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Showing posts from April, 2026

May the Dead Keep You / Jill Baguchinsky / Book Review

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MAY THE DEAD KEEP YOU There's nowhere Catie East would rather be than in her forest. Beneath the redwoods, she feels perfectly at home. Even more so than when she's in her family's historic (and unusual) mansion, the Heights. But now there are intruders on her land. Well, not intruders , exactly. Her mother did invite the scientist and his son to stay on their land, out at the estate's cottage. But that doesn't mean Catie wants them lingering. Not in her forest, disturbing her peace. Despite her initial misgivings, Catie finds herself drawn to the strangers on her land, especially the son who is about her age. Her mother insists that Catie and the boy knew each other as kids, but Catie doesn't remember any of that. She does know that when they're together, strange things start happening. Impossible things. Like a dead woodpecker waking up and flying away. Like the specters that seem to have woken in the historic halls o...

We Are Never Getting Together / Janette Rallison / Book Review

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WE ARE NEVER GETTING TOGETHER There's nothing but bad blood between Madeline and Cooper. Ever since she made that video. Or he spread those rumors. Or, well, it isn't really clear how it started, just that the pranks and sabotage have only escalated over the years. But when their latest round of pranks lands them both in the principal's office, their single parents are dragged into the mix. With their kids in deep trouble, Cooper's mom and Madeline's dad decide they need to work out a fitting punishment over dinner. And maybe go out for dinner the day after that. And maybe next week, too. Horrified by the prospect of their parents dating , Cooper and Madeline call a temporary truce. There's really only one way to stop this thing in its tracks: dating themselves. They can't stand each other, but they'll have to put on the show of a lifetime to get their parents to back down. If they fail, well, they'll be faced w...

The Celestial Seas / T.A. Chan / Book Review

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THE CELESTIAL SEAS Ishara Ming shouldn't be alive, and yet here she is. She's the sole survivor of the Essex , a spacefaring whaler that was destroyed by a legend. Nobody else believes in the Ballena, the great white whale of the stars, one of the last rogue Mech-Operated Bio-Integrated Spacecrafts in space. But she saw it with her own eyes, right before it claimed the lives of her twenty-three crewmates aboard the Essex . Now Ishara runs her own whaler crew, but hers isn't the sleek operation of the Essex that raised her. Nobody of that caliber is willing to sell themselves into her wild-goose-chase service. But the crew she has is as top-tier as they come among the outcasts of the stars, at least at her price point. They make a steady profit... most of the time. But when Augustus, a ship mech with a shady past, joins her crew, things start to change. The memories of her life before the destruction of the Essex that Ishara thought wer...

The Faraway Inn / Sarah Beth Durst / Book Review

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THE FARAWAY INN When Calisa catches her boyfriend with his hands up another girl's shirt, her perfect summer goes out the window. Desperate to escape the city and all the plans she had this summer, she hops on a bus to go visit her great aunt at the B&B she runs in Vermont. Time and space away will help heal the wound. Plus her great-aunt is old. Like, old old. No doubt she could use some help this summer. But when Calisa arrives at the inn, she find it more rundown than she anticipated. And it turns out her Auntie Zee doesn't want her there. Not all summer. Not even for the day, though Calisa talks her into letting her stay for three. With only three days to convince Auntie Zee that she can be useful, Calisa sets to work. But there's a lot to be done at the Faraway Inn to get it back in working order. The garden's overgrown. The sitting room is full of dust dusty. The roof and front porch are ready to cave in. Worse, the...