Wrap Up: October 2021

Hello readers! October is gone too fast, and now everywhere it’s already Christmas…

During October, I managed to read 11 books, with a DNF.

5 stars:

Only Amelia Fang and the Half Moon Holiday have reached 5 stars this month! I love this series so much!

4 stars:

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I need my monster is a lovely illustrated children’s book perfect for Halloween, but also full of friendship and colors. Children will love it!

The fifth book in the Redmond and Haze series is Murder in the grave. I liked it much more than the previous two volumes, the mystery is really intriguing.

3 stars:

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If you are a fan of true crime stories, you had to know the story of JonBenét, in JonBenét: inside the Ramsey murder investigation, you will find a lot of information, theories and suspects. It was interesting, but too long for my liking.

I didn’t realize that Buried beneath the boarding house was the story of Dorotea Puente until I began the book. It’s a macabre story, but very well written.

2 stars:

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I was expecting more from Crane, also, the cover is great but it doesn’t remind me of the legend of Sleepy Hollow.

You can read my review of The Women of Blackmouth street here.

The pumpkin field has an amazing cover, but it’s a super short story, written in more than one language, definitely too short.

1 star + DNF:

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Confessions is my DNF of the month.

You can read my negative review of The Spirit Engineer here.

What can I say about A House at the bottom of a lake? Two teenagers are searching for a place for their first time together. A House. Completely furnished. At the bottom of a lake. And do you think this is a good idea? Malerman already failed me with Bird box, this is the confirmation that he’s not an author I like.

And that was my reading month, full of horror/thriller and true crime books.

What about you? Have you read some great books this month? Tell me in the comments!

When translation goes wrong: Eng vs Ita #3

Hello and welcome back to this meme that I created, in which I compare the original english title (and cover), with the translated one.

The previous post:

When translation goes wrong: Fortunately, the milk

When translation goes wrong: The martian

This time I will show you a thriller that I read in December 2018, and it became one of my fave reads of the year:

The Sherlockian by Graham Moore

I really like this cover, it’s pretty simple but it’s perfect for a crime/thriller book.

And then the Italian cover and title:

Franly speaking, I love this cover. I have on my bookshelves three or four books with a character on the cover, surrounded by the fog. It seems to be a leitmotiv.

But can we talk for a moment about this title?

The man who hated Sherlock Holmes? Really?

This book has waited on my TBR for years, because of this title. Why I have to read this book, when I already know that was Conan Doyle the man who hated Holmes?

The cover blurb says also: The last enigma for the greatest detective of all the time. But it wasn’t Holmes who investigate, it was Conan Doyle.

In fact, it’s a really good book, especially for the parts sets in the past. The couple of detectives Conan Doyle/Stoker is really funny, and the mystery is well articulated.

I recommend it if you like historical crime/thriller, or are a fan of Conan Doyle’s work.

Have you read this book? Which covers is your fave?

 

 

 

Come little children, the time’s comes to read all this spooky books!

I love books with original and strange titles, and I love to adapt the lyrics of songs to something more bookish.

Here’s my recomendation of horror/spooky books:

I try to including more genres, so we have Death or Ice Cream? that’s a Middle Grade (and I love the cover so much!) and The Woman in Black, still my favourite classic ghost story. Shutter Island is the best thriller that I ever read; Coraline is fantastic. The Other Mother scares me a lot, even if I am 31 years old.

Underworld London is a non-fiction book and it’s scary and very gruesome; The Last Necromancer is a fantasy/historical/gothic, the first of a series with gorgeous covers and last but not least The Uninvited by Cat Winters: she can writes about ghosts and paranormal like no other.

I know that are more and more horror books out there, so stay tuned for my horror TBR books and my favorite horror movies!

Do you know some of this books? Who else love Peter Hollens? I adore him!!*_*

Full Circle — Mr. Confidence, mini reviews

Full Circle

Author: Regina Timothy

Pages: 314

Genre: contemporary

Add on: Goodreads, Amazon

Rating: 4/5

Summary:

Eight years after the 9/11 attacks, Samia-Al-Sayyid an Iraqi immigrant is living a quiet life in New York City after she fled her home to avoid imminent death.
She works hard for her cold, heartless, high-strung boss, loves her seventeen-years-old-son, and cherishes the close friendship she has formed with her best friend Susan.
Nothing can go wrong, or so she thinks – until the estranged brother she left back in Iraqi shows up on her door step. Then she finds herself in a cab, on her way to the hospital to identify her son, a terror suspect who has blown the city, and with it her boss’ husband, and her best friend’s son. With everything lost, she is forced to flee to Iraq where she confronts her past. Will she make peace with her past? Can she get forgiveness for all the damage she has caused?

Review:

First of all, I want to thank Regina for send me this book. She’s the first author who writes to me and my little blog, and I’m so grateful!

So I received this book for free in exchange of a honest review.

I really like it! It starts with a tragic event that has changed our lifes, our way to travel around the world, our way to look at muslim people: the attacks of 9/11.

All the book is original and so rich of emotions. To me, a european woman who was only 14 on 2001, this book open up a world, and I always like this in a story.

It was so interesting and heartbreaking to read the story of Samia, how the life has changed for her, how all the american people had reacted because of the attacks.

Full circle is a story written by a woman, about the women and how badly the world sometimes treats them, but they can carry on, broken and sad. Sometimes I cried when I was reading, so I can easily say that I liked Samia and her story so much.

Everyone needs to read this story. I highly recommend it.

Mr. Confidence

Author: Rahiem Brooks

Pages: 230

Genre: crime thriller

Add on: Goodreads, Amazon

Rating: 1/5

Trigger Warning: language, s*x, misoginy

Summary:

When a wrongly accused man (Don Juan Jackson) gets out of prison, he focuses his attention on becoming a good example for his six-year-old daughter, who at her tender age has been terribly influenced by her mother and her mother’s many paramours. He plans to get a job to be a family good father, but his plans are derailed soon after his release.
His life becomes packed with unbelievable excitement when he is drawn into a life of white-collar crime by his childhood pal, Lex. They commit several scams and schemes–and Secret Service agents are watching. But with the money abundantly flowing in, Don Juan takes explosive measures to get custody of his daughter and to avoid another trip to the penitentiary.
Pulse-pounding seconds pass as Don Juan risks his freedom and fatherhood for the score of a lifetime.

Review:

I received this book for free in exchange of a honest review.

I’m feeling so bad writing this, because I didn’t like this book.

I was expecting a good thriller/crime, maybe a little violent, because in the summary I didn’t read about sexual content or something like that.

The first two chapter begins with s*x scenes, a lot of curse words and I was: ok, this guy was in jail, this is a urban thriller, I can resist some bad word.

But all the book is like the first chapters, or even worse: every woman in this book is described as a b***h, a se*ual doll, or a nightmare walking on stiletto.

All the ex-girlfriends of the two MC are the worst women in the world: crazy, manipulative, liar and thief.

All the other women in the book are only good for one thing, and the men tell them out loud in the street just to see them pass by.

As a woman, I was feeling so bad that I was thinking of DNF the book.

And the swear words! OMG they’re everywhere!!

I tolerate a certain number of swear words, and I totally understand that the author would describe a certain world and a culture, but I prefere to know this before read a book.

I DNF “The second coming” of Niven for all the swear words!

I saved just the daughter in this book, sorry.