28 books like Black Friday

Quirky characters are my favorite, and if they come with a snarky attitude and impending death, so much the better. Nerdy Bill gets invited to a party by a beautiful woman he meets by chance. At the party, he’s turned into a vampire. This is the first book in a series following Bill’s adventures as one of the undead, along with his human friends and a host of other characters, including a 300-year-old vampire girl who claims Bill as her mate, sasquatches, rock people, and the human woman Bill loves from afar.

I’ve read the entire series at least three times, and I’m always entertained. The writing is good and sometimes laugh-out-loud funny, and the storylines are somehow plausible. It's one of my favorites, for sure.

I always want to read a good story, but the characters must be compelling. The protagonist in this book is Leona Reese, a sergeant in the Saint Paul police department. She’s worked hard for that position, but when she ignores her vision problems and fails her shooting range test, she’s reassigned to another unit.

In her new assignment, she works with Thom, another investigator who is wheelchair-bound. He has an off-beat sense of humor about his condition, which adds humor to an otherwise serious book. Those bits of humor play off nicely against Leo’s ongoing vision problems while they work together to solve a murder. There are two books in this series, and I’ve heard a third one is in the works. It’ll be worth the wait.

This book checks all the boxes. I love books with interesting and off-beat characters, and I'm delighted if they’re in unusual settings. The setting is a remote island off the coast of Maine, inhabited only by the descendants of native people and survivors of a 1700s shipwreck. The setting in this book is a character itself, and I loved it.

The people are just as fascinating. Kathleen Halloran returns to the island after a long absence, and Molly Cooper, a lifelong resident who’s unhappy when Kathleen shows up. My favorite characters were elderly sisters Louisa and Olivia. There’s a long-time mystery, island “woo woo,” and some romance. The storylines are well-done, but the setting and characters made this book one of my favorites.

I have a soft spot for stories in which animals play a prominent role, and this book does that very well. Jerry McNeal is a police officer with a special talent. He senses when something bad is about to happen, and when he follows his intuition, he’s always right. When he runs off the road in a snowstorm, a large dog climbs into his car and keeps him warm until he’s rescued. Only later does he learn he was saved by a police dog who had died in the line of duty.

I love the partnership that develops between Jerry and the dog, especially since Jerry’s adjustment to having a ghostly partner is amusing. The book is short but well-written, with humor adding sparkle to the story.

The Cornish Wedding Murder is the first installment of Fiona Leitch’s wonderful cosy mystery series. It features Jodie ‘Nosey’ Parker, ex-copper turned caterer, who butts heads with handsome DCI Nathan Winters to prove a childhood friend’s innocence, after an unexpected guest is found dead at his wedding. It’s an entertaining read with plenty of twists and turns and some added romantic tension to keep you wanting more. 

Jodie’s on my list as a female lead who’d make a great dinner guest because she’s bold, fiercely loyal and she doesn’t let others push her around. She’s also one to raise a smile with her deadpan humour and she’d have many a story from her police days to share. Oh, and with her being a caterer, I might not even have to cook!    

The funniest memoir I’ve ever read about being Australian and growing up in Sydney. It had me in tears throughout, with belly laughs and nostalgia.

Like Robert Hughes, Clive James was a stylish writer with a wonderful facility for words who sadly is no longer with us. He wrote a bunch of sequels (Falling Towards England, May Week Was in June, et al), and his poems are bloody good, too. He’s sadly missed.

Specifically, I'm recommending the short story "Sea Oak." In the expanse of horror fiction, it has to be said that there are very few stories about a kindly old woman who returns from the dead as a pissed-off, vulgar, rotting corpse demanding her nephew start showing his cock (Saunders’s phrasing, not mine) for extra money so that his family can stop being pushovers and start earning some cash. George Saunders, it should be noted, is not remotely a horror author—rather, one of the more offbeat, distinctive writers of short literary fiction of the last quarter century—and Pastoralia is determinedly not a horror collection. But it’s exactly this that makes “Sea Oak” the strangest, least likely zombie story, if you can call it that, that you’ll ever read.

Frank and Bean opens with Frank, who visits the great outdoors to find peace and quiet. Then, Bean shows up. He is literally a one bean band, with a drum, trumpet, triangle and more. Needless to say, they don’t initially hit it off. But then it gets dark, and fears bring them together. Before you know it, they are making beautiful music together. The text is full of wry humor presented with a wink for adults, while the illustrations are pitched perfectly to make five- to eight-year-old readers giggle along. I love this friendship story because it’s so much fun to read out loud. 

If you were suddenly awarded 8.5 million pounds, what would you do with it? Would you take the advice of the financial consultants and invest it sensibly? How boring. If you were a visionary you might create a sensual paradise of your imagination. But if you are just an ordinary young working-class Londoner? You might remember an instant—on holiday, or at a party—when you felt happy and content, and decide to recreate it. 

This time the writing is sparse and matter-of-fact. I hardly noticed as the hero’s project proceeds gradually, logically into realms of absurdity, told with deadpan humour. For me, speculative fiction involves a world that is recognisable and familiar—but which gradually becomes ‘curiouser and curiouser’.

It’s a story that makes you think—though without telling you what to think.

I loved the cleverness and comedy of this book, as Terry Pratchett creates a story that’s both absolutely sweet and beautifully dark. The whimsical way Terry Pratchett puts Hollywood in a carnival mirror not only creates a cheesy fantasy world where cameras are full of fast-painting imps but one with a darker side—a darker side that includes some fun Lovecraftian references and other Easter eggs.