Water For Elephants DVD Release Soon!

　　
　　As the story opens, Jacob is living out his days in a nursing home and hating every second of it. Now in the last stages of his life, he recalls a happier, carefree time, when he literally had run away from it all and joined the circus.
It had not started as a happy journey however. Jacobs parents are killed in an auto accident week before he is about to complete his college medical exams to become a veterinary. Once he has buried his parents, Jacob learns that the home he live sin was mortgaged for his schooling and he is about to lose it all. With nothing left but the shirt on his back, he takes off and jumps a train, soon to be discovered as a Benzini Brothers (second-rate at best) Circus Train.
Water For Elephants is the story of Jacobs time with the circus, starting from the bottom of the bottom and working his way up not only in stature, but also in the eyes of Marlena, the wife of the jealous and abusive animal trainer, August.
In 2009, my book club, The Bookies, read Water For Elephants by Sara Gruen. In a phrase, we loved it from “I am ninety. Or ninety-three. One or the other.” Our group loved this book and it led us to such a great discussion of the realities and harshness of the inner workings of the circus. Later, when it came to out year in review awards that we do every year, Jacob won for our favorite male character in a book club read for 2009, and Sara Gruen took our best newly read author award.
On November 1, the DVD release of Water For Elephants will hit the stores. (SSQQUUEE!!!!) I was offered a pre screening of this movie to post my thoughts on and having loved (LOVED!) the book so much I jumped at the chance to see the DVD.
I did not have time to get the Bookies together for a screening, but still plan to do so…. instead, I treated myself to the viewing of this movie one evening and was as giddy as a school girl to experience it. Robert Patterson (Jacob) and Reese Witherspoon (Marlena) are cast well. I was very impressed with how they handled both the parts.
Although it has been two years since I have read the book, it easily came back to me through the movie. Charlie, Camel, Kinko… there are some colorful characters in both book and movie!
I would have liked to have seen more of the flash backs we see in the book of older Jacob to young Jacob, but honestly, I feel the movie works and is a beautiful compliment to the book.
If you have not read the book I highly encourage you to do so, and certainly make sure you get a chance to see this movie as well. For those of you who have, or will be, experiencing both book and movie, I am attaching a page of questions for you to review with your book group or friends.

We The Animals

　　
　　Three brothers, the unnamed 7-year-old narrator, Joel, and Manny (both slightly older) .. the three sons to a white mom and a Puerto Rican father who can barely take care of themselves, let alone three sons. As the boys watched their parents through love and war,
Lacking basic care such as food and shelter…. the brothers go about their days wearing hand me down clothes tied with cords, entertaining themselves through make-believe war games, exploring their environment, and trying to understand this thing called life.
As the story continues and the boys grow the narrator finds he is drifting from them and the “we”, becomes “they” and eventually…
“I”.

　　Author Justin Torres
Rough. Raw. We The Animals has left me in a bit of awe…. its hard to describe and as I try to write a synopsis of the book – I know I am not doing it justice. On audio, as I experienced it, it is a jumble of life stories from the one sons perspective. Each chapter tells a story… piecing together a life story.
The boys mimic what they see… they use the language of anger their parents use towards each other and the words of forgiveness they also have witnessed. They mimic, and they share, and they learn…
At first the audio feels chaotic, story to story…. rushing to and from one thing to the next. I find myself piecing it together… it felt crashing and rolling….
and then it changes, a change I did not see coming and as I listen to it on the audio I pull in my breath tensing against what I believe is being told… what I know… is being told.
Is it a love story? Yes
Is it a story of adolescence? Yes
And it’s also about family, about poverty, about hardships, and family, and strength, and about growing into who you are… no matter what that may mean.
Overall… I am surprised I was unaware of what this book was coming too, but in a way – I am also impressed with the author’s choice to take an already good book… to another level. I am sitting here after the audio has ended… processing what I had not seen…

The Night Strangers

After Airline Pilot Chip Linton’s emergency landing in Lake Champlain resulted in the death of most of his passengers on his small plane, Chip moved his wife Emily and their ten-year old twin daughters to a remote Victorian home in Northern New Hampshire.
The plan was for Chip and his family to start fresh after the accident, but Chip is haunted by the memories of the crash, as well as it seems he is haunted by passengers that died on that fateful flight. While Chip is battling the inner demons of the 39 lost people on his flight, a long ago sealed door is found in the basement of their home with 39 six-inch long carriage bolts.
39…
While Chip makes a frightening discovery behind the bolted door… his wife Emily finds herself drawn to a group of herbalists in the area who seem to have taken an obsessive interest in her twin daughters. Torn between the strange behavior her husband is now producing as he spends more and more time in the basement, and the odd women herbalists giving her children new names… Emily is left struggling to maintain her family when all she really wants to do is pack up and get far away from this strange place.
I am kind of digging this cover...

It’s hard to believe now that in my early 20′s horror/thrillers were my favorite genre. Then, I read everything that Stephen King and Dean Koontz put out there. As years went on, I went away from King, still enjoy a good Koontz, but have really moved on to a tamer, Harlan Coben for my fix. However, occasionally I have a craving (much like I do for 80′s music), where I want to dab a bit into the spooky genre, hoping to bring back the old thrills I used to get reading them.
This fact, along with my desire to read something by Chris Bohjalian, brought me to Night Strangers. For this time of year, if just felt like it could be spooky good.
So… is it?
Well no doubt about it that Night Strangers will make you hear every bump in the night. Putting anything in the basement is pretty spooky for me and that is barely touching the hair-raising happenings of Chris Bohjalian’s tale of the paranormal.
I definitely got what I was craving and then some… I tend to lean more towards the good old spooky ghost stories than the modern paranormal horror so at times there was a bit of “WHOA!” For the most part… I would call this book a ghost story with a triple energy drink kick. After all what s not to love about a book where not all your characters are living?
If you are looking for a little spooky in your pre-Halloween week, look no further for great writing that will definitely make the hair on your neck tingle and have you checking the basement door.

Sleepers Run

Eric Caine, a War On Terrorism veteran, finds himself in a hospital with no recollection of the car crash that put him there. A missing persons report has been filed on him and that was 8 days ago!
Eric is feeling lost, confused, and alone when a chance encounter at a bar helps Eric gain a little perspective. He relocates to Venezuela where he had spent his childhood and then things take a turn again as a catastrophic event threatens the stability of the country. Eric now finds himself running for his life from a team of CIA assassins as he works to uncover a conspiracy that is nothings as it seems.
I am not much of a terrorist/war/CIA/assassin/politics type reader. Admittedly this book wasa bit of a genre stretch for me, yet I wanted to read and review it anyway.
Why?
Genre stretching is a good thing and I have found that sometimes a book out of my genre zone will grab me and if not for my willingness to stretch myself, I may have missed it.
Take Sleepers Run for instance. I did enjoy the action packed read and if ACTION is what you enjoy, Sleepers Run has it in spades. There really is no release button as you follow Eric’s story from the beginning to the breathless end 345 pages later.
Eric himself is a bit over the top as characters go…. picture MacGyver, Superman, Jason Bourne, Jackie Chan, and maybe a little Indiana Jones… all rolled into one character. Yup. Eric has moves. While at times I found this almost humorous as I thought, “how will he get out of this one….”, it still kept me turning pages to see where it was all going.
Friend and foe alike are tossed in throughout this read and I honestly never felt connected to any of them, Eric included. The book to me became more about the action and page turning then getting to know and care about any of the characters…. in the end, as I reflected on the read… I was not even sure that this was necessarily important. Perhaps a different take than my normal reading style but not a bad one… just different.
Fans of espionage type reads will probably get into this more than I did, but for this being a stretch for me… I was held enough to read through the book and enjoy it.

Anna Dressed in Blood

Synopsis
Cas Lowood has inherited an unusual vocation: He kills the dead.
So did his father before him, until he was gruesomely murdered by a ghost he sought to kill. Now, armed with his father's mysterious and deadly athame, Cas travels the country with his kitchen-witch mother and their spirit-sniffing cat. Together they follow legends and local lore, trying to keep up with the murderous dead—keeping pesky things like the future and friends at bay.
When they arrive in a new town in search of a ghost the locals call Anna Dressed in Blood, Cas doesn't expect anything outside of the ordinary: track, hunt, kill. What he finds instead is a girl entangled in curses and rage, a ghost like he's never faced before. She still wears the dress she wore on the day of her brutal murder in 1958: once white, now stained red and dripping with blood. Since her death, Anna has killed any and every person who has dared to step into the deserted Victorian she used to call home.
But she, for whatever reason, spares Cas's life.
I was looking up at my freshly organised shelves the other day and wondering what was going to make it into my picks of 2011. I've read some great books this year, books I've loved, books that I'd never let you borrow as I'd gaze at the empty space on my shelf and grind my teeth. But this year I've been feeling a little worried as there hasn't been a book that you'd have to attempt to prise out of my hands as I kicked out at you. Well, thank everything that's in the world, I've found it and it's Anna Dressed in Blood.
As the synopsis suggest, Cas lives a strange and disjointed life. He moves from city to town killing troublesome ghosts all the while knowing that this is what killed his dad. As a result he tries not to connect with anyone but drift though people's lives like the ghosts he seeks. But Thunder Bay is different. What Cas expects to be a quick stab and done turns into his biggest nightmare. People get killed and he finds that he can't work alone on this one, he might have to actually seek help. And then there's Anna who spared him the first time she saw him. He can't stop going to see her and before long he finds himself in a difficult situation.
So why do I love this book so much? First off, the voice is perfect. Cas is both worldy-wise and nonchalant but also vulnerable. He's smart too and the book crackles with humour. I found myself laughing openly to the Ghostbusters references and the way that he both reaches out to his new friends then tries to push them away. As he's initially quite a detached character, an observer, he reads people in an instant. This book also broke my heart a little as it's full of beautiful moments. I haven't even started on Anna who starts the book as a monster and then …? Well, then she becomes something else but also doesn't. I know that sounds kind of shady but I just don't want to spoil it for you so I'll leave it there.
This is no pseudo-horror either. I lived on Stephen King and Shaun Hutson at one point and some of the scenes in Anna are on a level footing of anything by them. At one point I was reading in broad daylight and still felt a chill. Cas has got himself mixed up with some magic that he doesn't quite understand. Fortunately his new friend (and psychic) Thomas's grandfather knows about all manner of things. The adults in this book are almost as appealing as the kids and I would have loved to have seen more of Gideon with his dusty books and Morfan's antique shop.
The book was a joy to read; a spooky, icky and disturbing joy. As an aside the cover is gorgeous and the print is the colour of dried blood. No, it really is. Now you'll have to buy it to see if I'm fibbing.

Don’t Blink

Who doesn’t like a big juicy steak from a world-famous restaurant such as New York’s Lombardo Steak House. The place is famous for their menu, the clientele…. and now the gruesome murder of a mob lawyer.
In the restaurant at the time of the murder is reporter Nick Daniels, conducting the interview of a lifetime with a legendary bad boy of baseball. Nick is shocked and shaken as the hit-man slips through all the activity without a hint of who he may be. When Nick realizes he actually has a key piece of evidence on his recorder, he proceeds to investigate the case himself despite dangerous warnings for him to back off.
New York’s Lombardo’s Steak House is famous for three reasons–the menu, the clientele, and now, the gruesome murder of an infamous mob lawyer. Effortlessly, the assassin slips through the police’s fingers, and his absence sparks a blaze of accusations about who ordered the hit.
As Nick continues to get closer to the truth… the truth becomes closer to him as well… first with his friends… and then even closer when they go after his family.

Chapter 2,489 ….. ha ha…. a little inside Patterson humor….
It is nothing new to hear me rave about a James Patterson audio. I have enjoyed many of his audio books immensely, especially the Mike Bennett Series he writes with Michael Ledwidge: Step On A Crack, Run For Your Life, Worst Case,and most recently Tick Tock. These books are filled with action, amazing narration, and honestly not gruesome as some of writing can be.
For all of the above reasons… I was excited to get my hands on Don’t Blink. And then…. I dont know what happened. I must have blinked.
The story line was kind of all over. I never felt I knew enough about Nick Daniels to care about him. He may as well have been named Joe Blow. He goes after a case that causes many (MANY) people to get killed. Friends, people trying to help him… suddenly it feels as though I am just read leaping from one attack to another… he barely gets out of one jam and then there is another and then anaother… and then when you think “whew… it’s over!”…
there is another.
In the end for me it was all a little too much…. enough plot here for two books. I didn’t really feel any connections to anyone and it actually became work to follow what was going on and who was after him now…
maybe I did blink and somehow missed the point, but that is my take on this one. Not a hate… just not a love.

The Night Circus

Step right up and don’t push… you will all get a chance to enter. The Night Circus is a mysterious Circus that opens only at night. It comes with no warning, and leaves the same way… but if you are lucky enough to catch it you are in for the time of your life. It is called Le Cirque des Rêves.
While attendees rave about the never-ending tents filled with amazing sights to see, what they do not see is the underlining workings of the circus. Celia, who has been raised with the circus since a child is running the Night Circus as a competition that even she does not quite understand… her opponent… could be anyone, friend or foe… she is unsure…. all Celia does know is that she must continue to work bigger and better in this mysterious game as she will soon find out – the stakes are quite high.
(push play above for a little review theme music)
The Night Circus first came to my attention at BEA this past May during a dinner with bloggers and publishers. The conversation at my end of the table was centered around a book, this book, that I had never heard of. “…as big as Harry Potter,” fell on my ears and that was enough of a sell for me. After all, have I not spent hours and hours of reading and looking for a book, a series, that has touched my life as much as Harry Potter and come up empty?
I searched the Book Expo the next day but the word was out… and all advanced copies of Night Circus were gone. I left with a promise from the publisher that they would send me a copy and yes, a couple of weeks after the expo, a lovely black and white striped circus wrapped book arrived in my mailbox. I did not remove the wrapping for the next several months… savoring the anticipation.
I started the book in print… while reading heard about Jim Dale narrating the audio version (Jim Dale also narrated the Harry Potter books) and purchased the audio version from audible.com to finish out the book.
First off know this… Celia is not the main character. Nor are the twins that are talked about frequently throughout the story – Widget and Poppet. No. The main character is indeed the circus itself. If ever life was breathed into a place, an object… this is it. The circus lives and breathes just as much as I do as I write this review.
The beauty of this book that I think could align it with the Potter books is the immense detail… carousels do not only go round and round… but beyond. Tea pots come to a boil on cue and tea is poured free hand from them. Celia wears a dress that changes color to compliment whatever the person she is talking to is wearing…a particular visual I loved were the trees that have poems running down the trunks.
At times story lines may appear unrelated…. but just wait as this is the real magic of the novel…. when it does come together there is a bit of magic to it all for the reader… I referred to it as a party for my mind.
While the book at first may appear to be all cotton candy and caramel apples…. you will quickly discover it is indeed a tightrope walk of event after event… each carefully placed to make the circus function as it does and one misstep…
could bring it all down.
Did it touch me as much as the Harry Potter books? No… but I have a lot of history with Harry. I have heard the buzz that the Movie rights have been purchased and that does excite me as I believe this read would make a visual feast. I will certainly be in line early to get my ticket.

Reading in cool

Sarah, Mark and I have been chatting for some time now about some changes we would like to implement here on MFB going into 2012. I know, it’s crazy that we are already thinking that far ahead but we are proactive little readerly bloggers.
The biggest change will probably be that we will no longer take part in blog tours. Blog tours have had their day as far as we are concerned. They have saturated the blogging community and it is hard work to set up, both for the publicity people and for the authors who are asked to contribute. We have looked at each blog tour very closely and have found that our reviews and interviews with authors are far far far more popular.
A further thing that will be changing for all three of us is that we will definitely be reading an even wider selection of books and will be doing our utmost to not just concentrate on the new and current, but to give some of the older unread and some old favourite books a re-read and review them, and where we can, catch up with the author to see what they have been up to since.
Back when I started MFB, all those dark years ago when blogging was new and publishers thought bloggers were some weird space-aliens and bloggers were terrified of talking to publishers and publicity people, my big aim was that I wanted to highlight books that did not get the chance to be shouted about, not because the publishers weren’t enthusiastic about it, but purely because there was no money to push these books. And that got us thinking. We all three speak to a lot of booksellers and it is these guys’ job to know about not just the big titles but the smaller sneaky titles and so we will be featuring book recommends from our friends over at Foyles and Waterstones and Big Green Books once a month. It’s a crazy idea and I hope we can pull it off.
Basically what I am saying is that MFB will be going back to its roots. We love getting new titles, but there will be a genuine balance now between old and new or rather, not so new. We’ve occasionally tried, because we were asked very nicely by our publicity friends, to review a book by a certain date. At the moment books we receive are added to our shelves and we get to them as and when we can. Mostly we review our books just before or after publishing date - this too will change. It will be even more random than before purely because we don’t want to flood the review stream our readers are seeing with the same thing at the same time. And more importantly, rushing reads are never fun and you can tell by the reviews - and if it is one thing we pride ourselves on, it is our honestly and quality of reviews.
If a book gets highlighted too much by too many people, I tend to leave it be on purpose. I don’t like the hype, but sometimes, sometimes we can’t help but get caught up in the hype because genuinely, you fall for the author and the writing because the story is just that bloody good. Case in point: Daughter of Smoke and Bones. So occasionally, you will be asked to forgive us for our lapse into hype.
I think the blog will still be pretty much divided between adult and younger titles but we will definitely be showcasing more genre novels for all ages. I am really missing my fantasy books and need to immerse myself in their luxurious worlds so prepare for an onslaught soon.
As most of our readers know, all three of us on MFB are aspiring writers. I am sure you may have noticed how many of our questions to authors we interview are about writing and process and their journeys and inspirations. This will continue to be a big focus for us on MFB as I know we have a lot of other aspiring writers reading the site and every bit of inspiration must be shared.
But the big thing behind MFB is still: reading and loving books and introducing new authors and especially shouting about books we think our readers may have missed. All of this will become more apparent as we near 2012 and we draw a line under one of the busiest years on MFB.
As the year progresses there will be more news, about more changes, but that is still in the future. In the meantime, thank you for reading MFB and for all your support!

Bitterblue

Isn't this a gorgeous cover? It belongs to Kristin Cashore’s upcoming new novel Bitterblue. This is of course the US cover and we've not yet seen the UK cover. Personally, I don't care what the cover looks like (weird for fickle me, I know) I am just so excited about reading Bitterblue. Kristin Cashore's writing is dreamy and gorgeous and rich and deep. I loved Fire and I fell in love with Graceling and I just can't come up with enough words to describe how her writing blew me away. I actually told a friend recently that when I grow up, I would love to be able to write like Kristin Cashore.
I digress, more about Ms. Cashore and Bitterblue:
Here is my review of Graceling. Here is my review of Fire.
I was over at Publishers Weekly and the article caught my eye, here's a bit of an excerpt:
“I was thrilled when I saw the keys and that they look a little like weapons,” Cashore told PW in a phone interview. “It’s absolutely the best icon for this book, although I better not say more about that. I love all the covers but this one is my favorite.”
Dial will publish Bitterblue, a companion to Cashore’s bestsellers Graceling (Harcourt, 2008) and Fire (Dial, 2009) on May 1, 2012 but this first look at the cover ought to tantalize her many fans.
The novel, which has an announced first printing of 200,000 copies and clocks in at a hefty 576 pages, picks up eight years after Graceling,with Bitterblue now 18 and the reigning queen of Monsea. Cashore says the story constitutes more of a companion than a strict sequel. Graceling fans, however, will likely be thrilled to learn that the heroine of that book – the different-colored-eyed Katsa – returns in Bitterblue, as does her lover, Po.
For Cashore, the completion of her third novel allows her to take a deep breath – of relief. “Fire was such an emotionally hard book for me to write that when I started Bitterblue I vowed to write something light and fun,” Cashore said. “I was well into it before I had the realization that if light and fun is what you’re after you probably shouldn’t have a main character whose father murdered her mother.”
Indeed, nothing about the process of completing Bitterblue turned out to be light or fun. The first draft took nearly three years to write, and was met with a long revision letter from her editor, Kathy Dawson.
“There was one line [in Dawson’s editorial letter] that nearly caused me to panic, but turned out to be exactly the right piece of advice,” Cashore recalled. “[Kathy] wrote, ‘Would you ever consider starting from scratch?’ And that was what I needed to do. I needed to start over now that I knew exactly where the story was going. The plot didn’t change dramatically but the way everything came together did.”
Cashore certainly is her own tough act to follow. Graceling found a place on three Best Books lists in 2008; Fire received six starred reviews, including one from PW.
“With every book she writes, Kristin becomes a more accomplished writer,” says Dawson, who acquired and published Graceling while at Harcourt, and is now associate publisher and editorial director for fiction at Dial. “For this one, she learned all about codes and ciphers. She even hired a linguist to create an entire language! It felt like a long waiting period, but Bitterblue was worth every single minute.”
If you've not yet read these books...I urge you to go out and buy them immediately. They are aces.

Bitterblue

Isn't this a gorgeous cover? It belongs to Kristin Cashore’s upcoming new novel Bitterblue. This is of course the US cover and we've not yet seen the UK cover. Personally, I don't care what the cover looks like (weird for fickle me, I know) I am just so excited about reading Bitterblue. Kristin Cashore's writing is dreamy and gorgeous and rich and deep. I loved Fire and I fell in love with Graceling and I just can't come up with enough words to describe how her writing blew me away. I actually told a friend recently that when I grow up, I would love to be able to write like Kristin Cashore.
I digress, more about Ms. Cashore and Bitterblue:
Here is my review of Graceling. Here is my review of Fire.
I was over at Publishers Weekly and the article caught my eye, here's a bit of an excerpt:
“I was thrilled when I saw the keys and that they look a little like weapons,” Cashore told PW in a phone interview. “It’s absolutely the best icon for this book, although I better not say more about that. I love all the covers but this one is my favorite.”
Dial will publish Bitterblue, a companion to Cashore’s bestsellers Graceling (Harcourt, 2008) and Fire (Dial, 2009) on May 1, 2012 but this first look at the cover ought to tantalize her many fans.
The novel, which has an announced first printing of 200,000 copies and clocks in at a hefty 576 pages, picks up eight years after Graceling,with Bitterblue now 18 and the reigning queen of Monsea. Cashore says the story constitutes more of a companion than a strict sequel. Graceling fans, however, will likely be thrilled to learn that the heroine of that book – the different-colored-eyed Katsa – returns in Bitterblue, as does her lover, Po.
For Cashore, the completion of her third novel allows her to take a deep breath – of relief. “Fire was such an emotionally hard book for me to write that when I started Bitterblue I vowed to write something light and fun,” Cashore said. “I was well into it before I had the realization that if light and fun is what you’re after you probably shouldn’t have a main character whose father murdered her mother.”
Indeed, nothing about the process of completing Bitterblue turned out to be light or fun. The first draft took nearly three years to write, and was met with a long revision letter from her editor, Kathy Dawson.
“There was one line [in Dawson’s editorial letter] that nearly caused me to panic, but turned out to be exactly the right piece of advice,” Cashore recalled. “[Kathy] wrote, ‘Would you ever consider starting from scratch?’ And that was what I needed to do. I needed to start over now that I knew exactly where the story was going. The plot didn’t change dramatically but the way everything came together did.”
Cashore certainly is her own tough act to follow. Graceling found a place on three Best Books lists in 2008; Fire received six starred reviews, including one from PW.
“With every book she writes, Kristin becomes a more accomplished writer,” says Dawson, who acquired and published Graceling while at Harcourt, and is now associate publisher and editorial director for fiction at Dial. “For this one, she learned all about codes and ciphers. She even hired a linguist to create an entire language! It felt like a long waiting period, but Bitterblue was worth every single minute.”

Robin Hood

In 13th-century England, the legendary figure known by generations as Robin Hood leads an uprising that will forever alter the balance of world power and will make one man of humble beginnings an eternal symbol of freedom for his people.
An expert archer once interested only in self-preservation, Robin now serves in King Richard’s army. Upon Richard’s death, Robin travels to Nottingham, a town suffering from a despotic sheriff and crippling taxation. There he falls for the spirited widow Lady Marion, who is skeptical of the motivations of this mysterious crusader from the forest.
Hoping to earn the hand of Maid Marion and to save the village, Robin assembles a gang whose lethal mercenary skills are matched only by its appetite for life. Together, they begin preying on the indulgent upper class to correct the injustices of the sheriff.

The Robin Hood statue as it is in Nottingham
Robin Hood was an outlaw in English folklore. A highly skilled archer and swordsman, he is now known for “robbing from the rich and giving to the poor”, assisted by a group of fellow outlaws known as his “Merry Men”.Traditionally Robin Hood and his men are depicted wearing Lincoln green clothes. The origin of the legend is claimed by some to have stemmed from actual outlaws, or from ballads or tales of outlaws.
Robin Hood became a popular folk figure starting in the medieval period continuing through modern literature, films, and television. In the earliest sources Robin Hood is a yeoman, but he was often later portrayed as an aristocrat wrongfully dispossessed of his lands and made into an outlaw by an unscrupulous sheriff.
So seriously… doesn’t that sound a lot like Robin Hood? That’s ’cause it is! I kid – but really this audio was all action, all testosterone, strong men who fight for their women…
ahhh… I admit it – I do like the era… I like men who act like men (packing a bow and arrow doesn’t hurt either…) and women who wear the long beautiful dresses but are still tough….
whats not to love?
I have seen the movie Men In Tights (no, I am not proud but there it is…) and probably a cartoon or two in the past, but not this movie as pictured here on the cover of my audio.
And I did enjoy it. I have never read anything about Robin Hood before… haven’t even really sat through a movie about him… so this was really an experience. I wasn’t sure going in if it would be a fit for me but it was funny and full of energy.
Thanks Tanya with Black Stone Audio who hooked me up with one at BEA!

In The Woods

Rob Ryan, along with his partner Cassie Maddox land the biggest murder case of their police careers when a 12-year-old girl has been found murdered in the woods by a Dublin Suburb. For Cassie, this is the career boost of a lifetime…
but for Ryan it is something more…
Twenty years previous, Ryan (then Adam) at the same age that the now murdered girl was, was part of a group of three best friends that entered that same woods feeling their whole lives were before them… Ryan was the only one to leave the woods, his sneakers covered in blood, with no memory as to what happened… the other two children, were never found.
No one knows about Ryan’s's past history with the woods or the connection the two children never found… no one, except Cassie.
Although stir carrying many scars from his own experience, Ryan does his best to push the past back into the past while applying all his skills to find the killer of the present… yet in his subconsciousness, he can not help but wonder if the two are not somehow linked together…
“What I warn you to remember is that I am a detective. Our relationship with the truth is fundamental, but cracked, refracting confusingly like fragmented glass. It is the core of our careers, the endgame of every move we make, and we pursue it with strategies painstakingly constructed of lies … and every variation on deception. The truth is the most desirable woman in the world and we are the most jealous lovers, reflexively denying anyone else the slightest glimpse of her. We betray her routinely … This is my job … What I am telling you, before you begin my story, is this–two things: I crave truth. And I lie.”
~Opening to In The Woods by Tana French
This audio is a case of internet buzz that brought me make this purchase. I had heard Tana French was an incredible writer, I had heard that the audio was fantastic… knowing that I can get to audio and through audio faster than I can another book on the pile, I went audio.
Diving into this audio I was instantly engrossed in the back story of Ryan’s childhood nightmare and believed this was going to be an incredible story. I have always enjoyed a great murder mystery, probably one of the earliest genres of choice in my youth reading career (oh yes… I feel it is a career
) so I settled in for an amazing ride…
I enjoyed the play back and forth by police partners Ryan and Cassie… I loved that Cassie was not a dopey girly girl but a strong and vile partner to Ryan… what he missed she found, and vise versa.
As the story unfolds into a great and disturbing tale of a family with too many secrets, and the entwining of the two stories both past and present I felt like a kid on the edge of my seat holding the book tight and the blanket up to just below my eyes tighter.
And then just when I was think this book.audio was a rave… the end failed big time for me. It failed so big in fact… I thought I must have missed something. It could not end that way I thought… I have strings left over… they are unraveled… where is my somewhat neat package tied up in a bow?
But no – no package… and no bow.
I even looked at a few other reviews to make sure that I accurate that there was no closure… and its true… at least as far as I am concerned I felt a little cheated in the end, like I was building excitement on this rollercoaster – up,up,up and then…
no exciting drop…. just flat.
Will I read Tana French again? Absolutely… I hear her book The Likeness (also featuring Cassie Maddox) is pretty awesome… so yeah, I will try again.