The Running Bibliophile

First and foremost, I want to thank NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books for providing me with an Advanced Readers Copy (ARC) of Shot Through the Book (A Lighthouse Library Mystery, #12)  by Eva Gates . I received this cozy mystery for free in exchange for my honest review, and I’m delighted to have been selected to read it ahead of its release, even though I’m admittedly behind on my reading and reviewing. The Bodie Island Lighthouse Library is gearing up to host a YA Book Festival, bringing in authors from far and wide. But when the festival’s most renowned guest author is found murdered in the home of one of the librarians, Lucy McNeil suddenly finds herself under suspicion. Determined to clear her name before the festival begins, she sets out to uncover the truth. This was my first time reading a book from the Lighthouse Library Mystery series, and I thoroughly enjoyed the premise. Since I haven’t read the earlier installments, I did feel a bit out of the loop at first when it cam...

I Am Made of Death by Kelly Andrew is a young adult book that is told from the perspective of two different characters. It opens with Thomas Walsh taking a job as an ASL (American Sign Language) interpreter for a mute girl named Vivienne who hasn't spoken since a family vacation gone wrong. Vivi must be accompanied at all times and isn't allowed out after dark. She has decided to take matters into her own hands and have a medically questionable surgery to fix her issue. A huge thank you to NetGalley and Scholastic for providing me with an Advanced Readers Copy (ARC) of I Am Made of Death by Kelly Andrew for free in exchange for my honest review. This is a book that I wished for, and my wish was granted. To say I was excited is an understatement. The character development for both Thomas and Vivienne was exceptionally good, especially for a YA book. We learn their backstory continuously throughout the storyline, so the development is slow. As for the writing, it was well written...

If You Can Hear This  by Faith Gardner is a Young Adult Mystery & Thriller novel about a high school AV Club and the search of their teacher who is missing. The expected publication date of this book is November 19, 2024. I'd like to thank NetGalley for sending me an Advanced Readers Copy (ARC) of this book for free in exchange for my honest review.   Overall, I can say that I really enjoyed the storyline. It reminded me of the Point Horror Books of the 1980's and 1990's and followed a similar formula. There were plenty of suspects and motives throughout but was a bit predictable. Additionally, I liked that the author had a diverse group of characters in the book, including two or three from the LGTBQ+ community, a couple that were people of color, and one that had a mental illness. I think it's important to include a diverse group of characters so that everyone has a book to read that depicts someone like them as well as educating others on people who are differen...

Book Review: The Party by Natasha Preston The Party by Natasha Preston opens with Bessie and her boarding school friends preparing to sneak out for Spring Break to throw a huge party in a rundown castle. Things start to go awry when a huge storm hits and keeps them secluded in the remote castle and the friends begin to be killed. Who is doing this and why? A huge thank you goes out to NetGalley for providing me with an Advanced Readers Copy (ARC) of The Party  for free in exchange for my honest review. I was excited to be approved for this book because I enjoyed The Island , at least until the ending, and thought The Dare  was just okay, and I wanted to be able to compare her latest novel to the ones I had already read. Preston did a fantastic job of having a lot of diverse characters. Despite there being quite a few characters, it wasn't too hard keeping them straight. However, I did have trouble remembering who Raif was at one point because he hadn't been mentioned in a w...

Take It From The Top by Claire Swinarski is about best friends Eowyn and Jules attending their sixth summer of Broadway Camp at Lamplighter Lake Summer Camp. However, when Eowyn arrives, everything seems to go wrong, including her friendship with Jules. Told from the perspective of both girls, things aren't always what they seem. I'd like to thank NetGalley for the Advanced Readers Copy ARC of this Young Adult (YA) novel, which I received for free in exchange for my honest review. Not having read any of the author's previous works, I wasn't sure what to expect, but I have to say I am impressed. The story switches back and forth between the present and past as well as switching from Eowyn's and Jules' perspectives giving the reader an insight to how each girl feels. I loved being able to see the perspective of each girl because they both had very valid points. One of the biggest lessons in Take It From The Top is that the grass isn't always greener on the o...

This Delicious Death by Kayla Cottingham is about four friends going on a road trip to attend a music festival in the desert.  What no one else realizes is that they were infected during the pandemic and are now ghouls.  On the first night at the festival, Valeria goes feral and ends up killing someone and eating them.  Soon after, the girls discover that ghouls are being poisoned with a drug that will cause them all to feral.  The expected publication date is April 25, 2023. Thank you to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Fire for the Advanced Readers Copy of This Delicious Death .  The synopsis was intriguing, so I was happy when I was approved to read this book.  I received this book for free in exchange for my honest review. Just as an FYI, there were several content warnings at the beginning of this book, including but limited to alcohol consumption by minors, cannibalism, drug use and drugging, gun violence, murder, parental neglect, suicidal ideation, and tr...

Book Review: The Island by Natasha Preston The Island by Natasha Preston opens with teen influencer Paisley receiving an invite to Jagged Island, a resort and amusement park, for all expense paid weekend along with five other teen influencers in exchange for them posting their experience on their social media platforms.  However, none of them expected there to be a killer among them and no way to get off the island. A huge thank you goes out to NetGalley, Random House Children's, and Delacorte Press for approving my request for the Advanced Reader's Copy of The Island by Natasha Preston.  I was thrilled to be chosen to receive this book for free in exchange for my honest review.  The cover and synopsis of the book intrigued me right away, and I just knew I had to read it. Reminiscent of Diane Hoh, Natasha Preston weaves a fascinating tale that keeps the reader on the edge of their seat from the get go.  I desperately wanted to take time off from work to finish th...

Betrayal (The Secret Diaries, #2) by Janice Harrell picks up where the first book in the series leaves off.  When Casey starts drinking and blackmailing Johanna's group of friends, they start to worry about his well being and whether he will spill the beans about what happened to Laurie Jenkins. This is one of my favorite series from when I was a teenager, and I have to reread it every so often . . . it's that good and in my opinion, has stood the test of time despite none of the kids having cell phones.  Although cell phones were a thing in the early 1990's, they were still expensive to make phone calls on, so not everyone had one, and that is the reason they aren't featured in this story.   Part suspense, part horror, this is a great young adult novel for kids thirteen and up.  It even has some romance in it.  One of the characters does have sex in the book, but it doesn't go into any detail at all about it other than the characters were kissing.  It was...

The Lifeguard by Richie Tankersley Cusick opens with Kelsey and her mom taking a ferry over to Beverly Island to vacation with her mom's boyfriend and his three children. However, Kelsey's beach vacation isn't the paradise it should be. There's a note under her pillow from Beth, who's missing, and Issac, the local drunk, won't stop bothering her. On top of that, there have been several drownings on the island. Little does Kelsey know that lifeguards don't always save people.  I am in the process of rereading my way through my childhood. When scrolling through Instagram, I saw a post from the user talespointhorrorbookclub where they were voting between two books for their book club, one of which was The Lifeguard by Richie Tankersley Cusick. I decided that this should be the next book for me to reread. Not remembering much about the YA Novel, it was like reading it for the first time. However, as the book progressed, little tidbits starting coming back to m...

He's everywhere . . . Trish thinks he's  just a weird customer at Muffin-Mania where she works, but suddenly, Trish thinks she sees him everywhere. She has no one to confide in and no where to hide in The Mall by Richie Tankersley Cusick. The Mall by Richie Tankersley Cusick is a book I read in high school, and I remember being completely creeped out by it. I swore I'd never work in a mall . . . little did I know that I would several years later. I thought I recalled who the mystery man was, but my recollection was completely wrong. Rereading this book as an adult, I was still completely unsettled by the storyline, and I wish there had been a thunderstorm while reading it so I could have had that extra creepy feeling. It's great that a young adult book can still have the same affect on me as an adult that it did when I was a teen . . . that just shows what a talented writer Richie Tankersley Cusick is. It was even better than I remembered. There is nothing negative I ...

The Fear Street Prowler has every one on edge in Shadyside, especially Melissa, who wakes up screaming due to a tapping on her window. Strange things start happening to her like her new car veering into oncoming traffic, her presents being ripped open by an unknown entity, and something or someone trying to push Melissa out her bedroom window. Is it Melissa's imagination or the Fear Street Prowler. Find out in R.L. Stine's Haunted (Fear Street, #7) . The Fear Street book series by R.L. Stine was one of my favorite Young Adult Horror series when I was a tween and teen. I still had most of the books from them, so I decided to reread them, in the order they were published, as an adult to see if they still were as scary to me as they were back then. I didn't have a copy of Haunted , so I ordered a used copy through ThriftBooks.com. As an adult, this was a super easy read and only took a couple hours for me to finish. It was a creepy read that was perfect for a rainy night. Whe...

Wish You Were Here: France by Robin O’Neill follows a teen tour group run by Getaway Tours, a company that sends teenagers on week-long, chaperoned trips to destinations around the world. For this particular excursion, Tim and Francine Atkinson serve as the tour guides as they lead five girls and two boys through the south of France. Their journey begins in Carcassonne, located in the Languedoc region, a place steeped in medieval history. While exploring the area, Luci, Jay, Glin, and Logan learn about the legendary Cathar treasure that is rumored to be buried somewhere nearby. Intrigued by the mystery, they set out to uncover the truth behind the legend and discover where the treasure might be hidden. In high school, I stumbled across a new book series by Robin O’Neill called Wish You Were Here, and it immediately captured my attention. The first book in the series, Wish You Were Here: France , was originally published in July 1996. However, the release timing must have bee...

Divergent (Divergent, #1)  by Veronica Roth  opens in Chicago, Illinois, where it has become its own dystopian world which has divided society into five different factions based on a particular virtue: Honesty (Candor), Selfless (Abnegation), Bravery (Dauntless), Peaceful (Amity), and Intelligence (Erudite). Each year, those factions come together for a ceremony where all the sixteen year-olds must choose which faction they want to live in for the rest of their lives. To help them make this decision, they all take a test prior to the ceremony that tells them which virtue is their best one, but despite what the results show, the choice is still theirs to make. Beatrice Prior learns a deadly secret about herself during testing and surprises everyone with her faction choice. During the initiation, she renames herself Tris and struggles along, not really knowing who her true friends are. Does she keep her secret and survive the initiation? A few years ago, it seemed like al...

In the days leading up to Halloween, I decided that I wanted to read a spooky book but one that wasn't too long. Perusing my bookshelves at home, I came across one of my favorite YA Authors when I was a tween and teen . . . Richie Tankersley Cusick. How apropos would it be to read her book entitled Trick or Treat ? Regrettably, I didn't finish reading Trick or Treat before Halloween like I wanted to. The reason is simple . . . it creeped me out even though I ended up remembering who "did it" early on. Reading it late at night didn't help either as every little creak or noise in the house made me even more jumpy. Because of this, I kept putting it down after reading a chapter or two a night. I was in awe that a book that I hadn't read in 15 - 20 years and geared towards teens could still spook me like it did. Although, it was written in the late 1980's, the story holds up and is still enjoyable. I think the tweens and teens of today would enjoy Tric...