This young adult fantasy captured me from the opening
sentences.
It begins with an informal teenage baseball game in rural West
Virginia and quickly moves via lively friendships, good dialogue, and a fun
ending to the baseball game, toward a hero’s journey.
The book is well written
and foretells great promise as a writer for J.C. Smith, co-author and son of
S.D. Smith, co-author and also author of the bestselling (and highly
recommended) Green Ember series.
Jack Zulu and the Waylander’s Key is an enchanting adventure in the tradition of Tolkien and Lewis, as well as Spielberg and Lucas. But this fantastical journey launches in rural West Virginia in the eighties, with a half-Appalachian, half-African kid trying to escape the town he sees defining his small, sad life. Jack discovers a gate hiding a city between twelve realms, and finds out where he truly belongs in a surprising, satisfying adventure.
The Thursday Murder Club is the first book in a series
by the same name. It establishes an ensemble cast of variously gifted
characters – a quirky group of senior citizens in a local nursing home! – whose
friendships and collective purpose involve the solving of murders.
The
characters are realistic, humorous, distinctively gifted, and entirely
believable; and the solutions to the murders are not easily detectable. The
plots are very good, and the characters even better.
A New York Times bestseller | Soon to be a major motion picture from Steven Spielberg at Amblin Entertainment
"Witty, endearing and greatly entertaining." -Wall Street Journal
"Don't trust anyone, including the four septuagenarian sleuths in Osman's own laugh-out-loud whodunit." -Parade
Four septuagenarians with a few tricks up their sleeves A female cop with her first big case A brutal murder Welcome to... THE THURSDAY MURDER CLUB
In a peaceful retirement village, four unlikely friends meet weekly in the Jigsaw Room to discuss unsolved crimes; together they call themselves the Thursday Murder Club.
This book was a fun, quirky read right from page one. I loved how much it made me laugh.
It is a young adult murder mystery with fantastic elements and a good dose of humor. Chaffin is excellent at creating spunky characters that effortlessly pull you along through an intriguing mystery. I enjoyed how her poetic prose painted a vivid setting that enriched the story.
Marion isn’t crazy. She can talk to birds and see the future, but she isn’t crazy.
Fourteen-year-old Marion Morrissey has an overactive imagination. That’s why when she sees the body of a dead woman reflected in her bedroom mirror, no one thinks much about it. It’s just a trick of the light, until that same woman washes ashore after a hurricane, and things get real…and real weird.
First, Marion finds a ring on the waterfront.
Second, she tries it on – and she can talk to birds.
The police say the woman on the shore took her own life, but…
In
this fourth installment of the Hamelin
Stoop series, Layla has returned to her family on the other
side of the Atrium of the Worlds, but she is about to lose the little sister
she just met. As she, Charissa, and
Eraina try to wake Princess Sophia from her coma, Hamelin must face the
consequences of his rash actions that led the eagle to return him home. Meanwhile, Chimera’s evil son, Landon, still
holds the city of Parthogen captive with his army and pack of vicious
dogs. As he grows bolder in his attacks
against King Carr’s encampment, it’s up to Hamelin and his friends to save not
only Sophia but all of Parthogen before Landon’s reinforcements arrive and doom
the Land of Gloaming forever.
