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Best Books in 2018

December 27, 2018 by

I read fewer books this year, but some of them were fantastic. A lot of the best books I read were poetry. I did read some really great children’s books, too.

I’ve decided to keep the list short this year to only those books that stayed with me long after reading them. This does not mean the other books I rated five stars or four stars were any less fantastic.

Without further ado, here’s my list of the best reads from my year in reading:

1. The Hunger by Alma Katsu is my favorite kind of horror book — based in reality, elements of the supernatural, and deep tension.(my review)

2. Crumb-Sized by Marlena Chertock readers will be immersed in the narrator’s life of debilitating daily pain and how to cope and turn negatives in positives. (my review)

3. Nevertheless, We Persisted, with a foreword by Sen. Amy Klobuchar is a phenomenal collection of essays from those who have endured darkness and seen the light at the end of the tunnel. (my review)

4. Louisiana Catch by Sweta Vikram is fiction that exposes real life dangers that face many of us in the 24/7 social media world we’ve created. From catfishing to abuse, Vikram has developed a multi-layered novel of survival and strength. (my review)

5. Creepy Pair of Underwear! by Aaron Reynolds, illustrated by Peter Brown is the one children’s book that my daughter reads over and over when she wants to read before bed, during the day, or any time really. Rabbit lead character with an active imagination. (my review)

6. How to Love the Empty Air by Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz is a love letter to the past and the passing of a mother. Told beautifully, Aptowicz examines the anxieties we all feel when loved ones do not assuage our fears that they didn’t arrive home safely and explores the empty spaces in between when we say “see you soon” and when it is too late to see them. (my review)

What books are on your best of 2018 lists?

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The Hunger by Alma Katsu

June 26, 2018 by

Source: Purchased
Hardcover, 376 pgs.
I am an Amazon Affiliate

A shadowy mist of sin plagues this wagon train led by the Donner family as a group of families make their way west to California. The Hunger by Alma Katsu is a story that creates an unsettling atmosphere as the pages turn, and as the party nears the mountain range where most of us know they became trapped by an early and heavy snowfall, readers will feel the darkness closing in on them even as the bonfires are lit to keep the darkness at bay.

“Everyone agreed it had been a bad winter, one of the worst in recollection.” (pg. 1)

“It was untrustworthy, that snow: It hid crevices, steep drop-offs. Snow kept secrets.” (pg. 2)

Throughout the novel, Katsu draws in her readers with the tales of woe that follow many of the wagon train’s members, including Charles Stanton, James Reed, and Tamsen Donner. These characters are integral to the success and failure of the wagon train, but they also enable Katsu to weave in her supernatural element with roots in Native American myth. Even the trail becomes a character, offering false paths, danger, and hope.

Katsu has a deep understanding of how humans act and react in scary situations, particularly those in which a wrong move could lead to death. From a man so eager to lead even when he doesn’t have the necessary experience to the man on the outskirts of the group because he is a single man in a wagon train of families, Katsu’s characters are nuanced, dynamic, and struggling internally as much as they are with the harsh environment they agreed to take on. Her writing just gets better and better with each book; this is one of her best written to date.

The Hunger by Alma Katsu creeps into your soul, searching for the wisps of guilt that hide in our own shadows and whispering dark thoughts that will leave you awake at night. This is suspenseful and horrifying, and it’s not just the expected cannibalism that will eat away at you.

RATING: Cinquain

Other Reviews:

About the Author:

Alma Katsu is the author of The Taker, The Reckoning, and The Descent. She has been a signature reviewer for Publishers Weekly and a contributor to The Huffington Post. She is a graduate of the Master’s writing program at the Johns Hopkins University and received her bachelor’s degree from Brandeis University. Prior to the publication of her first novel, Katsu had a long career as a senior intelligence analyst for several US agencies and is currently a senior analyst for a think tank. She lives outside of Washington, DC, with her husband.

Filed Under: fiction, historical fiction, Penguin, Publishers/Publicists, purchased, random house, Read in 2018, reviews Tagged With: ,

Gaithersburg Book Festival 2018

May 22, 2018 by

Like every year, I plan out my time at the Gaithersburg Book Festival. I try to get in a good mix of poets, fiction writers, and children’s authors, as well as some time blocked out for eating and the children’s village of activities.

Unlike previous years, I was not moderating or volunteering, which was disappointing to me but with how hectic my daughter’s schedule has been I just had to cut something out this year. That will change for 2019.

Even as I made plans, life has a way of running us off track, which is exactly what happened this year. I missed all of the poetry and children’s authors I planned to introduce my daughter to. As my daughter was the one in rare form on Saturday, making everything difficult, including getting dressed and eating breakfast. Kids are a struggle.

It was a battle for the ages, and I set the plans aside and just let her be for more than half the day. I was in no mood for battles; I wanted fun and books.

Thankfully, as the rain burned off and the sun emerged, my daughter was in a better mood, and I didn’t have to miss Alma Katsu, author of The Hunger. Her Thrills and Chills panel with Julia Fine, author of What Should Be Wild, was all it was billed to be with a how-to on cutting up bodies, talk of Stephen King endorsements, female desire and myth rewriting and, of course, cannibalism.

Both books incorporate elements of horror and the supernatural, and both deal with some dark issues. I was thrilled to see a debut author paired with an author of four books because it often helps an audience see different perspectives on the writing and publishing processes. Fine says her book defies traditional genre descriptions, which Katsu saw as familiar given her Taker series was also a mesh of various genres. I’m looking forward to finishing The Hunger and reading What Should Be Wild.

Here’s a bit of a sidenote, my daughter was with me when I first met Alma Katsu, here’s a side by side look at the difference seven years makes:

 

 

 

 

Books and Stories by Alma Katsu:

I’d love to hear about what books and authors you discovered at the festival or a festival near you! Please share in the comments.

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Mailbox Monday #475

April 16, 2018 by

Mailbox Monday, created by Marcia at To Be Continued, formerly The Printed Page, has a permanent home at its own blog. To check out what everyone has received over the last week, visit the blog and check out the links. Leave yours too.

Also, each week, Leslie, Martha, and I will share the Books that Caught Our Eye from everyone’s weekly links.

Here’s what we received:

The Hunger by Alma Katsu, which I purchased from One More Page Books.

Evil is invisible, and it is everywhere.

That is the only way to explain the series of misfortunes that have plagued the wagon train known as the Donner Party. Depleted rations, bitter quarrels, and the mysterious death of a little boy have driven the isolated travelers to the brink of madness. Though they dream of what awaits them in the West, long-buried secrets begin to emerge, and dissent among them escalates to the point of murder and chaos. They cannot seem to escape tragedy…or the feelings that someone–or something–is stalking them. Whether it’s a curse from the beautiful Tamsen Donner (who some think might be a witch), their ill-advised choice of route through uncharted terrain, or just plain bad luck, the ninety men, women, and children of the Donner Party are heading into one of one of the deadliest and most disastrous Western adventures in American history.

As members of the group begin to disappear, the survivors start to wonder if there really is something disturbing, and hungry, waiting for them in the mountains…and whether the evil that has unfolded around them may have in fact been growing within them all along.

Effortlessly combining the supernatural and the historical, The Hunger is an eerie, thrilling look at the volatility of human nature, pushed to its breaking point.

Ache by Joseph Ross, which I purchased.

“Walt Whitman writes: I am he attesting sympathy. Joseph Ross could say the same. The poems in Ache flow from a fountain of compassion for those so often denied these sacred waters: immigrants crossing the border at their peril, people of color murdered by police now and half a century ago, the martyrs whose names we know–from Trayvon Martin to Archbishop Romero–and whose names we do not know. In one breath, the poet speaks in the voice of Nelson Mandela, addressing the mother of lynching victim Emmett Till; in the next breath, he speaks of his own high school student, a young Black man spat upon by an officer of the law. In clear, concise language, Joseph Ross praises and grieves the world around him, the music as well as the murder. He also engages in prophecy: If you leave your country in the wrong hands, / you might return to /see it drowning in blood, / able to spit / but not to speak. Yes, indeed.” – Martin Espada

On That One-Way Trip to Mars by Marlena Chertock, which I purchased.

ON THAT ONE-WAY TRIP TO MARS is a version of the Voyager’s Grand Tour, if the spacecraft had skeletal dysplasia. It is a space journey that includes sexual encounters with astronomers, the increasing warmth of the sun, and zero gravity to give aching bones a break. These poems travel the solar system. Blast into orbit and head on that one-way journey with them.

Crumb-Sized: Poems by Marlena Chertock, which I purchased.

With frank humor, Chertock takes on varied and critical aspects of identity―femininity, gender, sexuality―as they relate (or don’t relate) to her disability, somehow succeeding in making them familiar and universal. Her poetry is one that challenges us to see our limitations, not as individuals but as people together, all of us, ultimately, crumb-sized. Born in 1991, Chertock’s is an exciting and contemporary voice―brutally honest, deeply humane and ultimately triumphant.

PR For Poets: A Guidebook To Publicity And Marketing by Jeannine Hall Gailey, purchased for myself since I was interviewed for this book!

PR For Poets provides the information you need in order to get your book into the right hands and into the worlds of social media and old media, librarians and booksellers, and readers. PR For Poets will empower you to do what you can to connect your poetry book with its audience!

What did you receive?

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