Book Review: Body and Soul Food

Book: Body and Soul Food (A Books & Biscuits Mystery book #1) by Abby Collette

Cover Art by Tofunmi Yosola
Book Design by George Towne

Edition: Paperback

Description:

In this page-turning new mystery series, fraternal twins Keaton and Koby will pull double duty when they take down a killer while preparing to open their new bookstore and soul-food café, Books & Biscuits.

When Koby Hill and Keaton Rutledge were orphaned at age two, they were separated, but their unbreakable connection lingered. Years later, they reunite and decide to make up for lost time and capitalize on their shared interests by opening up a well-stocked bookstore and cozy soul-food café in the quaint Pacific Northwest town of Timber Lake. But this new chapter of their lives could end on a cliffhanger after Koby's foster brother is found murdered.

The murder, which occurred in public between light-rail stops, seems impossible for the police to solve. But as Keaton and Koby know, two heads are always better than one, especially when it comes to mysteries. With just a week to go before the grand opening of their new café, the twins will use their revitalized connection with each other to make sure this is the killer's final page.

Book Review: The Gauntlet

Book: The Gauntlet (The Gauntlet book #1) by Karuna Riazi

Cover Illustration by Mehrdad Isvandi
Cover Design by Krista Vossen
Interior Design by Hilary Zarycky

Edition: Hardcover

Description:

A trio of friends from New York City find themselves trapped inside a mechanical board game that they must dismantle in order to save themselves and generations of other children in this action-packed debut that’s a steampunk Jumanji with a Middle Eastern flair.

Nothing can prepare you for The Gauntlet…

It didn’t look dangerous, exactly. When twelve-year-old Farah first laid eyes on the old-fashioned board game, she thought it looked…elegant.

It is made of wood, etched with exquisite images—a palace with domes and turrets, lattice-work windows that cast eerie shadows, a large spider—and at the very center of its cover, in broad letters, is written: The Gauntlet of Blood and Sand.

The Gauntlet is more than a game, though. It is the most ancient, the most dangerous kind of magic. It holds worlds inside worlds. And it takes players as prisoners.

Book Review: Catwoman Novelization

Book: Catwoman by Elizabeth Hand
Screenplay: John Rogers, Mike Ferris and Brancato

Edition: Paperback

Description:

There’s a new Catwoman in town—a feline adventuress unlike any you’ve seen before. Discover all her sizzling secrets as she cracks her whip and sinks her claws into her most petrifying, death-defying adventure yet.

Patience Philips is a shrinking violet, not exactly a career booster at competitive Hedare Beauty, the huge cosmetics corporation where she’s a graphic designer. Self-conscious and easily unnerved, she hasn’t a chance of escaping detection after she uncovers a dirty little secret in Hedare’s top-secret research laboratory. Discovery means death, but the real shocker is what happens afterward.

In the blink of a cat’s eye, the meek designer is gone, replaced—through an ancient twist of fate—by a sleek, self-assured woman with dark, dazzling powers: Catwoman. She has scores to settle, rooftops to roam, and a sinister underworld to prowl, as she stalks her destiny like a feral feline. She also has a good-looking detective on her trail, someone who has fallen for Patience, but is drawn to Catwoman.

As two mighty forces gear up for the ultimate showdown, the fur will fly. . . .

Book Review: Hex Hall

Book: Hex Hall (Hex Hall book #1) by Rachel Hawkins

Cover Design by Jennifer Jackman
Cover Photo by Brian Doben (model) and Corbis (forest)

Edition: Paperback

Description:

On Her 12th Birthday, Sophie Mercer discovered that she was a witch. Three bumpy years later, after a prom-night spell gone horribly wrong, she's exiled to Hex Hall, an isolated reform school for wayward Prodigium, a.k.a. witches, faeries, and shapeshifters.

By the end of her first day, Sophie has quite a scorecard: three powerful enemies who look like supermodels, a futile crush on a gorgeous warlock, a creepy tagalong ghost, and a new roommate who happens to be the most hated person and only vampire on campus. Then when a mysterious predator begins attacking students, and Sophie's only friend is the number-one suspect, a horrifying plot begins to surface. Soon, Sophie is preparing for the biggest threat of all: an ancient secret society determined to destroy all Prodigium, especially her.

Book Review: The Jane Austen Diet

Book: The Jane Austen Diet: Austen's Secrets to Food, Health, and Incandescent Happiness by Jane Austen and Bryan Kozlowski

Edition: Paperback

Description:

What can Jane Austen teach us about health? Prepare to have your bonnet blown…

From the food secrets of Pride and Prejudice to the fitness strategies of Sense and Sensibility, there’s a modern health code hidden in the world’s most popular romances.

Join Bryan Kozlowski as he unlocks this “health and happiness” manifesto straight from Jane Austen’s pen, revealing why her prescriptions for achieving total body “bloom” still matter in the 21st century. Whether that’s learning how to eat like Lizzie Bennet, exercise like Emma Woodhouse, or think like Elinor Dashwood, explore how Austen’s timeless body beliefs are more relevant, refreshing, and scientifically sensible now than ever before. After all, it's still a truth universally acknowledged – Jane Austen’s heroines don’t get fat.

Book Review: The Creepy Case Files of Margo Maloo: The Monster Mall

Book: The Creepy Case Files of Margo Maloo volume #2: The Monster Mall by Drew Weing

Cover Art by Drew Weing
Cover Design by Drew Weing and Andrew Arnold

Edition: Paperback

Description:

In this second volume of The Creepy Case Files of Margo Maloo, graphic novelist Drew Weing delivers a fresh and funny take on the age-old battle between kids and closet-dwelling monsters.

Charles meets a lot of monsters in his line of work. While assisting Margo Maloo on her assignments, he’s had close encounters with trolls, ghosts, imps, and ogres. And lately, they’re all saying the same thing: living in Echo City is getting harder.

As the human population of the city grows, monsters are being forced to abandon their homes. Teenagers are creeping into their territory, smartphones in hand, eager to photograph paranormal activity. Some monsters are tired of hiding and ready to fight. How can Margo and Charles keep Echo City’s monster community a secret, when it’s teetering in the brink of war?

Book Review: Velvet vol #3

Book: Velvet volume #3: The Man Who Stole The World (issues #11-15) by Ed Brubaker with illustrations by Steve Epting, color by Elizabeth Breitweiser and letters by Chris Eliopoulos

Cover Art by Steve Epting and Elizabeth Breitweiser

Edition: Trade Paperback

Description:

The strands of the mystery finally bring Velvet back home to the US, and to Washington DC, for the explosive finale to the first big Velvet story arc.

Book Review: Con Quest!

Book: Con Quest! by Sam Maggs

Cover Illustration by Chris Danger
Cover Design by Natalie C. Sousa

Edition: Paperback

Description:

Cat and Alex are excited to be at the world’s most popular comics convention―and they’re even more excited to compete in the Quest, a huge scavenger hunt run by their favorite nerdy celebrity. The big prize: a chance to meet him!

The twins ditch their older sister Fi and set off to find geeky clues, tackle nerdy challenges, and cross as many items as possible off their Quest list, which includes volunteering at an Artist Alley booth, gathering cosplayers in enough colors to make a double rainbow, and actually finding something healthy to eat in the convention center!

Can the twins work together even when they disagree on how to compete? Will Fi find Cat and Alex before their parents realize they’re missing? Most importantly, can these ultimate fans complete the ultimate Quest?

Book Review: The Library of the Dead

Book: The Library of the Dead (Edinburgh Nights book #1) by T.L. Huchu

Cover Art and Design by Leo Nickolls

Edition: Paperback

Description:

Ropa dropped out of school to become a ghostalker. Now she speaks to Edinburgh's dead, carrying messages to the living. A girl's gotta earn a living, and it seems harmless enough. Until, that is, the dead begin to whisper that someone's bewitching children--leaving them husks, empty of joy and life. It's in Ropa's city, so she feels honor-bound to investigate. But what she learns will change her world.

She'll dice with death (not part of her life plan), discovering an occult library and a taste for hidden magic. She'll also experience dark times. For Edinburgh hides a wealth of secrets, and Ropa's gonna hunt them all down.

Book Review: The Matchmaker of Périgord

Book: The Matchmaker of Périgord by Julia Stuart

Cover Design by Helen Chapman
Cover Illustration by Mary Schuck

Edition: Paperback

Description:

The charming tale of a small French town in which the local barber, whose business is failing as his clients grow older and lose their hair, decides to become the town matchmaker.

Barber Guillaume Ladoucette has always enjoyed great success in his tiny village in southwestern France, catering to the tonsorial needs of Amour-sur-Belle's thirty-three inhabitants. But times have changed. His customers have grown older—and balder. Suddenly there is no longer a call for Guillaume's particular services, and he is forced to make a drastic career change. Since love and companionship are necessary commodities at any age, he becomes the town's official matchmaker and intends to unite hearts as ably as he once cut hair. But alas, Guillaume is not nearly as accomplished an agent of amour, as the disastrous results of his initial attempts amply prove, especially when it comes to arranging his own romantic future.

For every reader who adored Chocolat, Julia Stuart's The Matchmaker of Périgord is a delectable, utterly enchanting, and sinfully satisfying delight.

Book Review: Aru Shah and the End of Time

Book: Aru Shah and the End of Time (Pandava book #1) by Roshani Chokshi

Cover Art by Abigail Dela Rey
Cover Design by Phil Caminiti

Edition: Hardcover

Description:

Twelve-year-old Aru Shah has a tendency to stretch the truth in order to fit in at school. While her classmates are jetting off to family vacations in exotic locales, she'll be spending her autumn break at home, in the Museum of Ancient Indian Art and Culture, waiting for her mom to return from her latest archeological trip. Is it any wonder that Aru makes up stories about being royalty, traveling to Paris, and having a chauffeur?

One day, three schoolmates show up at Aru's doorstep to catch her in a lie. They don't believe her claim that the museum's Lamp of Bharata is cursed, and they dare Aru to prove it. Just a quick light, Aru thinks. Then she can get herself out of this mess and never ever fib again.

But lighting the lamp has dire consequences. She unwittingly frees the Sleeper, an ancient demon whose duty it is to awaken the God of Destruction. Her classmates and beloved mother are frozen in time, and it's up to Aru to save them.

The only way to stop the demon is to find the reincarnations of the five legendary Pandava brothers, protagonists of the Hindu epic poem, the Mahabharata, and journey through the Kingdom of Death. But how is one girl in Spider-Man pajamas supposed to do all that?

Book Review: Harriet the Spy

Book: Harriet the Spy (Harriet the Spy book #1) by Louise Fitzhugh

Cover Illustration by Louise Fitzhugh

Edition: Paperback

Description:

Harriet M. Welsch is a spy. In her notebook, she writes down everything she knows about everyone, even her classmates and her best friends. Then Harriet loses track of her notebook, and it ends up in the wrong hands. Before she can stop them, her friends have read the always truthful, sometimes awful things she’s written about each of them. Will Harriet find a way to put her life and her friendships back together?

Book Review for Tackle Your TBR Read-a-Thon book #4: Ways to Make Sunshine

Book: Ways to Make Sunshine (A Ryan Hart Story book #1) by Renée Watson with illustrations by Nina Mata

Cover Art by Nina Mata
Cover Design by Danielle Ceccolini

Edition: Paperback

Description:

Ryan Hart can be and do anything.

Her name means "king", that she is a leader, and she is determined to keep growing into the name her parents gave her. She is all about trying to see the best in people, to be a good daughter, sister, and friend. But Ryan has a lot on her mind.

For instance: Dad finally has a new job, but money is still tight. That means some changes, like moving into a new (old) house, and Dad working the night shift. And with the fourth-grad talent show coming up, Ryan wonders what talent she can perform on stage in front of everyone without freezing. As even more changes and challenges come her way, Ryan always finds a way forward and shows she is a girl who knows how to glow.

Book Review for Tackle Your TBR Read-a-Thon book #2: The Phantom Tollbooth

Book: The Phantom Tollboth by Norton Juster and illustrations by Jules Feiffer

Cover Art by Jules Feiffer

Edition: Paperback

Description:

For Milo, everything’s a bore. When a tollbooth mysteriously appears in his room, he drives through only because he’s got nothing better to do. But on the other side, things seem different. Milo visits the Island of Conclusions (you get there by jumping), learns about time from a ticking watchdog named Tock, and even embarks on a quest to rescue Rhyme and Reason! Somewhere along the way, Milo realizes something astonishing. Life is far from dull. In fact, it’s exciting beyond his wildest dreams. . . .

Book Review for Tackle Your TBR Read-a-Thon book #1: Sweet Valley Twins: Lois Strikes Back

Book: Lois Strikes Back (Sweet Valley Twins book #38) created by Francine Pascal and story written by Jamie Suzanne

Cover Art by James Mathewuse

Edition: Paperback

Description:

Winner takes all...

Lois Waller has always been too shy about being overweight to join in school activities. When the Sweet Valley PTA decides to have a bike-a-thon, Lois finds the courage to ride. It's a chance for her to win a brand-new mountain bike—and it's the perfect opportunity to put snooby Bruce Patman in his place.

Everyone at Sweet Valley Middle School knows how much Bruce bullies Lois. Although Jessica Wakefield thinks that anything Bruce does is perfect, her twin sister Elizabeth disagrees and is on Lois's side. Elizabeth thinks Lois has a good shot at winning. But she doesn't know how far Bruce Patman will go to see Lois lose!

Book Review for Star Wars Book Club for September: Star Wars: Red Harvest

Book: Star Wars: Red Harvest by Joe Schreiber

Edition: Paperback

Description:

Unlike those other Jedi sidelined to the Agricultural Corps—those whose abilities have not proved up to snuff—Hestizo Trace possesses one extraordinary Force talent: a gift with plants. But suddenly her quiet existence among greenhouse and garden specimens is violently destroyed by the arrival of an emissary from Darth Scabrous, a Sith Lord with a fanatical dream poised to become nightmarish reality. For the rare black orchid that Hestizo has nurtured and bonded with is the final ingredient in an ancient Sith formula—crucial to the Dark Lord's obsession, but with consequences far worse than fatal. Now, spawned by a heretofore unknown virus, the rotting, ravenous dead are rising, driven by a bloodthirsty hunger for all things living—and commanded by a Sith Master who lusts for power and the ultimate prize: immortality...no matter the cost.

Book Review: Caribbean Cruising

Book: Caribbean Cruising by Rachel Hawthorne

Edition: Paperback

Description:

The perfect summer story of a girl, several boys, and a cruise ship full of possibilities.

Lindsay has never been on a cruise, but she knows exactly what she wants to do now that she is: climb a waterfall, snorkel, meet lots of cute guys, and look for one perfect guy for a summer fling.

But her to-do list isn't going according to plan, especially when she discovers that it's impossible to have a fling-when you're actually falling in love.

Book Review for Star Wars Book Club for January: Star Wars: The Old Republic: Deceived

Book: Star Wars: The Old Republic: Deceived (The Old Republic book #2) by Paul S. Kemp

Cover Art and Design by LucasArts

Edition: Paperback

Description:

“Our time has come. For three hundred years we prepared; we grew stronger while you rested in your cradle of power. . . . Now your Republic shall fall.”

A Sith warrior to rival the most sinister of the Order’s Dark Lords, Darth Malgus brought down the Jedi Temple on Coruscant in a brutal assault that shocked the galaxy. But if war crowned him the darkest of Sith heroes, peace will transform him into something far more heinous—something Malgus would never want to be but cannot stop becoming, any more than he can stop the rogue Jedi fast approaching. Her name is Aryn Leneer—and the lone Jedi Knight that Malgus cut down in the fierce battle for the Jedi Temple was her Master. Now she’s going to find out what happened to him, even if it means breaking every rule in the book.

Book Review for Comic Book Club for January: Mera: Tide Breaker

Book: Mera: Tidebreaker by Danielle Paige and illustrations by Stephen Byrne

Cover Art by Stephen Byrne

Edition: Trade Paperback

Description:

Princess Mera is teenage royalty and heir to the throne of Xebel, a penal colony ruled by the other no-so-lost land under the sea, Atlantis. Her father, his court and the entire kingdom are expecting her to marry and introduce a new king. But Mera is destined to wear a different crown....

When the Xebellian military plots to overthrow Atlantis and break free of its oppressive regime, Mera seizes the opportunity to take control over her own destiny by assassinating Arthur Curry--the long-lost prince and heir to the kingdom of Atlantis. But her mission gets sidetracked when Mera and Arthur unexpectedly fall in love. Will Arthur Curry be the king at Mera's side, or will he die under her blade as she attempts to free her people from persecution?

An astonishing graphic novel that explores duty, love, heroism and freedom, all through the eyes of readers' favorite undersea royalty.

From New York Times best-selling author Danielle Paige (Dorothy Must Die) and artist Stephen Byrne comes a Mera and Aquaman origin story that explores Mera's first steps on land, and her first steps as a hero or villain, forcing her to choose to follow her heart or her mission to kill.

Book Review for The Book Girl's Book Club for January: The Sword of Summer

Book: The Sword of Summer (Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard book #1) by Rick Riordan

Cover Design by SJI Associates, Inc.
Cover Illustration by John Rocco

Edition: Paperback

Description:

Magnus Chase has seen his share of trouble. Ever since that terrible night two years ago when his mother told him to run, he has lived alone on the streets of Boston, surviving by his wits, staying one step ahead of the police and the truant officers.

One day, Magnus learns that someone else is trying to track him down—his uncle Randolph, a man his mother had always warned him about. When Magnus tries to outmaneuver his uncle, he falls right into his clutches. Randolph starts rambling about Norse history and Magnus's birthright: a weapon that has been lost for thousands of years.

The more Randolph talks, the more puzzle pieces fall into place. Stories about the gods of Asgard, wolves, and Doomsday bubble up from Magnus's memory. But he doesn't have time to consider it all before a fire giant attacks the city, forcing him to choose between his own safety and the lives of hundreds of innocents. . . .

Sometimes, the only way to start a new life is to die.