All You Need Is Love ... and a Cat - A Review

I love the idea of adult coloring books but was always a little apprehensive about purchasing one and jumping in … I know its supposed to be relaxing but I’ve seen some pretty complicated pictures that I think (for me) would be more frustrating than relaxing.  When I came across this book it was enough to make me change my mind.

ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE … AND A CAT by Samantha Snyder

This adult coloring book is very generous with its 50 pages of cat “doodle art” complete with a wide variety of quotes and saying by everyone from Edgar Allen Poe to Abraham Lincoln accompanying each picture.  Each page was nice and big and the pictures not too intricate, hence not leaning toward the frustrating.

I’m no expert by any means but I thought the pages were of good quality with the bonus of only being printed on one side, so if one wanted to use markers the next picture would not be damaged by bleeding through.

The only reason I have not gone a full 5 Stars on this book is that not every page had a cat included in the picture; sometimes it was just a paw print and sometimes only the words of the saying with some florals or doodles around the edges.  The cats that were included were charming and whimsical often reminiscent of folk art so I’m sure this would appeal to cat lovers.

So, did I find it relaxing or frustrating? 

I can’t answer that question. 

I had scrounged out the package of pencil crayons I had in my desk from a previous (unrelated to coloring) project and had gotten about halfway through the picture I chose to start with when a friend of mine popped in for a visit.  She is an avid coloring book enthusiast – some of her completed works are amazing – and she quickly commandeered my book.  She is definitely enjoying it!

I’d like to thank Wordslinger and the author for providing me with a review copy of this book at no charge with the hope of receiving an unbiased review.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR (from her Amazon Page) 

Samantha Snyder has been doodling her whole life. While teaching elementary school, she often drew up coloring pages and printables for her students and fellow teachers. She decided to start sharing her creations and in 2008, Doodle Art Alley was founded.

Doodle Art Alley is dedicated to giving those squiggly lines the proper credit they deserve. Who would have thought that such a small and simple idea could possess so much potential? There are lots of fun art activities, tips and information to read through and enjoy at Doodle-Art-Alley.com, along with hundreds of free coloring pages and printables.

Strange History - A Review

I am fairly convinced that I now know where the writers on “Jeopardy” get some of their questions.  I was flipping through the pages of this book during a commercial break while watching the game show and there it was! – The exact trivia tidbit that had just been a question on the show.  Their secret is out now.

STRANGE HISTORY by The Bathroom Readers Institute

The folks at the Readers Institute have taken some of the most interesting historical facts and strange stories from their numerous previous books and compiled them in this book that is perfect for history trivia buffs.  According to the blurb on the book there are also about 50 pages of previously unpublished stories. 

Whether you have read the some of the stories before or all of them are brand new to you this book is a fun read.  Do you want to know if Marco Polo really saw Unicorns, the story behind the curse on Shakespeare’s Macbeth or who really discovered the Rosetta Stone?  This is the book that will give you all that and so much more.

I didn’t realize there was a Reader dedicated to Canadian facts and trivia nor one featuring scary stories … they are definitely going to be added to my TBR.

I'd like to thank Printers Row Publishing Group and Netgalley for providing me with

a review copy of this book at no charge

ABOUT THE AUTHOR (from the web site)

Three decades after the first Bathroom Reader, the Bathroom Readers’ Institute is going strong, having released dozens of titles with content sure to beat the bathroom blahs, and even offering some of the best online trivia available. Consisting of the best trivia writers that Uncle John could find, the BRI has compiled loads of information, from history facts to sports, politics to pop culture, and even the odd science tidbit. After distilling this information into its most basic form, the BRI has generated a huge collection of articles, all of which are specially designed to be read in just a few minutes.

It takes a real team to come up with the kind of authoritative bathroom reader trivia as that found in an edition of Uncle John’s, especially with more than 15 million books in print around the world and counting. The BRI is located in Ashland, Oregon, a small, quiet valley town, where they work night and day in the little red house known as home base, cranking out the second best paper product you can find in any bathroom, anywhere.

Uncle John's Factastic Bathroom Reader - A Review

I was introduced to Uncle John when I received one of the books as a Christmas gift with the inscription “Because it’s probably the only room where you don’t read”.  Hahaha … if only she knew.  What?  No! No!  Think bubble bath!

UNCLE JOHN’S FACTASTIC BATHROOM READER by the Bathroom Readers Institute

These are not the kind of books that you sit down and read in one or two sessions.  They usually come in at 500+ pages crammed full of facts, trivia, odd news and all kinds of other things that absolutely boggle the mind.

This entry into the series is no exception.  I can’t seem to ever be without a book within arm’s reach and this is perfect book to have close by to flip through during commercial breaks, on your kindle when waiting for an appointment or, of course, in the bathroom. 

I'd like to thank Printers Row Publishing Group and Netgalley for providing me with a review copy of this book at no charge

ABOUT THE “AUTHOR” (from the web site)

It was 1987. Uncle John found himself stranded on his throne with nothing to read. That’s when he came up with the idea to launch a series of trivia books specifically tailored toward his fellow bathroom readers. “Every article must be simple to read,” he told us, “and every page must either have an amazing fact or a good laugh—or both.” And with that, the Bathroom Readers’ Institute was born.

A Darkness Absolute - A Review

Miss Armstrong had me hooked from the opening sentence.  Her ability to create unique “worlds” for her novels and characters never ceases to amaze me.  This second book in the “City of the Lost” series took me once again to the middle of nowhere, Rockton, Yukon Territories ... the place people go when the want or need to disappear from their everyday lives.

A DARKNESS ABSOLUTE by Kelley Armstrong

Yup … Rockton is where people come to disappear but unfortunately they don’t check their natures at the door.  What Casey very quickly finds out is that when you populate the town with troubled people often their troubles come with them.  This means sometimes people DIS-appear from Rockton too.

Tracking a town runaway through a blizzard is not an easy feat but you have to know when to call it quits.  Casey and Deputy Will Anders come to just that conclusion when they can no longer see each other on the trail.  Taking shelter in a nearby cave they come across a surprise – a woman thought to be another town runaway thought lost and dead – here in “their” cave, where she has been held captive for over a year.  Despite being taken care by someone she cannot identify her captor.  When they bring her back to town she seems to be all right despite her ordeal.  Maybe a little too all right?  Was it someone from town or one of the hostiles living in the wilderness?  Casey Duncan and her (now) boyfriend Sheriff Dalton are determined to find out but just how do you do that when the whole town could be suspects.

In the first book of the series we got a brief glimpse of the “outsiders” and the “hostiles”; those people living, to varying degrees outside the town.  Bad enough trying to identify suspects when all your neighbours are living a lie but how do you go about finding people who have no desire to be found and are not shy about letting you know that. 

A few new characters were introduced in this book and a few from the first were fleshed out a little bit more – all interesting and unique.  And, the new puppy was a nice touch.  Another page-turner that kept me guessing to the very end.  Looking forward to the next in the series.

* I'd like to thank Minotaru Books and Netgalley for providing me with a review copy

of the book at no charge*

ABOUT THE AUTHOR (from her web page)

Kelley Armstrong has been telling stories since before she could write. Her earliest written efforts were disastrous. If asked for a story about girls and dolls, hers would invariably feature undead girls and evil dolls, much to her teachers’ dismay. Today, she continues to spin tales of ghosts and demons and werewolves, while safely locked away in her basement writing dungeon. She lives in south-western Ontario with her husband, kids and far too many pets.

Congratulations to Andre Alexis and Fifteen Dogs

My book nerd side is really going to be showing now but I have to post a special shout out to Toronto author Andre Alexis. His book, "Fifteen Dogs" (one of my favorite reads in 2015) won the "Canada Reads 2017".

 
Fifteen Dogs won the Scotiabank Giller Prize in 2015, making it the first Giller recipient to also win Canada Reads. Alexis was recently honoured with the Windham-Campbell Prize, which recognizes an author's body of work and is one of the world's richest literary awards.

I so loved this book and would highly recommend it. 
My review HERE


Congratulations to Mr. Alexis ... very well deserved!

Checking Out the Katie Maguire Series

For me Graham Masterton is synonymous with “The Manitou”.  Mr. Masterton has been responsible for some of my most cringe-worthy horror reads and his Night Warriors books still remain some of my favorites.  For a long while he sort of dropped off my radar and then I came across his crime thriller series featuring Katie Maguire.  I started the series with the most recent book so I knew I wanted to go back and check out the first few.

WHITE BONES by Graham Masterton

When some construction on a farm building unearths bones D.S. Katie Maguire gets called to the scene.  It quickly becomes obvious that this is not a recent crime scene and after the forensics it turns out that the bones date back to 1915.  But why so many dismembered bodies in one grave – each with a piece of lace tied through the thighbone.

The crime is passed on to an anthropologist to puzzle out until a new murder victim surfaces, oddly enough with a piece of lace tied to the thigh bones as well.  Now Katie has a recent and a decades old murder to investigate.  Is it possible that it is the same killer?

I can’t say Katie Maguire is a fresh take on murder detectives … women have been taking the leading role in a lot of crime fiction lately but she is an interesting leading character.  She has a shady husband and some pretty questionable “friends”.  What made this book a little different is Mr. Masterton takes some pretty fascinating Irish folklore and ties it into a crime thriller. 

Oh?  Those cringe-worthy moments I mentioned?  Yup – still there.  I’ve read some pretty gruesome crime fiction in my day but this one had me grimacing, had it been a film I was watching I definitely would have been peeking out through my fingers.

4 Stars.

BROKEN ANGELS by Graham Masterton

If you are out fishing on a chilly spring morning it’s because you hope to land a big one, but not necessarily as big as a human body.  Father Heaney’s bloated, tortured and garrotted body snags the fishing line and it’s quite obvious that he didn’t accidentally fall in the river.  When Katie Maguire is informed about the murder of a second priest, also similarly tortured she has to amp up the investigation despite the Church trying to throw red herrings and cover-ups in her way.

Again, the story line of this thriller is not an entirely new concept but he does give it a fresh spin, once again drawing in some myths and legends.  The manner in which Mr. Masterton has his crimes executed it pretty bloody and leaves no doubt as to the reason for the killings.  I had that part figured out before it was explained, but that in no way took anything away from the rest of the story. 

Reading this book immediately on the heels of “White Bones” I immediately noticed a pretty serious continuity flaw.  One of the characters that very definitively died at the end of the first book was very much still alive at the beginning of this book.  It sounds a little petty but with 35+ books under his belt Mr. Masterton’s uncaught discrepancy set my teeth on edge.  I found myself reading the rest of this book anticipating other inconsistencies as I did so.  It was a bit distracting.  Mr. Masterton also likes to use the hospitalization of a family member as a distraction for Katie, once or twice I can accept, so I will pick up the third in the series somewhere down the road  - hopefully some of those personal peeves will be left out.

3 Stars

ABOUT THE AUTHOR (from his website)

Graham Masterton's debut as a horror author began with The Manitou in 1976, a chilling tale of a Native American medicine man reborn in the present day to exact his revenge on the white man. It became an instant bestseller and was filmed with Tony Curtis, Susan Strasberg, Burgess Meredith, Michael Ansara, Stella Stevens and Ann Sothern.

Graham Masterton was born in Edinburgh in 1946. His grandfather was Thomas Thorne Baker, the eminent scientist who invented DayGlo and was the first man to transmit news photographs by wireless. After training as a newspaper reporter, Graham went on to edit the new British men's magazine Mayfair, where he encouraged William Burroughs to develop a series of scientific and philosophical articles which eventually became Burroughs' novel The Wild Boys. At the age of 24, Graham was appointed executive editor of both Penthouse and Penthouse Forum magazines. At this time he started to write a bestselling series of sex 'how-to' books including How To Drive Your Man Wild In Bed which has sold over 3 million copies worldwide. His latest, Wild Sex For New Lovers is published by Penguin Putnam in January, 2001. He is a regular contributor to Cosmopolitan, Men's Health, Woman, Woman's Own and other mass-market self-improvement magazines.

He lives in Surrey, England (sadly his wife, Wiescka died in April 2011). He has just finished writing a black thriller featuring Ireland's only female detective superintendent, Katie Maguire, set in the Cork underworld; and a dark fantasy, Jessica's Angel, about a girl's search for five supposedly-dead children.

He has written several new short stories and is currently working on a new horror novel, as yet untitled.

The Twenty-Three - A Review

After reading the first two books in this Promise Falls trilogy I waited quite awhile before picking up this last book.  I don’t know why I waited so long but now that I’ve read it I’m on the fence about this one.

THE TWENTY-THREE by Linwood Barclay

Promise Falls is a small town that has been under siege for a long while now and the number 23 seems to be important to whoever is perpetrating the horrendous acts.  Now it’s the Memorial Day weekend, May 23^rd and as the sun rises people are dropping like flies.  It doesn’t take long to figure out that something has been put into the water supply.   As if that wasn’t enough for the hospital and police department to deal with another murder occurs – one bearing horrible similarities to two past, as yet unsolved, murders.  Could all these events be related?

Mr. Barclay once again gave me a page-turner.  Things in Promise Falls were happening and they were happening quickly.  For this reader it was almost too much, too quickly.  Just when I was catching on to what was happening with the water the scene switched to the murder and then a quick cut to the mayoral candidate and then back to the water treatment plant.  While I don’t mind a lot of action this instalment in the trilogy seemed overpopulated and slightly out of control.  The mystery of “23” was solved and yet with everything that went on there were still some questions unanswered. 

Mr. Barclay has stated this is his last visit to Promise Falls.  We’ll see? 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR (from the author’s website)

After spending his formative years helping run a cottage resort and trailer park after his father died when he was 16, Barclay got his first newspaper job at the Peterborough Examiner, a small Ontario daily. In 1981, he joined the Toronto Star, Canada’s largest circulation newspaper.

He held such positions as assistant city editor, chief copy editor, news editor, and Life section editor, before becoming the paper’s humour columnist in 1993. He was one of the paper’s most popular columnists before retiring from the position in 2008 to work exclusively on books.

Barclay was born in the United States but moved to Canada just before turning four years old when his father, a commercial artist whose illustrations of cars appeared in Life, Look and Saturday Evening Post (before photography took over), accepted a position with an advertising agency north of the border. Barclay, who graduated with an English literature degree from Trent University, in Peterborough, Ontario, was fortunate to have some very fine mentors; in particular, the celebrated Canadian author Margaret Laurence, whom Linwood first met when she served as writer-in-residence at Trent, and Kenneth Millar, who, under the name Ross Macdonald, wrote the acclaimed series of mystery novels featuring detective Lew Archer. It was at Trent that he met Neetha, the woman who would become his wife. They have two children, Spencer and Paige.