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Review of Echoes Between Us by Katie McGarry

January 14, 2020 by Roger Hyttinen Leave a Comment

Because of the blurb, I went into this thinking that it was going to be a YA paranormal, given that it follows our main character Veronica who has the ability to see ghosts, specifically the spirit of her recently deceased mom. But I’d classify Echoes Between Us more as a hard-hitting contemporary romance as the paranormal aspect of the story is secondary to the other themes.

Now a good portion of Veronica’s life is consumed by a well-kept secret: she has a brain tumor – the same kind that killed her mom – whose symptoms include crippling migraines. She lives her life with the knowledge that her time on the planet is quickly running out.
But when Veronica ends up working on a school project with Sawyer, the super-popular golden boy/swim team jock at her school, her life completely changes. She discovers that there’s a lot more to Sawyer than first meets the eye. He quite a troubled boy, and because of his dyslexia, he struggles with maintaining his grades, and his family life is unraveling quickly. Moreover, he has resorted to a coping mechanism that could prove deadly for him.

It’s also worth mentioning that the project that Veronica and Sawyer are working on is to prove, through hands-on experience and research, that ghosts exist. So when this unlikely pair comes together, they end up questioning their stereotypes, and both end up learning and growing in the process. They each also have to make some extremely difficult decisions about their present life and their future. And of course, they fall in love.

What I enjoyed about this book is how it alternated between the POV of Veronica and Sawyer, so we got to see what was going on in each of their heads and where each of them was coming from. Additionally, most of Sawyer’s chapters include snippets from a diary written in the early 1900s by a girl named Evelyn, who had Tuberculosis and was hospitalized in a TB sanatorium (the quotes are actually from a real-life diary, which added an extra-special aspect to the story). I also enjoyed the enemies-to-lovers element of the story, one of my favorite tropes, which was exceptionally well done here and felt that Sawyer and Veronica fit together perfectly, with each of them complementing the other.

The characters, especially our two main ones, are so well-written and so realistic that they practically jump from the page, and I couldn’t help but become immediately attached to the both of them. I loved Veronica. She’s strong, brave, resilient, and feisty, and I adored how she lived life on her own terms and to hell what anyone else thought of her. Sawyer is also an admirable character who is also strong, complex, resilient, and confused – and someone who has to make some tough choices regarding his family. They both have to deal with some pretty intense and serious emotional issues.

This ended up being quite a hard-hitting but empowering story. Addiction is a huge theme in this story where Sawyer is addicted to dangerous adrenaline rushes, and his mother is an alcoholic. What I liked was how the novel approached this theme in a non-judgmental and positive manner.

The novel also dealt with several other sensitive topics such as death, enablers, grief, terminal illness, mental illness, depression, alcoholism, the pressure to be always perfect, bullying, dysfunctional families, acceptance, and love. So what I thought was going to be a fluffy ghost story ended up being an intense emotional journey.

Echoes Between Us is such a multi-layered story with several different storylines and moving parts, all of which blend together beautifully. And the ghost hunting aspect of the story is a lot of fun and adds a compelling additional element to the narrative.

This book wrecked me in the best and most unexpected ways. It’s a sucker-punch of a story that blew me away. It’s emotional, sobering, and profound, and I enjoyed every single moment. From start to finish, this endearing story held me in rapt attention, and I would definitely read more by this author.

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Review of Howling on Hold by E.J. Russell

January 13, 2020 by Roger Hyttinen Leave a Comment

Howling on Hold is a fun gay shifter story that takes place at a group residence for werewolves called the Howling (aka “The Doghouse). Young werewolves need to spend three years at the residence to help them to control their instincts so they can seamlessly blend into the ordinary world. The story follows two main characters, Chase, who is the RA at the Howling residence, and Tanner, a young alpha-in-training who is nearly the end of this three-year stint, after which he must return to his pack and take the role of alpha.

Given that Chase is the RA and in a position of responsibility, he has ignored his feelings for Tanner. Likewise, Tanner has pushed aside his feelings for Chase. But now that Tanner is turning 21, he’s hoping that perhaps things will be different now that he is an adult and no longer under Chase’s charge. But Tanner’s world comes crashing down on the eve of his 21st birthday, resulting in Tanner being missing and running for his life after Chase rebuffs him, and Chase being stripped of his RA duties. So now the question is: Will Chase ever manage to find Tanner again?

First off, I loved the quirky secondary characters, especially Jordan who’s having an especially difficult time managing his “wolfy” instincts and has a knack for getting himself into trouble. There was a lot of fun banter between the characters, which added an enjoyable lightness to the story.

And as for our two main characters, I found them both extremely likable and ended up rooting for them to finally get together – and I thought the journey that took them to their happily ever after was well done and a lot of fun to boot.

This was a story with engaging characters and a well-crafted plot, along with several surprises peppered throughout the story. It wasn’t only cleverly written but also was laugh-out-loud funny in places and found it to be a breath of fresh air in the paranormal genre. If you like witty banter, shenanigans, and a heartfelt romance, then Howling on Hold is the book for you.

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Review of Tunnel of Bones by Victoria Schwab

January 12, 2020 by Roger Hyttinen Leave a Comment

413myaBlx5L SX331 BO1 204 203 200 Tunnel of Bones is the second book in the City of Ghosts series and follows Cassidy, a twelve-year-old girl who can see ghosts and her ghostly friend Jacob.

This time, the story takes place in Paris, where her “ghost-hunter” parents are filming in the creepy Catacombs, which is basically an underground cemetery that is a labyrinth containing the bones of millions of Parisians. Think it might be haunted? If you answered yes, then you’re correct.

In this novel, Cassidy and Jacob end up awakening an angry Poltergeist who ends up wreaking all kinds of havoc in Paris.

The problem is that Cassidy can’t stop him with her mirror because the Poltergeist doesn’t remember who or what he is, which is a necessary element for the mirror trick to work.

As time passes, the spirit grows stronger and more dangerous, and it’s up to Cassidy and Jacob to stop it before someone ends up getting killed.

This was a super creepy story with a delightful, pervasive sense of menace that lingers over the story. It’s a story with tons of suspense, gobs of creepiness, and tension galore. It was also quite eerie — how could it not, given that it literally takes place in a tunnel of bones.

The characters of Cassidy and Jacob continued to grow on me with this second book, and I love watching them work as a team to fit together the pieces of the mystery and fix what’s going on around them, in this case, a super angry ghost.

The story has an excellent atmosphere, and at times, I felt like I was walking right along with them in the twisty underground boneyard. The author succeeded here in giving us another suspenseful Cassidy Blake story with just the right amount of creepiness and adventure. As a plus, we got to learn quite a bit more about Jacob in this book, which renders him all the more endearing.

All in all, Tunnel of Bones is a fun, spooky middle-grade paranormal fantasy that had the perfect amount of creep factor and mystery. I loved the fact that the story takes place in Paris because I lived there for a while, so that was an extra plus for me having one of my favorite cities as a backdrop.

I don’t read a lot of middle-grade, but the author has really me hooked with this series. I can’t wait for the next installment.

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Review of Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

January 10, 2020 by Roger Hyttinen Leave a Comment

Where the Crawdads Sing is a fascinating book that takes place during the 1950s and ’60s and follows a misunderstood girl named Kya Clark, who is also known as the Marsh Girl or Marsh Trash by the local people in Barclay Cove. Kaya is abandoned, first by her mother, then all of her siblings, and finally, by her drunken and abusive father, leaving her to fend for herself all alone on the marsh, without assistance from anyone. I think she was ten years old or so when the last of her family abandoned her.

The story is told in two alternate timelines: the first, focusing on Kya’s life in the marsh and her eventual romantic involvement with two young men from town. The other timeline occurs in 1969, during which a young man named Chase Andrews is found dead. At first, police think I was an accident, but upon further investigation, begin to suspect that the young man was, in fact, murdered. The townies immediately suspect the strange and aloof Marsh girl, especially given that she has been seen several times over the years in Chase’s company.

This is another one of those books that is super-haunting and atmospheric, and the rich, vivid descriptions of the soggy swamp, the birds, insects, water, sand, mud, plants, fish and other animals transported me right back to the 1950s and makes you feel as though you’re in the marsh right along with Kya.

While this is a lovely homage to nature, it’s also a moving and heartbreaking coming-of-age story about a resilient young woman who had to overcome abandonment, prejudice, scorn, and immense loneliness and how a person can rise above their circumstance when people believe in you.

Where the Crawdads Sing a character-driven story with an admirable and tenacious heroine that is part mystery, part love story, part suspense, and part adventure. This was an engrossing and surprising story that I absolutely loved and one that I will no doubt contemplate for a long time to come.

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Review of I Buried a Witch by Josh Lanyon

January 9, 2020 by Roger Hyttinen Leave a Comment

I Buried a Witch is the second book in the Bedknobs and Brooksticks trilogy, a romantic gay mystery series by Josh Lanyon. This book is the sequel to “Mainly by Moonlight,” in which Cosmo Saville, a bloodline witch, marries police detective John Galbraith, but there’s one catch: John doesn’t know his new husband is a witch.

That all changes in this book, however, once Cosmo begins investigating the murders of several Wiccans he believes to be related. He inadvertently comes out of the “broom closet” to John, and his news is not well-received. Feeling tricked and deceived, John leaves Cosmo and refuses to take his calls or see him.

But when Cosmo’s investigation puts him directly in the crosshairs of the murderer, John must decide whether he can put his feelings aside and come to the aid of his husband.

I enjoyed this book a lot more than I did the first one. We got to delve a little deeper into the personalities of John and Cosmo, helping us to understand their motivations in the story (though I still think John is a controlling jerk).

Cosmo’s character has really grown on me in this story. He bumbling, a bit ditzy but sweet and lovable as well. But what renders him a truly admirable character is that he’s willing to risk his own life to help save others and to find justice for the innocent victims who were murdered. I also enjoyed Cosmo’s bubbly personality, and he ended up being quite the endearing character for me.

Lanyon really ratchets up the tension in this book, and I found myself deeply engrossed in the story, especially after a couple of failed assassination attempts on poor Cosmo and the murder of several young Wiccan women. There’s also the imminent war brewing between Craft and SPMMR, a mysterious and possibly nefarious organization that we don’t know all that much about yet.

Several secrets and betrayals do come to the forefront in this story, which immersed me even more in the world that the author has created here. I loved how the tone shifts from light to dark, snarky to serious, and back again.

My only niggle is the amount of French that the author used in the book. Now I happen to speak French, so I was able to understand it, no problem. But for someone unfamiliar with the language, I’d imagine that certain passages would be frustrating for them.

But all in all, I enjoyed I Buried a Witch. Though witches are a continuing theme in this trilogy, the story is, at its core, about relationships: family, friends, and lovers; connecting and sometimes not; and the secrets and deception that often interfere with our closest relationships.

Of course, there are some interesting questions that still need to be answered. Why is John invulnerable to magic? Who tried to murder Cosmo? What tragic event happened in John’s past in Somalia that he refuses to talk about? I’m hoping these and other questions will be answered in the third and final book in the series, which I do plan on reading when it comes out in March of 2020.

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Review of How to Speak Boy by Tiana Smith

January 9, 2020 by Roger Hyttinen Leave a Comment

How to Speak Boy is a Young Adult contemporary romance and follows our main character Quinn who is hugely competitive in her Speech and Debate team at school. She and an arrogant young man named Grayson are competitive rivals, so much so that Quinn considers him her enemy. But when Grayson and Quinn are forced to pair up as co-captains of the Speech and Debate team, things take an interesting turn as Quinn realizes that Grayson perhaps isn’t the monster that she had built him up to be in her mind.

But though he is fast becoming a friend (and possibly even more?), Quinn doesn’t completely trust him and can’t help but wonder whether his friendly banter is fake and that he plans to sabotage her chances of winning at the finals tournament, something he has purportedly done in the past.

Additionally, events take an interesting turn when a graded test paper belonging to Student (15211) is accidentally placed in Quinn’s receptacle (15511). Because students are only identified by their student numbers, Quinn doesn’t know the student’s identity. So she returns the paper with a note, explaining the mix-up, which then begins a super-sweet back-and-forth correspondence between Quinn and the mystery student.

So not only is she beginning to fall for Grayson, but her curiosity about her mystery correspondent is also peaked, and she begins to develop feelings for the unknown boy. Oh — and Quinn also suspects that Carter, her long-time friend, has feelings for her and is trying to push Grayson out of the way. Now Quinn has to decide who she can trust and whether to listen to her heart instead of her head.

I love the enemies-to-lovers trope and felt that it worked exceptionally well here. The banter between Grayson and Quinn is witty, snarky, and a lot of fun, and both of the characters were extremely likable and relatable. Several of their interactions caused me to cackle out loud or, at the very least, brought a smile to my face.

Many of us can relate to Quinn’s desire for academic perfection and the intense desire to succeed — and all the pressure and stress that goes along with that (some of which she’d created herself). It’s always refreshing to see realistic characters in stories, especially stories about high school and I found myself forming a bond with Quinn right from the get-go. Quinn is spirited, stubborn, feisty, and has the personality, backbone, and style to complement and balance Grayson’s suave and charismatic character.

All in all, How to Speak Boy was a sweet and humorous YA romance with some powerful themes of friendship, love, competitiveness, academic perfection, rivalry, trust, and betrayal. The romance was engaging with a compelling plot and well-defined characters who were a joy to read. The secret note correspondence added extra intrigue to the story that worked perfectly here. I also found the Speech/Debate theme angle to the story refreshing, as I don’t think I’ve read this element in any other book.

My only niggle is not with the story but rather with the synopsis/blurb. I felt that this story would have been even more impressive had the synopsis not revealed the identity of the mystery penpal. Grr! The book did an excellent job of keeping their identity a secret — too bad the synopsis didn’t.

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