I was excited to read Dorothy Must Die by Danielle Paige and chose to listen to the audio version. The tale introduces us to Amy Gumm from Kansas who finds herself in Oz. Only it is not the place she remembers from the movie she and her mother use to watch. In fact, something is terribly wrong. Paige twists Oz into a dark place filled with nightmares, and I found myself quickly immersed in this world.
In the Janus Affair, we once again join the duo of Eliza Braun and Wellington Books, officers at the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences in Britain. It was a fantastic ride filled with murder, missing persons and revelations. They are traveling home aboard Britain’s latest hypersteam train when the hair rises on the back of Eliza’s neck. A woman of Eliza’s acquaintance vanishes before their eyes in a bright bolt of lightning. Eliza and Wellington are stunned, but back in the archives they find this strange occurrence is happening all over.
I have always wanted to try one of Molly Harper’s books and when the chance to review Better Homes and Hauntings audio arose, I jumped. I love paranormal woo-woo with haunted houses, family lore and island settings. Harper offered up a simple, entertaining tale that will have you rooting for the characters and wanting to defuse a ghost.
I grew up in South Jersey and as a young teen traveled with my maternal grandparents to central Pennsylvania for the day. There we toured an abandoned coalmine. We rode inside the tunnels on old coal cars draped in thick miner coats and helmets. We learned about working in the mines from the working conditions to the ailments workers suffered. We then visited abandon towns with boarded up windows and overgrown lawns.; viewed fields where smoke and sulfur gases rose from the ground licked by flames. It was dark, sad and oddly eerie. On the car ride home, I imagined what people in those towns must have experienced. Where did they go? Why did some choose to stay? It was one of those memories that stayed with me. When I was approached to review the audio version of The Hollow Ground by Natalie S. Harnett and realized, the story was about a family in this ravaged area I immediately accepted. The Hollow Ground was a poignant tale of heartache, growth and the ties that bind us.
Reviving Izabel is the second novel In the Company of Killers by J.A. Redmerski. While I did not love this as much as Killing Sarai, it was nonetheless an edge of your seat tale laced with drama, heat and danger.
