Book Review- Wicked Bugs: Young Readers Edition by Amy Stewart

***This book was reviewed for Algonquin Young Readers via Netgalley Stewart’s Wicked Bugs: Young Reader’s Edition is a condensed version of Wicked Bugs: The Louse that Conquered Napoleon’s Army and Other Diabolical Insects geared towards middle-aged readers. Replete with photos and beautiful pencil sketches, this book is divided into six sections, each ending in a […]

Book Review: Venetian Blood by Christine Volker

***This book was reviewed for She Writes Press via Netgalley & for the Manhattan Book Review   Volker’s Venetian Blood weaves alluring language, seductive setting, the charm of shadowed history, and cunning intrigue into a (modern) historical mystery so tantalising you will be swept away from word one.   Anna Lucia Lottol, a financial investigator […]

Book Review: Ghostly Tales by Various, Illus. by Bill Bragg

***This book was reviewed for Chronicle Books via Netgalley This delightful collection of Victorian ghost tales features offerings by such notables as Charles Dickens, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and Robert Louis Stevenson, among others. I was a bit disappointed to find no tale from Edgar Allan Poe though. Ghost stories of this era are a […]

Book Review: Reflections of Queen Snow White by David Meredith

***This book was reviewed by independent request.   Meredith’s Reflections of Queen Snow White is an alchemical expansion of the beloved children’s fairytale ‘Snow White’. Decades have passed since Prince Charming woke Snow White, and her wicked stepmother was overthrown. The wedding of Snow White’s daughter Raven is approaching, but all Snow White can think […]

Book Review: The Asylum of Dr Caligari by James Morrow

***This book was reviewed for the San Francisco and Seattle Book Reviews, and via Netgalley   The Asylum of Dr Caligari by James Morrow, spun from the 1920s silent film The Cabinet of Dr Caligari, is a commentary on duality- life and death, war and peace, science and art, reason and mysticism, sanity and insanity- […]

Book Review: Bathing Strictly Prohibited by Michael Rhodes

***This book was reviewed for Troubadour Publishing Limited via Netgalley   Bathing Strictly Prohibited is a beautiful, haunting collection of poetry, whose language evokes times long past, breathing shape to the ephemeral. The poems are divided into two categories- places, and moments. Some of my favourites were Dawn in the Alps, On the site of […]

Book Review: Freak by Erin Lee

***This book was reviewed via Lola’s Blog Tours   Erin Lee’s Freak is a poignant tale of loss, acceptance, and second chances. This powerful story should be required high-school reading. No, strike that. Why mollycoddle middle-schoolers who can be just as spiteful as high-schoolers and ignorant adults, especially given the current political climate of the […]