Jane Litte's Blog, page 4

REVIEW: I See You’ve Called in Dead by John Kenney

The Office meets Six Feet Under meets About a Boy in this coming-of-middle-age tale about having a second chance to write your life’s story.

Bud Stanley is an obituary writer who is afraid to live. Yes, his wife recently left him for a “far more interesting” man. Yes, he goes on a particularly awful blind date with a woman who brings her ex. And yes, he has too many glasses of Scotch one night and proceeds to pen and publish his own obituary. The newspaper wants to fire him. But now the comp...

REVIEW: Vera Wong’s Guide to Snooping (on a Dead Man) (A Vera Wong Novel) by Jesse Q Sutanto

Vera Wong is back and as meddling as ever in this follow-up to the hit Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers.…

Ever since a man was found dead in Vera’s teahouse, life has been good. For Vera that is. She’s surrounded by loved ones, her shop is bustling, and best of all, her son, Tilly, has a girlfriend! All thanks to Vera, because Tilly’s girlfriend is none other than Officer Selena Gray. The very same Officer Gray that she had harassed while investigating the teahouse murder. Still, V...

REVIEW: Swept Away by Beth O’Leary

Dear Beth O’Leary,

I’ve had a banger of a reading month. The three most recent reads for me have been 5 star/A category experiences – My Big Fat Fake Marriage by Charlotte Stein, Promise Me Sunshine by Cara Bastone, and this one. 

Probably the premise is a little on the preposterous side. Possibly even leaning strongly toward unbelievable. I was telling my husband about it and he had some opinions (“the North Sea? the North Sea? In a houseboat?”). But (almost all) of me didn’t care. I just sat...

Review: The Family Man (Mind Hacker #1) by AJ Rose

Special Agent Jon “Ice Man” Anderson is one of the FBI’s best monster hunters, catching predators using their darkness against them. It’s his purpose, and he’s relentless.

Rookie Special Agent Tracey Smith is Jon’s opposite, shining light in the shadows and counteracting the dark with hope. Together, they may be the perfect combination to catch The Family Man, a sniper terrorizing St. Louis, dealing death through the scope of a high-powered rifle.

They can’t afford distractions.
Jon can’t ignor...

Review: The Dark is Rising (The Dark is Rising Book 2) by Susan Cooper

On the Midwinter Day that is his eleventh birthday, Will Stanton discovers a special gift– that he is the last of the Old Ones, immortals dedicated to keeping the world from domination by the forces of evil, the Dark. At once, he is plunged into a quest for the six magical Signs that will one day aid the Old Ones in the final battle between the Dark and the Light. And for the twelve days of Christmas, while the Dark is rising, life for Will is full of wonder, terror, and delight.

Review:

“When ...

REVIEW: The Song of the Blue Bottle Tree by India Hayford

Genevieve Charbonneau talks to ghosts and has a special relationship with rattlesnakes. In her travels, she’s wandered throughout the South, escaping a mental hospital in Alabama, working for a Louisiana circus, and dancing at a hoochy-kootch in Texas. Now for the first time in a decade, she’s allowed her winding path to bring her to the site of her grandmother’s Arkansas farmhouse, a place hallowed in her memory.

She intends only to visit briefly – to pay respects to her buried loved ones and...

REVIEW: Count My Lies by Sophie Stava

Sloane Caraway is a liar.

Harmless lies, mostly, to make her self-proclaimed sad, little life a bit more interesting.

So when Sloane sees a young girl in tears at a park one afternoon, she can’t help herself—she tells the girl’s (very attractive) dad she’s a nurse and helps him pull a bee stinger from the girl’s foot.

With this lie, and chance encounter, Sloane becomes the nanny for the wealthy, and privileged Jay and Violet Lockhart. The perfect New York couple, with a brownstone, a daughter i...

REVIEW: When the Moon Hits Your Eye by John Scalzi

The moon has turned into cheese.

Now humanity has to deal with it.

For some it’s an opportunity. For others it’s a moment to question their faith: In God, in science, in everything. Still others try to keep the world running in the face of absurdity and uncertainty. And then there are the billions looking to the sky and wondering how a thing that was always just there is now… something absolutely impossible.

Astronauts and billionaires, comedians and bank executives, professors and presidents,...

REVIEW: The Last Gifts of the Universe by Riley August

A dying universe. A search for answers. An adventure at the end of a trillion lifetimes.

When the Home worlds finally achieved the technology to venture out into the stars, they found a graveyard of dead civilisations. What befell them is unknown. All Home knows is that they are the last ones left – and whatever came for the others will one day come for them.

Scout is an Archivist who scours the dead worlds of the cosmos for their last gifts: interesting technology, cultural rituals – anything...

AUDIOBOOK REVIEW: Wished by Sarah Ready, narrated by Amanda Ronconi & Will Watt

When Anna Benoit wishes she’s married to the enigmatic owner of the chateau she cleans, she wakes up in a topsy-turvy world where she’s Max Barone’s wife.

Anna is a romantic who believes in The One and Love at First Sight. Why? Because it happened to her. The second she saw Max Barone she fell desperately, hopelessly in love.

It didn’t matter that they were from completely different worlds—he owned a jewelry empire, she cleaned houses—love had no barriers.

Except one.

Max didn’t know Anna’...