Vermilion: The Adventures of Lou Merriwether, Psychopomp by Molly Tanzer ★★★★★

"I’m very glad to have met you. I never knew there was anyone like you in the whole world." 

I loved this book. 

Anything this unique makes description difficult but here goes: Early Anita Blake set in an unfamiliar paranormal post Civil War America with a je ne sais quoi of The Sky Is Yours.

The Sky Is Yours by Chandler Klang Smith ★★★★☆

"From below, the dragon does not resemble a living thing. It is an oppression, a ceiling on the world." 

Ceremony In Death (In Death #5) by J.D. Robb ★★★★☆

“I am a high priestess of the dark lord. Our numbers are legion, and I have powers that would make you weep.” 

Rapture in Death (In Death #4) by J.D. Robb ★★★★☆

Eve Dallas keeps coming across suicides with big smiles on their faces. Everything and everyone is telling her they’re just self-terminations but Lieutenant Dallas will not let it go!

Immortal in Death (In Death #3) by J.D. Robb ★★★★☆

The fatal gift of beauty. 

-Byron 

A drug that combines ecstasy, cocaine, steroids, and skin rejuvenation is hitting the fashion industry. Just because the side effects are deadly doesn’t mean models won’t kill for it.

Glory in Death (In Death #2) by J.D. Robb ★★★★☆

Someone in New York is slitting throats for ratings and it’s up to Detective Eve Dallas to put him away... even if it means stepping on her friends toes.

Naked in Death (In Death #1) by J.D. Robb ★★★★☆

Just as good as my first read if not better on audiobook. If you like romantic suspense/police procedurals/who-done-its, do not hesitate to pick this up. 

Hieroglyph: Stories and Visions for a Better Future

Girl In Wave: Wave In Girl by Kathleen Ann Goonan ★★★★★ “Unlike earlier children, we have a new power. With the invisible power of literacy we can put ourselves in the place of others... We are far too addicted to the joy of learning and life to have time to contemplate the destruction of others.” 

Brilliant! Through individualized teaching methods, and minor nanobiotechnical assistance, all children are able to read and learn with an ease previously known to few. 

By empowering children, giving them the space and freedom to learn, they build, and pass on, a better world. 

It reminded me of Vegan Stories. Children have good moral instincts about what’s wrong but we acculturate them to accept degrees of violence: adulteration.

The excellent notes section after the story pointed out that, “In 1963, Finland made a decision to make education its number one economic priority, and the highly effective educational system that emerged is the result.” 

So now I have to read Finnish Lessons 2.0 and contemplate moving there. 

Dark Sky (Keiko #2) by Mike Brooks ★★☆☆☆

Drift shrugged. “I’ve made a career out of never quite being killed by everything around me going wrong.” 
Plenty went wrong. 

Dark Run (Keiko #1) by Mike Brooks ★★★☆☆

"Buckle up, everyone. Jia’s taking us down ahead of schedule, and incidentally has lost her fucking mind."

"I heard that."

"You were meant to." 

Treasure of the Abyss (The Kraken #1) by Tiffany Roberts ★★★★☆

Reread - This is exactly what the day needed, some kraken fun.

Merfolk May is Kraken Awesome!

Hold (Hold #1) by Claire Kent ★★★★☆

Exactly as advertised! Hot intergalactic hetero prison sex smut with an HEA; on the food pyramid this would be a doughnut.

The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton ★★★★★

Clue meets Dark Matter. 

Damn but this was good. Seven Deaths was the smartest murder mystery I’ve ever had the pleasure of reading. An incomparable masterwork of the Who-Done-It genre.

The Dragon's Den: The Metaframe War: Book 3 (Metaframe War #3) by Graeme Rodaughan ★★★★☆

"Violence will be my friend,” Anton uttered, a ferocious light behind his eyes." 

The Necromancer's House by Christopher Buehlman ★★★★★

My favorite Buehlman to date.

Dark urban fantasy with shades of American Gods, only Russian and wretched. 

American Gods by Neil Gaiman ★★★☆☆

This was not a good choice for an audiobook; there were too many POV, time, and state of being shifts.

Still, this was a highly imaginative odd ball tale.  And long.  It was interesting to hear what Gaiman, an Englishman, viewed as American gods: Media, Planes, Cars, Cancer. Pretty sure London has similar conveniences/afflictions. 

Engines of Desire: Tales of Love and Other Horrors by Livia Llewellyn

Take Your Daughter to Work ★★★★★ 

Sex as something pleasurable, soft and warm, is a mammalian concept. In the cold salty dark of fathoms, it’s not even survivable. This short story built in scales and slithers to a chilling reimagining of Lovecraftian horror.

Magic Slays (Kate Daniels #5) by Ilona Andrews ★★☆☆☆

“...surrounded by death on both sides, as if gliding through Armageddon.” 

This series has jumped the shark.

Magic Bleeds (Kate Daniels #4) by Ilona Andrews ★★★★☆

Kate is nearly as annoying as in Book One but that’s my sole complaint. This was another excellent action oriented story with sexy time, conflict, an epic battle and extraordinary resolution. 

Magic Strikes (Kate Daniels #3) by Ilona Andrews ★★★★☆

The first rule of the Beast Lord is no competing in the Kumite.

Magic Burns (Kate Daniels #2) by Ilona Andrews ★★★☆☆

Serious bad guys, well paced action, epic battles, and thickening plot - what’s not to love?

Magic Bites (Kate Daniels #1) by Ilona Andrews ★★★☆☆

“You’re not as funny as you think.” 
- Nick to Kate 

No Kate you really are not.

The Long Walk by Stephen King ★★★★★

I walked all eleven hours of this audiobook and I highly recommend you do the same. 

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt ★★★★★

All best sellers should be this good.

Conjure Wife by Fritz Leiber ★★★☆☆

An ethnology professor specializing in primitive superstition stumbles upon his wife’s occult hobby. As Norman (for Normal?) loses his secular certainty his life unravels. 

The Forever War by Joe Haldeman ★★★☆☆

"I didn’t know how realistic a picture they had of their future. Their lack of a future, that is." 

The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty ★★★★☆

“You don't blame us for being here, do you?  After all, we have no place to go.  No home... Incidentally, what an excellent day for an exorcism...” 

The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell ★★★★★

“I was naked before God and I was raped." 

I'm trying to remember a book that traumatized me this much and failing.

Unidentified by Michael McBride ★★★★★

Damn but this was good. An effective combination of Fire in the Sky and Stephen King’s IT in under one hundred pages?!?!  

Michael McBride, You. Fucking. Genius.

A Traitor's War (Metaframe War #2) by Graeme Rodaughan ★★★★☆

“If you’re expecting a ‘gloat speech’ where I reveal the details of my plan to prove how superior I am... You’re talking with the wrong girl.” 

Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry ★★★★★

This has defiantly become one of my favorite novels though it's hard to explain why. The meat of the story is about two retired Texas Rangers who decide to leave their south Texas ranch and drive cattle to Montana.

Binti (Binti #1) by Nnedi Okorafor ★★★★☆

An Afrofuture tale of personal first contact, war, heritage, and understanding.

SNAFU: An Anthology of Military Horror

Blank White Page by James A. Moore ★★★★½ 
“Whatever makes you think a few buildings brings about a civilized human being?” 

I have a soft spot for weird westerns. I enjoyed this story of mysterious monsters facing off against mysterious monsters. The backstory of the albino mulatto cryptozoologist who is transforming into an unknown creature is a great story of its own. And is Crowley some kind of Faust? This story deserves a book or at least a novella.

Far Orbit: Speculative Space Adventures

From A Stone by Eric Choi ★★★★★ 
“It is information. An… an artifact of the mind.” 

Hard SciFi! What an unexpected treat! 
Government scientists on a routine asteroid sampling mission discover signs of life. But is it intelligent life? 
A hot debate, a cool conclusion.

Final Girls by Riley Sager ★★☆☆☆

No no no no no. You cannot talk big game slasher movie talk and then give me a weak Girl on the Train. Ninety percent of this book could have been called Lying Paranoid Bitches. 

The Red Mohawk by Anonymous ★★★★★

"The whole place is a tribute to movie clichés from the eighties. They’ve got a Nakatomi Towers, a Rocky Balboa statue, a McDowell’s restaurant, you name it."

The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins ★★★★☆

“I once read a book by a former alcoholic where she described giving oral sex to two different men, men she'd just met in a restaurant on a busy London high street. I read it and thought, I'm not that bad. This is where the bar is set." 

The Soil Will Save Us: How Scientists, Farmers, and Foodies Are Healing the Soil to Save the Planet by Kristin Ohlson ★★★★★

“If only 11% of the world’s crop land, land that is typically not in use, improved its community of microorganisms... the amount of carbon sequestered in the soil would offset all our current emissions of carbon dioxide.” 

- summery from a report to NASA 

The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming by David Wallace-Wells ★☆☆☆☆

I’m stopping at 20% because this is just a ripoff of Six Degrees interspersed with the musings of an average, and dislikable, American. 

Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet by Mark Lynas ★★★★☆

“So far as we yet know, this is the only planet in the entire universe which has summoned forth life in all its brilliance and variety.

Saving Tarboo Creek: One Family’s Quest to Heal the Land by Scott Freeman ★★★★★

This was an authentic and impressive voice in eco nonfiction! 

The Water Will Come: Rising Seas, Sinking Cities, and the Remaking of the Civilized World by Jeff Goodell ★★★★★

From Obama to Marshal Island Royalty, the villains and heroes of Miami, Dutch architects and die hard New Jersey coastal residents, Goodell has gathered the screaming voices of the climate change zeitgeist.

Certain Woman of an Age by Margaret Trudeau ★★★★☆

Celebrate Woman’s History Month by reading about a truly memorable icon of the 70s, Margaret Trudeau! Wife of Canada’s 15th Prime Minister, Pierre Trudeau, and mother of the current Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau.

Mapping the Interior by Stephen Graham Jones ★★★★☆

“And he was looking across the room like an animal, right into my soul. His eyes shown, not with light but with a kind of wet darkness." 

Without Remorse by Tom Clancy ★★★★☆

John Clark was never a boy scout. Half of the book is layered Clancy geopolitical games but the rest is down and dirty. Be prepared to hit the streets with an ex Navy Seal hell bent on revenge!

The Cardinal of the Kremlin (Jack Ryan #4) by Tom Clancy ★★★★☆

Comrades, this was much better the second time around. I got choked up at the end, a tear nearly escaped.

The Hunt for Red October (Jack Ryan #3) by Tom Clancy ★★★☆☆

And so it is for the third time I can say the movie was better than the book.

Red Rabbit (Jack Ryan #2) by Tom Clancy ★★★★★

Five spy-citing stars! This is Cold War miniseries gold. Of all the Ryan books, this is the one I remembered the most.

Patriot Games (Jack Ryan #1) by Tom Clancy ★★★★★

If there’s anything better than classic Clancy I have yet to find it. Damn but this was good, a perfect balance of action, intrigue, and investigation. Listed as the first Jack Ryan adventure, the old girl holds up well.

American Assassin (Mitch Rapp #1) by Vince Flynn ★★★★★

“Retribution is a punishment that is morally right and fully deserved.” 

Heartsick (Archie Sheridan & Gretchen Lowell #1) by Chelsea Cain ★★★★☆

Ooooh this was good. If you liked The Silence of the Lambs and Huntress Moon you're going to love this! 

Chelsea Cain, my twisted sister, I want to read this whole series!

Huntress Moon (The Huntress/FBI Thrillers #1) by Alexandra Sokoloff ★★★★★

“She thinks, for the millionth time, that being a woman is the world’s most perfect camouflage.”