False Friends Faux Amis Book Two by Ellie Malet Spradbery

Don’t let the title of this book mislead you. This is not a teen drama but a French conversational. It’s an interesting title but the information is quite solid. The book is broken into six sections – False Friends; French Expressions; Twins, Triplets, etc.; Lists, Miscellaneous; and English Expressions. False Friends focuses on words that sound the same in English and French except don’t necessarily mean the same thing. It’s an interesting look at the two languages because you get the feeling they should be the same. French Expressions covers some familiar phrases and some not so familiar. Twins, Triplets, etc. – French words that have more than one English meaning. List – series of words with a common theme such as insects, birds, and words associated with automobiles. Miscellaneous says learn to play cards in French but I didn’t get how the words were associated. English Expressions – just as it says, English expressions translated to French. This is not a book for a casual learner. This is designed for someone who wants to move deeper into the French language. There’s little pronunciation information for the words nor information on how to add them to sentences. I believe the author assumes the reader is already familiar with the language. I’ve had French in high school and college and I still found some of the words and phrases beyond my understanding but it was definitely fun to read through.

Cemetery Club by JG Faherty

This was supposed to be yesterday's post but I fell behind and didn't get it written. Cemetery Club started off rather slow. I did not like the beginning. The first few segments were snapshots of the history of Rocky Pointe but I wasn't connecting to the town. The modern day story started with Todd. Todd had just been released from Wood Hill Sanitarium after serving 20 years for killing several people in his teens. Todd is looking forward to spending his time reconnecting with his mother and continuing his research on what really happened to those people. He suspects he raised a demon. Meanwhile, whatever it was has risen again. John Boyd witnesses the aliens take over a cemetery maintenance man who kills another man before dragging his body into a neighboring crypt. Todd is beaten by police before they even explain why they are arresting him. It's at this point that I am convinced I can no longer read this book. I was so angry. So far the book had failed to grasp my attention and here, in this modern day, this man was completely violated by the men who are sworn to protect. I nearly quit. I nearly wrote a terrible review because I had had it. But I wanted to give the book a chance and I'm glad I did. Once Cody Miles, Todd's lawyer, entered the scene the story took on a completely different feel for me. I was sucked in and I couldn't stop. The fun thing about this book was the debate about what exactly had invaded the community - was it demons or was it aliens? There were good arguments for both and I wasn't disappointed when I learned what the truth was. The beings turn their victims into zombies and that was fun. I hadn't read a zombie book yet so it was great. I loved the characters. I loved how they were real and how they were really struggling with what was the right thing to do. There was even a human villain who I thought could have been used a little better but I could totally picture him in the movie. I didn't like the ending but then I liked the characters a lot and the ending hurt. I won't spoil it for you but I was disappointed. I wanted them to be my heroes and I wanted a happily ever after. The fact that the ending made me feel made it a great ending. I could completely see this movie. It's a small book so it may never happen but I would love to see that movie. There were some editing issues with the book - I won't lie. One character's name changed from Hank to Frank for a few pages and then back to Hank. It was a little off putting but I didn't care. I chalked it up to the quaintness of the publishing. It wasn't well formatted for a nook so there was some fun font issues but I ignored them and stuck with the story. If you like horror, especially Stephen King, I recommend this book. It reminded me a bit of IT but with zombies instead of clowns.

Enchantment by Pati Nagle

I really hate writing reviews for books I didn’t like or just couldn’t read. It goes against everything I believe. I love books and most of my reviews are glowing because I only review what I like. As I get asked to review more and more, it means finding that I don’t like some books. More often than not, I push through unless it’s NetGalley then I politely decline writing a review. I can’t remember when I was asked to review this book but it’s been sitting in my tbr pile for far too long. I have spent the last week trying to muddle through the first 50 pages. I finally made it to page 86 when I said that was it. I was done. I was going to walk away and call this once lost in the tbr file. I can’t even remember who asked me to review it and they haven’t gotten back in all this time so would anyone notice if I just overlooked this review? The truth is – no, no one would notice but I would feel like I was lying. Am I a bad journalist if I only post reviews of books I like? Okay, it’s not quite that bad but it was when I started. I need to share the bad with the good. This isn’t the worst book ever written. The language is fine. The plot is okay. It’s just really boring. Just before the start of her senior year in high school, Holly discovers a being living in a spring near her house. The being is dying. She wants to focus on him than on finding a college to attend the following year. In 86 pages, I could tell you very little about Holly (to be honest, I’m not positive that’s her name). In one meeting, she is madly in love with the guy who she knows is not human and can’t leave the spring. She’s nearly obsessive. Day three she has to go with her sister, as her sister returns to college. The whole time she’s sure that the man in the spring believes she has abandoned him. Um, hmm. I found the characters very one dimensional – there was no feeling in this book. I wasn’t being pulled in. Maybe, it’s me. Maybe I just was the wrong audience. Maybe this was the wrong book. I don’t know. I just know that Nancy Pearl said to subtract your age from 100 and then that’s the number of pages you have to read before deciding a book is just not going to work for you. I’d love to say that I read those pages but truth is – I gave it many more and even trying to skim over the story didn’t help me like it.

Serial by Jack Kilborn and Blake Crouch

I was so excited to read this story after reading an interview with the authors about how they wrote the sequel. A story about two serial killers hunting each other was too interesting to pass up. I will say I pictured the story to be slightly different than what it was - like the Masters of Horror episode Pick Me Up.
I will warn anyone who wants to read this story - it is highly graphic. There is a rape pretty early on and several graphic death scenes. The overall "book" is quite short and an easy read.
I wasn't sure how I felt about the ending. It's slightly comical which worked but it didn't have that build-up that I expected. I will say I didn't see the ending coming.
Not much I can say about this story that won't give things away.

Holiday at Hell House by Christle Gray

I won this novella from the author on her site. I picked this particular book because it's her first YA book and it sounded interesting.
Hell House is a group home for otherworldly teenagers in a time when society knows that these beings exist. (Hell House is a nickname for the house but I can't remember the actual name of the house.) The main character is the head of house and has decided to give the kids a real Christmas. It's a disaster. There are new kids showing up. The power goes out. The stove's not working so the turkey doesn't get cooked. The tree goes up in flames.
What happens is touching and funny all at the same time.
My only complaint with this particular book is that the story took up less than half the book - the remainder was filled with a very long excerpt of one of the author's adult books. I didn't read the excerpt because I don't like excerpts (I never get my hands on the whole book or I forget that all I read was an excerpt and don't read the book because something is familiar about it.)
There is a sequel to this story and I think I would rather have had the two stories together and not had the excerpt. As I said I didn't pay for the story so I'm not disappointed but I would be concerned about purchasing the second "book" of the series.

Confessions of the Cleaning Lady by Miriam Newman

I want to start this post by saying I really enjoyed this book. I won a copy of this e-book off of Miriam Newman's blog. The premise was so delightful that I couldn't resist. It was the first book to go on my Nook so I didn't realize that it would get some weird formating issues (something to note when putting pdf files on the Nook). I don't know why but those weird formats were not on the original document so it was something weird with the translation to Nookish.
Anyway, aside from the weird formatting which only popped up now and again, I noticed that this book had some serious editing issues which concerns me for future DCL Publications purchases. There was mispelled words which can't be a fault of the Nook and occassional missing punctuation which may have been the Nook. The language of the book is not as strong as I would have liked. It wasn't the most well written book I have read but it wasn't the worst. (I have been doing a fair amount of critiquing and editing for friends which may have led to my need to edit this book).
Aside from all that, the story is entertaining. Being in the romance genre, it's a fluffy book and you know it's all going to work out in the end.
Shawna marries young due to a teen pregnancy. She loses the baby and eventually her husband. Alone, she works as a cleaning lady to make ends meet. She cuts down a tree in her yard, only to find that it housed fairies who were quite angry at her destroying their home. She helps them find a new home and they bless her with love. Shawna meets her new neighbor Mal, who hires her to clean his house. They fall in love. There's some drama with Shawna's family - her "father" is really her step-father and doesn't like her. Her real father left her mother while she was pregnant due to the Vietnam war and Shawna has never known him. There's meeting of families and some more drama as Mal is hurt in a horse riding accident. The fairies come and go (they sleep through the winters) and add little to the story.
I liked the romance and some of the "drama" was really interesting.
There were things that didn't work for me but I didn't let them ruin the story. The first is - Shawna and her husband get their marriage annulled. I don't remember when she got pregnant but she's 28 when the story starts (and strangly stays 28 through the whole story even though it covers at least 1 year). I can't imagine that someone can get their marriage annulled after 10 years or even up to that number.
I found the fairies were not used like they should have been. For leading the story with the fairies, they could be totally cut out and nothing would change except for the very ending but it wouldn't actually change the ending. I liked the fairies but it would have been nice if they had been an active part of the story.
Timelines bothered me in this story. I mentioned the annullment part but the other timeline that really bothered me (to the point I had to talk this over with my dad to get a real grasp on it) was Shawna's real father's situation. Remember Shawna is 28 and I had to check the publication date which was 2008. The story with Shawna's father was he was a Navy man who met her mother while on leave before shipping out to Vietnam for the war. (Hmm - I was born about 6 months prior to the end of the war and in 2008 I turned 34). I knew this little bit because my dad married my mom after he returned from Vietnam (or there about - don't worry about the details). Because that was personal to me, that timeline really bothered me. The other part of her dad's timeline that bothered me was that he died during this book from a lung disease (smoking related). When she can to see him, he was so old. I was a little shocked because everyone should be fairly young in this story. Her dad may be about 50 which shouldn't make him that old and the disease he was dying from is one that my grandmother and aunt live/d with. My grandmother had it for a really long time before dying in her 90's. My aunt is in her 60's and may not live as long as my grandmother did due to her smoking but I just can't see it killing her young father. It was just weird for me but that's me.
I did feel a little like the author was trying to make as much drama as she could. There were so many things coming at the characters that it felt a little like a greek tragedy. Again, I did like the story and I found myself wanted to see what happens next and I am thinking about when I can get my hands on the sequel.