fiction

  • Get Lost, (Part 4)

    (Fourth in a series) Low ebb, high tide…                       The lowest ebb and highest tide…       I guess we took us for a ride… I guess it’s just a gesture…              At the end of the continent…                                       At the edge of the continent… Get Lost enters California: First stop Eureka and Fort Bragg:… Continue reading

  • Reading Challenge: Scare your pants off

    Are you up for a challenge? Because we’ve got one for you. How about reading a horror story in honor of Halloween? Classic horror, gory horror, audio horror, downloaded horror (as in downloaded books) — you name it, and if it’s scary, it counts for this month’s Reading Challenge. But which scary story to read?… Continue reading

  • New Horror to keep you awake at night

    Old-fashioned creepy Victorian horror sneaks up on you in the night, haunts your dreams and harasses you the next day. Recent novels guaranteed to do all three are John Harwood’s The Séance, Sarah Waters’s Little Stranger and John Langan’s Mr. Gaunt and Other Uneasy Encounters.  In Harwood’s tale, a young woman inherits the seedy mansion,… Continue reading

  • Further down The Road: Dystopian Fiction

    If Cormac McCarthy’s book The Road – or the movie adaptation hitting theaters October 16 – piques your interest in fictional visions of a dystopian, post-apocalyptic world, here are some other books to check out. There’s been a massive flood and only one family, on an ark, has been saved.  Sound familiar?  The Island at the… Continue reading

  • Magic in the Blood – still magic?

    Magic in the Blood is the second book in Devon Monk’s Allie Beckstrom series (after Magic to the Bone). This time around, there are ghosts causing trouble in Portland, OR and Allie keeps running into them as she tries to track down a couple missing girls for the police. Although this second installment in the series isn’t quite… Continue reading

  • Chris McGrath: Cover artist

    Despite my commitment one of the library’s favorite adages, “don’t judge a book by its cover,” I have learned that following a particular cover artist can lead the way to new and exciting titles in similar genres and sub-genres. For instance, if you’ve read any urban fantasy, you’ve probably run across some seriously cool covers created… Continue reading

  • Frost/Nixon at the Library.

    For many of us who grew up in the early 1970s, Richard Nixon was almost a storybook figure, his iconic visage glowering from hundreds of political cartoons, his resignation speech one of our “where were you when” moments. (At Summer camp, eating supper in silence while listening to the radio, since you asked). As years go by, his administration… Continue reading

  • Book review: Ghouls Just Haunt to Have Fun

    In Ghouls Just Haunt to Have Fun by Victoria Laurie, ghost-hunting medium MJ Holliday signs on to film a reality TV series centered around her paranormal talent. When a murderer strikes at the hotel where MJ and her crew are staying (and where the TV show is set to be filmed), it quickly becomes apparent… Continue reading

  • Book review: Pure Blood by Caitlin Kittredge

    Washington author Caitlin Kittredge (she lives in Olympia) takes readers on another trip to Nocturne City. In Pure Blood, the second book in her series about werewolf Luna Wilde, bodies of dead drug addicts are turning up around town. Luna knows these people are more than just victims of overdoses, and when the son of… Continue reading

  • Watching the Watchmen: The Superhuman Factor.

    Finally: This week is the loooong awaited premiere of the Watchmen movie based on the renowned genre-bending graphic novel by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. The original, together with Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns (partial inspiration for the recent hit films), helped usher in a new “dark age” in superhero comics, one that is bleaker,… Continue reading

  • Looking for ornery fae in the Tri-Cities

    Moon Called by Patricia Briggs tells the story of Mercy Thompson, an auto-mechanic in the Tri-Cities who can turn into a coyote at will. Mercy’s world is full of ornery fae, egocentric werewolves, and quirky, creepy vampires, all more supernaturally powerful than her. If Mercy can keep her head down and her mouth shut, she… Continue reading

  • Toronto, Mon Amour

    I grew up in Seattle, and am used to hearing out-of-towners who visit the downtown library raving about our breathtaking city (and libraries). Well now I know how they feel. I just returned from my third visit to Toronto, where I was speaking at a library conference, and have been boring everyone silly with effusions… Continue reading

  • Book review: New Amsterdam by Elizabeth Bear

    The year is 1899 and America is ruled by a distant king sitting on Britain’s Iron Thrown. In the colony of New Amsterdam, dissatisfied citizens spread whispers of war while Crown Investigator Abigail Irene Garrett uses sorcery to find a murderer. During her investigation into a brutal and possibly supernatural killing, Abby Irene meets amateur… Continue reading

  • Tiny people, big adventures

    Sometimes, especially at night when the world is dark and quiet, I hear strange noises in my house. Rhythmic little taps that fade to nothing. The squeak of a cupboard opening in an empty room. A faint sound like distant voices coming from up near the eaves, where no human ought to be. My first… Continue reading

  • Book Review: Magic to the Bone by Devon Monk

    Magic to the Bone introduces readers to an intriguing new world of dangerous urban fantasy. In a new society of legalized, scientific magic usage, there is a physical price to suffer through everyone time someone casts a spell-sometimes it’s a mild cold, sometimes it’s a severe headache, and for Allie Beckstrom, the price is occasionally… Continue reading

  • Thrilling Tales: A Storytime for Adults

    I can remember attending story hour at the Magnolia branch library when I was a kid, just as thousands of children still do each year at libraries all over the city. I’ve never stopped loving stories, but as I grew older they stopped having a storytime for me. So I started one myself, and every other week for the past… Continue reading

  • Banned Book-of-the-Month Club presents: Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury

    Each September, libraries observe Banned Books Week, celebrating the freedom to read. How about the rest of the year? Welcome to Shelf Talk’s Banned Book-of-the-Month Club! Our inaugural selection is a novel about banning books: Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. Why read banned or challenged books? Yes, to affirm your right to read and think as you please,… Continue reading

  • The Blurb King

    A couple of summers ago, I checked out the novel Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn, seduced by the cover and a glowing endorsement from Stephen King. “To say this is a terrific debut novel is really too mild. I haven’t read such a relentlessly creepy family saga since John Farris’s All Heads Turn When the… Continue reading