bookheaven | Entries tagged with paranormal

Tell-Tale Treats: A Magical Fortune Cookie Novel by Jennifer J. Chow

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Felicity Jin is back helping out her former teacher who now runs and B&B. She's been asked to bring baked goods for a group of high school alumni who are having a reunion and have bought out the B&B for a week. Felicity's boyfriend, Kelvin the florist is providing the floral decorations. Ashley the queen B wants her former sycophants to be locked into the B&B and watch movies and basically have a giant slumber party. The others are less thrilled, especially one who is a semi-pro tennis star who doesn't want to sit around doing nothing.

They don't make the first night before Queen B is dead and Felicity is worried her allergic reaction death is due to her cookies so naturally she (and Kelvin) have to be sure that it wasn't her also they want to save their former teacher's reputation too. Felicity's fortune telling fortune cookies are just part of her growing magic, between a family cookbook of magic and her moon rabbit really getting into things this time.

I read book one but missed the second so I somehow missed how/why Detective Sun and Felicity's mom seem to be so close suddenly. At least there is less tension between her and Felicity which is good for me (the detective being anti amateur sleuth is my least favorite version of cozy)

The mystery itself was good with enough twists and turns to be compelling. On the other hand I was wondering how Kelvin's business stays afloat since he's always with Felicity (who at least has her mother to run the bakery). I didn't like some of Felicity's minor jealousies and somewhat childish attitude especially when being told no by anyone.

I wish she had described the decorative stones on the tub better besides telling us several times they're from a special region in China. I was imagining the river rock sort you see in spas but if these were being used as pebbles against a window... they had to be tiny.

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Death at the Door (Ruby and Cordelia Mysteries #2)

Death at the Door by Olivia Blacke

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A 3.5 star read if I'm honest because Ruby is...young? That sounds better than makes stupid decisions right? Because whoo boy there were times I was hoping Cordelia would slap her into next week. I did not get to see book one but the gist is obvious. Ruby has come to Boston to get away from a bad break up with a fresh start in a new city and is working as the receptionist for TrendCelerate a tech company that Cordelia used to work at, the same Cordelia whose apartment and all her earthy belongings Ruby now has. In theory Cordelia committed suicide (fully dressed in the bath with pills that weren't hers) and her ghost is looking out for Ruby.

Then the unthinkable happens during Ruby's bosses' meeting with their competitor CloudIndus, Marty the spuckie delivery dude is found dead (by Ruby) in the bathroom a handful of pills jammed into his throat. Naturally Ruby and Cordelia (who mostly communicates with Ruby via fridge magnets and an etch-a-sketch) feel they must solve the case and oddly enough after the beginning interviews the police pretty much disappear from the narrative.

Cordelia, being older, seems to have the more level headed and she's the one who gathers more of the clues and red herrings that the reader can use and she has no good way of giving them to Ruby. Into all this come two men: Tosh the new next door neighbor who obvious to everyone but Ruby is being nice to her for underhanded reasons and Ian, Cordelia's often incarcerated younger brother who breaks into Ruby's place a few too many times without her reporting him to the police.

There are plenty of people who might have wanted Marty dead, especially since he was a small time drug dealer (to a lot of Ruby's coworkers) and there is industrial espionage going on and just what was on the encrypted flashdrive Ruby found?

The mystery winds up well enough though with more loose threads than I'm used to (points to Tosh, the flashdrive and the drug kingpin) including an open ending involving Cordelia's brother.

I liked Cordelia better than Ruby. I think some of my dissatisfaction with Ruby comes from how she handles some things, like her interrogation of Marty's sister the day after his death along with some of her choices (where I'm forcibly reminding myself she's not even 21 yet so let's call it inexperience) But what really burned me was something Cordelia did with something (I don't want to spoil it) electronic knowing she destroys them. I'd rather that scene hadn't happened at all. There is also a lot of repetition in some things like Cordelia and Adam, how much of a loser Cordelia and Ian were in life among others. It wasn't a bad book by any means but there were some things that hit me wrong. I would read more of the series though.

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Ghost Roast: A Graphic Novel by Shawnelle Gibbs

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was really cute and I loved the art. Chelsea, a high schooler, has managed to make friends with the In Crowd at her high school but it feels like a position that could be taken away easily. She doesn't quite fit in with these people, as her mom doesn't make much money and her father (parents are divorced) is a cross between Ray Stanz and Zak Bagans. He is a paranormal investigator (barely surviving on it) and has a new embarrassing ad out. He is the titular Ghost Roaster (think how the Ghostbusters tag and bag their ghosts) along with a young man around Chelsea's age. He also believes that ghosts are dangerous and lead to the death of one of his relatives.

After Chelsea ends up in trouble after a party, her punishment is to work for her dad all summer (vs what she wanted to go do with her friends). And here is where the story takes on dealing with plantation life, slavery and the modern day ramifications of it (my take away, which I'm both biased to think this way and also unlike Chelsea and the authors I am not of African descent, is that the historical places don't need torn to the ground and forgotten but rather can be used as a talking point about the pain and suffering of the people who lived there)

Chelsea learns she can see ghosts like the older women in her family could and she also meets Oliver, one of the former owners of the plantation, a cute young man who can't remember how he died or why he's still tied to the place. Chelsea tries to solve that mystery (again leading us into the fraught history of slave ownership, biracial people and colorism, all of which I felt was done well) If she can't figure it out, her father might successfully exorcise poor Oliver.

It is a good story, fun characters and like I said, touches on important history and things that still have effects today. I enjoyed this.

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The Road to Strange: Travel Tales of the Paranormal and Beyond by Michael Brein

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I've had this one on the shelf for more than a few years now as I ramped up for the Mothman Festival I pulled it off the shelf. I got it from Rosemary herself at that festival and she was so excited for it. So was I. It wasn't quite what I expected hovering between a 3.5 read for me all the way through.

The book is a collection of stories, many told to Brein and Guilley and some told by the authors. Each are only about 1-3 pages long and then Brein and Guilley try to interpretate what all of it meant, what kind of encounters were these and compare them to other cases they knew about. It's broken into sections, ghosts/hauntings (the majority of the book), premonitions and omens and psychic moments.

By its very nature, small revelations from various people, it's set up to be choppy and for me that wasn't entirely engaging. It's not a bad book and had some interesting encounters. On the other hand I wouldn't want to read many in this same vein.

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Chasing Evil: Shocking Crimes, Supernatural Forces, and an FBI Agent’s Search for Hope and Justice by John Edward

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This memoir by Robert Hilland (GR has John Edward's name up first, and it's not really written by him other than one chapter but that's a recognizable name) is interesting. I thought it was well written and a good look into Hilland's head. Memoirs can be a bit dry. This was not. However, how much of this you believe is how much do you believe in psychics. For context for younger readers, John Edward's Crossing Over (talking to those who're gone) was hugely popular in the early 00s.

It took me a moment to recognize the case that took up the first half of Hilland's narrative. It was interesting to see how he first came into John Edward's orbit, the things they had in common and his initial disbelief in John's abilities (whether or not the reader believes in it, Hilland came to be a believer).

So this deals with how John impacted Hilland's investigations and in a few cases predicted things that may have saved his life. If you're coming into this just for the true crime aspect of it, this might influence your opinion one way or the other since it's very much about John's psychic abilities.

I would have liked to see more than one chapter by John in this. We don't have much of him in this other than what is filtered by Hilland. Over all I did enjoy this.

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The Flip Side: A Graphic Novel by Jason Walz

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This graphic novel deals with young death (from cancer) and the grief of those left behind. Theo's best friend Evan has died and along with a deep friendship (and the movie they were working on together). Fourteen year olds aren't meant to waste away and die before their friends and family's eyes.

Theo is raw from Evan's death especially as well meaning but unaware family members shunting him out of the house before he can grieve the loss of his friend and his own mother doesn't seem to understand either. Theo wakes up in the Flip side where everything is literally upside down and he is alone.

The Flip side is a hell of isolation and loneliness interrupted only by a nebulous monster whispering all your self doubts and fears to you, making them oh so real. The black and white art very much serves the story, making it even more eerie. Before he can realize the danger he's in Theo gets a strange text message telling him to get out of his house.

This is how he meets Emma a young girl who's been here longer than he has and has some working idea of how to survive in the Flip Side. Emma has issues of her own, growing up in a group home with some obvious neurodivergence and mental health issues. She tries to keep him and her safe even though she's pricklier than a hedgehog and not nearly as cuddly.

Theo clings to her at first out of desperation and then out of true friendship as he doggedly pursues an escape that Emma has given up on. And dogged is a good word choice because one of the way Emma wards off the thought-monsters after them is thinking about/talking about Scooby-Doo fan theories and fanfiction (which is so endearing)

It was written out of the author's own pain of losing his friend to cancer (at a later date than Theo did) and it comes across well. Grief and mourning are never straightforward or easy and they can easily become monsters. I thought this was well done.

I won this in a goodreads giveaway which in no way influenced my review.

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Trouble the Water by Wendy Vogel

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is one I got from the author at Ohioana book festival and I found it engaging (which sounds better than I liked it because whoo boy the subject matter. Let me spool out a laundry list of content warning in no particular order. Religious cult, religious trauma, religious based misogyny, religious based homophobia, externalized and internalized homophobia, rape/murder of disabled children, domestic violence, other murders and there is probably some I'm forgetting.

Naomi has returned home to the farm where her father ran a cult, Jesus' Cleansing Waters after her abusive, alcoholic husband is killed in a car accident, bringing with her, her disabled daughter Leah (spina bifida). Her mother has sold off most of the farm, part to a chicken/turkey factory farm (and her father's second in command stole the money and ran off to KY) and part to a developer making McMansions with disregard as to how a factory farm stinks.

The only part of her father's legacy left is Aunt Betty (hands down my favorite side character), Naomi's mom and her brother Nathan. Naomi hopes to go back to college now that her husband is gone but in the meantime is working at Kroger running a cash register. Her brother is a long haul trucker (or was) and Leah is attending the Snowflake Academy for disabled children.

One of Leah's friends goes missing and she's not the first disabled girl to do so. One had gone missing last year. On top of this mystery Naomi starts dating a Kroger Chef who is huge into helping to man search parties and tip lines. As this relationship slowly creeps forward, Naomi tries to work through a lifetime of religious trauma, deal with the growing realization her mother is developing dementia and reconnecting with her old childhood friend JP.

Kudos to the one smart thing Naomi did. She not only sent her daughter to her other grandparents' home about 4 hours away and then asks them to keep Leah because it's not safe (by now a third child is gone) And smarter yet of the author to put a time line on this, the grandparents have a trip they can't get refunded on so we know that Leah will be back in time for the climax where she doubtless will be a target.

Also into this mix there's the faceless girl ghost wreathed in smoke who keeps visiting Naomi, 'Weebla' who leads her around to some clues as to who she is and what is happening.

If I'm honest there are only three real suspects in this and given how it ended I'd have almost rather the most obvious one was the killer. The ending is rushed and very awful subject matter wise (more so because if you watch enough ID Discovery you've heard of real cases like this). Overall I found it, as I said, engaging.

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Bodies and Battlements (The Ravensea Castle Series, #1)

Bodies and Battlements by Elizabeth Penney

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

There is a good bit of wish fulfillment in this setting but since I could see myself wishing for this too I didn't mind. Case in point, Nora Asquith's family has been in this Yorkshire seaside castle for centuries, as the guardians of the town. Her family and Ravensea castle are chocked full of history and ghosts (yes, there are interactive ghosts in this) but of course now they have to find new ways of making money to keep this big pile of historic homestead going.

To that end, Nora and her father have turned parts of it into a B&B with just a few rooms at this point, mostly supplementing the renovations and start up with Nora's herbalist career using the castle gardens (see what I mean about wish fulfillment. Who wouldn't want to be able to live in a haunted castle and putter in the herb garden and somehow make enough to survive). It's now opening week and Nora has a few guests filling up all three rooms, Brian the birdwatcher, a wine merchant richie rich couple (installed for free by Nora's mead-making brother trying to get a wine contract) and Finlay Cole, new to town and waiting for his apartment to be ready for him.

At the first social, Hilda, a woman relatively new to town and huge in trying to prevent the B&B from opening, runs from the castle only to turn up dead in Nora's garden with her head stoved in. Naturally fearing being accused of murder (or her father being the same) Nora sets out to solve the case with the help of her tv star sister, Tamsyn.

And her guest Finlay who turns out to be a DI (no spoilers there, it's in the blurb). It does contain some nice twists and I did like that it didn't strain the suspension of disbelief you have to have to read cozy mysteries. I liked the characters and as I've said in many a cozy mystery review, these only work for me if the actual detective isn't hardcore anti-amateur sleuth or too stupid to be a detective. Finlay is neither of these things. He's naturally telling Nora to stay out of it but he's also sweet on her (cue romantic subplot) so it worked for me.

I had fun with this one and I'd gladly read more.

I received the arc for this from publisher which in no way influenced my review.

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The Strange Tales of Oscar Zahn, Vol. 1: A Graphic Novel by Trí Vương

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is exactly as the title suggests: strange. Oscar is just animated clothing and a floating skull and his companion (for parts of the story ) is an old woman versed in the supernatural. That is what Oscar does now, helping spirits find rest as he himself is somewhere between life and death, filled with an entity he calls ectopus (a paranormal ectoplasmic octopus in appearance)

As Oscar solves cases and helps people (Oscar is a sweet guy) we slowly see the backstory of his relationships with others and how he ended up the way he is. The stories include a haunted house (heartbreaking), spirits from a world war, the spirits of the drowned and most interesting, a woman he had (in her eyes) wronged. She's also a very interesting character once we get into her backstory.

The art is appropriately eerie and I would definitely like to see more of this.

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Hormones, Hexes, & Exes (Menopause, Magick, Mystery, #1)

Hormones, Hexes, & Exes by J.C. Blake

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I found this one thanks to the Popsugar challenge this year and I was excited to read it. Unfortunately, I came away feeling as if the author knew how to write a cozy mystery but was less sure how to handle the paranormal witchy side of things and that bothered me the entire book. The magical worldbuilding left a lot to be desired.

Liv is having her 50th birthday party (with a lot of internalized ageism and fatphobia) and finds out her husband is having an affair with the sexy next door neighbor Selma Maybrook. This also activates her witchy powers. And this is where it almost immediately goes off the rails for me.

As it turns out the four aunts who raised her are all witches and I guess your powers activate once your ovaries deactivate. The blurb says if you believe women grow more powerful with age then this is for you. I'm fine with it but this is news to Liv and I'm like wait you let her go her entire life and never mention this heritage? What? I would feel so betrayed (Liv doesn't) So they bundle her off with them to tell her all about her heritage and to give her space from her philandering husband.

Naturally Selma ends up dead and Liv is the only suspect because the detective seems bad at his job. He was also her high school sweetheart but her aunts are up in arms because his family is cursed and we get an explanation of the witch world including an immortal (?) witch hunter general still out to kill witches (who are also immortal I guess or at least very long lived)

But none of this matters because once Liv decides she has to be the one to clear her name (and in this case I was willing to bend my rule about amateur sleuths needing to work with the detectives vs opposed to them because a cursed detective is an interesting idea) things go further off the rails. The detective and her aunts all but disappear from the story. We see/hear of them a couple times but not again until the end. All the aunts are worried about is if Liv isn't back for the solstice celebration she can never fully come into her powers or into the coven (no real explanation given)

With that in mind, Liv has a time limit on her investigation. You'd think the aunts would help in some manner being witches and all. Nope. I'm like if this solstice celebration is so important why aren't you helping her especially as she can't control her current powers? The only one to step up is her familiar which I won't spoil but it was eye rolling that anyone could miss one important detail about him.

Now the cozy mystery part of it worked well enough and knowing that the witch hunter general is back, it's not hard to guess he has a part in this. I just wish that both the detective (who you know will be the love interest down the road) and the aunts didn't fall out of the plot for much of it. There are several books in this series but I'm on the fence about reading further. It was a good beach read (and I literally read it at the beach) but is also one I'd rather find at the library than buy.

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Rare Flavours by Ram V.

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

CW - cannibalism (sort of, as Rubin points out he's not exactly human)

Rubin Baksh is motivated by the death of Anthony Bourdain to set his own culinary journey down on film and to that end, he hand picks a filmmaker who is down on his luck, Mo. He has hunted down some old movie of Mo's that infuriates the young man but in the end makes him agree to work with Rubin and they set off across India in search of the titular rare flavors.

What Mo doesn't know is that Rubin is a demonic Rakshasa from folklore, a monster of such appetites he cannot be sated. He was stopped once upon a time by a mythic hero who snapped his spine and left him to die in a cave. He did not but he's been lying low until now.

Mo does learn of Rubin's habit of eating people (and doesn't run) and that there are two demon hunters on their trail. The contrast of Rubin's love of food history, of preserving food culture that is disappearing, is a stark one when you consider he's eating some of the people along the way. For much of the graphic novel you also don't know who this Masi is he's talking to in the narration but we learn of her later.

It's also told nonlinearly as we have segments of Mo nervously debuting his documentary. I very much enjoyed the story. I was less of a fan of the art style, especially how oddly with little regard to human form that Rubin was drawn in. I loved the attention to details and the recipes as we went. It's worth reading even with its dark theme.

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The Paranormal Ranger: A Navajo Investigator's Search for the Unexplained by Stanley Milford Jr.

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I was shocked to see see this on the library's new book shelf simply because I had no idea such a delight was in print. Stanley Milford Jr is exactly as the the title suggests, a Navajo Ranger, a member of law enforcement on the Navajo reservation.

This memoir covers the mundane law enforcement experiences and trainings Stanley underwent but as the title says that's not the end all be all or even the most important thing about the book. Yes he's law enforcement but he's also straight up Fox Mulder (with some Scully mixed in). He claims to have a healthy skepticism about UFOs and the paranormal. That said, belief in the witches known as skinwalkers is part of his culture.

Stanley describes his own encounter with what he believed to be a skinwalker as a young man. He also mixes the every day police work of man hunts, drug dealers etc with having to go out to the very remote parts of the reservation because someone's sheep has been eaten by Bigfoot. He talks about how to deal with the public in cases like this. He's seen things he can't discount like the skin walkers, UFO evidence and yes, Bigfoot evidence too.

It's a fun, fascinating read. I would love to hear Stanley talk at one of the paranormal cons as his thoughts on this (and his philosophy of life) aligns well with my own. I'm not a memoir reader but this one was well worth it if you like this sort of topic.

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Ghostlore Vol. 1 by Cullen Bunn

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

3.5 stars rounded down due to the fact it was a tad short and uneven and the trope is old but there is potential there, certainly enough for me to get the next volume. That said, whoever wrote the blurb on the back cover needs slapped. They spoiled the twist in the first chapter completely.

Harmony and her brother James are being raised in rural somewhere (unnamed) by a preacher father and their mother. James has stopped speaking for some reason and Harmony can't wait to be 18 and free to leave this place, a matter made worse by her father's harsh criticism of how she can't wait to be done with them. A car accident changes everything and ghosts begin to appear to Harmony and her father but they have two complete different reactions to it.

Harmony listens to their stories and takes on that burden freeing them. Her father's approach is more to evoke a god he longer believes in and strike out destroying the spirits in His name. This just adds to the schism between them. And to be fair some of their spirits are violent. Worse, other people who can see them are not benevolent either and one of the more violent psychics is heading their way.

I do feel it was short and rushed. Harmony in particular needed time to grieve because she was the cause of the life changing accident and its not addressed here (maybe later?) The stories need more time and depth BUT to be fair to Cullen Bunn he may have been given a 'get it done in 10 episodes' demand from Boom! comics. I have no way of knowing (it sure feels like it). The art is very good and as I said above I will be getting more.

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Lies on the Serpent's Tongue (Bittersweet in the Hollow, #2)

Lies on the Serpent's Tongue by Kate Pearsall

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was SO close to being a 5 star read, if not with a few pacing issues it would have been. Caveat: you could probably read this book without book one but I don't recommend it as it builds on that foundation.

It opens several weeks past the end of Bittersweet in the Hollow and Rowan, one of the magical James women, learning that their former farmhand, Hadrian is technically a psychopomp they call the Moth-Winged Man (riffing off Point Pleasant's Mothman). This book feels steeped in Appalachian culture and lore (saying this as someone who lives there, very near the Mothman) though this time leans far less heavily on the chapter openers/closers of folk remedies that were in book one.

Rowan can taste lies so when people are lying about things that she knows are true without triggering her lie detector, she's confused. Worse, there's a podcaster/cryptid hunter in town irking her and she's already running on fury over events of last book (such as some towns people turning on them and wrecking the family restaurant). Grandma sends her off into the woods with Vernie, a forest ranger who needs help manning a fire observation station near the mystical (and currently injured) bone tree. Vernie sets her up with a less paranormal issue: wild ginseng poachers who may destroy the fragile ecosystem and cause this plant to go extinct (a real concern).

What Rowan encounters instead are several bizarre things, a young man who won't wake up, animals that don't belong in West Virginia and Hadrian, severely beaten up. She and Hadrian have to team up to figure out what is going on before the veil comes undone between this world and the other side.

There are plenty of good twists and turns in this. Grandma's unresolved search for her missing sister Zephyrine is not forgotten for example. The James women are fascinating and I love them. I enjoy Hadrian too though I think some of the interpersonal details with him and Rowan feel a bit rushed (ditto some of the disappearing plot threads, hence that pacing issue I mentioned)

Regardless I loved where this ended and what it hints is to come. I'll be there for it. Thanks to Netgalley for the arc.

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Nightshade by John Saul

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I chose the wrong time to read this but I'm not sure there is ever a good time for me to read this one (I was health care worker severely injured by a dementia patient so while you can't blame them, there is some PTSD around that). Speaking of trigger warnings: on page child abuse in just a few paragraphs in, abusive parent, intimated incest, dementia, murder.

Joan Hapgood is insistent in moving her mother Emily, into her husband's home. Emily is in the more severe side of dementia including hallucinations, agitation and violence. But even without that she is the type of mother who chose a golden child and her other child in the house thrall who can do nothing right (something I've seen in my extended family). Joan is not the chosen one. Her dead sister Cynthia is. Emily keeps Cynthia's room as it was the day she left, convinced she's coming home. SHe also hates Joan's son, Matt, constantly referring to him as Joan's bastard.

When her husband, Bill, wants to put Emily in a home where she can be properly cared for, Joan refuses. She has deluded herself into thinking her mother can be brought out of her dementia. Emily is convinced Cynthia has come home and something definitely has. Something that might be Cynthia's ghost, something that wants Matt for starters.

Joan is a character you want to slap hard and then just keep slapping for prioritizing her mother over her son and husband (especially her son who is obviously in free fall and needs help) Yes, there is that whole complicated Stockholm SYndrome/self preservation thing going on with Joan but how many times can you put your own child second?

Things continue to go from bad to worse but there's an odd narrative distance in this. We're told more than we're shown which is odd for a story teller of Saul's caliber. This isn't his best work but it's still creepy enough if that's what you're looking for.

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Beyond the Pale Moonlight: A UFO-Mothman Encounter by Linda Sigman

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I met the author at this year's Mothman Festival and enjoyed talking to her. Honestly this book is more along the lines of the zines from the 8-s and 90s. very short. It's like listening to Linda talk about her 60s era sighting of not just Mothman but associated UFOS. If you only know the Mothman story about him chasing a carload of teens from the lovers' lane by the TNT plant, there are other stories. This is one of them.

Linda tells about getting picked up for a stargazing date that ends with her and her boyfriend at the time seeing not one but two UFOS and the Mothman being near one of them (One of the theories is he is an alien) It tracks along the typical lost time UFO encounter.

There is a brief chapter about having a regression hypnosis session with the UFO group in Circleville (other people I have met. I have a weird life) but it's not included here (Other its proprietary to their website or she doesn't want to steal their thunder.) We also get a bit on Chief Cornstalk (whom she claims kinship to) and of course, the Silver Bridge collapse (another Mothman link).

It's short and what really makes it a 3.5 read is Mark's artwork. It's a very nice accompaniment and does add length to something that would be a pamphlet otherwise. THere is a host of drawings as well illustrating the encounters at the end.

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Boston Metaphysical Society Vol. 1 by Madeleine Holly-Rosing

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I backed the hard cover version of this on kickstarter (but can't find it on GR even with the ISBN so we'll put the review here). This is something of an alternative history/steampunk story that was a 3.5 read for me but I rounded up.

It opens in media res with a spirit photographer, Andrew, working with an ex-Pinkerton detective, Sam Hunter, whose current job is to stop ghosts from harming the living. After the events in the opener, Sam finds himself working alone except for his friend, Granville a scientific genius held back by the color of his skin. And then Andrew's daughter Caitlin appears on his doorstep wanting to work for him as she is a psychic medium and photographer too. Sam is very uncertain after what happened with Andrew and the fact this is 1895 and Cait is a woman.

Forced to give her a trial run, it works out and she starts working for him. Also in the mix is BETH a scientific consortium consisting of Alexander Graham Bell, Nikolai Tesla, Thomas Edison and Harry Houdini and they too are tracking ghosts, including one large one that is threatening all of Boston. Obviously with egos this big, they don't exactly always get along and Edison in particular dislikes Granville and his work (we'll go with racism for this one).

As they all start working toward finding this dangerous ghost, they also start working against each other with differing ideas as to how to stop it. Cait also wonders if they should be destroying ghosts vs talking to them (she is a rarity, able to hear them). We also have in this mix her mother, a spiteful woman who basically kidnaps Cait holding her in a church for an exorcism not because she cares about her but because she wants her to suffer (she's a real sweetie)

The one thing I did like a lot about this was they didn't shy away from Sam's Pinkerton background. Mostly these days we hear about them being private eyes (they're where the term originated from their advertising slogan) but they were also basically private police and strike breakers. They did some awful things. Sam did awful things that haunt him (and others know about it and torment him with them). It also didn't shy way from the anti-Irish feelings in Boston at this time.

What I didn't like was who in BETH was basically the bad guy. From every biography I've read this seems totally out of character for him. I would have bought it more from Edison (who was a well known jerk).

I liked the art except some of them looked a little too much like each other. I would like to see more of this.

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怪物事変 3 by Sho Aimoto

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Mihai the vampire has sent Kabane, Shiki and Akira on a mission for him inside a strange factory that is highly productive but its work force is not all that it seems. What should have been a simple mission turns dangerous, far more than the trio was led to expect.

It does, however, lead the trio to find inner strength they didn't know they had. As a small trip (that Akira is convinced is a vacation) is arranged by Inugami for Shiki, a misunderstanding means they all go to this bathhouse retreat owned by Shiki's uncle. They're going to seach for Shiki's parents as he's now emotionally ready for it. However there is some real horror waiting for them there.

I'm enjoying this for the most part but there are a few misses for me like the some what infantile nature of Kon (who wasnt in this much) and the shallow approach to Akira's fem-boy nature that feels to have no understanding of the psychology of it (feels more like awww aint' this cutesy). I do want to keep rolling with this series.

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Silver Lady by Mary Jo Putney

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I got this from the publisher as part of a summer reading packet win last year and put it off as I'm not a romance reader. this is a 3.5 read for me but I rounded up since some of my issues are romance tropes that I know others like. I will give it this, Bran is as far from the toxic alpha male you often see as you can get. He's so sweet (as his brother Cade) that he borders on Larry Stu flawlessness.

Bran and Cade were both thrown out because they are 'gifted' and escape a baby farm (and since there are reviewers saying how unbelievable they are and they can't exist. Believe it. They were real though usually took younger kids than Bran or Cade. Margaret Waters a baby farmer was convicted of killing nearly 2 dozen kids) They are taken in by Lord and Lady Tremayne who were also gifted.

And for me here is problem number one and the largest of them. The plot is Merryn, the amnesiac gifted love interest was kidnapped and mind blocked by two people so they can exploit her gifts. Of course they would. Who wouldn't? In this world everyone knows about gifts and a lot of people despise/are afraid of them. I'm like who wouldn't want to use these gifts to their advantage. It made little sense other than Bran and Cade needed to be orphaned but not really.

Because that's the other main plot line. Bran's obnoxious father, Lord Penhalion, has lost all his heirs except Bran and he wants him back now. Maybe. Bran doesn't want to be Lord but his gift tells him to go to Cornwall anyhow.

Naturally he meets Merryn and I liked how that was handled. What I was less enthused with was how Merryn's amnesia was handled. She was infantilized, talking in one or two words. Amnesia doesn't work that way but later we learn gifts were involved. Gifts that kept involving to make the storyline work.

There was a bit of deus ex machina in this as well at the end that I found annoying. It definitely sets up the series which since there is like a dozen Tremayne kids they're all going to get the romance treatment (or at least Cade is, you can see it coming) The other romance trope that made me groan is that all of this takes place in less than two weeks and they're already racing to marry. Ugh. Yes I know love at first sight exists. In my world it always ends in a whirlwind too (I know one person where it didn't) so when that's your real life experience this trope just falls flat. You don't even know her yet. She barely knows herself. But you're SO in love. I found it a bit cringy.

I did like Bran, Cade and their sister Tamsyn. Merryn was all right. I'd have been much more interested if this was the siblings action adventure novel.

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Once & Future, Vol. 4: Monarchies in the UK by Kieron Gillen

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is the muddiest volume so far but that's only because it's gotten so complex. All of Britain has been sucked into the Other World, existing now in The Story. Fairies and dragons are real and present dangers. Worse now every story version of Merlin/Arthur/Lancelot are playing out for control of the story.

Bridgette, always on top of her game, makes an unlikely allegiance with the oldest version of a folktale that likes to foil kings and the rich. Rose, on the other hand, pulls on her heart strings and gets Bridgette to okay going to Bath after her parents (Bridgette has already housed her retirement community friends and their nurse in her ancestral estate which is partially magic proof) and bring them there.

I'm glad they did because it brought up a tale of a male gorgon in Bath which I had to go look up (cool stuff right there). And did I mention dragons? There are dragons.

This story remains fun and the art is outstanding I want to hang it on my wall.

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Once & Future, Vol. 5: The Wasteland by Kieron Gillen

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a conclusion worth the having. Yeah it borrows a bit from Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them there are the end but it made sense. It's about the only thing they could have done and it worked logically within the confines of the story's folklore roots.

Bridgette, Rose and Duncan have come up with a way to end The Story and get Britain back to the real world. Time, however, is against them. They need to survive nearly a year in the Other World and not only do they have all of the Arthurs working against them, there's Mary.

If I had one gripe about this series it's Mary. We get why she doesn't trust her mother but it doesn't justify why she treats Duncan as she does. In her head (and in her trauma) I suppose she considers him more his grandmother's child than hers but what is really lacking is Duncan's reaction to all of this. I get it. It would slow the frantic pace down, make it uneven but it still felt like more was needed, even if it's a 'I don't see her as my mother' from him.

Still, over all a solid ending. I adored these characters and I'm glad there's a happy for now open ending on it. I wouldn't mind revisiting them. The art was lush and gorgeous up to the last panel. Kudos. I see there are two hard cover editions. I might need to buy them.

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