Lindsey used to be an archivist at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale until about six months ago, when she was laid off. She's now the director of the Briar Creek Library. She's just starting to feel more comfortable with small town life and her new position. It helps that one of her employees, Beth, is also her friend from back when they were both getting their library science degrees.

Beth is a children's librarian who's been working on a children's book of her own for several years. Lindsey thinks Beth should show her work to a New York editor who's vacationing in Briar Creek, but Beth is hesitant - her horrible boyfriend, Rick, keeps telling her it isn't good enough and needs a lot more work. Since he's a famous author whose first book won the Caldecott Medal, he'd know, right? When Beth tells Rick about her plans to meet with the editor, things rapidly sour between them. They break up, but the situation only gets worse after Beth hears what the editor has to say. She attempts to go to Rick's island and give him a piece of her mind, only to discover that he's been murdered. Unfortunately, Chief Daniels seems to consider Beth his top suspect.

A coworker of mine highly recommend this series to me. She basically inhaled what's been published in the series so far. She enjoyed the library aspects, the romance with Sully (she mentioned the love triangle that pops up in a later book, so I already know to expect that), and the fact that Lindsey is fairly similar in age to her (and me, too!).

My feelings about this book are more measured, but I enjoyed it too. The library aspects were great, even though there were a few things that made me raise an eyebrow. The odds of Lindsey getting an archivist job at Yale right out of library school seemed incredibly slim, based on what my job hunt 9 or 10 years ago was like. Then again, this was published in 2011, so maybe such a thing would have been more likely in the early 2000s. I also raised an eyebrow at the way Lindsey handled Beth's situation. I couldn't help but wonder if she'd have been as quick to promise Ms. Cole, aka "the lemon," she wouldn't suspend her if she had been the one accused of murder. Having your best friend as one of your employees can mess with your judgment.

That said, most of the details were great, like the random phone call from a vendor selling a database the library neither needed nor could afford, the couple arguing over which movie to check out right before closing time, and Lindsey's "crafternoons" idea. I can add this to my short list of books that star librarians who actually do occasional on-page library work.

The mystery itself was good, with a few twists I absolutely did not expect. I did wonder about the bit where Lindsey and Beth left town to do some investigating on their own. Would Beth have been allowed to leave like that?  Detective Trimble seemed more open to other possibilities, but Chief Daniels certainly considered her a suspect.

I'm looking forward to more developments in the romance between Lindsey and Sully, although I'm already dreading the love triangle. Sully seems like a great guy, and I could think of a lot of things that could complicate his and Lindsey's relationship without a love triangle being added to the mix. For example, Lindsey is still dealing with the hurt and betrayal of discovering that her fiance was cheating on her, which unfortunately happened at around the same time she was laid off.

All in all, this was an enjoyable and quick read. I definitely plan on reading the next book. In fact, I already have a copy in via interlibrary loan.

Extras:

At the end of the book there are several extras, including "The Briar Creek Library Guide to Crafternoons," a reader's guide for The Last Time I Saw Paris by Lynn Sheene, a knitting pattern for the rolled hat Lindsey made (which was originally supposed to be a sock), a recipe for Sully's hot chocolate, and a recipe for Mary's clam chowder. The crafternoons guide could come in handy for public librarians looking for adult programming ideas.

For my part, the only extra I've used is the recipe for Sully's hot chocolate, which I've now made several times (with powdered cinnamon instead of sticks, and no nutmeg). I disagree with Lindsey's assessment that it isn't too sweet - after my first time making it, I cut the sugar back by half. I suggest halving the recipe if you just want to make enough hot chocolate for yourself. It's a very rich drink, and halving it makes enough for one good-sized mug.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)

Book Review Banzai: The Unknown Author's Ultimate Guide to Getting Amazon Reviews
Useful information about how authors should approach book bloggers to get their books read and reviewed online.
As a reviewer I'm happy when an author solicits their book for me to read. Hate when they just assume I will read it because they sent it to me. I read a ton, over 700 books this year, some are child, cookbooks, gardening, real 400 page books, wide variety of subjects.
I want to know a bit about the book then I'll decide if I want to read it and post reviews to about 15 different social media sites. Don't push it down my throat, ask me first. Always like a more personal letter, about something we have in common, even weather or geographical location.
The author knows what a blogger is and what an author is and how to match them together.

Chris Strange’s Mayday Is the Perfect Halloween Read. Because Kaijus.

My Thoughts:

As I Began the Book:

Whoa, that is an awesome name for Kaijus!

The author named them Maydays and the book started with the last transmission from a cargo ship before it went down due to a Mayday attack. Then we find ourselves standing at the crime scene of one of the Maydays, Yllia. The protagonist is a PI who is with us at the scene, trying to see if there is a case for him. It is pouring, there is mud and the dead Kaiju lies in the middle of it all. I knew I was going to love this book and I was right because the next thing we find out is it is next to impossible to kill a Mayday but this one just keeled over. Then, our protag discovers that Yllia didn’t just die but that she was murdered.

Fairly into the Story:

Maybe he’d change by the end of the book…

I found out that I hated the PI. There were all sorts of things that were off-putting when it came to this guy. He cracked sexist jokes, he sucked at his job most of the time, and he decided to make the king of Kaijus, Tempest, kneel before interrogating him. The funny part is that I didn’t care! I was enjoying the story too much to give a damn.

I loved that the Kaijus all looked different even though they were part of the same race. From what I gathered, Yllia, was a winged insectoid Mayday, described in the following words:

“Yllia’s official data sheet said this Mayday was 72 metres high, or 136 metres from head to tail, with a 158 metre wingspan… White fur coated her from her bulbous head to the tips of her forked tail. Her four arms — each ending in three delicate scythed claws — were folded beneath her, sinking into the mud. Even lying down she towered over me like a tsunami about to break. One thin, butterfly-like wing lay open across her body; the other was folded up, out of sight.”

Grotesque, on the other hand, was crocodilian:

I’d heard Grotesque described as a gigantic crocodile before. I’d never really seen it — his snout was too flat, his tail too long and snake-like, arms and legs more like a tiger’s than a reptile’s. But seeing him come sprinting across the rubble on all fours, tail flicking back and forth as he moved, the comparison suddenly fit. His jaws sprung open, revealing layer after layer of piercing yellow teeth, made not to cut but to grab and hold on. His leathery skin was a pale greenish-yellow, the colour of sickness. On either side of the jagged spines on his back, large yellow pustules throbbed against his skin.

Tempest is arachnid-like:

Serraton is described as resembling a Chinese Dragon:

Nasir is said to the most humanoid of all the Kaijus. From the description, I imagine he’d look something like this:

What is scarier than a scary monster? A monster who is sadistic and cunning. Tempest lived up to his name and made my insides go all gooey with his smarts. He planned to reclaim his title and rule the world with his army of Kaijus. He was almost human in the way he displayed his hatred and furthered his ambition.

Right There To the End:

Tempest is Bae!

The fight scenes between the Kaijus were written in amazing detail. The author grabs you with his words and makes you stand with the shitty PI as you read them. I was having the kinda fun that I had while watching Pacific Rim and the action just would not let up.

Like all good monster stories, this one ended with the Kaijus in stasis and not dead or defeated. It made the book all the more enjoyable. Like most monster stories, the people in it fail to realize the implications of enslaving gigantic murderous creatures and making them fight for sport.

If you pick up this book, don’t read it for the story or the plot or even the dialogues. Read it for the love of Kaijus and monster flicks that thrives in you. Read it to see not one or two but five Kaijus go at it while puny humans run around trying to save the world.

The author included a note at the end, asking readers if he should continue with a sequel. I think I would love to read what other sadistic ways Tempest might come up with to torture us!

A Little Bit About Making Connections:

I received this book for free in exchange for this review through Making Connections (MC). MC is all kinds of awesome because it highlights indie authors and offers their work up for review. They also do blog tours where different bloggers sign up to promote a certain book.

 I received this book to give an honest review.

So I really enjoyed book one but with this one it fell short for me. Out of all the short stories the only ones I liked were, 

Duck by H.G. Bleackley which is about a young girl whose mother is not really her mother it seems she could be a shape shifter. 

Lady of the Boat by Monique Diplock we are introduced to Lady Bronte who is a vampire on a ship let's leave that there.

Door to Door by Lori King this one was pretty crazy as there is a house that is believed to be haunted and what is a delivery van doing there with meat?

Angels in Blue Black Skies by Blaise Torrance this is where you kind of wonder about kids and the powers they have. It seems that these kids are here to change the world but exactly how will they do that?

A Full Wolf Moon- Retribution by L.D. Ricard I liked where this story was going but I wanted more back story as to what exactly was hunting this group. How did this person turn into this creature exactly? 

I wish I could pinpoint what exactly did not work for me with this book but I can not. Maybe it wasn't creepy or scary enough like the first one who knows. I did see there were authors I have never heard before so I will look into their work to see if I might enjoy them. 

If you enjoy short stories that are not quite scary then give this book a read you never know you may enjoy it more than I did. 

This book is probably more sci-fi than what we’ve seen before but it’s different from your average sci-fi as the alien possessors are so free from your many of your usual sci-fi markers

That’s my excuse. But I’ll be honest I just wanted to read this series as it was well recommended and I already liked Wesley Chu’s Time Salvager and since it’s generally frowned upon to hunt down authors that intrigue you and demand they write the genre you like on pain of am armadilloing, I decided to read this one. And save my armadillos for another day (also spellcheck, I disapprove of that lack of “e” on armadillos but after 10 minutes of struggle, I lost).

This book has aliens, the Quasing find human hosts which they then influence – but don’t take over. They have no super powers, they give no super powers – they just give knowledge. Thousands and thousand of years of experience – the experience of all human civilisation. Civilisation for which they were behind a lot of it, with a huge amount of the most famous and influential people of history were possessed by quasing.

In many other books I would comment on how this is appropriative and how it dismisses real human history. Especially since it does a very good job of not just focusing western history (so much of our fiction is western orientated): Tao, the Quasing we follow, has most prominently been in the head of Ghenghis Khan and Sun Yat-Sen among others. So this would suggest putting he achievements of great people in history – great POC in history – down to alien intervention (which is borderline “aliens built the pyramids” level of problematic)

It manages to avoid that by the simple amount of influence Tao has. Sure he can guide, but he can’t control. He can enhance but ultimately the quasing is not in the driver’s seat. On top of that Tao is as much – or more, willing to claim his failures as much as his successes. He not just blames himself for the failures of his past hosts but also Quasings in general. I found the brief reminisces of Tao’s previous lives, how Quasing history has developed, how world history has developed and how Prophus and Geijix factions came about. But thin it was excellently balanced by not including too much – we introduced the history and goals of the factions without completely overwhelming the whole book or turning it into an info-dump.

Still I did prefer the reminiscences to the story of Roen – partly because I don’t particularly like how Roen was treated. He has a lot of character flaws and, no, he wasn’t especially physically adept: but Tao insisted he become an agent, as in secret agent. They even said that the Prophus have need for scientists etc – academics – so why not look for a role more suitable to Roen’s skill set. I felt this made the human host, in contrast to the backstory, somewhat irrelevant. Tao’s specialities counted and the host will be forced into that mould (even if it comes with a bit of fat shaming).

Still, beyond that original problem, I really liked the story and how Roen’s character developed. I like how he didn’t become perfect right off the bat. I also liked how absolutely no character expected him to. There was no shame or attack on him for not being excellent, no-one looked down on him for having to start slow and easy. I really liked that – so many books would have had his failures or his weaknesses be attacked by more professional people or more experienced people. Instead everyone was always behind him, everyone was always supporting him and willing to help him develop. Even when he needed space and needed to back off.

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