J. Lincoln Fenn's thriller "Poe" started out very good, but then it got very long and felt unnecessary. Dimitri discovers he has the ability to summon spirits because he is the grandson of Rasputin. Poe is what he calls the somewhat friendly spirit who is trying to warn him about a demonic spirit who has inhabited the body of his girlfriend Lisa's brother and is now killing people. If the spirit kills one more person, he'll be unstoppable.
"Tudor" by Leanda de Lisle was very good. It was an interesting look at the Tudor dynasty in terms of familial relationships: how they were all related, who married who and what the consequences were in terms of the succession, etc. I enjoyed it, and actually learned some new things.
"Twilight of Lake Woebegotten" by Harrison Geillor was a hilarious parody not only of Stephenie Meyer's "Twilight" but also Garrison Keillor's Lake Wobegon books. Bonnie Grayduck moves to Lake Woebegotten in Minnesota to live with her dad. She meets Edwin Scullen and falls for him, but it turns out Edwin and his family are vampires. What made this book so funny is that Bonnie is a cold hearted, calculated killer. She wants to be a vampire so she has powers, and manipulates Edwin and everyone else in Lake Woebegotten into thinking she's a harmless, helpless, somewhat klutzy girl when really she's ruthless and vindictive. Edwin comes across as a real pansy, especially after he turns Bonnie into a vampire.
I haven't read any Bentley Little in a long time. His latest, "The Influence", was gross and creepy good. Ross lost his engineering job a year earlier. He's living off his savings, afraid of losing his condo in Phoenix while he hunts for a job, and resentful that despite the fact that he's helped everyone in his family, no one steps up to help him. Until his cousin Lita offers him her guest house at her and her husband Dave's farm in Magdalena. Ross gratefully takes her up on it, even though he's not a fan of living in the middle of nowhere. Ross finds Magdalena isn't so bad. He helps Dave with some simple chores and sends out resumes and job hunts online. Everything is fine until New Year's Eve. At a raucous party at wealthy rancher and local bully Cameron Holt's place, a group of rowdy citizens fire off their pistols into the air at midnight and shoot something out of the sky. Everyone is convinced it's an angel because that's what it *wants* everyone to think. It must be protected. Even though Ross, Lita, and Dave weren't at the party, they do eventually find out what happens when things in town start going wonky. Luck changes: formally unlucky people suddenly find themselves rich, and the rich are losing all their money. Animals are dying, or changing into unrecognizable monsters. Ross, his girlfriend Jill, and Dave and Lita flee Magdalena but find that they can't escape the influence of the angel and so they make plans to go back and destroy it. Sure, good luck with that.
No comments:
Post a Comment