Review's Resort

Daughter of Smoke & Bone (Booktober)
Broken Sky (Booktober)

Sunday, 13 October 2019

Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter (Booktober)

"Some men are just too interesting to die."

To be honest with you, I didn't actually think I'd ever read this book. When I first saw it, I was like PFFFT, YEAH RIGHT! And then eventually curiosity won out, and I turned page after page of what turned out to be something entirely plausible. Of course you have to believe in lots of things: vampires, immortality, and so on and so forth, but by the end of the book, if you DO believe, you could honestly think that one of America's most widely-known presidents was, in fact, a vampire hunter in his spare time.

I mean. Stranger things have happened. Right?

While Abraham Lincoln is widely lauded for saving a Union and freeing millions of slaves, his valiant fight against the forces of the undead has remained in the shadows for hundreds of years. That is, until Seth Grahame-Smith stumbled upon The Secret Journal of Abraham Lincoln, and became the first living person to lay eyes on it in more than 140 years ...

(from Goodreads)

*image not mine

The Shadow of the Wind (Booktober)

Dracula (Booktober)

Life and Death (Booktober)

Life and Death (Booktober)

Wednesday, 9 October 2019

Dracula (Booktober)

"Listen to them, the children of the night. What music they make!"

There is no Booktober without the one and only. Count Dracula waltzed into the world when Bram Stoker's novel got published, and basically began the vampire "obsession" although he's not nearly as romantic as all the new-age vamps running around! Hunted by Van Helsing and presented in countless iterations for our eyes to feast on, this book is a must if you want to spook yourselves a little bit. I know I did - I made the mistake of reading it after dark.

Let's just say I slept with the light on that night.

Side-note: a really good friend of mine told me if tonight's vampire was Edward Cullen she'd be put out. Well, it's definitely not Eddie!

Few readers will ever forget the nightmare atmosphere of Count Dracula's sinister castle in Transylvania, the prowlings of the Un-Dead, the blood-curdling tension . The story recounts the struggle of a group of men and a woman - Dr Seward, Dr Van Helsing and Jonathan Harker with his wife Mina - to destroy the vampire, whose sinister earth-filled coffins are discovered by Harker in a ruined chapel adjoining Dr Seward's asylum. Cruel and noble, evilly and fatally desirable to women, Dracula possesses a terrifying lust for power and, like Dr Jekyll or Conan Doyle's Moriarty, is one of the immortal fictional monsters.

(from book jacket)

*image not mine

Tuesday, 8 October 2019

Life and Death (Booktober)

"And so the lion fell in love with the lamb ..."

If you don't see at least ONE pass of foggy Forks, Washington during the autumn months, then you probably are living under a rock. Twilight hit the shelves waaay back when and became an instant hit - and a decade later Stephenie Meyer decided to switch things up a little, which is how Beau and Edythe came along. Not without its challenges, this book does continue the trend of murky views, pale, sparkly vampires, and teenagers intent on living forever, but it's a completely stand-alone novel (that COULD still be expanded into sequels, however).

And for some reason, I kind of prefer this version to the original.

When Beaufort Swan moves to the gloomy town of Forks and meets the mysterious, alluring Edythe Cullen, his life takes a thrilling and terrifying turn. With her porcelain skin, golden eyes, mesmerizing voice and supernatural gifts, Edythe is both irresistible and enigmatic.

What Beau doesn't realize is the closer he gets to her, the more he is putting himself and those around him at risk. And it might be too late to turn back ...

(from book jacket)

*image not mine