsome Adam DeRÍs.

But Megan is about to discover that her feelings for Adam are tied to a fate that was sealed long ago—and that the passion and power that brought them together could be their ultimate destruction. 

A Wild Surge of Guilty Passion by Ron Hansen (Paperback $12.54)

Synopsis:

Trapped in a loveless marriage, Ruth Snyder is a voluptuous, reckless, and altogether irresistible woman who wishes not only to escape her husband but that he dies; and the sooner the better. No less miserable in his own tedious marriage is Judd Gray, a dapper corset-and-brassiere salesman who travels the Northeast peddling his wares. He meets Ruth in a Manhattan diner, and soon they are conducting a white-hot affair involving hotel rooms, secret letters, clandestine travels, and above all, Ruths increasing insistence that Judd kill her husband. Could he do it? Would he? What follows is a thrilling exposition of a murder plan, a police investigation, the lovers attempt to escape prosecution, and a final reckoning for both of them that lays bare the horror and sorrow of what they have done. Dazzlingly well-written and artfully constructed, this impossible-to-put-down story marks the return of an American master known for his elegant and vivid novels that cut cleanly to the essence of the human heart, always and at once mysterious and filled with desire.

Mister B. Gone by Clive Barker (Paperback $9.98)

Synopsis:

The Mister B. of the title is Jakabob Botch, a demon whose ghastly past could make even the most merciless sociopath whimper in sympathy. Born in the deepest regions of hell, the spawn of an abusive drunkard and his whorish wife, Jakabob escapes to the world above after suffering fiendish torture. Once topside, he lands conveniently in 15th-century Mainz, the home of printing inventor Johannes Gutenberg. However, Mister B. isn't interested in merely observing history; like any other self-respecting diabolical being, he's just searching for a new demonic angle. A ghoulishly good fright fest.

New Book Discovery

                                                                                   

New Book Discovery (found on The Reading Room)

A Good and Happy Child by Justin Evans

Here is the synopsis: 

Perched precariously on the precipice between horror and psychological drama, Evans' first novel explores the notions of demons--how real they are and how real we are able to make them. Eleven-year-old George Davies' father, a self-purported mystic and studier of demonology, dies a mysterious death after traveling to Honduras for equally mysterious purposes. Soon after, George is visited by a "Friend" that only he can see, who leads him on thrilling yet terrifying journeys to a shadowy ether-world, pulling him ever closer to a dangerous awareness of his father's death (the cornucopia of fatherhood issues emanating here would make Freud's head wobble). Is the boy really possessed, or simply crazy? And which is better? Evans deftly marks the labyrinthine wards of clinical treatment in stark contrast with scenes of floor-dropping exorcisms as the boy becomes ever more volatile and his Friend ever more diabolical. This is an edgy, compelling read--more unnerving than scary--that will slide its hooks deep inside and throttle you more than a few times before it's all over.