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Review of Infinite Noise by Lauren Shippen

October 13, 2019 by Roger Hyttinen Leave a Comment

Infinite noiseThis book is supposedly based upon a popular podcast series called “Bright Sessions,” which I was not familiar with before reading this. I definitely plan on checking out the podcast now, as well.

Infinite Noise is a YA Contemporary Sci-Fi story that follows a 16-year-old high school football player named Caleb Michaels. But lately, he hasn’t been his usual self. Whenever he’s around a group of people such as in class or at a party, he feels overwhelmed to such a point that he fears passing out. He’s also noticed that his moods swing back and forth to extremes of the spectrum without explanation or cause, sometimes even culminating with him violently lashing out in anger.

Upon receiving therapy, it’s determined that Caleb is in fact what the book called an “Atypical” — a powerful empath who feels and experiences the moods of everyone around him, which can be pretty intense if one is in a room full of teenagers whose moods are often extreme and ever-changing. But there’s one person who seems to help Caleb deal with the overwhelm, and that is Adam, an introverted gay teen who suffers from severe depression.

Though Adam’s emotions are often extreme and tend toward the dark side, they seem to “fit” with Caleb’s, and when Adam is around, Caleb finds it much easier to control the crushing, overwhelm that he experiences when Adam is not around. So in this way, Adam’s presence is calming to Caleb. Because of this, Caleb’s therapist encourages him to befriend Adam, and so the two of them form a unique friendship. In the process, they discover they have more in common than they’d initially thought.

Eventually, their friendship evolves into something more, which poses an entirely different set of challenges for our two main characters. There’s also the danger of others finding out about Caleb’s ability (there was even mention of a nefarious organization), which also added a bit of compelling intrigue to the narrative.

I love stories about people who possess superpowers and/or enhanced abilities so it was fun to journey along with Caleb as he struggled to understand and control that part of himself. The story was told from both Caleb and Adam’s alternating points of view, which really helped the reader understand the emotions and motivations of the characters. The dual perspectives worked exceptionally well in the book as both characters’ voices were so distinct that there was little danger of confusing them.

The book also had phenomenal descriptions of emotions, and I thought the author especially nailed it when describing Adam’s depression from Caleb’s point of view. I found the use of colors and physical sensations in describing emotions to be especially effective.

All in all, this is is a delightfully moving character-driven coming-of-age love story that was also a journey of self-discovery for our two highly complex protagonists. It’s an exceptional novel with lovable characters that teaches us to find solace in the special friendships that we forge and to trust those who love us.

I do believe this is going to be a series. I do hope so as I’d definitely love to delve more deeply into the world that the author has created here. The author also briefly introduced a couple of other Atypicals in the story, so hopefully, we’ll be seeing them in future books.

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Filed Under: YA Fantasy/Urban Fantasy

Review of Happy for You by Anyta Sunday

October 2, 2019 by Roger Hyttinen Leave a Comment

Happy for youHappy for You is the third book in the author’s “Love and Family” series, all of which can be read as standalone.

This story follows Mort who, for reasons unknown, left town a year ago with no explanation to his de facto family, the Rochesters. He simply left town without a word — though we do find out pretty early on in the novel his reason for leaving.

So now he’s back, and he’s attempting to repair his relationship with each of the family members and win them back, especially Felix, to whom Mort is very much attracted. There’s also the issue of Felix’s brother Roch who was Mort’s best friend and whose relationship with Mort is now especially rocky.

To complicate matters, Felix has been in love with Mort for years, and Mort has been in love with Roch but now has feelings for Felix. So that being said, Happy for You is a “falling in love with best friend’s little brother” trope which is a trope I especially enjoy, and the author executed it to perfection here.

I felt this was a bit different than a lot of the author’s other books. In this story, rather than feelings slowly developing between the characters, the romantic feelings were already there, so there wasn’t that super slow build-up that we see in her other novels. There was the issue, however, of Felix allowing himself to trust his heart to Mort, which took some time (and care, on Mort’s part). Regardless, I still enjoyed the deep connection between the two characters and rooted for them to get together. I thought they had terrific chemistry together. Both of them knew what they wanted — it just took some time for them to get there.

What I loved about this story, is that it wasn’t merely a “boy likes boy” romance but rather, Happy for You is quite a complex story with a myriad of themes such as acceptance, family, friendship, redemption, betrayal, trust, depression, and forgiveness. I love how the author peeled back the layers of the story bit by bit as the puzzle pieces from the past slowly came to fit together.

My only niggle with the book was Felix’s mom. she played an essential part in the plot of the story, yet I felt that her character was underdeveloped. I wanted to know a lot more about her and her depression, her surgery, and her relationship with those around her.

But all in all, it was a pleasure reading this novel, and I was so hooked that I read the entire thing in one go. Happy for You is such a sweet story, and the book hit all me in all the right places. I enjoyed the slow burn romance and loved the dorky, funny, and quirky characters, all of whom had an enormous heart.

I thought this was a solid book and feel that this tender story is an exquisite addition to the author’s Love and Family series. This is a lovely story with plenty of heart, humor, family, and chemistry that leaves you feeling happy for all of the characters and with a warm and fuzzy case of the ‘feels’ at the end.

There’s a reason that Anyta Sunday is an auto-buy author for me and I already look forward to her next book.

A huge thank you to NetGalley and to Anyta Sunday for providing me with a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

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Filed Under: LGBT Romance

Review of No Exit by Taylor Adams

September 3, 2019 by Roger Hyttinen Leave a Comment

No exitI tend to love stories where people are trapped together, cut off from the rest of the world with a villain in their midst so when this novel about stranded travelers came to my attention, I had to read it.

No Exit is a super-creepy, edgy, heart-in-your-throat thrill ride that follows our main character Darby Thorne who while on her way to Utah to see her dying mother, gets caught in a savage blizzard in the Colorado mountains. No longer able to navigate the roads, she’s forced to wait out the storm at a rest area with four strangers.

Concerned that her family may wonder where she is, she steps outside, hoping to find a cell signal in order to call them but there’s no reception. As she passes by one of the vehicles in the parking lot, she looks in the window and to her horror, sees a little girl locked in a dog crate.

Even though Darby realizes one of the four people inside is the kidnapper, she has no choice but to act and is determined to somehow save the girl — and she has to do so without tipping off the kidnapper and getting everyone else killed in the process. But first, she’ll need to figure out who the kidnapper is — and who can be trusted enough to ask for help in freeing the girl.

The question is: who is the villain? And who can and cannot be trusted?

As it turns out, there’s a hell of a lot more to her fellow passengers then meets the eye and Darby soon finds out that navigating those uncertain waters are a lot more dangerous than she could have imagined. She quickly learns that nothing is as it seems and everyone in the room has secrets, which are two of my favorite tropes. Also: Trust. No. One.

This story takes off with a bang and doesn’t let up until the final jaw-dropping pages. To say it’s fast-paced is an understatement as our protagonist finds herself in one harrowing and deadly situation after another. I really loved the speed and pacing of the story, as it hurtles along at breakneck speed, never giving you the opportunity even to catch your breath. I found myself so engrossed in the plot that I couldn’t put it down, and I ended up reading hours past my bedtime because I had to know what happened.

It’s also chock full of surprising and shocking twists and turns, most of which I didn’t see coming (the first one was a doozy!). There was definitely some brilliant storytelling here as author continuously ratcheted up the tension page after page and we couldn’t help but wonder whether Darby is going to be the hero of the story or the victim; this is to say, will she outsmart the dirtbag or will they outsmart her?

What surprised me was how violent, bloody, and gory the novel was, something that caught me totally off guard. Let’s just say that I’ll never look at a nail gun again without shuddering and thinking about this story. That being said, this may not be a novel for those who dislike violence and/or are particularly squeamish, as some might find it exceptionally gruesome. There are lots of potentially triggering situations in this book, so be warned if you’re a more sensitive reader.

It’s a dark, edgy, intense and claustrophobic game of cat and mouse in an absolutely chilling setting. I’ve always found rest stops a tad creepy, and this book certainly reinforced that feeling.

In addition, No Exit was unsettling, scary, nerve-racking, anxiety-inducing, suspenseful and clever, and though parts of it were graphic and horrifying, I found the story mesmerizing and compelling. It’s a disturbing, desperate novel which I found to be quite different from most thrillers, and I found the inventive storyline refreshing. And the psychotic villain was utterly evil and bone-chilling.

I also really liked Darby’s character. She’s delightfully complex, often impulsive but mostly incredibly brave, tenacious and noble, who had to make impossible decisions and put her life on the line to save a little girl — even when the odds were not in her favor.

I enjoyed seeing her character evolve throughout the story as she went from being a self-centered person to someone who would risk their life for a stranger.

All in all, No Exit is a highly suspenseful nail-biting psychological thriller that leaves you with one simple question: what would you do?”

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Filed Under: Suspense/Thriller

Review of The Turn of the Key by Ruth Ware

August 30, 2019 by Roger Hyttinen Leave a Comment

Turn of the keyI’ve read other Ruth Ware books which I’ve enjoyed and was excited when I heard that she was coming out with a reimagining of Henry James’ novel “Turn of the Screw.” Well, I wasn’t really excited about the Turn of the Screw thing as I read it years ago when I was young and found it totally boring. I probably should give it a reread because I was pretty young when I read it.

Regardless, I ended up absolutely loving The Turn of the Key, a gothic-style thriller about a nannying position that has gone terribly, terribly wrong.

The story is told in epistolary format and follows a young potentially murderous nanny named Rowan Caine who is writing to an attorney named Mr. Wrexham from prison, in the hopes that he’ll represent her.

She is charged with murdering one of the children in her care. Through the letters, Rowan recounts her story about what really happened and all the events leading up to it. She ends her first letter by stating that she is innocent, meaning the true murderer is still on the loose.

As we learn, she spotted an ad for a live-in-nanny offering an unbelievably generous salary. When she arrives at Heatherbrae house for an interview, she finds a large, secluded gothic-style home situated in the remote Scottish countryside.

But she learns that though gothic on the outside, the house is, in fact, a “smart home” with everything from the lights to the locks to the appliance controlled via an app. I thought the blend of a Victorian-style house fully equipped with modern smart devices lent an extra bit of intrigue to the story, especially once we get the gothic horror element combined with the modern gadgets. It’s as if the house had a split personality.

So also learns that several recent nannies have left — four in the past year — because of their belief that the house is haunted, and as we learn, the house has quite a dark history. This is, of course, our first clue that something’s amiss with this too-good-to-be-true nanny position and of course, Rowan wonders what could have driven off so many nannies, especially those who left abruptly in the middle of the night. But the salary is too generous to pass up, and she’s determined to get the job. A job offer soon follows, and Rowan finds herself the nanny of four children ranging from 18 months to 14 years old.

When she arrives at the house, she’s more than surprised to discover that she’s to be immediately left alone with the children for a couple of weeks while the parents are out of town, meaning that she doesn’t even have a chance to become acclimated to her new environment. But she’s confident that she can handle it. That is until strange things begin to happen — things that very well could be supernatural in nature, such as malfunctioning smart devices, cold spots, creaking floors, missing belongings, and disappearing keys.

Oh – and there’s also a garden chock full of poisonous flowers and plants next to the house.

We also learn that Rowan isn’t completely innocent here and she arrives at the house with her own set of secrets. It’s hinted at early on that she may not be quite the person she presents herself to be and that her resume may have been embellished a bit, suggesting that she may have been unsuitable for the position. Of course, all her secrets come out at the end.

There was quite a desperate and claustrophobic feeling to this story as Rowan struggled to understand the smart home’s various controls, panels, switches, and apps, completely cut off from the rest of the world. I also found the idea of being under constant surveillance in every room of the house to be a tad unsettling as well as being in charge of mistrusting and openly hostile children.

There were so many delightful plot twists and red herrings in the story, most of which I didn’t see coming and I did not see the ending coming at all (speaking of the ending, make sure you read the Epilogue!). The story itself is fast-paced and picked up even more during the second half, especially once Rowan’s terror escalates.

It’s an unnerving and unsettling story, and it set my heart racing several times as I white-knuckled my way through the harrowing events. It was atmospheric and super-creepy, though it probably didn’t help that I read during the middle of the night while alone in a strange hotel room in a strange town.

But all in all, I found The Turn of the Key to be rich, complicated, creative, and clever — a spine-tingling, tension-packed gripper of a tale. I thought that Ware did a masterful job of layering on the twisty intrigue and mysteries until the reader is almost frantically turning the pages, impatient to find out what the hell is going on.

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Filed Under: Suspense/Thriller

Review of Tin Man by Sarah Winman

August 27, 2019 by Roger Hyttinen Leave a Comment

Tin manTin Man is an emotional character-driven story that opens in the 1960s and follows our two protagonists, Ellis and Michael who have been friends since they were children. But somewhere along the way, the friendship grew into something more.

Then the novel fast-forwards to the mid-1990s, and we learn that Ellis is married to a woman named Annie and Michael is out of the picture. Shifting back and forth between past and present, the author fills in the blanks, complete with agonizing pining, multiple tragedies, and death, rendering this a genuinely heart-wrenching story. I’ve seen this book referred to as “almost a love story” and I feel that’s an excellent description for it because it is definitely NOT a romance; but it is a profound exploration of the strong bonds of friendship.

The first half of the book is told from Ellis’s point of view and the second is told from Michael’s as they drift in and out of each other’s lives. I felt that the dual perspectives really added a depth and richness to the story as we experience both of their viewpoints in relation to the events in their lives.

There really isn’t much of a plot or storyline here — but rather, it’s more of an in-depth, introspective character study/memoir of two people and the bittersweet, complex story of their lives, loves, and losses. The story is at times dreamy and ethereal — almost haunting in places — as we flow in and out of each of the characters’ lives, so in this regard, I found it quite atmospheric and evocative.

Tin Man is a short book, so I can’t say too much about it without spoiling it, but even though it’s short, it packs a considerable punch. It’s a tender, beautiful tale of a first love with lush, lyrical writing that will break your heart in places. The story deals with some hard-hitting topics such as grief, longing, loss, sadness, regret, and loneliness.

It’s worth mentioning that there are no quotation marks used in the novel nor are there any chapter breaks so that, along with the switching back and forth between past and present (which isn’t always distinctive) may prove to be challenging for some folks. It definitely takes some getting used to.

Still, if you enjoy meandering character-driven novels, then I feel Tin Man is well worth a read as it is a beautiful, deeply emotional story and deals with many important topics such as friendship, desire, fitting in, family, and of course, grief and loss. There’s a lot going on here for such a small book and I don’t think it’s a story that I’ll forget about anytime soon.

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Filed Under: Contemporary Fiction/Classics

Review of Seance on a Summer’s Night by Josh Lanyon

August 26, 2019 by Roger Hyttinen Leave a Comment

Seance on a summers nightSeance on a Summer’s Night follows theater critic Artemus who is summoned by his Aunt Halcyone to come to the Green Lantern Inn, her home in California. When Artie arrives, he learns the reason for the summons: Aunt Halcyone is having ghost problems and believes that her house is haunted. In fact, the ghosts have frightened off all the guests, and because of it, the inn is beginning to fall into disrepair. Halcyone believes it’s her late husband Ogden, who was killed in a car crash the year before, who is haunting the inn.

Now Artie is a skeptic and does not believe in ghosts; yet right after his arrival, he notices strange happenings such as footsteps walking on the floor above him at night. Ogden’s distraught sister Liana, who spends her days alone in her room reading Tarot cards, insists on hosting regular seances with the aid of a local psychic medium/spiritualist named Roma Loveridge to communicate with her brother. Artie reluctantly joins in, and as it turns out, the seances are quite creepy; yet Artie isn’t sure whether they’re real or a hoax.

Though everyone else in the house believes the place is haunted, Artie isn’t buying it and is determined to get to the bottom of the mystery, especially once the so-called ghost threatens his Aunt. But he is certain that it is the living and not the dead who is behind the strange occurrences. Though because of the accusations by the ghost, Artie can help but wonder whether his staunch Aunt did have something to do with his uncle’s death after all.

So I’m a massive fan of the haunted house trope, and this one did not disappoint. It had all of the classic elements of a gothic ghost story: a psychic medium, creepy and hostile housekeepers, a mysterious (and hunky!) gardener, dim lighting, strange noises, an enormous old house, secret passages, possible murder and of course, ghostly apparitions.

What’s funny about this story, is that it had an old-time gothic feel to it, though it is a modern-day story. I kept forgetting that it takes place in recent times and not during the 1920s or 1930s, and I found the modern references a tad jarring in places. That being said, because of the descriptions and dialog, this story might have worked better were it set in an earlier time period.

I really enjoyed the mystery and loved journeying along with this oddball set of characters as the pieces of the puzzle slowly fit into place. I also loved all the clues peppered throughout the story that made figuring out the mystery all the more fun.

Josh Lanyon is known for writing M/M romance novels, but as is typical with most of her books, the romance is secondary to the mystery, and that certainly is the case here. The romance definitely takes a back seat to the ghost story plot so if you’re looking for a steamy gay romance, you won’t find that here. What you will find, however, is a fun cozy mystery featuring a witty and sarcastic protagonist, a zany cast of well-thought-out secondary characters with plenty of secrets and plenty of flirting between the two male leads. There were also several laugh-out-loud scenes as well, which added to the light-heartedness/coziness of the story.

I’ve read quite a few Josh Lanyon novels, and this one did not disappoint. All in all, Seance on a Summer’s Night is a smart and original cozy mystery/gay romance story with a rapidly moving plot, irresistible characters and a good number of twists that kept me engaged throughout.

A huge thank you to NetGalley and to Josh Lanyon for providing me with a review copy of this book.

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Filed Under: LGBT Romance, Mystery

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