Review: How To Date Dead Guys (The Witch’s Handbook, #1) by Ann M. Noser

How to Date Dead Guys (The Witch's Handbook, #1)

★★

Curiosity Quills Press | 2014

Opening Hook: Complaining about being insecure.

Main Character: A 12-year-old stuck in a grown woman’s body

Plot Ghosty-ness: Sparkly ghosts are just as interesting to me as sparkly vampires

In my quest to keep my New Year’s resolution of catching up on old ARCs from NetGalley, I went back to the very oldest books on my shelf. I apparently requested this one back in 2016 and, honestly, I have no fucking idea why.

YA and I are not the best of friends. I try. I really do. But, I have a hard time finding YA thrillers that aren’t super lame or cheesy, or that can exist in the real world without requiring the main character to be rich and parentless, and falling in love within a day, in order to move the story along.

And though I occasionally read supernatural thrillers, supernatural romance is definitely not my thing. It never has been. To each other their own, but I find the genre dumb AF.

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So, why the hell do I have this book? Was I high? What could I have possibly been thinking when I requested it? Whatever the reason, here were are. I read the whole thing. I didn’t like it, but I read it.

This didn’t work for me for a number of reasons. For one, the title is misleading. It’s cute, but not accurate. No one is dating dead guys in this book. There’s just a university student who acts like she’s 12, and keeps blushing at the male ghosts that she accidentally brought back from whatever purgatory they were stuck in.

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True Crime Tuesday: The San Francisco Witch Killers

It’s the Month of Love! Is everyone excited? Valentine’s Day is right around the corner, and you certainly don’t need to be partnered up to celebrate. Give yourself some love, go out with a friend and celebrate your friendship. Buy your furbaby a special treat and watch a movie snuggled up. Love is love, baby! It doesn’t need to be romantic to count.

will ferrell love everybody GIF

My husband and I have dinner reservations and then we’ll be going to see a movie if something that doesn’t suck is out. It’s nothing fancy. And honestly, we don’t really do anything at all for Valentine’s Day under normal circumstances, but after you’ve been together seven years, you tend to make a more concerted effort towards date nights and getting out of the house. It’s so easy to fall into a very contented, eventless life that doesn’t see much romance, like at all.

What better excuse than a day that is solely reserved for love? Nothing says love like a conservatively priced meal and movie gift cards!

There are couples who go all out for Valentine’s Day. A guy I work with is taking his long-time girlfriend to Cuba and will be proposing to her. That’s one for the books!

Other couples prefer to keep the romance alive all year long and don’t need a special day as an excuse to get out of the house. Maybe they’re consistently doing little things for each other, trying to make the rest of us look bad. Maybe they have a standing date night every Friday where they pull popsicle sticks out of a jar and do whatever idea is written on the stick, like some Pinterest-level experts.

Or maybe they start practicing the occult and murdering witches!

In the spirit of the Month of Love, I’ll be writing up the stories of Killer Couples for the next couple of weeks.

First up, Michael and Suzan Carson, The San Francisco Witch Killers.

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Review: Her Last Move by John Marrs

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★★★½

Thomas & Mercer | 2018

Opening Hook: A subway nightmare, and I’m not talking about Jared.

Main Character: Trying to do it all, failing.

Plot Twisty-ness: Twisty, but in a depressing way

I don’t know why I thought this was going to be a serial killer “thriller”… I mean, in some ways it is. There is a serial killer. And cops. And stuff is happening.

But, holy shit, this might be the most depressing crime fiction novel I’ve ever read. This just hit me right in all my sad feels like a British episode of This Is Us or some shit.

I don’t want to give up any spoilers, but I will say this: one of the main reasons I love crime fiction so much – besides the psychologically fascinating elements – is that the good guys win and the bad guys lose.

The world is shitty enough and bad guys seem to win a lot, especially lately. So, it’s nice to be able to immerse yourself in a world where the bad guy is going to get his just desserts. That’s why these stories work for so many people. We want to know, despite the evidence around us, that good will triumph over evil.

And for that to not necessarily happen in a way that feels satisfying like it usually does with novels of this kind, it’s a little bit of a punch in the gut.

Kudos to John Marrs for bringing everyone down, I guess.

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Book Nook Sunday: 02.03.2019

Happy Sunday, lovers and bitches!!

It’s the end of the weekend (boo), but before another work week begins again I like to take advantage of Sundays by being as lazy as humanly possible.

Need a shower? Better take it Saturday night.

Husband wants a kiss? He better deal with my morning breath without complaint, because this girl hasn’t brushed her teeth yet.

A change of clothes? I don’t know what those words mean!

Bras do not exist to me on Sundays!

The only things that do exist are books. Sunday is my favourite day for getting some reading done. I basically dedicated the whole day to lying in bed and blizting some chapters. And I myself might also get a little blitzed, if you catch my drift that smells suspiciously of weed.

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Throwback Thursday: All the Books I Hated in 2018!

Look, it’s no secret that I’m a picky reader and I tear books to shreds like it’s my fucking job. (It’s not and I don’t get paid for this.)

I have no shame or guilt in how I come across. Quite honestly, I wear my Book Bitch reputation like a badge of honour. I don’t do sugar-coating. I don’t do polite for the sake of someone’s feelings (that’s called lying.) And I don’t beat around the bush. Either I like something or I don’t, and if I don’t I’ll let you know why so that you don’t waste your sweet, precious life reading turds.

season 3 starz GIF by Ash vs Evil Dead

Inspector Turd Miner, at your service.

If you’re a writer – I do it so you can get better. No one ever grew from being told they were perfect just the way they are. You want to be a great writer, then listen to the negative reviews that are actually blunt, constructive criticism trying to give a little help. I’m not saying listen to the shit talking. There’s a difference.

I don’t tear things down just for the fun of it, I do it so that everyone can grow. Do I have fun though? Obviously, or I wouldn’t be here. (Like I said, I’m not getting paid.)

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Top Ten: Mystery and Thriller Releases for Q1 of 2019!

Happy New Year, Nerdos!!

Are you still nursing a little bit of a hangover? I hate drinking in my 30s because those headaches and stomach rumbles, and just overall feeling of having been hit by a truck, seem to last days instead of hours. Aw, the joys of ageing.

But here we are again – another year gone, a new one just beginning. More birthdays on the horizon. It’s just one more trip around the sun. And I’m so happy to be here with all of you for the journey talking about books and murder and maybe weed sometimes. Now there’s a way to avoid a hangover, get high instead!

So, while we float around on a rock in an unknowable universe, held down by an invisible force as we circle a giant ball of fire for another year, let’s read some books to pass some of that time!

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2019 is shaping up to be a good year for crime fiction so get your budgets ready, your library card dusted off and your stretchy pants on! Here’s my list of the top buzz-worthy reads for the first quarter of 2019!

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Fave Five: My Top 5 Reads of 2018!! (It was easy to narrow down because I’m such a grumpy bitch.)

Holy shit! Can you even believe it’s about to be 2019?!

confetti GIF by SpongeBob SquarePants

Because seriously, 2018 felt like the longest year on record. Maybe it was all of the racism, xenophobia, misogyny and fake outrage drummed up to make both sides of the political spectrum look insane – but seriously, my mental health took a beating this year.

We had the fucking Olympics this year? Do you even remember that? Does it feel like it happened in a different space and time? Because it fucking didn’t – it happened in 2018!

I’m drained. I’m exhausted. I can’t take any more negativity.

I started this blog at the beginning of 2018 with a post about how much Trump sucks, and how I needed books to get through the crumbling state of the world.

And I’m going to end this year with the same sentiment. Trump sucks. His supporters suck. Their bullshit is seeping over the borders of every other country, with racist, far-right dipshits seeing his successes (if you can call them that) as a sign that it’s finally their time to impose their hateful world-view on the rest of us.

Quite honestly, I don’t know how much more I can take. How hard is it to be kind? How hard is it to just let others live their lives in the way they choose to if it isn’t hurting anyone, even if you don’t understand it? I don’t understand the preoccupation with the benign details and choices that other people make.

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GET A LIFE.

That’s my hope for 2019. I hope all you hateful, obsessive motherfuckers can get a fucking life in the new year because I swear, that’s what’s going to fix you. If you had a happy and fulfilled life you wouldn’t be so fucking concerned with everyone else and where they put their body parts, or what colour their body parts are or what body parts they wished they had. Just get a fucking life.

And my second hope for 2019, if you can’t get a life, is that you at least find a way to express your sexuality without guilt. A guilt-free orgasm, in exactly the way you want it with another consenting adult, can do wonders for a shitty fucking attitude.

Get A Life. Have An Orgasm. 2019🥂

big brother pop GIF by Big Brother After Dark

With that said, my hopes aren’t high for the coming year. It feels like a “everything needs to get worse before it can get better” kind of situation. Books are going to be as important to me in 2019 as they were in 2018, maybe even more so.

So I want to take a look back on my top five reads of this past year. The books that fixed the world around my personal bubble for a just a few hours.

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Review: Bird Box by Josh Malerman

Something is out there, something terrifying that must not be seen. One glimpse of it, and a person is driven to deadly violence. No one knows what it is or where it came from.

This review was originally written and posted in August 2015. But considering the Netflix movie has just been released, it seemed like a perfect opportunity to migrate this over from Goodreads!

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★★★★

Echo | 2014

Opening Hook: Russia is once again fucking things up for the rest of the world.

Main Character: Last longer than I would.

Plot Twisty-ness: One of the more unique books I’ve ever read.

Yeah, okay, so I really liked this book.

While I was reading, I was reminded of an episode of Supernatural where Castiel reveals his true angel visage to a woman and her eyes burn out of her skull. Humans are simply not equipped to handle the overwhelming righteousness of these holy warriors’ true form. But this woman couldn’t help but look. She needed to see, couldn’t live in that moment without knowing. And so bad shit happened to her, even though she’d been warned.

I feel like if I had been in this world, I’d be dead. For realsies. I give myself 3 minutes.

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