Currently Reading | NOS4A2 by Joe Hill

My Currently Reading posts are shared as part of Book Journey's It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

Happy Monday! I hope everyone had a beautiful Mother's Day yesterday. It stormed and stormed the days leading up to Mother's Day, and then it was beautiful outside. The charging port is totally shot on my Kindle Fire so hubs and the kids gave me a new Kindle Fire HD for Mother's Day. (They are so sweet! I'm spoiled rotten.) This thing looks amazing. I haven't had a chance to pimp it out yet. I can't stand reading on the normal Kindle app so I'm thankful my copy of NOS4A2 is in print!

Last week I read (and actually reviewed) I Travel by Night by Robert McCammon. I also read Bob Harper's new book Jumpstart to Skinny. I absolutely do not recommend Jumpstart to Skinny. (But I do recommend Bob's The Skinny Rules if you enjoy reading about nutrition and such.)

As I mentioned, I'm currently reading NOS4A2 by Joe Hill which is really, really great so far. It's a chunky monkey so I'll be reading it all week I'm sure.

I hope you guys are also reading something really great this week!! Let me know what you are reading in the comments or leave me a link!

Review | I Travel by Night by Robert McCammon

I Travel by Night is a new novella from Robert McCammon. Picture me dancing as I say that.

I Travel by Night marks Robert McCammon's triumphant return to the sort of flamboyant, go-for-broke horror fiction that has earned him an international reputation and a legion of devoted fans. The terrors of the Dark Society, the gothic sensibilities of old New Orleans, and the tortured existence of the unforgettable vampire adventurer Trevor Lawson all combine into a heady brew that will thrill McCammon s loyal readers and earn him new ones as well.

For Lawson, the horrors that stalked the Civil War battlefield at Shiloh were more than just those of war. After being forcibly given the gift of undeath by the mysterious vampire queen LaRouge, Lawson chose to cling to what remained of his humanity and fought his way free of the Dark Society's clutches. In the decades since, he has roamed late nineteenth century America, doing what good he can as he travels by night, combating evils mundane and supernatural, and always seeking the key to regaining a mortal life.

That key lies with his maker, and now Lawson hopes to find LaRouge at the heart of a Louisiana swamp with the aid of a haunted priest and an unexpected ally. In the tornado-wracked ghost town of Nocturne, Lawson must face down monstrous enemies, the rising sun, and his own nature. Readers will not want to miss this thrilling new dark novella from a master storyteller.

My feelings regarding I Travel by Night can be summed up with this statement: I need more Trevor Lawson!

I need, need, need more Trevor Lawson. If you didn't read the book description, Trevor Lawson is the gunslinging vampire in I Travel by Night.

Speaking of gunslinging, did you notice I Travel by Night was illustrated by Michael Whelan? I've been a huge fan of Michael Whelan since before even reading Stephen King's The Gunslinger (which he also illustrated).

But I digress. Let's get back to Trevor Lawson. As much as I loved reading I Travel by Night, it felt more like a prequel - only the beginning - to something awesome. OK, I'm off to Google. I can't stand not knowing!

Thank God:

The most recent novella, I Travel by Night: are we going to see some more adventures for Trevor Lawson?

Yes we are. I’ve got the next one on the drawing board, but I’m not sure exactly when I’m going to get to it. We’re going to do some more – two more, I know. The next one is totally different.

And keeping the sidekick?

Yes, we’re going to go with that.

Two more! That's an excerpt from a recent Sci-Fi Bulletin interview with McCammon.

I Travel by Night is a novella weighing in at 152 pages so I can't say much about the actual story without spoiling it. I obviously loved the characters so I'm ecstatic they will be back.

The Louisiana swamp setting was awesome. I think that bears repeating. The vampires were in the swamp.

If you've never read McCammon, please do. I don't care which one. If you like creatures of the night, if you like adventuring gunslingers, if you want a taste of McCammon, pick this one. I can't possibly recommend an author higher than McCammon, and I Travel by Night was a great read.

8/10: Great Read

The Great McCammon Read

If you'd like to read more of my reviews of McCammon's books, you can check out the details of my The Great McCammon Read here. I've been neglecting this challenge, but I plan to revisit and relax with McCammon over the summer.

Currently Reading | Rump and I Travel by Night

My Currently Reading posts are shared as part of Book Journey's It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

I've been on a non-fiction kick lately so things have been pretty quiet around here. Two stand out books I just finished are The Spark: A Mother's Story of Nurturing Genius and Bob Harper's The Skinny Rules. The Spark was excellent. I will be thinking about that book... forever probably.

I'm currently reading Rump: The True Story of Rumpelstiltskin which is so cute so far. I'm also reading I Travel by Night by Robert McCammon because it arrived in the mail, and I couldn't resist starting it. It was released super early so hooray for pre-ordering and getting an awesome early surprise!

I hope everyone has a really great week with warm weather and lots of reading! Be sure to let me know what you are reading this week (or leave me a link!).

Book Review | Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger

I wanted to read Ordinary Grace for the atmosphere promised by the book description. Coming of age stories are my absolute favorite, and the vision of growing up in the early 60s with baseball and root beer and family secrets made me really want to read Ordinary Grace. I'm happy to say Ordinary Grace delivered much of what I was hoping for.

In the opening of Ordinary Grace, it was revealed that a young boy had been killed on the railroad tracks outside of town. This immediately called forth Stephen King's The Body (the story on which Stand by Me was based). For me that set a wonderful tone for the rest of Ordinary Grace which follows Frank and his brother Jake through a summer in New Bremen, Minnesota in 1961.

I loved both Frank and Jake as well as most of the people closest to them. The one exception would be their mother. At first, I loved her honesty and her individuality, but I eventually grew to hate her. The more I hated her, though, the more I grew to love their father.

If you prefer there be no religion in your fiction, this is not the book for you. Frank and Jake's father is a preacher and religion is interwoven throughout Ordinary Grace. I thought the religious aspect was handled very well and there were several moving spiritual moments in Ordinary Grace.

All in all, I enjoyed reading Ordinary Grace. Along with the wonderment that is inherent in a coming of age story, Ordinary Grace is about loss and tragedy and how a family holds itself together. It was a refreshingly well rounded story. It's been a long time since I've read something that felt as developed as Ordinary Grace.

If you enjoy contemporary mysteries and coming of age stories, Ordinary Grace might be a great pick for you. The mystery wasn't shocking, but the journey through the summer of 1961 was a good one.

6/10: Good Read

Review copy provided by publisher