Bark At The Ghouls

Here's another retro review. I loved this book but never did make time to get back to the series. Why am I like this?!!



Wicked As They Come by Delilah S. DawsonReleased March 2012

Romance  |  Goodreads   |  Amazon

Source:  Purchased When nurse Tish Everett forced open the pesky but lovely locket she found at an estate sale, she had no idea she was answering the call of Criminy Stain, from the far off land of Sang. He’d cast a spell for her, but when she’s transported right to him, she’s not so sure she’s ready to be under the spell of another man. (It didn’t go so well last time with controlling, abusive, domineering Jeff.) If only Criminy wasn’t so deliciously rakish….

Half the inhabitants of Sang are Pinkies—human—and the other half are Bludmen, who in Tish’s world would be called vampires. But they don’t mess with any of the bat/coffin/no sunlight nonsense. They’re rather like you and me, just more fabulous, long living, and mostly indestructible. (They're also very good kissers…

I am not too proud to say I love watching the lives of perfect people unravel in my fiction and this one delivers!



The Perfect Liary by Thomas Christopher GreeneReleased January 2019

Thriller  |  Goodreads  |  Amazon

Source: Library Loan A seemingly perfect marriage is threatened by the deadly secrets husband and wife keep from each other.

Susannah, a young widow and single mother, has remarried well: to Max, a charismatic artist and popular speaker whose career took her and her fifteen-year-old son out of New York City and to a quiet Vermont university town. Strong-willed and attractive, Susannah expects that her life is perfectly in place again. Then one quiet morning she finds a note on her door: I KNOW WHO YOU ARE.

Max dismisses the note as a prank. But days after a neighborhood couple comes to dinner, the husband mysteriously dies in a tragic accident while on a run with Max. Soon thereafter, a second note appears on their door: DID YOU GET AWAY WITH IT?

Both Susannah and Max are keepin…

This one is something else!



Sociopaths In Love by Andersen PruntyReleased 2013

Dark Fiction  |  Goodreads  |  Amazon

Source: Received for Review Consideration Boy meets girl. They fall in love. They move in together and start a new life. They're beautiful and they have new things, expensive things, the best of everything, whatever they want. But that's only the surface. Beneath the surface is something much different. Something much darker. Theirs is a love like no other and only one of them will survive it.. 
My 2 Cents For Free! I don’t know why I pick up books like these. It’s some strange compulsion that I cannot ignore. Some are better than others. This one falls right about in the middle but scores all the points for the gross-out.
An unhinged man enters the home of a young lady caring for her ill granny. He’s not there to make friends and have some tea either! He’s a dude who takes what he wants and walks away. He can do this because he has some sort of power that allows hi…

This review is part of my review archive project which I intend to finish some day before I die or my eyeballs dry up. I read this story back in 2012.



Zombie Candy by Frederick Lee BrookeReleased May 2012

Mystery  |  Goodreads   |  Amazon

Source:  Received for Review Consideration Did you ever get the feeling your partner changed overnight with no warning? Research shows this befalls women much more often than men. You stand there thinking, I have to spend the next thirty years with this moron? Fact is, there are 10 sure signs you're married to a zombie. He gives short guttural answers like "I dunno," or "Unh uh," when you'd like to have a conversation. The TV is more important to him than listening to you. MUCH more important. He consults his iPhone repeatedly during meals. When he gets home from work, too tired to talk, he just wants a beer. He doesn't come home from work till late, and claims his phone was dead. He criticizes your cooking by putting cila…

This read was emotionally draining. All of my emotions are now gone, lol.



Second Lives by P.D. CacekReleased April 2019

Dark Fiction  |  Goodreads  |  Amazon

Source: Received for Review Consideration When four patients unexpectedly wake after being declared dead, their families are ecstatic and the word “miracle” begins to be whispered throughout the hospital. But the jubilation is short lived when the patients don’t respond to their names and insist they are different people. It is suggested all four are suffering from fugue states until one of the doctors recognizes a name and verifies that he not only knew the girl but was there when she died in 1992. It soon becomes obvious that the bodies of the four patients are now inhabited by the souls of people long dead.
My 2 Cents For Free! Second Lives has an amazingly creepy cover and an intriguing blurb and when I sat down with it I knew it was going to be an emotionally intense read. The plot is about a group of four people who die, after …

I am on a mini romance kick. I need a little "lovely" in my life right now.



The Duchess Deal by Tessa DareReleased August 2017

Romance  |  Goodreads   |  Amazon

Source:  Overdrive Borrow When girl meets Duke, their marriage breaks all the rules…

Since his return from war, the Duke of Ashbury’s to-do list has been short and anything but sweet: brooding, glowering, menacing London ne’er-do-wells by night. Now there’s a new item on the list. He needs an heir—which means he needs a wife. When Emma Gladstone, a vicar’s daughter turned seamstress, appears in his library wearing a wedding gown, he decides on the spot that she’ll do.

His terms are simple:
- They will be husband and wife by night only.
- No lights, no kissing.
- No questions about his battle scars.
- Last, and most importantly… Once she’s pregnant with his heir, they need never share a bed again.

But Emma is no pushover. She has a few rules of her own:
- They will have dinner together every evening.
- With conversation.
- And unli…

This was such an unexpected surprise!



Nothing To See Here by Kevin WilsonReleased October 2019

Audiobook  |  Goodreads  |  Amazon

Source: Library Loan Kevin Wilson’s best book yet—a moving and uproarious novel about a woman who finds meaning in her life when she begins caring for two children with remarkable and disturbing abilities

Lillian and Madison were unlikely roommates and yet inseparable friends at their elite boarding school. But then Lillian had to leave the school unexpectedly in the wake of a scandal and they’ve barely spoken since. Until now, when Lillian gets a letter from Madison pleading for her help.

Madison’s twin stepkids are moving in with her family and she wants Lillian to be their caretaker. However, there’s a catch: the twins spontaneously combust when they get agitated, flames igniting from their skin in a startling but beautiful way. Lillian is convinced Madison is pulling her leg, but it’s the truth.

Thinking of her dead-end life at home, the life that has consiste…

This one lures you in and then takes a dastardly turn!



The Bone Weaver's Orchard by Sarah ReadReleased February 2019

Dark Fiction  |  Goodreads  |  Amazon

Source: Received for Review Consideration He’s run away from home. That’s what they say every time one of Charley Winslow’s friends vanishes from The Old Cross School for Boys.

It’s just a tall tale. That’s what they tell Charley when he sees the ragged grey figure stalking the abbey halls at night.

When Charley follows his pet insects to a pool of blood behind a false wall, he could run and let those stones bury their secrets. He could assimilate, focus on his studies, and wait for his father to send for him. Or he could walk the dark tunnels of the school’s heart, scour its abandoned passages, and pick at the scab of a family’s legacy of madness and murder.

With the help of Sam Forster, the school’s gardener, and Matron Grace, the staff nurse, Charley unravels Old Cross’ history and exposes a scandal stretching back to when the schoo…

Well, 2020 started off with a DNF. This does not bode well.Or perhaps it does. Maybe this will be the year I stop struggling and listen to my instincts. Anyhow, I had another soon after so here they are.



Ooops, nope. That's not what this post is about because I am a jerk.

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
I gave this audiobook five hours of my life. I can't face another eight. I just can't do it. I mean, five hours?! That's a lot of time! I still feel as if I know nothing about any of these characters and I'm so very bored. Nope, I'm out. I sucketh at the reading. I know. I realize people adore this book but I didn't and it makes me sad that I didn't but that is why there are so many books. There is something for everyone. This something is for someone other than me.




Full Throttle: Stories by Joe Hill
A collection like this is typically like a box of gifted chocolates. I'm the type of jerk who wants a box containing only my favorites. Give me all th…

I am finally back to my review archive project. I read this back in 2013 and never did get back to the series after this one. Should I bother after all this time?



Beyond Shame by Kit RochaReleased September 2012

Romance  |  Goodreads   |  Amazon

Source:  Purchased With My Own $ All Noelle Cunningham has ever wanted is a life beyond–beyond the walls of Eden, where only the righteous are allowed to remain, and beyond her stiflingly restrictive existence as a councilman’s daughter. But only ruins lie outside the City, remnants of a society destroyed by solar storms decades earlier.

The sectors surrounding Eden house the corrupt, the criminal–men like Jasper McCray, bootlegger and cage fighter. Jas clawed his way up from nothing to stand at the right hand of Sector Four’s ruthless leader, and he’ll defend the O’Kane gang with his life. But no fight ever prepared him for the exiled City girl who falls at his feet.

Her innocence is undeniable, but so is their intense sexual attraction, and soon t…