Anne Rice forever changed my reading world over 30 years ago. Prior to reading INTERVIEW WITH A VAMPIRE, I had only read my mom’s collection of romance/gothic novels and horror authors such as Stephen King and Dean Koontz. Anne Rice opened my eyes to a world in which vampires were far more than the creepy nightmarish blood suckers (and definitely more sensual) than the ones I’d previously encountered in one of my favorite horror novels of all time, Stephen King’s SALEM’S LOT. From there, I devoured everything Anne Rice wrote (other than her early erotica novels), whether it was the religious exploration of Jesus Christ’s early years in CHRIST THE LORD: OUT OF EGYPT or the Mayfair Witches in THE WITCHING HOUR. Urban and dark fantasy novels weren’t something you could just walk into a bookstore and find back then, or at least not in my hometown in South Carolina. I remember my excitement when the first Anita Blake book came out and I continued eagerly scouring the shelves for others like Anne Rice who fueled my imagination. The battles between good and evil and the fine line that various urban and dark fantasy heroines and heroes must walk while…

Black History Month is generally the time readers challenge themselves to read and learn with books centered around the theme of Black History Month. Books such as HIDDEN FIGURES by Margot Lee Shetterley, and the upcoming SHINE BRIGHT by Danyel Smith, shed light on the accomplishments of various black people. Graphic novels such as WAKE by Rebecca Hall, and the MARCH trilogy by John Lewis, offer us a glimpse into the various tribulations black people have encountered in their quest for true equality. More recent books such as STAMPED by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi, BETWEEN THE WORLD AND ME by Ta-Nehisi Coates, and THEY CAN’T KILL US ALL by Wesley Lowery speak more on the issues we are still tackling even today in 2022. There are quite a few splendid nonfiction books about black history, but I’d like to challenge readers to start incorporating more black fiction authors into their reading throughout the year. I recently saw a statistic which indicates that nearly 90% of people don’t have a close friend of another ethnicity or race, and perhaps reading both fictional as well as nonfiction books written by people of color may be a starting place for some. …

by Debbie Wiley Books have been part of my life for as long as I remember. Even before I could fully read on my own, I remember my grandmother reading to me and listening to books on record albums, following along with the words in the accompanying book. Everyone knows the last two years have been tough, but for this reader, it’s been worsened by a reading slump. Instead of turning to books for comfort, I’ve watched a lot of mindless television, much to the chagrin of my husband. Fortunately, a few recent reads have really jumped out at me and tugged me into the storylines, snapping that reading slump into tiny pieces! One of the tricks often cited to break a reading slump is to reread old favorites. My twist on this is to read authors I’ve loved over the years. CURSE OF SALEM by Kay Hooper perfectly fit the bill! Not only have I loved Kay Hooper’s books dating back to the 1980s when she wrote category romances, but I’ve also faithfully followed her Bishop Special Crimes Unit series, devouring them as soon as I could get my hands on each new installment. CURSE OF SALEM returns to the town…

Missing persons stories appear in the news all too frequently, capturing the attention of the nation with a multitude of questions. Where did the person go? Is the person safe? What happened and why? Whether it’s the manhunt for Brian Laundrie amid the swirling questions of his fiancée’s death or the past well-publicized kidnappings of Patty Hearst and Elizabeth Smart, or the still-unsolved disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa, cases involving missing persons have seemingly always captured the attention of the nation as we anxiously await and hope for positive news. Lately, my local news has dealt with the tragic endings for Gabby Petito and Mia Marcano, both young women who lost their lives all too soon. Readers are often drawn to the theme of missing persons, as evidenced by the abundance of books with a missing person as the core theme. GONE GIRL was recently one of the bestselling books of the decade, featuring the missing person theme. Let’s delve into a few other books featuring this same theme. LAST SEEN ALONE by Laura Griffin starts out with an abandoned car and a pool of blood. The car, registered to Vanessa Adams, offers little clues and Vanessa isn’t anywhere to be…

History was one of my least favorite classes in school. Don’t get me wrong–I had some great teachers and I enjoyed a lot of the South Carolina history we were taught, but a lot of what we learned seemed far off and not relevant to my life. I knew that wasn’t true because one of my awesome teachers quoted us time and again about not forgetting the past or being doomed to repeat it, but I didn’t see it reflected through the history books we studied. Very little was taught about the various individual lives of people, in particular the women in history. Anne Frank’s story brought to life what the Jewish people suffered under Hitler, but I learned about her mainly through my literature classes. In fact, it was through literature classes that I learned about how women were treated as property or outcasted from society for exhibiting behaviors identical to the men of their times. Now here I sit, many, many years later, and I am still learning through literature. Whether it’s a graphic novel, such as PERSEPOLIS by Marjane Satrapi, or a novel such as BRIGID OF KILDARE by Heather Terrell, there is so much history to…

A new school year is starting, and thoughts typically would be on the fun new school clothes, the location of one’s locker, the squeak of tennis shoes on the gym floor, or if a best friend or favorite teacher is in one’s classroom. Instead, we find ourselves stuck with another wave of Covid and so many uncertainties about what to do and how to stay safe. I work in the school system and the fear and uncertainty are real, especially for someone like me with an underlying health condition that already impacts my breathing. Rather than focusing on the negative, and all of the things that are out of my immediate control, I’ve instead indulged myself in reading and enjoying books centering around the school system. Any time favorite books featuring a school theme are mentioned, Denise Swanson is the first author who comes to my mind! Denise Swanson was a school psychologist before she became an author, and her wealth of knowledge and empathy for students and teachers shows in each one of her books (with the exception of that horrid social worker in MURDER OF A ROYAL PAIN lol). BODY OVER TROUBLED WATERS features school psychologist Skye Denison-Boyd…

I fell in love with mysteries at an early age. Nancy Drew, Trixie Belden, and the Hardy Boys were my first foray into the genre. Then I discovered Phyllis Whitney’s young adult mysteries, Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple mysteries changed my world. Hercule Poirot bragged about using “the little gray cells” while both he and Sherlock Holmes carefully observed the tiniest details and made brilliant observations around those details. Miss Marple, on the other hand, listened to town gossip and used her years of wisdom about human nature to deduce what others missed. All three of them shrewdly found the solutions to murders that stumped even the cleverest of inspectors. I devoured all sorts of mysteries and thrillers, trying to astutely deduce the murderer just as my fictional favorites of Miss Marple, Hercule Poirot, and Sherlock Holmes had done. Recently, while driving back and forth to South Carolina, I listened to several of Agatha Christie’s stories as produced by the BBC, including POIROT’S FINEST CASES and MORE FROM MISS MARPLE’S CASEBOOK. My love for all things Agatha Christie re-ignited, and what a joy for me to…

I don’t remember the first vampire book I ever read, but I do remember the first vampire movie I saw. I didn’t sleep soundly for days after watching Stephen King’s SALEM’S LOT movie. In fact, even thinking about it now, I can still envision those vampires at the window and hear them trying to come inside! The sound still gives me shivers! It didn’t help that I was still young (not even a teenager yet) and my best friend had giant bay windows in the living room where we watched the made for tv movie. As night fell, the windows behind us seemed more and more ominous as I was just certain a vampire or two would come calling for us! After watching the movie,  I of course had to read the book, ‘SALEM’S LOT, and Stephen King’s words were even scarier than that old movie. I devoured all of his books that I could get my hands on, looking for something to grab my attention like the vampires had. And oh, did I love Stephen King’s books… but the vampires came back to bite me again when I discovered Anne Rice and Lestat. INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE took me…

by Senior Reviewer Debbie Wiley Streaming companies had a huge economic boost during the last year or so, and I have to admit I’ve hopped on that bandwagon. Normally, I watch very little tv and only go to the movies occasionally, so I blame Baby Yoda specifically for my latest tv marathon viewing, as it all started with The Mandalorian and Baby Yoda! After all, who can resist that little adorable frog-eating, egg-stealing, tiny force-wielding hero?! A few of my favorites since then have been The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, WandaVision, and of course, this long-time Godzilla and King Kong fan couldn’t resist Godzilla vs Kong – the movie that made me want to go back into a theater even when it still wasn’t a good idea for me (and is why I now have HBO Max LOL). Obviously, most of my favorite movies and series to watch tend towards the sci-fi or hero themes, which shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone. After all, my all-time favorite book character is Harry Dresden from the Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files series as his heroism shines through even in the worst of times as he strives to do the right thing, even when…

Travel in person is slowly starting to come back now, but some of us have been traveling all along through the wonderful places our books take us. So far this year, I’ve traveled to places such as 1906 San Francisco in THE NATURE OF FRAGILE THINGS, to Helsinki, Finland in THE WITCH HUNTER, to North Carolina in CLOSELY HARBORED SECRETS, and then off to France in THE LOST MANUSCRIPT. However, it always warms my heart to visit books set in Florida, both for the memories they may give me of places I’ve already been as well as learning new and interesting facts about the state I’ve called home for over 20 years. THE LAST TRAIN TO KEY WEST by Chantel Cleeton is our first stop on the journey, where we meet three women whose lives intersect in Key West. It’s 1935 and a hurricane is approaching. I’ve visited several sites in Key West that talked about Henry Flagler’s Overseas Railroad but somehow the impact of the hurricane in 1935 was missed by me. Chantel Cleeton brings the tale to vivid life, offering us a glimpse of the hardships of Key West in its early days. I love books that delve…