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Special Feature and Excerpt: THE ORACLE (The Sarah Weston Chronicles #3) by D.J. Niko
The Oracle (The Sarah Weston Chronicles, Book Three) by D.J Niko Publication Date: November 10, 2015 Medallion Press Paperback; 456p ISBN-13: 978-1605426273 Genre: Historical/Archaeological Adventure In Delphi, the mountain city deemed by the Greek gods to be the center of the Earth, a cult of neo-pagans re-create with painstaking authenticity ancient rituals to glorify the god Apollo and deliver oracles to seekers from around the world. When antiquities are stolen from a museum in nearby Thebes, British archaeologist Sarah Weston and her American partner, Daniel Madigan, are drawn into a plot that goes beyond harmless role-playing: someone’s using the Delphian oracle as a smoke screen for an information…
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Review: The Woman in Black by Susan Hill
I am not really into horror literature or super scary stories….I haven’t read any Stephen King or V.C. Andrews because I would like to be able to sleep at night. However this Halloween season, I got inspired to pickup a ghost story. Maybe it’s because I went to watch Crimson Peak and was eager to read something similar…..but I decided to pick up The Woman in Black as I am a sucker for Gothic novels so this sounded right up my alley. Arthur Kipps is a young London solicitor who has been dispatched to the small windswept town of Crythin Gifford with its salt marshes and fog that rolls in and leaves the…
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Special Feature: The Spine Tingling Literary Canon List for Halloween
Halloween is just around the corner and this week on The Lit Bitch we are talking about the books that make you want to curl up and hide under the covers of your bed. You know those books that scare you so bad that every little noise in your house makes you jump and wonder….is there a monster under my bed??? The folks at Casper Mattresses have a great blog called Pillow Talk and they are doing a super fun ‘haunted’ feature on their blog for Halloween where they talk about spooky hotels (including the Heathman Hotel in Portland, a personal fav of mine being from Oregon and all). Casper is a great company full…
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Review: Moriarty (Sherlock Holmes by Anthony Horowitz #2) by Anthony Horowitz
Shortly after Sherlock Holmes and his adversary, James Moriarty, go over Reichenbach Falls a body is pulled from the water. American detective, Frederick Chase, rushed to Switzerland where he hopes to identify the body as Moriarty’s and ultimately recover a letter sent from notorious American criminal, Clarence Devereux. Devereux and Moriarty had planned to form a partnership that would make them the most formidable crime syndicate in Britain and America. But with Moriarty dead, that leaves Devereux holding the reigns. Chase plans to stop Devereux by any means necessary. When he arrives are Reichenbach falls he meets British detective Athelney Jones who has learned many of Sherlock Holmes’s methods of deduction. The soon…
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Review: Mrs Roosevelt’s Confidante (Maggie Hope Mystery #5) by Susan Elia MacNeal
Maggie Hope has just landed state side after being in England for quite some time. She has come with Prime Minister Churchill and the rest of his cabinet to meet with President Roosevelt weeks after the attack on Pearl Harbor. The two world leaders plan on presenting a unified front to the world as allies in the wars against Germany and the Japanese but their relationship is tedious. Any little scandal could threaten to undo their diplomatic relationship. And the murder of a White House aide qualifies as a scandal! Mrs Roosevelt’s secretary, Blanche, failed to show up for work and Mrs Roosevelt herself insists on checking up on her.…
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Review: Nerve by Dick Francis
Steeplechase is an equestrian sport that takes a very special kind of athlete. Jockeys have to be a little crazy, fearless, and sort of adrenaline junkies to enter into the sport. Rob Finn has that special combination of crazy and fearless….all he cares about is racing and winning. Literally nothing else matters to him. Finn is working his way up in the steeplechase world and basically has nerves of steel but he is always picked to ride second rate horses. Then the day comes where he is in the right place at the right time, a fellow jockey takes a spill and Finn is hired to ride in his place. But then Finn…
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Review: The Gates of Evangeline by Hester Young
If you like Southern Gothic novels and ghost stories then this is the perfect novel to curl up with on a chilly fall night! Charlotte ‘Charlie’ Cates is a recently bereaved mother whose child died of a brain aneurysm. Not to mention her husband left her for another woman. Charlie begins experiencing very vivid dreams about children, which makes sense based on the tragedy she has gone through. But she soon realizes the dreams are something more, they are messages and warnings that will help Charlie and the children she sees, if only she can make sense of them. After a little boy in a boat appears in Charlie’s dreams…
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Review: Decompression by Juli Zeh
German attorney Sven Fiedler and his girlfriend, Antje, move to the Cayman Islands, where he hopes to escape a culture of materialism. On the Cayman Islands, Sven hopes things will be simpler and more relaxing….less of a rat race, which is exactly what Sven finds. Basically, life couldn’t be better for Sven and Antje. Sven and Antje open up a diving business and Sven’s approach was simple: take the mechanics of diving seriously, instruct his clients clearly, and stay out of their personal business as best he can. Life is going well for them….until two German tourists–Jola von der Pahlen, a daytime soap star on the verge of cinematic success, and Theo…
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Special Feature: THE DISTANCE by Helen Giltrow
A dark, ultra-contemporary, and relentlessly paced debut thriller about a London society woman trying to put her secret criminal past behind her, and the hit man who comes to her with an impossible job she can’t refuse. Charlotte Alton is an elegant socialite. But behind the locked doors of her sleek, high-security apartment in London’s Docklands, she becomes Karla. Karla’s business is information. Specifically, making it disappear. She’s the unseen figure who, for a commanding price, will cover a criminal’s tracks. A perfectionist, she’s only made one slip in her career—several years ago she revealed her face to a man named Simon Johanssen, an ex-special forces sniper turned killer-for-hire. After…
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Interview/Special Feature: DEAR DAUGHTER by Elizabeth Little
LA IT girl Janie Jenkins has it all. The looks, the brains, the connections. The criminal record. Ten years ago, in a trial that transfixed America, Janie was convicted of murdering her mother. Now she’s been released on a technicality she’s determined to unravel the mystery of her mother’s last words, words that send her to a tiny town in the very back of beyond. But with the whole of America’s media on her tail, convinced she’s literally got away with murder, she has to do everything she can to throw her pursuers off the scent. She knows she really didn’t like her mother. Could she have killed her? To…