Book Review: Lockwood and Co:The Screaming Staircase by Jonathan Stroud

How do you feel about ghosts?  How about adventure and sarcastic banter?

The Screaming Staircase, by Jonathan Stroud, is set in a modern day London where ghosts stalk the night, and only children and teenagers can see them clearly. Our heroes Anthony Lockwood, Lucy Carlyle, and George Cubbins run a psychic detection agency. That is, they hunt and destroy ghosts. But unlike most other agencies, they don't have any adult supervisors. Since adults can't see or hear ghosts very well, Lockwood thinks they just get in the way.  Lucy tends to agree, given her unpleasant past.  George hates everyone equally.

We meet Lucy and Lockwood as they prepare to banish what they think is a routine ghost.  The ghost, and the case itself, prove too hot to handle, and Lucy and Lockwood barely escape.  Unfortunately, the Lockwood and Co. Psychic Detection Agnecy finds itself in some trouble with the law, and Lucy, Lockwood, and George are forced to take on a dangerous case in one of the most haunted houses in England.  The last team that tried to clear the historic mansion of ghosts died; every last one of them.

I enjoyed all the action and adventure, as well as the smart mouth comedy in the face of creepy, deadly ghosts.  Hope you will too!

Happy reading!

~ gothbrarian

Book Review: "Marie Antoinette, Serial Killer" by Katie Alender

"Marie Antoinette, Serial Killer" came into my library in November and I was like "OMG I HAVE to read this!!!" The cover is amazing (hot pink bodice!) AND it says "Let them eat cake... and die!" on the back with a Marie Antoinette lookalike holding a giant knife. How can you say "no" to this book?! Very loosely (like almost not at all) based on Marie Antoinette's death, it's a great read with lots of descriptions of Paris and some fun characters.

Colette Iselin attends a fancy all-girls school and when the opportunity arises to travel to Paris with her class, she jumps on it. Little does she know she's flying into a murder spree: wealthy Paris socialites have started turning up beheaded. As if that weren't enough to ruin the trip, Colette discovers a portrait at Versailles that looks exactly like her and a creepy woman wearing 18th century garb starts stalking her.  Colette knows she's involved in the murders somehow but how? And what can she do? Her pampered, stuck up friends are basically useless and she only has a few days before she'll be the one losing her head.

Tucson Festival of Books Teen Author Spotlight: Maggie Stiefvater

Maggie Stiefvater is a YA author who specializes in paranormal and urban fantasy. She has a gift for lyrical prose, and her books are always rich with atmosphere. Luckily for us Tucsonans, Ms. Stiefvater is going to be attending the Tucson Festival of Books! If you've never heard of her or are a die-hard fan looking for more of her work, there are a lot of good choices.

Ms. Stiefvater's first book was Lament: The Faerie Queen's Deception. In it, Dierdre Monaghan is a painfully shy musical prodigy. She is also a cloverhand--a human who can see faeries. She and her best friend James are about to become embroiled in an ancient faerie war; there are two faerie assassins on their way to kill Dierdre before her music captures the Fae's attention. The story continues in the sequel, Ballad: A Gathering of Faerie, and involves Nuala, a deadly faerie muse.

The Wolves of Mercy Falls Trilogy is set in the icy winter of Minnesota. In Shiver, Grace has always been obsessed with the wolves that live in the forest behind her home. What she doesn't know, however, is that the wolves are actually werewolves, who turn human in the summer and wolf in the winter. One of the wolves, Sam, has loved Grace from afar for years, and a threat to the pack brings the two together. The story of Grace and Sam continues in Linger and is concluded in Forever.

Three quarters dead, 100 percent CREEPY

It's almost Halloween so that means I get to talk about a pretty chilling ghost story I just read called Three Quarters Dead.  Although the author Richard Peck writes about all kinds of things, his other supernatural stories--Ghosts I Have Been, Are You in the House Alone? and The Ghost Belonged to Me--are also fast and frightening reads.  Despite having a Gossip Girl cover, it is so much more than a novel about popularity, peer pressure, and the desire to be part of a powerful clique, although these issues set up the supernatural part beautifully! 

Anna, the (Not So Friendly) Ghost

Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake is not your average boy-meets-girl story—the boy, Cas, is a seventeen year old ghost hunter, and the girl, Anna, is a vicious spirit who murders anyone who enters her house. Sounds scary, right? But beneath the horror-story shell is a beautiful, sad, and moving tale about the struggle of choosing between one's obligations and desires.

 Theseus Cassio Lowood, nicknamed Cas, inherited a knife called the athame when his ghost hunter father was gruesomely murdered by a mysterious spirit. With the athame, Cas kills ghosts that are still wandering the earth, even though he isn't quite sure exactly what kind of afterlife he's sending them to.