Book Review: "Aftertaste" by Daria Lavelle

The minute I heard about the concept of this book, I knew I needed to read it. It’s a mashup of food writing, magical realism, and a dash of the paranormal, resulting in an emotionally satisfying (and hunger-inducing) read. Many thanks to Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for the complimentary advance copy!

When Kostya was 10 years old, his father died. His mother took to her bed for an extended period of time, leaving Kostya to deal with his grief on his own. One day, he gets a strange taste in his mouth, one he can’t quite define until he realizes it was the taste of his father’s favorite dish.

That moment sparked the discovery a special talent in Kostya. He has the ability to taste the favorite dish of a ghost. It isn’t until one night while working behind a bar that he decides to actually make what he’s tasting—in this case, it was a bespoke cocktail—and he is shocked by what happens then.

While he never had any desire to cook, the discovery of his unique ability inspires him. He decides to try and use cooking to reunite a grieving person with someone they’ve lost, by making a dish that was important to the deceased. It doesn’t always work, but Kostya hopes he’ll be able to summon his father’s ghost, as he has never stopped missing him.

Kostya winds up working in the world of NYC restaurants, but of course, he can’t reveal the true reason for pursuing this career track. Yet in his zeal to help others, he doesn’t realize he’s opening the door to trouble in the Afterlife.

This book is emotional, fun, and thought-provoking. It’s also incredibly timely for me, as last week marked the 11th anniversary of my dad’s passing. At times the pace dragged a bit, but I really enjoyed it. And boy, was I hungry afterward!

Book Review: "Leave the Girls Behind" by Jacqueline Bublitz

“There are just so many ways, Ruth thinks, for a girl to disappear.”

When Ruth-Ann was 7 years old, her best friend Beth was kidnapped and later found murdered. The perpetrator was Ethan Oswald, music teacher and church choir director.

As Ruth grew older, she remained haunted by Beth’s murder and became obsessed with true crime websites which talked about Oswald. Ruth is convinced that Oswald was actually responsible for the deaths of other young girls across the country, but no one—not even the police—bought her theories.

When another young girl goes missing from Ruth’s Connecticut hometown, she starts becoming obsessed again. She believes that all those years ago Oswald had help in committing his crimes, and perhaps that person is responsible for the latest disappearance.

Ruth becomes single-minded in her focus on finding Oswald’s accomplice. Her search for answers takes her across the globe and connects her with three women, one who might be the person she seeks. But in order to figure out the truth, she’ll have to accept her own truths as well.

I was drawn into this story pretty quickly, and while the pacing was a little uneven at times, I couldn’t tear myself away. I enjoyed this take on the amateur detective trope, and while I’m not always a fan of paranormal storylines, this worked for me. Lots of twists and some unlikable characters, but a compelling mystery for sure.

Book Review: "Roland Rogers Isn't Dead Yet" by Samantha Allen

This book totally caught me by surprise. I thought it would be wacky, but it had so much heart, too.

“You saw me without seeing me. You touched me without touching me. If something good comes after this, I’ll see you there.”

Adam’s memoir about being an ex-Mormon dealing with his sexuality was a hit with readers. It also set very high expectations for his writing career, which in the years since his debut, hasn’t been very successful.

He’s shocked to find out that Roland Rogers, mega-action star and three-time People’s Sexiest Man, has requested that Adam ghostwrite his memoir. And it’s going to be quite the memoir, since Roland plans to come out, which should come as a shock to nearly everyone.

When Adam arrives at Roland’s mansion, he learns that penning this memoir may not be easy. It turns out that Roland is dead. But while his body lies underneath an avalanche of snow, his soul (or whatever) is back in his mansion, and he’s figured out a way to communicate with Adam. They figure it’ll take a month for the snow to thaw and for Roland’s body to be discovered. So they have to move fast, not only to write the book Roland wants, but to make it meaningful.

This is definitely not your typical ghost story! It’s beautifully written, emotional, funny, and even a little steamy. It’s also tremendously thought-provoking. Definitely one I’ll keep thinking about!

Book Review: "Haunted Ever After" by Jen DeLuca

After four terrific romances that centered around a Renaissance Fair in Maryland, Jen DeLuca has packed her bags and headed down to Florida for the start of a new series.

Life in Orlando hasn’t been kind to Cassie. Her friends are all getting married and having kids, and her landlord just decided to put her house up for sale. Not being able to afford anything in Orlando, she winds up buying a place in Boneyard Key, the Most Haunted Small Town in Florida.

Cassie figures that the whole haunted town thing is just a tourist gimmick. But it’s not long before she realizes that the fact her laptop won’t charge in her house and the magnetic poetry words on her fridge keep forming sentences means that the former owner, “Mean Mrs. Hawkins,” is haunting her.

In order to get any work done, she has to bring her laptop to the Hallowed Grounds coffee shop. The owner, Nick, is grumpy but very handsome, and the attraction between them is very intense. But Nick can sense that Cassie isn’t sure about staying in town, so do they have any chance at a future?

This was such a fun book. It’s definitely slow-burn where the romance is concerned, but once it gets going it’s pretty steamy. The ghost angle is really fascinating (and there’s an interesting twist to it), and boy, did I love Elmer!! (IYKYK) I definitely look forward to visiting Boneyard Key again!

Thanks so much to NetGalley and Berkley for the advance copy! The book publishes 8/13.

Book Review: "Cinema Love" by Jiaming Tang

“Theirs is the kind of love that can change the weather. A radio forecast predicting rain switches its tune the moment Old Second sees Shun-Er. Clouds part, a breeze picks up, and the sun becomes so yellow it looks delicious. Just peel the skin, remove the seeds, and bite. Not hard but soft, the way Shun-Er touches Old Second.”

Within just a few sentences, I knew that Cinema Love was a beautifully written book. Jiaming Tang’s word choices convey so much, creating a layered story full of emotion, pain, and hope.

To see Bao Mei and her husband, Old Second, walking through New York’s Chinatown, you’d assume they were a typical Chinese couple. But the two contain multitudes—before they came to America, they both frequented the Worker’s Cinema in Fuzhou. Bao Mei worked as the ticket seller, while Old Second, like many of the cinema’s patrons, was looking for illicit encounters with other men, as old movies played.

Bao Mei works at the cinema knowing who its patrons are, and she appoints herself as a protector of these men, chasing nagging wives and others away who might be looking for their husbands or sons. She herself has a relationship of sorts with the projectionist, who is the cinema owner’s son. But they all know this idyll cannot last, and when a series of events occurs that exposes the truth, it leads to tragedy, as well as some fleeing to America.

This is the story of Bao Mei and Old Second, as well as others who have come to America, and while the ways that these characters are interconnected might not be obvious at first, it all falls together nicely. The book shifts narration as well as timeframes, between the past in China and the present in New York.

While I felt that the pacing of the book was a bit slow and there are places where you are left to formulate your own answers, this is a moving story about how, even years later, we are indelibly affected by parts of our life.

Book Review: "Happy Medium" by Sarah Adler

Sarah Adler made me a fan with her spectacular debut, Mrs. Nash’s Ashes, and her new novel was equally fun and romantic.

Gretchen Acorn (not her real name) is a medium, helping people communicate with their dead loved ones. The truth is, her abilities are about as genuine as her name, and she comes from a long line of con artists. But Gretchen prides herself on not taking real advantage of her clients—she only helps those who truly would benefit from her “services.” (And if that helps pay her bills, so be it.)

When one of her clients asks Gretchen to help her bridge partner by investigating the phenomena that seem to interfere with his selling his family farm, she’s a tiny bit apprehensive. However, her client is going to pay her handsomely, so how can she pass up helping an old man?

She makes some quick discoveries when she arrives at the farm. First of all, her client’s bridge partner isn’t a little old man—Charlie is young, hunky, and doesn’t want anything to do with a fraud like Gretchen. And much to her surprise, Gretchen meets Everett, a distant family member of Charlie’s, who happens to be the ghost that’s been causing all the trouble on the farm. (So maybe there’s some truth to this whole medium thing after all?)

Everett, who has been haunting the farm since the 1920s, is a little annoying and quite a bit of a flirt. He asks Gretchen to convince Charlie not to sell the farm or he’ll face the same curse that killed Everett. But Charlie doesn’t believe Gretchen, so she vows to stay on the farm to make sure she wins him over. Of course, that entails actually working on the farm (physical labor is not her strong suit), and the more time she spends with Charlie, the more she realizes she needs to be honest—with him and with herself.

Everett is one of the best characters I’ve encountered in some time. The banter between him and Gretchen cracked me up. This was a sweet, steamy, and enjoyable romp that made me smile.

Book Review: "Hidden Pictures" by Jason Rekulak

Boy, this book sure was creepy and twisty!

You’ve probably seen this all over but I’ve been meaning to read it for months. I’m proud of myself for stepping out of my comfort zone and reading something spooky, too!

Mallory, looking for her first job after rehab and recovery, gets hired by Ted and Caroline Maxwell to care for their five-year-old son, Teddy. Despite some stringent rules, Mallory quickly grows to love the job and becomes a part of the family. And Teddy is a loving child, shy but curious and creative.

Above everything, Teddy loves to draw. His pictures are sweet and childish, depictions of his family, Mallory, and the things he sees. But suddenly his drawings stark to take a sinister tone—one day he draws a man in a forest, dragging a woman’s body, and shortly thereafter he draws the man throwing her body into a hole.

Mallory is disturbed by these drawings, but when they evolve into more sophisticated, creepier drawings that a five-year-old couldn’t possibly have drawn, she starts to think he’s being controlled by a supernatural force, perhaps the spirit of the woman in the drawings. But Caroline and Ted believe Mallory must be using again, and suspect she’s the one drawing the pictures.

Mallory is determined to solve the mystery, but it’s far more complex than she can even imagine. While I was a little disappointed by the big twist in the book, I was hooked on this story, which has a surprising amount of emotion for this genre. And the pictures are creepy, so be sure to pick up a physical copy of the book, so you can see the drawings, too!!

Book Review: "Blackwater" by Jeannette Arroyo and Ren Graham

There’s something strange happening in the small town of Blackwater, Maine…

Tony is a handsome, popular track star. Sometimes he’s kind and friendly, and sometimes he’s drawn into pranks or bullying by his best friend, the football team’s quarterback. At the end of the day, what he wants more than anything is for his father to notice and appreciate him.

Eli has an autoimmune disease which lands him in and out of the hospital, and often makes him use a wheelchair. He is a complete outcast in school and his overprotective mother doesn’t want him to worry or get stressed, or he could get sicker. He just wants to have friends.

Despite the fact that his friend bullies Eli constantly, there’s something about him that intrigues Tony. But Tony isn’t sure what his feelings mean, and he’s certainly not going to let his guard down.

One night while on a hunting trip, Tony gets bitten by some animal. The next thing he knows, his temper flares up constantly and something seems to happen to him when he gets angry. There’s a mysterious woman in the woods who knows the truth but she refuses to help him. So it’s up to Eli to try and find answers—and perhaps he can figure out how to help the fisherman’s ghost that keeps following him.

Nothing like a combination of high school drama, ghosts, werewolf sightings, and tentative steps toward realizing who you really are! This graphic novel—which is co-written and illustrated—was a fun, slightly spooky read!

Book Review: "Other Birds" by Sarah Addison Allen

About Other Birds, I simply say this: Just beautiful.⁣

⁣ “There are birds, and then there are other birds. Maybe they don’t sing. Maybe they don’t fly. Maybe they don’t fit in. I don’t know about you, but I’d much rather be an other bird than just the same old thing.”⁣

⁣ Zoey relocates from Tulsa to Mallow Island, which is off the South Carolina coast. The plan is for her to live in her late mother’s condo until college starts in the fall in Charleston. When she arrives with her bird, Pigeon, she is quickly enchanted by the mischievous, beautiful birds—the dellawhisps—which inhabit the complex and give the building its name.⁣

⁣ Equally as enchanting, however, are her human neighbors. Each has their own secrets, their own burdens, their own stories. And, of course, there are the ghosts who inhabit the Dellawhisp as well.⁣

⁣ I loved everything about this book—the magical realism, the theme of chosen family, the vivid imagery and gorgeous storytelling. So much of this book's beauty comes from letting things unfold slowly. This was my first book by Sarah Addison Allen but it definitely won’t be my last. What a perfect pick from BOTM this month!!⁣ ⁣

Book Review: "The Dead Romantics" by Ashley Poston

Take a love story, add friendship, grief, and self-discovery, and throw in some ghosts, and you’ll get this amazing book that has totally stolen my heart.

“…you don’t ever lose the sadness, but you learn to love it because it becomes a part of you, and bit by bit, it fades. And, eventually, you’ll pick yourself back up and you’ll find that you’re okay. That you’re going to be okay. And eventually, it’ll be true.”

Florence is the ghostwriter for a bestselling romance author. Unfortunately, she believes romance is dead, so following a bad breakup, she’s been unable to make progress on the author’s latest book. But when she asks her immensely handsome new editor for an extension, he refuses. The book must be done tomorrow.

While she’s prepared to lose the best job she’s ever had, she’s utterly unprepared for the phone call summoning her home to South Carolina for the first time in years. Her father has died, and she has to help her family bury him. But being home stirs up hurts and arguments, not to mention Florence’s ability to see and speak to ghosts. And when one ghost in particular appears, she’s unsure of what he needs from her—or does she need something from him?

I truly felt this book in my soul. It’s sappy and funny and sad and romantic and just absolutely beautiful. I want to read it again for the first time.

Book Review: "The Hotel Nantucket" by Elin Hilderbrand

The Hotel Nantucket has romance, second chances, even a ghost story!

I’ve never been to Nantucket but every time I read one of Elin Hilderbrand’s books I want to go there even more.

When a London business magnate decides to purchase the Hotel Nantucket, a once-grand hotel fallen on hard times, it energizes the community. Lizbet, fresh off the breakup of a long-term relationship, hopes becoming the hotel’s general manager will be the fresh start she needs. And Grace, the ghost of a young chambermaid killed in a fire at the hotel nearly 100 years earlier, hopes the hotel’s resurgence may lead to the truth about her death coming to light.

The hotel becomes a sought-after paradise with a restaurant/bar run by a celebrity chef. The owner—who communicates only via email from London—has one mission: the hotel must be awarded 5 keys by famed reviewer Shelly Carpenter, a feat that has never happened before. But chaos always seems to strike when those guests who could be Shelly arrive.

As Lizbet takes tentative steps toward a new romance, the hotel staff has their own secrets, and Grace the ghost has to decide when to cause trouble and when to lay low. Will the hotel succeed? Will they get their 5-key rating? Will the mystery of Grace’s death be solved?

As with all of Hilderbrand’s books, the setting is so incredibly vivid. While I enjoyed many of the characters individually (and there are a lot of them), I didn’t feel the story gelled quite the way some of her others have. There was almost too much going on to be completely immersed. But I still have some of her backlist to dive into!!

Book Review: "The Ghost Variations: One Hundred Stories" by Kevin Brockmeier

Kevin Brockmeier's The Ghost Variations is a quirky and creative book.

⁣ ⁣ Happy Halloween, y’all! Hope your day has been or will be as spooky and fun as you want it to be. I know I’ll be handing out candy later and trying not to eat as much as I give out. (“Trying” probably being the operative word.)⁣

⁣ I’m not a fan of horror or ghost stories. I used to read Stephen King’s early stuff but somewhere down the road I got tired of being frightened, lol. So while so many of you have accumulated the creepy and witchy reads this month, I’ve stuck to my usual stuff.⁣

⁣ But then, thanks to my Bookstagram friend Deedi, I saw this. (This is the second "Deedi made me do it" book I've read in about a week.) I love the concept—100 ghost stories, each just a few pages. However, these aren’t traditional ghost stories, these are more thought-provoking, poignant, esoteric in nature, and they touch on a variety of subjects. If there’s haunting to be done, no one’s really upset about it. (Even the ghost who spends every day of her existence being asked if she’s going to Toledo.)⁣

⁣ I loved the concept of The Ghost Variations perhaps a bit more than the execution, and like any collection of stories, some are stronger than the others. But if you want an interesting twist on traditional ghost stories, curl up with this one!⁣ ⁣

Book Review: "Later" by Stephen King

With Later, The Master returns with a nostalgic-feeling book that has glimpses of Stand By Me and IT in its storytelling.

Sometimes growing up means facing your demons. Jamie is a young boy growing up in NYC, the son of a single mother who tries to do her best to give him a good life, even when they're struggling financially.

Jamie has an unnatural ability, one that few others have. Sometimes it traumatizes him, but most times it’s fairly innocuous. There are times, however, when he can use it to gain information to help someone. However, Jamie’s mother warns him to keep this ability secret because he could be exploited.

When an NYPD detective, trying to secure their own future, uses Jamie to try and find out a serial killer’s last move, it exposes Jamie to the more terrifying side of his abilities, and awakens fears and anxieties that will haunt him and make him question everything around him.

I’m being purposely vague with the plot description of Later because I went into this book knowing next to nothing, and I might have had different expectations if I knew more. I really loved Stephen King’s storytelling style here. It drew you in and made you worry how he was going to scare the s—t out of you and/or break your heart.

There’s a lot I enjoyed about this book, but in the end, I didn’t find anything really scary about it. The ending was a little anti-climactic for me as well.

Still, reading Later reminded me of my younger days, reading King’s early novels and being totally transported into his worlds. It’s nice when he writes a simpler story every now and again.

Book Review: "Layla" by Colleen Hoover

Colleen Hoover's newest book, Layla, is a very different kind of love story.

Hoover is an author I might never have heard of were it not for Bookstagram. Since reading Verity last fall, I’ve read and loved a number of her older books and some subsequent releases. She’s definitely become one of my auto-buy authors. (I still have a ways to go with her backlist, which is great.)

I’ve been eagerly awaiting Layla, and was excited to see the raves coming in from folks. A paranormal romance at that? How cool! But hype is a fickle friend. This one was...not for me.

From the moment he sees her at a wedding, Leeds falls for Layla. (I love the names CoHo gives her characters!) The more time they spend with each other, the more they know they’re destined to be together forever. And then an unexpected incident occurs which leaves Layla fighting for her life.

After Layla recovers from her injuries physically, she still suffers from anxiety and other emotional issues, so Leeds takes her to the bed-and-breakfast where they first met, hoping they can recapture some of their initial fun and passion. But instead, strange things start happening and Layla’s behavior changes dramatically.

I'll stop my plot summary here, even though you can find more online, because I think it's better to let things unfold as you read.

Sadly, this book never really captured my interest. I don’t know if it was the pacing of the story, which I found slow, or the paranormal aspects, although I don’t normally have issues with those. I do love the way Hoover writes, however, and I love her willingness to experiment and push genres. There certainly were elements of the story I enjoyed.

I know mine is an unpopular opinion and in some cases an outlier, so if you give this a try, I hope you enjoy it!!

I won a copy in a giveaway on Bookstagram, so thanks to Montlake Publishing for the complimentary copy!

Book Review: "The Broken Girls" by Simone St. James

The Broken Girls by Simone St. James is part ghost story, part murder mystery, and all a bit creepy!

Idlewild Hall used to be a boarding school in Vermont where “certain” girls were sent—the ones whose parents didn’t want them around, the troubled or mischievous or emotionally wounded ones. Rumor is the school is haunted by a ghost named Mary Hand—many have seen her or heard her through the years.

In 1950, a group of friends is trying to survive life at Idlewild. Then one night, one of them disappears—while the rest try to make sense of what happened even though no one else wants them to.

In 2014, freelance journalist Fiona Sheridan is still mourning the murder of her sister Deb 20 years earlier. Deb’s body was found dumped on the deserted ruins of Idlewild Hall, and her boyfriend was convicted of her murder, but Fiona was never convinced of his guilt.

When she learns that someone will be renovating Idlewild Hall, Fiona wants to cover the story, even though those closest to her think she needs to give up her obsession. But secrets are uncovered, some long-hidden and some more recent, which may point to a startling truth.

Having read and loved St. James’ newest book, The Sun Down Motel, I was looking forward to this one. It certainly didn’t disappoint. Once again, she did such a great job of meshing mystery with paranormal elements.

I was really hooked on this book for the first three-quarters of it. As it reached its conclusion, there were a few too many coincidences to take in, but ultimately I wasn’t disappointed. This was a compelling and slightly creepy read!

Book Review: "Watch Over Me" by Nina LaCour

Watch Over Me, Nina LaCour's new novel, is gorgeously lyrical and powerfully moving.

Mila has aged out of the foster care system, so she’s excited when she’s chosen for a teaching job on a farm on the Northern California coast. The couple who own the farm have been fostering children for years and are renowned for their efforts, so this is a real opportunity for Mila.

She is immediately blown away by the beauty and the solitude, and quickly connects with her student and the others on the farm. She longs to be part of a family again, to belong, to be wanted. Like anyone who has experienced the foster care system, she is wary of making mistakes, of doing something that might cause someone not to want her or like her any longer.

But the farm is also a haven for ghosts. While the ghosts mean no harm, they do provoke memories, and Mila starts to become increasingly haunted by the memories she has tried to leave behind. There are secrets few if any know, and as much as she tries to help her student deal with his own memories, she isn't ready to confront hers.

Watch Over Me is such a beautiful story of the toll grief can take on us and how it feels to be set free from it. It’s also a story about the family we choose and how powerful it can be to feel we belong, when we connect with others without guise or guile.

LaCour is one of my absolute favorite YA authors. There’s so much emotion and poetry in her writing, and she never fails to move me. Books like Hold Still, We Are Okay, and You Know Me Well, which she wrote with David Levithan (another favorite of mine), demonstrate her immense talent.

This book is a little more fantastical than some of her others, and at times I wasn’t sure what was going to happen, but I loved it all the same. Read this, and read her.

Book Review: "Charleston Green" by Stephanie Alexander

Charleston Green is a little quirky, a little crazy, and such fun!

Tipsy (the pastor’s son couldn’t say “Tiffany” when she was a baby) is trying to pull her life together. Her marriage has ended and her vindictive ex-husband is threatening to take their kids away.

For as long as she can remember, Tipsy has seen ghosts. Not the Halloween kind, but people who have died. She can communicate with them as well. But she’s utterly unprepared for when she and the kids move into an old house that is occupied by Jane and Henry Mott, who have, umm, “lived” there for more than 100 years.

Jane insists Henry murdered her and then committed suicide. Henry insists that neither occurred. The more time Tipsy spends with them, the more she is torn between which one she believes more, as each has characteristics she enjoys. (As much as you can "enjoy" a ghost?)

But when you meddle in the affairs of ghosts it starts to take its toll on your real life. As Tipsy tries to figure out what really happened to the Motts, she needs to be reminded to concentrate on her real life before it’s too late—and luckily she has two great (albeit slightly wacky) friends to help her out.

This was such an enjoyable read. I love Charleston and felt its presence throughout the story. The characters were lots of fun and I couldn’t believe that I was even hooked on the ghosts’ story, so to speak.

Is Charleston Green a little crazy? Sure, but Stephanie Alexander has made sure it’s full of heart and humor, too.

I was grateful to be part of the blog tour for this book. Kate Rock Book Tours and Stephanie Alexander provided a complimentary copy of the book in exchange for an unbiased review. Thanks for making it available!!

Book Review: "How the Light Gets In" by Katy Upperman

Katy Upperman's new book, How the Light Gets In, is a story of grief, recovery, letting others in, and learning to forgive—especially yourself.

It’s been nearly a year since Callie’s younger sister Chloe died, and she and her family are still the worse for wear. The two were inseparable for so long. Callie has quit swimming and avoids social contact, spending her days getting stoned and blaming herself for what happened, while her mother spends most days in a depressed, alcohol-soaked haze.

With summer approaching and her father at his wits' end, Callie is given an ultimatum: go to a wilderness survival camp and straighten herself out or go live with her aunt in the small town of Bell Cove and help her get her house ready to become a B&B. While it seems like an easy choice, Bell Cove is where everything happened with Chloe last summer, and Callie isn't quite sure she's ready to reopen those wounds. But it's still better than living in the wilderness!

"Sometimes, I'm desperate to remember, to dissolve into remembering. Sometimes, I want to light my memories on fire, so they burn until nothing's left but ash and despair."

Callie arrives, hurting, resentful, and just wanting to stay in bed for the summer. She doesn’t count on the persistence of her aunt or the appearance of Tucker, a handsome local guy hired to work in the house’s garden. Tucker’s easy, carefree charm is able to make some cracks in Callie’s armor, although she tries not to let herself be vulnerable. But Tucker’s family has secrets of their own.

As Callie fights her attraction to Tucker and her guilt and sadness about Chloe, she doesn’t count on chilling encounters with what appears to be a ghost. Is it Chloe? Will Callie get the chance to resolve the unfinished business she and her sister have? What does this ghost want?

I liked this story very much but thought the mystical, spiritual elements didn’t work as well as everything else. I felt that part of the story dragged everything else down although I understood the point. At its core, this is a story about recovering from grief and finding hope again, and that's what I enjoyed the most.

Upperman is a great writer and I’ll definitely want to read more of her books.

Book Review: "The Saturday Night Ghost Club" by Craig Davidson

There's a tremendous sense of nostalgia that pervades every page of Craig Davidson's The Saturday Night Ghost Club. Not only does the book take place in the 1980s, but the storytelling seems to hearken back to a simpler time, when we were far less aware of the horrors that could take place in our very own communities, horrors which didn't involve monsters or ghosts or creatures from another dimension.

"Looking back, I am struck by how precious little it takes to convince an unwilling outsider and the new kid in town to agree to any plan, even one that involved following a gangly middle-aged man into haunted territories."

Jake Baker grew up in Niagara Falls in the 1980s. The town, which came alive in the summer thanks to tourism but was fairly deserted in the winter, was one of those places where not much happened, where people had to live to pursue a better life, and everything—and nearly everyone—had seen better days. A loner who was often bullied by his peers, Jake spent a lot of time with his uncle Calvin, a kind but somewhat goofy and eccentric man who owned a shop in town specializing in the occult and the mysteries of the beyond.

It was Uncle Calvin who helped Jake wrangle the monsters hiding in his closet, let him watch scary movies (at least until his parents found out), educated him on the existence of ghosts and other shadowy creatures, and taught him that there were mysteries in this world that didn't have easy answers. The summer Jake was 12 years old, he became friends with Billy, the new boy in town, and Dove, his erratic, mesmerizing older sister, and Calvin welcomed all of them into "The Saturday Night Ghost Club," a group determined to look into some of the more mysterious stories of their town.

But the more they start looking into these mysteries, the more Jake becomes confused by Calvin's behavior and his lengthy disappearances. He learns what it is like to have a friend you can depend on, and he is drawn to Dove and her brave yet uneven mood swings and actions. And then Jake learns that behind many mysteries there are real truths, truths we may not be ready to bear the burden of knowing, yet we must all the same.

"The brain is the seat of memory, and memory is a tricky thing. At base level, memories are stories—and sometimes those stories we tell allow us to carry on. Sometimes stories are the best we can hope for. They help us to simply get by, while deeper levels of our consciousness slip bandages on the wounds that hold the power to wreck us. So we tell ourselves that the people we love closed their eyes and slipped painlessly away from us. That our personal failures are the product of external forces rather than unfixable weaknesses....Tell yourself these stories long enough and you will discover they have a magical way of becoming facts."

Although The Saturday Night Ghost Club delves briefly into matters of the occult, ghost stories, and the like, at its heart, this is a coming-of-age book about a boy who learns perhaps earlier than he needs to about the horrors that both defy explanation but are, at the same time, very real. This is a book about the bonds of friendship, about understanding fellow misfits, and how people who are truly good at heart may have their own battles to fight.

I thought the book started a bit slowly but once it shifted away from the ghost stories and the occult and focused on relationships and the real stories, it grabbed my heart completely. Davidson did a terrific job telling this story and it felt very true to its time and place, yet at the same time when the chapters shifted to look into the future, those felt very real as well.

While the book is compared to Stranger Things and Stand By Me, I would only make that comparison in terms of their stories about friendship. And while reading The Saturday Night Ghost Club, I was reminded of my favorite quote from Stand By Me: "I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was 12. Jesus, does anyone?"

Book Review: "The Astonishing Color of After" by Emily X.R. Pan

Lyrical, emotionally powerful, even fantastical at times, The Astonishing Color of After is a stunning, poignant look at grief, family, love, and secrets that packs a real punch, and leaves you with gorgeous images in your mind.

"We try so hard to make these little time capsules. Memories strung up just so, like holiday lights, casting the perfect glow in the perfect tones. But that picking and choosing what to look at, what to put on display—that's not the true nature of remembering. Memory is a mean thing, slicing at you from the harshest angles, dipping your consciousness into the wrong colors again and again."

Leigh Sanders has always caught people's attention—for the colorful streaks she puts in her hair, her artistic talent, and her mixed heritage, as her mother is Chinese and her father is Irish-American. But no matter how many times she asked through her childhood, she's never met her maternal grandparents, never heard much about her mother's life before she met Leigh's father while studying in America. It's always a door that has remained closed, and if anything, Leigh's attempts to open it have been met with real resistance from her parents.

Then one day, the bottom falls out. Leigh's mother commits suicide. Although her depression always seemed a part of their lives the last several years, neither Leigh nor her father ever really thought this would happen. Leigh tries to figure out what signs she might have missed, what she could have done differently, while at the same time, she blames her father's withdrawal from their lives, his continual business travels, for leaving her mother so vulnerable.

In the days following her suicide, Leigh believes her mother keeps returning to her in the form of a beautiful red bird, but when she calls out to her, or asks her to stay, the bird flies away. What is her mother trying to tell her? What does she want Leigh to do?

"Once upon a time we were the standard colors of a rainbow, cheery and certain of ourselves. At some point, we all began to stumble into the in-betweens, the murky colors made dark and complicated by resentment and quiet anger."

As if all of that isn't complicated enough, Leigh must also face facts that on the day her mother killed herself, Leigh finally kissed Axel, her best friend and (perhaps not-so) secret crush. How can she reconcile those two events?

Her father finally relents and travels with Leigh to Taiwan so she can finally meet her maternal grandparents. There she hopes that she'll finally understand what her mother is trying to tell her, what she wants her to remember. As she begins to learn more about her mother and the reasons she closed herself and Leigh off from her heritage, she learns powerful lessons about the power of memory, loss, ghosts, and the connections of blood and friendship.

This is a beautiful, heartfelt, somewhat quirky book, which shifts between real and fantasy, present and past. At times it's necessary to suspend your disbelief, as Leigh is able to witness memories she never knew about (or, in some cases, wasn't alive for), and there's a lot of discussion about ghosts, as they're revered and feared in Taiwan. Additionally, being an artist, Leigh tends to reflect and explain moods in color, particularly unusual shades of color, so that may strike some as off-putting.

Those quirks aside, The Astonishing Color of After really is astonishing. Emily X.R. Pan captures teenage angst, grief, and fears perfectly, and the strange unevenness of family dynamics. This is a book that dazzled, lyrically and emotionally, as it made me tear up, which is always a fun thing to do on a plane ride! This may not be a book for everyone, but for those who decide to read it, I hope it paints a beautifully emotional portrait for you as well.