mstrust's little yet fierce challenge- #3

I've been away from the Category Challenge for a few years but I'm back with a smallish challenge for myself. Five categories, five books each.
Hi, I'm Jennifer and I live in Phoenix with my husband, Mike, and our boxer, Coral. I have thousands of books in the house, write short stories, love tiki and Halloween, come up with baking and cocktail recipes, and we travel a lot. Well, we did. March marked my 13th Thingaversary. I've hit LT puberty.
I'll be publishing a book very soon that I've worked on for about 16 months. It's all about maple, so recipes, but also an introduction to maple producers of New England, the Midwest and Canada.

Foodie & Cook Books

1. Veg: Easy and Delicious Meals for Everyone
2. The Little Paris Kitchen
3. Essential Herbs
4. Fairytale Baking
5. Tiki Surf Witches Want Blood
Done!

6. The Beginner's Guide to Mushrooms
7. Mocktails & Cocktails Made Simple
8. A Moveable Feast
9. Death and Sweets

ROOTs

1. The Riddle of the Third Mile
2. Britten and Brulightly
3. Mystery, Inc.
4. Almost Sleighed
5. Vegas Tabloid
Done!
6. My Life with Sherlock Holmes
7. Hoodoo Harry
8. The Murder of Dr. Chapman
9. Haunted Nights
10. Miao Doa
11. Miss Marple's Final Cases
12. The Eyre Affair
13. And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks
14. Redshirts
15. The House on Mango Street
16. The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake
17. Mr Monk Goes to the Firehouse
18. A Red Herring Without Mustard
19. Let's Get Invisible
20. Tales From the Crypt #1 The Stalking Dead
21. Fire in the Grove
22. Son of Slappy
23. Alfred Hitchcock's Death Bag
24. Zombie Tales 4: This Bites
25. The Murders of Richard III
26. Your Inner Hedgehog
27. Mr. Monk and the Blue Flu

New To Me Authors

1. The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie
2. Trick Yourself Asleep
3. Come Home, Indio
4. Bibliotheca Classica
5. Selected Poems of W.H. Auden
Finished
6. The Pretty Little Box
7. The Golden Gate
8. Welcome to the United States of Anxiety
9. Skinwalkers
10. Elizabeth
11. Middle Men: Stories
12. Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont
13. Where The Sidewalk Ends
14. The Sleep Tight Motel
15. Murderously Sweet
16. Just Another Day at Your Public Library
17. Witching Hour Theatre
18. Fat Vampire
19. Halloween Fiend
20. Hoodoo
21. Professor Gargoyle
22. An Elderly Lady Is Up To No Good

Travel

1. California Hotel and Casino
2. A Walk Around the Block
3. Action Park
4. Oh, The Places You'll Go!
5. Moby Dick
Done!
6. High Tech and Hot Pot
7. England As You Like It
8. Mr. Monk Goes to Hawaii
9. Camp Austen

Plays, Autobiographies and Biographies

1. Lady Windermere's Fan
2. Bowie's Bookshelf
3. Rez Metal
4. Confess
5. Grateful American
Done!
6. Not Taco Bell Material
7. Stay Sexy and Don't Get Murdered
8. Face It
9. An Accidental Bookseller
10. Mortuary Confidential
11. Untimely and Tragic Deaths of the Renowned, the Celebrated and the Iconic
12. The Stranger Beside Me
13. All Creatures Great and Small

The Rest of 'Em

1. The Weed that Strings the Hangman's Bag
2. Animal Behavior: A Very Short Introduction
3. The Factory Witches of Lowell
4. Survivor Song
5. Maigret Goes to School
6. Night of the Mannequins
7. The Giving Tree
8. Empire of the Ants
9. Murder on Tap
10. I'd Rather Be Reading
11. Uncle Dysfunctional
12. Candy Coated Murder
13. Check These Out
14. Deadly Arms
15. I Work at a Public Library
16. Hell's Princess
17. The Book of Books
18. Chocolate Covered Murder
19. Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs?
20. Maniac
21. Sugared Demise
22. The Final Girls Support Group
23. Discovering Dahlias

Happy new thread!

Those titles sound like Tom Lehrer made the book list!

Happy new thread! The book titles are hilarious :)

I love the books - so hilarious!

Happy new thread! And many thanks for those funny book titles.

>9 quondame: Thanks, Susan, and I agree!

>10 rabbitprincess: Thank you, Princess!

>11 JayneCM: Thanks, Jayne! And those are the clean ones. Oh, there are Golden Book titles that get so much worse!

>12 MissWatson: Thank you and you're welcome!

Happy new thread! That I Will Chomp You book looks very cute...may have to get it for my nephews!

Thanks, Christina!
It does look like a good book!

75. The Book of Books: Recommended Reading. Organized into chapters by genre or plot, this turned out to be a great source for making my WL and TBR piles so much longer. I ended up with a list of at least fifty books to look for, so clearly the recommendations worked. 4 stars

Congrats on making it to 75! I love those "children's book covers" in your categories.

Thank you and thank you! I didn't realize I had hit 75 until I was writing the review.

>16 mstrust: Books about books are 'dangerous' in that respect! My TBR always expands so much!

yandex.ru

>19 JayneCM: And I've been going through many lately because they keep popping up on my Kindle Unlimited. I think I've added at least 75 titles between the three or four books like this I've read this past month. But this particular book gave me the most recs.

>16 mstrust: Definitely adding The Book of Books to my wishlist!

I'm sure you'll find it a danger to your TBR pile.

76. A Moveable Feast by Lonely Planet. Essays from travel and food writers such as Anthony Bourdain, Andrew Zimmern and several former writers at Gourmet Magazine. Essays include flirting over a traditional Egyptian breakfast, the most celebrated restaurants of New York, learning to cook the local specialties of Jerusalem. and shadowing a resort chef on the island of Mustique. One of the most interesting essays was by ex-pat pastry chef David Lebovitz, about the hits and misses of Parisian chefs trying to create new trends. Some of the essays were disturbing, such as eating dogs or fruit bats. 3.5 stars

77. Chocolate Covered Murder by Kate Bell. When a Pumpkin Hollow landlord is found murdered in the town's haunted house attraction, everyone is worried. Not only do they have another murderer in the small California themed town, but the crime has shut down one of the major tourist attractions just as the Halloween season is ramping up. Then there's the issue that Ethan has just been promoted to part-time detective and needs to solve his first case or risk being demoted back to full-time patrolman.
So Mia, candy store employee and Ethan's girlfriend, helps out in the investigation, while her mom keeps coming out of the store kitchen with new candies.
This series goes down so easily, like eating popcorn. 3.5 stars

>26 mstrust: And gets the prize for cutest book cover! :)

All the Pumpkin Hollow book covers are seriously cute, featuring a Halloween baked good or candy. Which ties in with the main character's family owning a Halloween themed candy store, so you get lots of candy descriptions.

78. A Red Herring Without Mustard by Alan Bradley. In this third book of the series, Flavia gets her fortune told by a gypsy at the village fete and promptly sets the old woman's tent on fire. Trying to make it up to her, Flavia invites the gypsy to set up her caravan on the grounds of Buckshaw, Flavia's ancestral home. When Flavia goes back to check on her, she finds that the woman has been beaten nearly to death, and so Flavia, the eleven year-old genius, is once again at the center of a crime, which embarrasses her family and aggravates Inspector Hewitt.
Spending time with Flavia is so fun, whether she's asking nosy questions, experimenting in her laboratory or getting even with her older sisters. 4.5 stars

>29 mstrust: I love Flavia! It was so sad when the series came to and end. If you enjoy audio books, Jayne Entwistle did a great job with the audio narration of the series.

I didn't know the series had ended. Well, I still have a ways to go so there's that at least.
Flavia is such a character. And I was surprised to see, in the very long list of thanks yous and acknowledgements at the end of this book, that Bradley thanked the proprietor of my local, very small, mystery bookshop for leaving him astounding murder ideas on his voicemail.

>31 mstrust: that's fantastic! I would love to hear those voicemails. When I try to describe one of my story plots, I always sound like an idiot. It makes me realize how hard it must be to go to one of those writer conventions where they let you pitch to agents and editors.

I know, I'll bet the owner of a mystery bookstore could come up with some pretty ripe scenarios. I've been helped by this lady and you'd never suspect her.

>33 mstrust: 😂

79. Mortuary Confidential: Undertakers Spill the Dirt by Todd Harra and Kenneth McKenzie. True death industry stories collected by the authors, who are both funeral directors. Topics range from the humorous, such as one guy who got locked out of his hearse, and then the hospital, when he went to pick up a body one night. Others stories are contemplative, such as the sadness of having to deal with the body of a loved one, and other stories are in the "crazy" category, like the huge family brawl during the funeral.
3 stars

80. Let's Get Invisible by R.L. Stine. Max, his younger brother Lefty, and a group of friends discover a hidden room in the attic that contains an old-fashioned full length mirror. Why would this be hidden away? The kids find that when you pull the light chain, the person standing in front of the mirror becomes invisible. The kids become obsessed with it, but fun comes at a price.
This is a good one, as the descriptions of what Max feels as he's invisible are worrisome, like a bad drug trip. Stine includes his tropes in spades here. The kids with the more dominant personalities push Max into doing what he knows is wrong, you have the character who wails, "Noooo!" (I wait for it in every book), and the kids are lacking even a spark of evil as they use invisibility to throw magazines around rather than burn the neighborhood down. 4 stars

81. Death and Sweets by Kate Bell and Kathleen Suzette. Stella, the grumpy Halloween hating owner of the only bakery in Pumpkin Hollow's Halloween district, has been murdered in her shop. The body was found by Mia, whose family owns the candy shop down the street. Stella was surly enough that she didn't have many fans, and this means multiple suspects, including Stella's husband, sister, and employee. Mia didn't like Stella much either, but she still sets out to help her police detective boyfriend by investigating under the guise of neighborly chats and offers of candy, even if she occasionally says just the wrong thing.

A short cozy that's full of Halloween, bakery and candy talk. Some of the dialogue can be clunky.
3.5 stars

39. Tales From the Crypt #1 The Stalking Dead. A collection of scary, sometimes gory, stories that date from 1970 10 2017. In "Die-Vestment", a very old and incredibly wealthy man finds poor people who will sell him their internal organs to help their families, but the old man doesn't honor the contracts.
In "Zombie Bank", the only two human employees at the bank are a mistreated gopher and the beautiful, flirty secretary. And then there's just one human employee. In "Undertow", we meet a grieving young mother, but this is a horror story, so it isn't as it seems.
3.5 stars
1.5 Walkers

Ha! Finally, my book is available on Amazon!
Here's proof- https://www.amazon.com/Maple-Motherload-Guide-All-Things/dp/B09FS6ZY18/ref=sr_1_....

Not shilling, just a feeling of triumph. See, all my complaining DID accomplish something! Hooray!

>39 mstrust: Woohoo, congratulations! And how timely, considering the northern hemisphere is now moving into fall!

>39 mstrust: wonderful! 😊

Congrats on the book coming out, Jennifer.

>39 mstrust: Yay! Love the dog too!

>39 mstrust: Fantastic!

>40 christina_reads: >41 VictoriaPL: >42 DeltaQueen50: >43 quondame: >44 RidgewayGirl: Thanks everyone! I'm happy and pretty relieved to get it out right at the beginning of the season.

Reach over and help yourself to a maple bacon doughnut!

>45 mstrust: That reminds me of a conference experience. I was with a group of friends--mostly from North Carolina. One woman about my age had scouted out this donut place that offered a maple bacon donut. It was getting close to closing time for the donut place, but we all joined her on her quest for the maple bacon donut. I think we ended up ordering a maple bacon donut to split between several of us who were willing to "try" it, but we all ordered our own favorites. Mine was probably some variety with chocolate. I really don't remember. I just remember the hype about the maple bacon donut. It was better than most of us anticipated. I've been a few places since then that offer this variety. I don't know that I've ever ordered another one. My new favorite is a seasonal cake donut with key lime in it. It is so good!

I first had maple bacon as a cupcake at a festival, and it was pretty great. I have a maple bacon section in the book, because I had to, and found that the trend was started by Voodoo Donuts. They created a maple bacon bar in 2003 that sold out so quickly that it created a following in the same way the cronut did later.

I love maple bacon donuts, very much a comfort food experience but my holy grail is just the regular ol' double chocolate from Dunkin Donuts.

>45 mstrust: >46 thornton37814: My favorite local donut shop does maple bacon in a couple of shapes and I love them. That one in >45 mstrust: looks better though.

>31 mstrust: Going back up to Bradley - my favourite was I Am Half Sick of Shadows. I kept all the books so that I can read them again now that there won't be any more.

You should hang out at that bookstore and maybe the owner will provide you with some plots too - but be careful, don't accept drinks, don't turn your back…

>48 VictoriaPL: That is one of my "go to" donuts at Dunkin. The others are the Boston Kreme and blueberry. I really wish I could have another local donut place's Boston Kreme with Dunkin's custard filling. I prefer Dunkin's filling and the texture of the other donut.

>48 VictoriaPL: My favorite is the maple raised from La Mar's.

>49 quondame: Oh, a choice of shapes!
A few years ago on my Halloween thread, I posted a YT video showing how to make maple donuts out of regular refrigerated biscuit dough. I still haven't tried it but it was pretty easy.

>50 VivienneR: I think that's the next in line, and I have it on the shelf. I've really liked the first three, that's how far I've gotten in the series so far. Flavia is one of my favorite characters now.
Ha! She's a very nice lady, but I haven't seen her in the shop in a few years. She has a loyal staff and maybe she spends her time calling mystery writers and saying, "You know how I'd kill someone?"

>51 thornton37814: I see Dunkin' has an array of pumpkin coffees. Last year they had a malty chocolate werewolf donut that was so cute.

83. Witching Hour Theatre by Jonathan Janz. Wilson spends three nights a week at the Starlight Cinema, from midnight to five am, because that's when they feature a triple billing of horror movies. Wilson prides himself on being such a horror fan that he stays til the end, but there's also the plus of getting to chat with Nicole at the concession stand.
Then, one night it looks like the fun will be ruined by a group of obnoxious frat boys who are harassing people and making Wilson question whether or not he will stand up for himself and the others, but this decision turns out to be the least of his problems.
This is a real horror story, with monsters, death and The Omen playing in the background. I recommend it, you'll get a real scare.
4 stars

>52 mstrust: YUK! I don't want pumpkin in my coffee. I really prefer just plain coffee with cream and splenda.

Ha, and I love pumpkin coffee and say yuk to Splenda! My current coffees that I'm going between everyday are Caribou Pumpkin Love and Richard's Maple. Mike is drinking Three Sisters from Kicking Horse, which has a smoky flavor.
At least we know that if we worked in the same building we'd never end up accusing each other of swiping our coffee ;-D

84. Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs? by Caitlin Doughty. Doughty, who owns a funeral home in L.A. and has created lots of Youtube explanation videos, answers questions about death, such as, What happens if you die on a commercial flight? What happens if an astronaut dies in space? Are bodies in the cemetery leaking into our drinking water? (You would hope for a resounding "no", but the answer is "some".) Will my beloved pet eat my dead body?
Doughty keeps things light and humorous while answering some pretty horrifying questions.
3.5 stars

>56 mstrust: I’ve always wanted to read one of her books. I love her YouTube videos.

She does have a big personality, and I'll be picking one of her Youtubes for my Halloween thread. This is the second of her books that I've read. From Here to Eternity was a look at death rituals from around the world.

85. Maniac: The Bath School Disaster and the Birth of the Modern Mass Killer by Harold Schechter. Here's one I'd never heard of before.
In 1927, in a town outside Lansing, Michigan, a failed farmer and politician named Andrew Kehoe blew up a school, killing more than three dozen people, mostly children. No one had realized that Kehoe had been breaking into the school at night and setting up timer controlled bombs throughout the tunnels under the school. The bombs contained enough dynamite to wipe out the whole town. The bombs that went off (not all of them did) caused a wing of the two-story school to collapse. Kehoe's particular target was the school's young principal, as Kehoe believed it was the principal's demands for better educational equipment and his salary that caused Kehoe's financial problems. After the school collapsed, Kehoe arrived on the scene to find that the principal was alive, so he murdered the man and committed suicide on the scene, making it clear who was responsible for the carnage. Police later found that Kehoe had already murdered his wife and horses, and rigged his home to explode. He even put a bomb in the hen house, because the chickens were supposed to die too.
The author explores other major news stories of the day, the most significant being Lindbergh's Transatlantic flight, which are the reason this story got so little attention outside Michigan at the time.
4 stars

>59 mstrust: What a tragedy! I'd never heard of that incident.

It was a new one to me too. But the author knew that most people have never heard of this and went to lengths to explain how other stories had eclipsed it, especially the Lindbergh story, which knocked a lot of news out of the way. It was pretty much a matter of a story that affected the people of one county being pushed aside by something that was a great achievement and would affect everyone. Nobody realized that people with Kehoe's personality disorder would become more prevalent.

86. Halloween Night by R.L. Stine. Drippy high school senior Brenda and her friends hate Brenda's cousin Halley. She's living with Brenda's family while her parents go through a bitter divorce, something that happens frequently in the Stine universe. Not only have Brenda's parents forced Brenda to give up her room to Halley, she also has to share her car and clothes with her cousin, who then helps herself to Brenda's boyfriend.
Brenda's rage makes her see the upcoming Halloween party as the perfect time to teach Halley a lesson, a final one.
Not a great story, but you finally get what you'd always wanted in these Stine teen stories, a character who goes from a doormat to a psychopath.
2.5 stars

87. Fat Vampire by Johnny B. Truant. Reginald has always been remarkably overweight and picked on. Even now, as an adult, his co-workers make fun of him, and part of that is due to their company selling exercise equipment.
Then a new guy on the night shift, a teenage Goth, treats Reginald like he's normal, which leads to a night of bowling, which leads to Reginald being a new vampire. One who is stuck at 350 pounds for all eternity, too slow to hunt and likely to be destroyed by the Vampire Council when they see how bad he is at basic vampire stuff.
Fun and well-written, I knew the author had to be a pen name and I wouldn't be surprised if this was written by a successful screenwriter.
4.5 stars
2 Walkers

>63 mstrust: interesting….

I'd recommend it for someone who wants a Halloweenie read that isn't too serious.

88. Fire in the Grove by John C. Esposito. On November 28th, 1942, a popular nightclub and restaurant in Boston was packed with around a thousand people. By law, there should have been half that. The many exits should have been unlocked and usable, but the majority were locked or blocked to keep guests from skipping out on their checks. The owner had even built a coat check room across one exit. The decor was supposed to be flame-retardant, but the fire started in one of the paper-mache palm trees and withing seconds spread to the thousands of feet of fabric draped across the ceilings. Within ninety seconds the fire had engulfed the basement lounge and spread to the main floor dining room, killing more than 50 servicemen and cowboy star Buck Jones.
The Cocoanut Grove Disaster is still the largest nightclub fire in American history, killing just under 500 people. It tested new theories in medicine and led to innovative treatment of surviving burn victims, including pinprick skin grafts.
This book includes the many trials of the owner and his employees, in which the extensive level of corruption among the Boston licensing boards, the fire department and even the mayor were exposed, yet really only the owner was punished.
4 stars

89. Sugared Demise by Kathleen Suzette. This is book five in the Pumpkin Hollow series.
On Halloween night Mia leaves her family's candy store to meet up with her boyfriend Ethan, who is a police officer and the town's part-time detective. Walking to her car, she hears a noise and looks down the alley to see a werewolf standing over a dead man. From there, Ethan, with Mia's unofficial help, investigate who would want the town's only lawyer dead. Turns out, lots of people.

I really like this cozy series about a small town that celebrates Halloween year round to bring the tourists, with its talk of candy, costumes, the local haunted house attraction, and pumpkins. I could do without the phrase "it's a shame", which is used a lot throughout the story to describe both tragic deaths and bad behavior.
3.5 stars

>56 mstrust: So, um. Will the cat eat my eyeballs?

>63 mstrust: Oh, Fat Vampire sounds like it might be fun. I know just the group for it....

>66 mstrust: When I was very young, I was distrustful of everything built by others. Then I got older and realized how much regulations there are, and that often those are written in blood, and that almost always it's all fine. Now I'm increasingly back to being distrustful of things that seem dangerous but where the existence of regulations and safety culture should make it okay. (Rollercoasters, packed buildings, balconies, bridges where the rebar is visible, yeah...) All that to say, Fire in the Grove sounds interesting but like it might not be a good choice for me to hear. :)

>68 pammab: According to the book, only as a last resort. When any other option has been exhausted.
Fat Vampire is pretty entertaining.
When my husband was around thirteen, he had an uncle who ran a concession stand at the fair and brought Mike in to work with him sometimes, (Mike also had to work at another uncle's pizzeria). And that's why Mike will never ride on carnival rides. He watched them being put together half-assed and says the inspectors would show up and sign off on the rides without even looking at them.
Fire in the Grove would definitely push some buttons, but I'd wanted to read about this particular disaster for some time. It was a perfect storm of everyone who should have ensured the safety of the public accepting pay-offs instead.

90. Halloween Fiend by C.V. Hunt. Barry is forty-five, overweight and has been employed at the town's general store for thirty years. He's never dated and lives with his dad, who claims to be confined to his motorized chair but Barry knows he can walk, he just likes to have Barry do everything for him. Barry's life is uneventful and dull during the day, but every night is filled with terror, as this small town is visited by Halloween, a shape-shifting presence that demands a live "treat" from every resident. Barry can't help but listen for Halloween on the porch, dreading the sounds he hears, but it gets even worse when Halloween begins taunting Barry through the doors and windows. And then the mayor brings in carnival rides for the town's Fall Festival, which brings carnies, and Barry doesn't know if the presence of outsiders after dark will make things better or worse for him.

If you have a Kindle and want a truly tense read, this is a good one with a strong nod to Shirley Jackson.
5 stars

91. Goosebumps Most Wanted: Son of Slappy by R.L. Stine. Jackson is such a good drip that he never gets in trouble and even volunteers at the youth center. He's a typical Stine doormat who is even bullied by his younger sister. But then Jackson and Rachel are packed off to spend a week at their grandpa's isolated mansion, and grandpa is not only a collector of ventriloquist dummies, he has a scary butler who warns the kids to stay away from one in particular, the evil Slappy. Guess which one Jackson takes home to do an act for the youth center fundraiser?
This one got better as it progressed and had a creepy ending.
3 stars
This one's a ROOT.

92. Midnight Exhibit Vol. 1. A couple have a breakdown on an isolated road on their way home from a party. They're in a good mood from cocktails and don't really look at the guy who stops to help out until they're in his truck. The man, covered in what looks like heavy stage make-up, begins telling the couple some very disturbing stories. The first is about local teenagers who go missing, the second about a rapist who wakes up from a coma to a world run by women.
3.5 stars

93. Untimely and Tragic Deaths of the Renowned, the Celebrated and the Iconic by BH McKechnie. Brief bios of mostly actors and musicians, but also some regular people who happened to die in odd ways. There's Frank Zappa, Amy Winehouse, Carrie Fisher, and three of the Ramones. Both Hemingway and Geldof are misspelled. There are the strange, such as the death of Elisa Lam at L.A.'s infamous Hotel Cecil, and that of 60's star The Singing Nun, who was so crushed by the music industry that she left her order and died of a drug overdose. There's also the death of one doctor in Texas that seems to have come out of Final Destination.
3 stars

94. Alfred Hitchcock's Death Bag. A collection of crime stories. I could see these as episodes for Hitchcock's tv series, though some were a bit dull on the page which is unusual for one of Hitchcock's books. I think the best story here was "To Avoid A Scandal" by Talmage Powell, originally published in 1958, about a very precise, quiet man who believes he's found a quiet woman who will fit perfectly into his ordered life, but after marriage she turns out to be less timid than expected.
3 stars

>74 mstrust: Cool cover! I am slowly catching up with TWD and you are right, it's really good and it looks like they are planning on going out on a high!

It is pretty cool. I have a few of these Hitchcock collections and the covers range from funny to pretty gruesome.
I finally watched last week's TWD. Eugene is now charging around to kill walkers and punch people?! And is Daryl trying to win his girlfriend back? I think maybe he is.
I also think that Yumiko is filling the Lori void that we didn't need filled.

95. Zombie Tales 4: This Bites. Graphic novel of many short stories by different artists and writers, all with a zombie theme. The art work is satisfying but most of the stories are too brief and need a few more pages to flesh them out.
2.5 stars

96. The Final Girl Support Group by Grady Hendrix. Lynnette isn't technically a Final Girl, as she played dead while her family was slaughtered in their home on Christmas Eve. To be a true Final Girl, she would have killed the murderer. But she's still been a member of the support group for sixteen years, led by famous therapist Dr. Carol, and their once a month meeting is one of the few things Lynnette leaves her secure apartment to attend. All the Final Girls are infamous, with books and campy slasher flicks based on the events they went through.
But then the group gets the news that their most beloved member, Adrienne, has been murdered in a very slasher-esque way. In quick succession, all the Final Girls are attacked, with Julia being shot by a sniper at Lynnette's apartment. Leaving her friend behind fills Lynnette with the same shame she felt when she kept quiet years ago as her family died, but she runs for her life. A few days later, she realizes that all these attacks could happen only with insider information.

I'd say this was a thriller with an 80's slasher background. There are passages about the horrible crimes of the past, but the majority of the story is cat and mouse. Thank you for sending this, Larry!
4 stars
2 Walkers

97. Hoodoo by Ronald L. Smith. Hoodoo is the name of a twelve year old boy living in Alabama in the 1930's. It's also the word for the African folk magic his family practices, though Hoodoo has yet to discover any talent for hoodoo himself until he visits a fortuneteller at the fair. When her prophecies begin appearing, Hoodoo is terrified to realize that it's all leading up to him having to fight the demonic stranger the old woman warned him about.
A spooky story of demons and ghosts set among African-Americans in the South. Running a close second to that main plot is all the Southern food and the cooking and eating of it. 3.5 stars

98. Professor Gargoyle by Charles Gilman. Robert's school district was restructured, which means all his friends attend his old school and he has to go to the new Lovecraft Middle School, where the only kid he knows is his bully, Glenn. Robert soon meets Karina, a girl who seems annoyingly concerned with getting Robert to stand up to Glenn. She also knows more about hidden rooms of the school than the staff. When two of his classmates disappear, tentacles try to pull Glenn into a school locker, and Robert sees the science teacher eat a hamster, he starts to think something strange is going on at the new school.
The cover is a very cool hologram that shows a normal, grim man, and then a grinning demon.
3.5 stars

>98 mstrust: Professor Gargoyle sounds like a fun read!

It is, and if I come across the follow-up I'll be happy to continue. I think the next book is about gorgons.

I'll add this one to my future Halloween reading list.

Jennifer, I thought of you when I saw the Halloween Treasure Hunt. You would probably get it finished in record time because of all your experience with the genre!

>83 DeltaQueen50: Hope you get hold of it. *sigh* Halloween reading is nearly over.

>84 VivienneR: I got several of them in a row, but then I got to the stuff that I'm unfamiliar with, like toddler books. And for the life of me, when I think of Maine and horror, I can't think of anyone but Stephen King.

>85 mstrust: I finished Bird Box and realized that I had read all my planned Halloween reading so I dug around on my Kindle and have come up with Daughters Unto Devils which is labelled horror. I'll try to start it later on during the week.

I got all twelve of the prompts on the Halloween Treasure Hunt but I needed hints for a lot of them, I'm also not very familiar with the children/toddler books.

Hope it's nice and scary for Halloween!
I'm about a third of the way through The Stranger Beside Me and I've started The Late Great Creature. Not far enough along to have a feel for it yet.
I'll try getting the other clues for the Halloween hunt, but I think I'm just returning to the same books I know. Clearly the remaining four aren't in my universe.

98. The Stranger Beside Me by Ann Rule.
This was Rule's first book and it truly launched her career in true crime, though she had been a true crime magazine writer before. And before that, she was a cop.
Rule had volunteered at a crisis hotline in the early 70's and happened to work many of the same shifts as a young student named Ted Bundy. Like lots of women, Rule enjoyed Bundy's company, though because of their age difference, Rule saw him as an interesting friend, not a potential boyfriend. She didn't recognize that he was a sociopath.
This book covers more than 15 years of both Rule and Bundy's lives, in which Rule gets divorced, goes to Hollywood to write her first screenplay, raises her children and pursues her career as a writer. Bundy became a transient murderer and rapist who kidnapped, tortured and killed young women and a twelve year-old child. Law enforcement was often outmatched by Bundy, both because he could appear so normal and blend in, but also because once he was in custody they expected him to behave like a normal person, not to starve himself to fit through a tiny hole in the ceiling, or to jump out a two story window, which he did.
Bundy's multiple trials are included, for which Rule had a press pass. Bundy's ability to antagonize one minute and plead for mercy the next is on full display, and we see a man who prized his own skin above all else.

I've always found it confusing to hear Bundy described as handsome, as he is by many women here, including Rule. I don't get it, he's always looked like a thin-lipped, scrawny nerd to me, not good-looking at all.
I'm also a little on the fence about Rule's friendship with Bundy, which lasted for years and saw them exchange many letters and phone calls even while he was being charged with a litany of horrible crimes. Rule includes many of Bundy's written passages and transcribes many of their phone calls, which makes me lean towards the obvious, that Rule, and especially, Bundy were using each other. Rule wanted to get a career as a book author started and she happened to know a serial killer. Most people, especially women of that time, would have run the other way when a guy they knew was accused of murdering women, but Rule seems to have hung onto Bundy with both hands, claiming she didn't believe in his guilt for years, even in spite of her having worked with many of the cops who were charging Bundy. To me, it defies belief that a former cop who writes up crime cases thought that he could be wrongly charged with so many heinous crimes by multiple states. She wanted the story, and to get it, she had to be Bundy's friend so he'd keep in contact with her. And Bundy, knowing Rule talked to her former co-workers often, used Rule to get inside information about how much the police knew, but he also surely knew she would write about him and he wanted to be famous.
I really tried to finish this by Halloween as it was the October ScaredyKit theme, but I have the anniversary edition, which has an epilogue, an afterward and a new final chapter, making it a real doorstop. It's a remarkable feat in true crime writing and I see why it's a famous book. 4 stars

>78 mstrust: Oh, that sounds fun. I read another book with a similar premise but it was so dreadful, I was leery of picking this one up. I'll keep my eye out for a copy.

I've been happy with all of the Hendrix books I've read. He's emerged as a favorite of mine.

99. All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot.
Young Scotsman Herriot had just passed his veterinary exams in the 30's when work of any kind was hard to come by. He was fortunate to be taken on as an assistant by Siegfried, and established vet with a practice in the Yorkshire Dales. Soon they were joined by Siegfried's younger brother Tristan, who had failed his vet exams but still helped on the rounds. This is a region that took adjustment for the young vet, as he was an outsider and the terrain was difficult, made worse because Herriot's loaner car didn't have brakes. He proved himself to be smart, innovative, and courageous, as he described shoving his hands in places that make the reader cringe. He does whatever he can to help both the animals and the farmers who are often on the edge of survival.

This is one of my best reads of the year. There are grim situations, but Herriot also writes of his hilarious date with Helen, when the rest of the house tried to cobble together appropriate dinner clothes for him, or the comical frustration of dealing with a boss who didn't listen. 5 stars

100. The Murders of Richard III by Elizabeth Peters. Sir Richard Weldon has called his group of fellow Richard III cosplay friends to his castle for a grand weekend celebration. A letter has been discovered which would prove once and for all that King Richard did not kill the princes in the tower, and is now in Weldon's safe-keeping until his upcoming reveal to the press, which clamors for information outside the gates. Inside, Sir Richard and his friends dress and behave as the people who were in King Richard's circle, but they are joined by expert Jacqueline Kirby, a sarcastic American who will hopefully authenticate the letter before the press sees it. The fun is thrown off course when the participants are attacked in the order that "anti-Richards" believe the king killed his foes.
A fun, historically dense story, with Jacqueline taking a very active part in solving the mystery. Peters was Barbara Michaels, which was also a pen name for Barbara Mertz. 3.5 stars

This goes in my ROOT category as it's been on my shelf for five years.

>91 mstrust: Was this the first time you've read All Creatures Great and Small?

It is.

101. Discovering Dahlias by Erin Benzaken, photography by Chris Benzaken. From Floret Farms in Washington state, this is a big book that tells you everything you need to know about growing dahlias, including planting tubers and growing from seed, how to make cuttings, dividing tubers and storage, all with photos. But the flower photos are glorious. Going by color variety, each section if filled with photos of each variety and their characteristics and preferences. It's like a beauty pageant because all of them are gorgeous. And more variety than I expected, as I would have thought some dahlias were chrysanthemums or peonies or weird daisies.
This would make a great gift for a gardener or just someone who likes pretty books. 4.5 stars

>95 mstrust: Oh, that would be a great gift for my DIL. She loves her dahlias. I'll keep it in mind for Christmas.

If she loves dahlias, this would be a great present. The number of varieties along with accompanying photos is amazing.

102. Your Inner Hedgehog by Alexander McCall Smith. Things are going surprisingly well at the Institute of Romance Philology, with the incessant and bitter rivalry between Professor Dr Dr Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld and Professor Dr Unterholzer at a truce for the moment. Then a new assistant librarian arrives, a young woman who decides that the library doesn't need to hold twenty-two copies of Professor Dr Dr Igelfeld's opus Portuguese Irregular Verbs and clears them off the shelves. This begins the assistant's assault on tradition and respect at the institute, backed by the man in the highest position, the mysterious His Magnificence, who believes it's time to prove that the institute isn't elitist.
This is my favorite series from McCall Smith and I'm glad that he's continuing with this latest book. It's quirky and the humor frequently comes from the undignified situations that occur to this small group of utterly composed men who just want to do their research on linguistic minutiae. This book is different from the previous in the series in that it addresses current events somewhat, with a young academic who wants to be given control over the institute. 4 stars

103. An Elderly Lady Is Up To No Good by Helene Tursten. A collection of short stories about Maud, a woman of nearly ninety years old who lives in an apartment in Gothenburg. Maud has no family or friends and she likes it that way. She enjoys traveling, and since she has lived in her apartment rent-free for seventy years, she has the means. But even a quiet old lady has problems. The difference is that Maud knows how to fix her problems quickly and go on with her business.
This is a fun little murder collection and I'd be happy to read more about Maud. 3.5 stars

>99 mstrust: I have this one waiting patiently for me on my Kindle. Sounds like a fun read.

It is! Maud is a rare character.

104. Camp Austen by Ted Scheinman. Scheinman grew up with a closer acquaintance to Austen than most children, as his mother's career in academia led to him reading the classics of British literature, and she took the family to live in England for some time, where he gained more insight into historical context. Mom's connections also led the author, as a grad student, to work for the four-day "Austen Camp" in North Carolina. Which quickly led to him being pressed into service as the camp Mr. Darcy, expected to provide witty conversation and dancing to the unattached women at the camp, which was the majority of guests. He attended seminars about Austen life and literary topics while dressed in Regency clothes and affecting an English accent, and even spoke to the assembly himself.
While Scheinman does spend some time describing what goes on at an Austen Camp and introducing readers to the other guests, a few days at such an event would make slim pickings for a book, so the majority of this is an exploration of Austen's life and her work, with a critique of how her detractors tend to miss the point of her plots and characters. 3 stars

105. Mr. Monk and the Blue Flu by Lee Goldberg. When negotiations over a new contract break down, the San Francisco police force stages a call-out, known as "blue flu", and this includes Captain Stottlemeyer and Lt. Disher. The mayor offers Monk a badge, the very thing he's wanted for years as a police consultant. He's also made the captain of the homicide dept. and given a team of ex-police, all of whom were put on the non-active list for one good reason or another, as Monk and his assistant Natalie soon learn. Their first day sees them investigating the murder of an astrologer to the wealthiest citizens, and three seemingly unrelated murders of opportunity. They also investigate a serial killer who targets female joggers. And Monk and Natalie have the additional problem of being scabs during the walkout.
I believe this is the fourth in the series. 4 stars

I'm hosting the first month of 2022's ScaredyKit. Come join our month of haunted houses:
https://www.librarything.com/topic/337466#unread

If The Fates Allow: A Short Story by Rainbow Rowell. This is an Amazon Prime Original. The story takes place in Nebraska on Christmas 2020, then Christmas 2021. Reagan and her grandfather have both lived in terror of Covid for most of 2020, isolating themselves from everyone for nine months by the time Christmas comes. The two refuse to join the rest of their family, instead choosing to quarantine for weeks in order to spend Christmas night together and talk about how irresponsible their family is being. As the story continues, we realize that both Reagan and her grandfather have already been leading solitary lives, so the pandemic may be providing justification for their extreme loneliness.

Hope you get all you wished for!

Wishing everyone a Happy 2022!