kristineisreading's reviews
652 reviews

Ghostly Echoes by William Ritter

adventurous dark mysterious tense

4.0

Another winner in this series! TBH I forgot to review this before I moved onto the next and it's all a little blurred in my memory. But what's NOT blurry is the funny banter and the little gems of wisdom the characters are always spouting off. Also not blurry is how much I love these characters and the magical world they inhabit. Such fun!

The Dire King by William Ritter

adventurous dark hopeful tense

4.0

What a way to finish out the series. It was nice how it wove the previous books into the story so neatly. Maybe it's just because I don't usually read series all in a row, but this felt like one big story split into four parts, instead of stand-alone stories set in the same world with the same characters. 

There are SO MANY CHARACTERS in this book, mostly non-human ones, but it's never difficult to keep track of who's who or who's what. There's also a ton of magic in the book which is a lot of fun. But the stakes are high and the danger is high and it's all very stressful! Which of course is a sign of how much I've come to care about Jackaby and Abigail and Charlie and Jenny.

Like the rest of the series, the book is also very witty and funny and insightful. I just really vibe with this series and I would be sad it's over EXCEPT I just found out there's a book that focuses on Abigail as the Seer. I need a little break from fantasy but I'm adding that to my TBR list ASAP. 

Beastly Bones by William Ritter

adventurous funny lighthearted mysterious medium-paced

• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

I read the first book in this series seven years ago and while I don't remember a damn thing about the plot, I do remember how fun and quirky it was. This second installment lives up to that memory. This is definitely a fast, light read with loveable characters and a unique mystery. I recently discovered that cozy fantasy is a genre that exists and I would say this fits that bill pretty well. 

Abigail Rook, daughter of esteemed but sexist palentologist Daniel Rook, is settled into her role as assistant to the enigmatic detective Jackaby. The two of them live in harmony with their resident ghost Jenny and Jackaby's former assistant Douglas who is now a duck (something I assume I'm forgetting from the first book). The story opens with Jackaby and Abigail rescuing a litter of not-quite-kittens. They soon get called away to investigate the theft of a dinosaur bone in a village outside of town, and the story quickly snowballs from weird to weirder, in the best way. Along the way they interact with a whole host of quirky characters. There's magical beasts and feuding paleontologists and larger than life trappers and sassy reporters and it's all very charming. So charming, in fact, that I've already checked out the next one in the series. I'm just disappointed in myself for waiting this long to read these. 

The Last Tale of the Flower Bride by Roshani Chokshi

slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No

4.0

I finished this three days ago and I've been struggling to write a review. So I'll just copy the quick summary I wrote for my bookstagram: The writing is beautiful and evocative, 100%. But the plot meanders and one of the main narrators doesn't have any real personality. In the end though, it does paint a haunting picture of someone who is found, then lost, then found again.

But for real for real - the writing is gorgeous.

"This was our realm of honeyed light and apple blossoms, a place so steeped in wonder that if we were to plant a sonnet in the shade of the oak, we might return the next day to find it had become a tree that grew poem-plums and all who ate of it would speak sweetly." 

The Cabinet of Curiosities by Douglas Preston

dark mysterious tense

3.0

Coming straight off of Thunderhead, which I thoroughly enjoyed, this was a little bit of a let-down. There were a bunch of loose ends that never got tied up (

what happened to the body Nora found in the apartment? what were the eyes that followed Fairhaven and Pendergast in the laboratory room? why was Fairhaven's body all shredded up if he was poisoned? what was the brown fur he was clutching?

). The Pendergast series has a lot of wacky stuff happening that require a major suspension of disbelief, but I struggled with that here. It also wasn't nearly as spooky and intense as the first ones. That being said, I still plan to continue reading both the Pendergast and Nora Kelly series. Pendergast is a weird but captivating character, and Nora's next book sounds fascinating. 

The Hunt for Atlantis by Andy McDermott
Did not finish book. Stopped at 37%.

I couldn't deal with all! Of the! Exclamation points! It took me right out of the action. Shame, because the story was pretty decent so far.

Thunderhead by Douglas Preston, Lincoln Child

adventurous mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

Action packed from beginning to end. The stakes are very high, it's a dangerous journey - then things start to go terribly wrong. Archaeology is one of those topics I'm always interested in reading about and it features heavily in the story. The cast is full of archaeologist from various specialties, including the series lead Nora Kelly, plus a quirky cook, a tough but tenderhearted cowboy, and journalist Bill Smithback from the Pendergast series. They (mostly) all play roles in furthering the plot, which moves along at lightning speed. SO MUCH happens in this book. It's one event after another, but somehow it manages to be exciting, not exhausting. I've already got the next book queued up, which is where Nora Kelly's series intersects with Pendergast's. Can't wait to see what they get up to next.

A Good Girl's Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson

4.0

Pip is a witty and intelligent 17 year old investigating a famous murder in her town as a project for her senior year of high school. The murder took place five years earlier, when her BFF's older sister was a senior. For reasons that aren't fully explained, Pip doesn't believe that the boy who took his own life after sending his dad a text admitting that he did it, actually did it. So she sets out to prove the boy innocent AND find whoever murdered both him and the girl. She enlists the help of the dead boy's brother (he's 20, so not a known entity to either her or the older crew, except that everyone in town hates him because they believe his brother was a murdering scumbag). She does a lot of good investigation, asking the right questions of the right people. She also makes quite a few very dangerous and reckless decisions and she nearly pays the price. It's a good thing she's only 17 because her behavior would be hard to excuse from an adult protagonist. Ultimately she uncovers some dark secrets, there are a couple of good twists (

Mr. Ward, what in the world! poor Cara

), and the ending is fairly satisfying (although I wasn't crazy about

Ravi rescuing her with the tracker app twice in a row

). Overall a very solid 4 stars.

Before She Knew Him by Peter Swanson

4.0

This is a twisty-turny book. None of the twists were that surprising, but they were all entertaining. I was a little iffy about Hen's bipolar being a main plot point, but I feel like it was handled appropriately. People do sometimes have psychotic breaks when manic, and it's not unrealistic that people would use that to paint her as an unreliable narrator. I like the contrast between that and knowing that she's actually perfectly reliable. I felt bad for her at times, knowing what she knew and nobody else believing her. I like that she never doubted herself though. She knew what she saw and she knew her meds were working and she wasn't manic and she wasn't going to be convinced otherwise. She's a strong and balanced character overall. Her creepy artwork could have turned her into a caricature of someone obsessed with darkness, but it's just a small part of who she is. Matthew is also a multi-faceted character. He has a darkness inside of him, so many scars from a traumatic childhood, and he coped with them the best way he knew how. I found both of them intriguing. Some of the other characters, not so much. Lloyd is as dull as dish water, and Mira's only personality trait is she travels a lot for work. But they're bit players in the grand scheme of things, so it doesn't really matter. Overall this is a strong showing from an author I've never heard of, and makes me curious to read some of his other books.

The Kitchen Daughter by Jael McHenry

emotional reflective sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.5