Supernatural horror and historical fiction may sound like an unlikely combination. But The Terror, by Dan Simmons, is a brooding, bone-crunching thriller and a complex survival tale. Based on the events of the lost Franklin Expedition of the 1840s, which sought the elusive Northwest Passage in the Arctic, The Terror tells the story of the HMS Erebus and […]
Whodunit heaven, that is. I like them hard-boiled and full of creeps, weirdos, and cruds, and Crimson Lake, by Candice Fox, is the ideal pick. Ted Conkaffey, a former cop, accused but not convicted of the brutal rape and attempted murder of a young girl, has been released from prison due to insufficient evidence. Broken […]
In the The Woman in the Window, by A.J. Finn, Anna Fox is in desperate trouble, although she doesn’t seem to know it yet. Separated from her husband and child and mortally afraid to leave her house, she spends too much time drinking Merlot and mixing up her medications. She keeps close tabs on her neighbors, […]
What could be better than cozying up to a stack of grisly medical histories and wincing at the misdeeds of the dirty-fingered, germ-denying butchers that made life in the old days so dangerous? Much to my delight, I found a new book to add to my beloved genre, “the frightful facts about medical history.” In The […]
The cover of The Horror on the Links, by Seabury Quinn, is obviously what compelled me to check out this book. The howling man-beast (what kind of beast though?) carrying on in front a gloomy mansion is just the best thing I’ve seen in a while, and when I read the description inside, “Seabury Quinn’s . […]
March is Women’s History Month and the sturdy pioneer women of Colorado deserve a hearty salute. They worked long and hard by themselves or alongside husbands to make their home in the Colorado wilds. They fought to bring schools, churches, and women’s suffrage to Colorado. In fact, Colorado was the second state in the union, […]
Every pig has its day, and today is it, thanks to two Texas sisters, Ellen Stanley and Mary Lynne Rave, who decided in 1972 that the humble porker deserved its own day of tribute. Revered for their smarts and their affectionate natures, pigs are so much more than the main ingredient in BLTs. I have […]
Who knew that marriage was such a treacherous business? Married people, maybe, and anyone who’s read Gone Girl. It should not be a surprise to anyone that terrible people and their terrible marriages are a large part of the thriller genre; apparently, the gruesome methods these people use to torment each other know no bounds. So, whether […]
Do you doodle?Would you like to improve your skills and learn to draw? I know I would. Drawing’s a fun and relaxing way to get rid of stress and be creative, and drawing can be practically free, for the price of a pencil and a scrap of paper, and it’s portable. And maybe, just maybe, […]
Presidents Day is coming soon, and if you’re like me, you like fun facts about U.S. presidents. For example, did you know that Franklin Pierce, our 14th president, is considered to be one of our most handsome presidents? That “Hail to the Chief”, the official presidential anthem, first became a tradition because James K. Polk […]