Lemon Squeezy Book Reviews

"This story ends in blood."  Patricia lives the boring, diligent housewife life with kids in the suburbs and most days she really is on flight mode. Her greatest passion is the ladies only, 'not-quite-a-book-club' book club where she and her fellow clubbers indulge in gory murder stories.  Enter: mysterious, tall, blond stranger, James Harris, who comes out of nowhere, charms everyone and integrates himself into their little peaceful community. But his arrival marks the start to a series of odd incidents and things get more serious when children in a poor, squalid area of town start dying under mysterious circumstances, their deaths taken less than seriously by the local authorities. That is when Patricia puts one plus one together and discovers the unfathomable truth about everyone's favorite, new neighbor... Well, she was a bit suspicious from the beginning but, you know, James is really handsome. This book frustrated me to no end, that is to say, I enjoyed it t...

"Day upon patient day, you must throw out your errors and begin again. So why did I not mind? Why did none of us mind?  I  cannot speak for my brothers and sister, but my answer is easy. For a hundred generations, I had walked the world drowsy and dull, idle and at my ease. I left no prints, I did no deeds. Even those who had loved me a little did not care to stay. Then I learned that I could bend the world to my will, as a bow is bent for an arrow. I would have done that toil a thousand times to keep such power in my hands. I thought: this is how Zeus felt when he first lifted the thunderbolt." Circe, daughter of Helios and a rather pompous nymph, Perse, was born and raised in the Titans' Halls, among other rather pompous nymphs, naiads, small deities and Titans. During her slow eternity she discovers her inherent powers of witchcraft and is exiled on the island Aiaia (even though I am Greek, I still had to google how to pronounce that name), where she hones her abilitie...

  " It came to him, with the force of a revelation, that you have to have been imprisoned to fully understand what freedom was." Luke Ellis is a twelve year-old prodigy with a bright future, a best friend, two loving parents and a slight telekinetic power that occasionally freaks them out. He's all set to start his studies in two separate universities, when one night, three intruders kill his parents and abduct him, only to take him to the Institute.  The Institute is a place where "they" incarcerate children and teenagers with telekinetic or telepathic powers and exploit them in the most inhumane ways. The Institute is where innocence, and faith in humanity go to die. The Institute is where impossible hope and friendship blossomed.  No one has ever escaped before, but Luke isn't just an ordinary boy... I've only read a few of King's books but The Institute tops them all. King's writing is, as always,  suspenseful and evocative. The twists don...

"The world is insane, but he didn't do it. He has an alibi as strong as the S on Superman's chest." "Why did they arrest him, then?" "Because they believe they have proof as strong as the S on Superman's chest." When a boy is found mauled and molested (and dead, in case that wasn't very clear) in a small town in Oklahoma, the overwhelming evidence points with big flashing arrows to Terry Maitland, beloved husband and father of two, English Teacher and Little League coach. Detective Anderson then decides to arrest him very publicly,  before interrogating him,  in the middle of a baseball game, in front of thousands of people,  as an attempt to humiliate him. Anderson had a solid case but Terry had a strong alibi which will lead to an investigation on a path towards the supernatural and will impugn the detective's very beliefs about the universe (and the capacity of a person to be in two places at once). I can say with cer...

"When people ask me what I do - taxi drivers, dental hygienists - I tell them I work in an office. In almost nine years, no one's ever asked me what kind of office, or what sort of job I do there. I can't decide whether that's because I fit perfectly with their idea of what an office worker looks like, or whether people hear the phrase " work in an office" and automatically fill in the blanks themselves - lady doing photocopying, man tapping at a keyboard. I'm not complaining. I'm delighted that I don't have to get into the fascinating intricacies of accounts receivable with them." This is the story of Eleanor Oliphant, a 31 year-old woman who lives a lonely life. She goes through the same routine everyday, wears the same clothes, eats the same food, drowns her denial and despair in the same vodka every weekend and has convinced herself that she is "fine".  On one extremely rare outing at a pub gig she develops a li...

"There was a wolf at the gallery door." Bryce Quinlan, a half-human/half-fae citizen of Crescent City, works as an antiquities dealer assistant in a witch's gallery during the day and parties hard with her friends at night (clubs, booze, drugs, the works). One fateful night she comes home to discover her friends murdered in the most gruesome manner, and her life changes dramatically.  Even though the "culprit" has been "apprehended", two years later someone's body is found in the same way her friends' were and the Archangel and Governor of CC, Micah, asks Bryce to help solve the case together with his personal assassin, Hunt (*sigh*) Athalar. Every new revelation only brings on more questions and doubt about her deceased friends, and unravels a dangerous path that goes much deeper and steeper than they had imagined.  In this adult fantasy, Maas has amassed all kinds of supernatural creatures, such as Fae, Angels, Shifters, Witc...