Tuesday, May 14, 2024

Bless Your Heart

 

This was a really fun one!

The Evanses have operated a funeral parlor in a small Texas town for generations. Ducey, Lenore, Grace, and Luna bury the dead with dignity, but they also have another role: putting down the "restless dead".

The restless dead are a zombie/vampire hybrid type of monster. When someone is killed by a restless dead, they rise again, and the Evans women stake them through the heart and burn the bodies. 

People are starting to die at an alarming rate and in horrific ways, and the Evans ladies realize something bad is coming. They need to find it and dispatch of it quickly before it wipes out more of the town. 

It was great and super gory, reminding me of Bentley Little. I'm looking forward to Ryan's next book!

Monday, May 6, 2024

Once a King; Close to Death

 

I was really excited for this book: a memoir of King Edward VIII, in his own words, written during his time in Paris after WWII. But jeez, was it boring. I think he was so concerned with not saying too much that he really didn't say anything at all. There was a little bit of interviews with Wallis, and she was a little more forthcoming but not by much. It was honestly pretty disappointing and didn't give us any new information about Edward. 







On the other hand, Anthony Horowitz never disappoints. The fifth Hawthorne book find Anthony writing about an old murder, since Hawthorne isn't working on anything new. 

In 2014, a man was murdered in a small community by a crossbow. There was no shortage of suspects: every one of the neighbors hated him. His kids were terrors, he blocked access to the shared driveway, and he was planning on putting in a swimming pool, ruining a shared garden space. The neighbors call a meeting to air their grievances, only Giles (the pain in the butt neighbor) doesn't show up. 

Six weeks later Giles is found dead, a bolt from a crossbow in his neck. Two days after that, the neighbor who owned the crossbow is found dead in his car from an apparent suicide. The police decide that the neighbor killed Giles, then himself out of guilt. Hawthorne isn't so sure. Turns out he's right, of course. It was very twisty and had a lot of good red herrings as well as a terrific ending. I couldn't put it down.