Mystery Mile is the second book in Margery Allingham’s Albert Campion series. The Crime at Black Dudley is the first, but it features the detective Campion only incidentally. In Mystery Mile, Campion’s playful insouciance and faux-insipid charm is in full effect.
Belinda Carlisle seems to have lived the quintessential rocker’s life—starting off poor and dreaming of a magical life, being in love with music at a young age, starting a band almost on a whim, seeing her band rise to fame, drowning in drugs. Belinda’s story, Lips Unsealed, is one of brutal honesty about how her own shortcomings and insecurities kept her in the grip of addiction even while her life seemed perfect and almost fairy-tale like to those on the outside. Her life re
Marco, a 15-year-old boy, just wants to be a regular citizen and go to school. But his uncle, who is head of their clan, only sees these dreams as trouble. Forced to steal and beg for money on the streets, Marco secretly does all he can to better himself and learn as much as he can. When he overhears plans to cripple him, forcing him to abandon his dreams and tow the line, he knows he must escape. In his hours hiding from his Uncle and the rest of the clan, Marco makes a terrible discovery. Wanting to do the right thing brings his path across Carl's more than once.
Nine Inches: Storiesis a short-story collection that subtly probes the inner thoughts and motivations of everyday people making self-destructive choices—infidelity, drugs, jealousy, greed. These behaviors aren't particularly noteworthy, yet the stories feel rather intimate and revealing.
What a heart wrenching, yet inspiring, read this was! I listened to the audio book and couldn't tear myself away. It's been a long time since I found myself so immersed in a story, or since I have read a story so incredibly tragic and yet, at the same time so hopeful.
Arturo and Alma Rivera lived a happy life in Mexico until their beautiful teenage daughter, Maribel, sustains a serious injury in an accident. Unsure if she'll ever be the same again, they migrate to Delaware, where Maribel will be able to attend a special school and hopefully begin her road to recovery. But America is not what the family thought it would be—Arturo’s job is brutal, Maribel doesn't seem to be making much progress in school, and Alma struggles with her new life and learning a new language.
Mattie and Luke Spenser hardly know each other when they marry. Soon after marrying they take off from Fort Madison, Iowa in a covered wagon across the Great Plains to establish a homestead in Colorado Territory. Lacking any close friends or family nearby, Mattie confides in her journal and writes of the trials they face on the prairie and her loneliness and frustrations as she learns about her new husband and her role as his wife.
The Daylight Gate was a whim I picked up that fit neatly into my October/Halloween/Witch reading theme, and that delighted me more than I expected. I read Winterson years ago for a post-structuralist college class and only remembered her fondly to feel smarter about myself. This time, I picked her up for the shiny cover and, yes, the promise of witches.
The improbably-named Cormoran Strike, a war-wounded vet with overdue bills to pay, has an equally improbable day; his fiancé dumps him, he accidentally hires a new secretary, and the biggest case of his career walks through the door. This is how Robert Galbraith’s (aka J.K. Rowling’s) book The Cuckoo's
Confession: post-apocalyptic stories are not my favorite genre and can be really hit or miss with me. Despite the overall rave reviews, I've never read Cormac McCarthy's The Road because it sounds too grim and bleak for me. I watched the first season of The Walking Dead and gave up when I found it too depressing. (And I'm a fan of the Cure and Joy Division, so it's not like I only like things bright and cheerful.) Station Eleven by Emily St.
