Theme Music by T. Marie Vandelly

 

Synopsis From Dust Jacket: 

For the lucky among us, life is what you make of it, but for Dixie Wheeler, the theme music for her story was chosen by another long ago, on the day her father butchered her mother and brothers and then slashed a knife across his own throat. Only one-year-old Dixie was left alive, infamously known as Baby Blue for the song left playing in the aftermath of the slaughter.

Twenty-five years later, Dixie is still desperate for a connection to the family she can’t remember, so when her childhood home goes up for sale, Dixie sets aside all reason and moves in. But as the ghosts of her family seemingly begin to take up residence in the home that was once theirs, Dixie starts to question her own sanity and wonders if the evil force menacing her is that of her father, or a demon of her own making.

In order to make sense of her present, Dixie becomes determined to unravel the truth of her past and seeks out the detective who originally investigated the murders. But the more she learns, the more she opens up the uncomfortable possibility that the sins of her father may belong to another. As bodies begin to pile up around her, Dixie must find a way to expose the lunacy behind her family’s massacre in order to save her few loved ones who are still alive—and whatever scrap of sanity she has left. 

How could anyone read that synopsis and not want to dive right in? Granted, it’s one of those synopses that might be just a tad long, but no matter how many times I read it, I can’t decide which lines I would cut. It’s a synopsis designed to make you want to read the book—and read it I did.

Dixie is one of those characters who, no matter how much she annoyed me at times, I still found myself caring for. I think it’s fair to say she makes horrible decisions. I mean, who moves into the house where their family was slaughtered? Well, Trevor did it in Drawing Blood by Poppy Z. Brite, one of my favorite books of all time—but that’s literally another story, so pretend I didn’t say anything about it. Dixie not only moves into this house, she ends her relationship to do it, and then starts decorating the house to make it look the way it did when her family was butchered. I think sanity is the least of her worries.

Dixie’s descent into an almost fugue-like state of madness is so gorgeously written that at no point was I able to look away or pretend that what I was reading was anything other than the story of a woman slowly coming apart, obsessing over her family’s horrific deaths. She was so lost in the minutiae of what happened that she—like me—didn’t really see the truth before it slammed into her face. I can only hope that now that she’s discovered the truth and faced it head-on, she’ll truly heal and be able to put the past—and her family—behind her.

Favorite Fictional Character --- David Rose & Patrick Brewer

 

It’s February, the month of love, so to celebrate Cupid and all of his shenanigans, I’m going to be shining a spotlight on some of my favorite couples.

But first, I’m going to whine for a moment. Loudly. The flu strain going around right now is absolutely nothing to play with. It’s been days since my fever finally broke, and I’m still not feeling like myself, which is why I’ve been mostly MIA online the last few weeks. I am more than ready to feel normal again. I’m also incredibly grateful I got my flu shot in October, because I honestly can’t imagine how miserable I’d be without it.

Okay. Whining over.

Let’s get back to why we’re here: my favorite couples of all time. Last February, the Facebook page ran a tournament dedicated to these special pairings, and David Rose & Patrick Brewer walked away with the title of favorite fictional couple of all time.

And really, how could they not?

David & Patrick are the heart and soul of Schitt’s Creek. From the public, tear-inducing serenades to one of the most adorable hiking proposals ever put on screen, they are pure relationship goals. They support and complement each other perfectly. Where one is weak, the other is strong. Where one is scattered, the other is solid. They are each other’s home—something many of us spend a lifetime searching for.

Watching David and Patrick feels like a reminder that the right person doesn’t fix you—they meet you where you are and walk beside you anyway. That kind of love is rare, and it’s one I’ll happily believe in every time.

What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher

 

Synopsis From Dust Jacket:

When Alex Easton, a retired soldier, receives word that their childhood friend Madeline Usher is dying, they race to the ancestral home of the Ushers in the remote countryside of Ruritania.

What they find there is a nightmare of fungal growths and possessed wildlife, surrounding a dark, pulsing lake. Madeline sleepwalks and speaks in strange voices at night, and her brother, Roderick, is consumed by a mysterious malady of the nerves. 

Aided by a redoubtable British mycologist and a baffled American doctor, Alex must unravel the secret of the House of Usher before it consumes them all. 

Apparently, despite my intentions to read more of the bazillion unread stories that have been languishing on my shelves, some for years, I’ve been more inclined to pick up old favorites. Visiting old friends, spending time in their company, has a soothing effect, and with all the chaos engulfing us right now, I need the comfort those old friends can provide.

Alex is one of those characters I can see myself being friends with. I can imagine the two of us in a darkened home library, the fireplace roaring as Alex regales me with tales of their past exploits. There would be a table set with tea, and we would talk late into the night. I just wouldn’t want that library to be in the Ushers’ ancestral home.

What Moves the Dead is a story that burrowed under my skin, flooding my system with its miasmatic spores until I felt as if my lungs were filled with a wiggling fungal infection, one that threatened to turn me into that nightmarish hare on the cover. It’s a story so steeped in mycological nightmares that once I walked through those doors, I felt just as doomed as Madeline and Roderick. Kingfisher’s prose is as enthralling as it is horrific. She weaves a tale I never wanted to end—even if I desperately wanted Alex and their friends out of it.

Favorite Fictional Character --- Sylvester J. Pussycat, Sr.

 

"Sufferin' succotash!"

When I was a kid, I’d get lost in Saturday morning cartoons. I would park myself on the floor in front of the TV and spend the next few hours watching all the fun and joy my adolescent heart could handle. The Bugs Bunny Show was one of those cartoons, and today’s Favorite Fictional Character was a big part of my enjoyment.

Sylvester J. Pussycat, Sr. is a cat with a voracious appetite—an appetite that makes his pursuit of Tweety, Speedy, and Hippety Hopper a tad frantic at times. What makes it even worse, at least from Sylvester’s point of view, is that it’s an appetite that will never be sated. Because, like Wile E. Coyote, Elmer Fudd, and Ralph Wolf, he’s doomed to fail every single time. This poor guy gets beaten up on the regular, but he has the spirit of a fighter. He never gives up, never gives in, much to the chagrin of his son, Sylvester J. Pussycat, Jr.

As a kid, there was nothing here not to find funny. Sylvester was—and still is—a hoot and a half. Granted, most of that laughter comes at Sylvester’s expense and is due to the bodily harm that befalls him over and over and over again, and that’s okay. There’s something inherently hilarious about his outsized confidence constantly crashing headfirst into reality. What I appreciate more now is just how much personality Sylvester brings to the table. He’s emotional, dramatic, and endlessly persistent. No matter how many times he fails, he always gets back up and tries again, fully convinced that this time will be different—and that belief is what has kept me laughing all these years later.

N or M? by Agatha Christie

 

Synopsis From Back Cover:

It is World War II, and while the RAF struggles to keep the Luftwaffe at bay, Britain faces an even more sinister threat from “the enemy within”—Nazis posing as ordinary citizens.

With pressure mounting, the intelligence service appoints two unlikely spies, Tommy and Tuppence Beresford. Their mission: to seek out a man and a woman from among the colorful guests at Sans Souci, a seaside hotel. But this assignment is no stroll along the promenade—N and M have just murdered Britain’s finest agent and no one can be trusted...

I fell in love with Agatha Christie in the fifth grade. By then, I had torn through every Encyclopedia Brown, Nancy Drew, and Hardy Boys book I could get my tiny—but growing—hands on. I was firmly hooked on mysteries and constantly on the lookout for something new. That Christmas, I received two of her books, The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side and The A.B.C. Murders, and I devoured them both in short order. She has remained my favorite author ever since, and when I first started this blog, I challenged myself to read all of her books in publishing order. It’s high time I got back to it.

This is going to be a very short review, because I don’t have a lot to say. While I will always choose an Agatha Christie novel over most modern mysteries, they don’t all work equally well for me. I thoroughly enjoy Tommy and Tuppence as characters; I’ve just never been the biggest fan of espionage stories, even when they’re written by Agatha Christie. As always, her plotting is damn near perfect, and no matter how often I read her, I’m still surprised by how she layers details—letting them build on one another and painting a picture that never fails to entertain me. I’m just not as entertained by spies as I am by good old-fashioned murders.

Still, I loved diving back into her work again. Agatha Christie remains one of my literary happy places, and I’m excited to spend the coming year working my way through her books once more. They may not all be favorites, but Christie is still Christie—and that’s more than enough for me.

Challenges: Mount TBR, Cloak and Dagger 

Red Rabbit Ghost by Jen Julian

 

Synopsis From Back Cover:

Eighteen years ago, an infant Jesse Calloway was found wailing on the bank of a river, his mother dead beside him. The mystery of her death has haunted him all his life, and despite every effort, he has never been able to uncover the truth. 

Now someone is promising him answers. An anonymous source claims that they'll tell him everything. But only if he returns to the hometown he swore he'd left in the rearview. 

But in Blacknot, North Carolina, nothing is as it seems. It's a town that buries its secrets deep. Jesse's relentless investigation garners attraction from intimidating locals, including his dangerous ex-boyfriend. And he'll soon discover that this backwater town hides a volatile and haunting place on its desolate edge.

I picked this up off a table at our west side Barnes & Noble, and I knew in less than a minute that it was coming home with me. The cover alone is worth the purchase, but then I read the synopsis—and really, who doesn’t love a good queer, haunted-house, Southern Gothic tale? That was all she wrote. I got suckered into buying another book when I already own far too many that are still waiting to be read. Now that I’ve read it, some of that initial luster has faded a bit, but I’m still fricking glad I experienced this one for myself.

I’m going to start off by saying that Jen Julian’s prose is a pleasure to read. It’s lush and evocative, creating characters and landscapes that have been lingering in my mind for days. With her words, she painted Blacknot, NC into vivid life. I experienced the putrid smell of the congested pig farms and felt the spongy give of rotting floorboards as Jesse explored the rooms of the Night House. I felt the desperation and rage Alice experienced as she watched her world crumble around her. The fetid smell and cloying humidity of the swamp clung to my skin and seeped into my lungs. Red Rabbit Ghost is a fever dream that unmercifully assaults the senses, and I was there for every second of it.

And yet, as much as I loved feeling like I was there with Jesse and Alice, that may be part of the reason I didn’t fully connect with the story as a whole. I need to phrase this next part as carefully as I can, so bear with me—I may ramble a bit. The landscape of this nightmarish world, full of ghosts and magic, felt so tangible that I think it may have gotten in the way of making the characters feel just as real. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the time I spent with Jesse, but the frantic pace he kept—trying to find his mom and uncover what happened to her—didn’t allow who he was as a person to come to the forefront. He felt two-dimensional for most of the book, and I hate that for him. He deserved to feel as real as the world he inhabited.

Alice, for the most part, was so full of rage and hurt that, despite the amount of page time she had, she never felt fully real to me at any point in the story. That leaves the side characters—including the ex-boyfriend I wanted dumped in the swamp for the alligators to feed on—who I can only describe as storytelling props. They were there, they did the narrative jobs they were written to do, but they felt more like NPCs in a random, generic video game.

Now, based on the length of that last section, you might think I didn’t enjoy this book as much as I did—but you’d be wrong. While Blacknot, NC isn’t a place I’d ever want to experience in the real world, I loved the time I spent with Jesse as he navigated dirt roads, swampy backwoods, and the Night House in search of the truth. It’s just not a story I feel compelled to revisit anytime soon.

Challenges: Mount TBR

Favorite Fictional Character --- Sam Sheepdog and Ralph Wolf

 

"Mornin' Sam." "Mornin' Ralph."

If there was ever a perfect metaphor for the drudgery of going to work day after day—repeating the same actions, getting the same results, and never achieving your goal—Sam and Ralph would be the poster children of the dead-end job.

When Sam clocks in, he’s the guardian, parked on a ledge protecting his charges. When Ralph clocks in, he’s a hungry predator, desperate to get his hands on a sheep. Sam spends a lot of his time sleeping. Ralph spends a lot of his time running around like crazy. Sam, as adorable as he is, is a little more violent than expected. Ralph, as dangerous as he looks, just doesn’t seem to have the drive needed to react in kind.

I shouldn’t find it as funny as I do. It’s an unending, 9-to-5 hamster-wheel cycle that’s hilarious as hell. No growth. No victories. No promotions. Just two guys doing exactly what they’re paid to do and getting absolutely nowhere. And somehow, that never gets old.