 Mya Krumac! Hello everybody! E here. Welcome back to another recent read. We're gonna open up this one with a... What am I now reading? Currently reading. So, the... In audiobook, I am reading the first Lucas Davenport... Yeah, Davenport book by John Sanford, which is Rules of Pray. I am currently... I am currently 191 pages into this. It's okay! It's generic thriller territory. It is what it is. Next up, we have another one. I am... This is probably my least favorite read right now. It is Hark the Herald Angels Scream. Christopher Golden edited Anthology and Man Can I Tell. I don't care too much for Christopher Golden. The first two stories, I think, are terrible. I'm sure everybody will disagree with me on this. Also, I'm not in a huge horror mood right now. So, I got this one at the library. I didn't buy it or anything. But Kelly Armstrong, I believe, is the first... She wrote the first story. Kelly Armstrong did Absinthe and Angels. I can't even... I read it yesterday. I can't even remember a thing about it. And then Scott Smith wrote the second one. I love Scott Smith, but his story, man, 20 pages that all came down to the very last line and it wasn't that great of a reveal. Okay. Last, what I'm reading is The Chill by Scott Carson, which is very distracting. I'm enjoying it, but it's very distracting because this is a... As it says in this, the author, BIO, says that Scott Carson is a pen name for a New York Times best-selling author. Isn't everybody a New York Times best-selling author? Anyways, I see you, Booktube Goddess. I see you. But yeah, this comes out February 11th and I'm enjoying it so far, but it is kind of distracting trying to figure out who in the world... Yeah, who in the world it is. But on with the recent reads. Alright, so right off the bat, we're going to be talking about an audiobook. I listened to... it is Bunny by Mona Awad. This is a fantastic, fantastic book. I don't know if it's going to end up on my best of the 2019 list or not, but right now it is. I had no idea what to expect going into this one and I'm really, really glad that I listened to the audiobook version because I feel like it gave that much more to the story. There's a character, a character called Creepy Doll. It's just one of like five very valley girlish college students. For sure, kind of deal. That character, the way the narrator did that character, was very laugh-worthy. I had a blast listening to the whole thing, but it takes a turn. I think it's going into part two that just kind of really blew me away. I was expecting weird because my friend Emily at Book Happy, I think it's at book.happy on Twitter and on Instagram. But Emily, Emma friend Tracy, both of them said it was a great book. Check it out and I jumped into it knowing it was going to be weird. They said, prepare for weirdness and boy, I got weird. I enjoyed every single, not page, but every single hour, minute of the audiobook. I will eventually get the hardcover copy of it and I will definitely be looking at anything else by Mona Awad. But right now, I'm going to stick with just the audiobook because the audiobook was such a fun, fun time and I recommend that you check out the audiobook. But definitely give this book a read in any format that you can find it. Definitely expect some bizarre occurrences. It is written in such a style as like a Caroline Keptness or maybe an Amin Octah or an Erin into Hall or that kind of way, but there is definitely a weird supernatural otherness to it and that's what I like the most about the book overall was how weird it was and how I had no idea what this author was going to do to me next. There are several fantastic things like little pieces, slices of life sections and some words and turns that the author comes up with like gossip glow, the glow that someone will get while they're gossiping about somebody. I just enjoyed the way that the author saw things and there's a heavy theme of writing and creativity throughout the book and as an author myself as a creative person myself I really enjoyed the book for that aspect also there's writer circles in the book and those are some of the best parts of the book other than the weirdness that you're going to go through and the whole, not the reveal because it's very early on but how that theme evolves throughout the book is really amazing and I highly recommend this book to anyone. If you've read Bunny by Mona Awad I'd love to hear from you down there in the doodly doo, let me know what you liked let me know exactly what you like don't just say I loved it or I hated it let me know what you loved or what you hated. I don't mind if you didn't like it just express without being rude will spark something in me oh yeah, you know, you're right I'm not going to sit down there and argue with you about why you're wrong, about disliking it nothing like that. Anyways, on to the next one ok, so before we get on to the next review I'm going to put to pause take a break I'm going to show you some stuff that I picked up recently since I'm not doing book calls anymore or now reading we are doing the recent reads but I'm pretty much compiling all the stuff into one video maybe not every week but definitely at least twice a month you're going to get one of these videos from me I got Michael Morkock's fourth book in his Elric Saga now I own all of these there's a video on the channel called Unexpected Collection where I talk about my collection of Michael Morkock books this is The Vanishing Tower which is book 4 in the original Elric Saga I do not have this cover it's only a quarter at the library so I went ahead and got it along with that I got Peter Tremain's Blood Mist a booktube goddess if you want this one I think you were the one that mentioned Peter Tremain if you want this one let me know and I'll send it to you for Christmas or any of these books really if anybody wants these books let me know because I probably won't get to them I bought these as gifts for friends kind of deal because I've seen some of my friends talk about them in their own videos and I got this by Peter Tremain which has got a great cover with a sword I think and then some kind of water dragon next up we have Yellow Fog which is definitely a vampire novel there's a woman laying here looks almost like a Christopher Lee kind of Dracula back here in the background and then we have The Well Wolf's Kiss you're not going to be able to see it but the stamping on here it's supposed to match this guy and this lady and it absolutely 100% doesn't anyways but this is by Sherry Scotch yeah so Sherry Scotch if anybody wants this one anybody who wants any of these let me know down there in the doobly doobly okay and so the second review here on recent reads we are talking about the fifth book in the Charlie Parker series by John Connolly The Black Angel yeah I know it looks like it just says black but it does say The Black Angel this one and it keeps on happening aside from the second book in the series every new book in the series has become my favorite in the series and this one is my favorite in the series so far this one has a lot of historical fiction in it, it has World War II elements it has Biblical elements, it has a bunch of stuff in here that I oddly enough I normally don't enjoy but with John Connolly's writing he can make damn near anything interesting I've really enjoyed the World War II aspect and some of the history there and come to find out that a lot of the stuff he talks about actually happens now I've heard so many so many different opinions from people on when the supernatural aspect of these books gets really really heavy this one is where it jumps into a whole other level there is really it's not that you could have the story it's not that you couldn't have the storyline in this one without the supernatural but I think it'd be very difficult you can take the supernatural aspects out of the first four novels and I don't think you would lose a whole hell of a lot he goes all in both feet all the way up to his neck in supernatural content I don't care too much for angels and demons in my fiction mainly because I'm not a believer I'm not Christian I don't follow that train of thought but in this one it didn't feel like some of those stories tend to like the angels are this all good power the devil and his demons are this all evil power and there's no gray area in this one there's definitely 100% gray area everything is gray area in this one it does have probably my least favorite villain of the series I think he thinks what black well something well bright well that's it bright well I didn't care too much for him it was just another one of those lackey villains that you know like the side not the side character but he's just a basic minion kind of deal but he has main villain qualities also so my least favorite villain of the series so far I really really loved was it named Kiddum K-I-T-T-I-M I really loved him from the last book I loved Mr. Pud I loved the traveling man all Caleb whatever from book 2 once again book 2 I can't even remember the name Dark Hollow that book just kind of is forgettable all around I don't think bright well is really forgettable as much as he just didn't really leave a lasting impression on me other than his appearance everyone else that I mentioned the traveling man even though Kiddum was kind of a side character also other characters I really got to know these villains and I appreciate them for what they were with this guy is kind of felt like a stepping stone you know once again Lewis and Angel have another big role in this book and they were a lot of fun to read they're always fun to read they're the reason why I show up most of the time I am gonna take I am currently taking a week off of the series but I'm already itching to get back into it I'm so used to picking up the next book right after finishing one of these books now that I wanted to jump right into book 6 and I'm kind of getting withdrawals I'm like I want to get back into this hopefully that trends hopefully that keeps up throughout the rest of the series I don't know if it will or not but right now I'm itching to get into the unquiet which is the next book in the series have you read the Black Road let me know down there in the doobly do again if you loved it let me know why you loved it if you hated it let me know why especially if you're kind of indifferent about this book let me know that also but go into detail about those things we'll start a conversation down there in the doobly do okay I almost forgot as a segue going into the last the last review of this video I got another gift from my friend good friend Glenn Krish is it Krish I think it's Krish if I pronounce your name wrong Glenn please let me know down there in the doobly do but he got the painter of Troy Piotrokov I'm not sure I know I'm going to pronounce the wrong and I apologize but it's the painter of this word P Piotrokov I don't know but it's a literary fiction historical fiction kind of deal he's moving away from his horror roots kind of like I am and this I believe is his first take on like a magical realism or literary fiction that kind of thing so it has a beautiful Daniel Sarah cover Sarah I'm not sure he if you're a horror fan at all you've probably seen this guy's artwork around he used to do covers for was it delirium books delirious books I can't remember what it was Shane Staley's project before he did Dark Fuse had a lot of these covers and he's done Hellraiser comic book all different kinds of stuff very very talented guy but also look at the inside hang on let me show you the inside of this book because the this is an independently published book this is a self published book the inside is looks amazing it did such a terrific job I want to give credit where credit is due so you have the cover art is by Daniel Sarah and the interior design is by Michael Bailey fantastic cover I've not read this yet but Glenn was nice enough to book for a review copy so thank you very much Glenn for that I appreciate you last but not least we have a book that was sent to me by my friend Kevin Witton of well read beard here on YouTube and on Twitter you can check him out I'll try to remember leave a link down in the doobly-doo but I've talked about him several times he's a great dude really really good guy and he mentioned he asked me if I wanted to copy this book and I said yes and he sent one over and I read it as soon as I got it that's whispers in the dark by Laurel Hightower this book was good from start to finish and one thing that I want to stress here every single independent author I've ever read there has been something that has told me that they're an indie author or that they're a small press author Laurel is not an indie author she is a small press author this was published by journal stone books and journal stone has a great track record of publishing very high quality books but every single indie or small press book that I come across I can read it and go okay there it is there's that one thing usually there's multiple things but usually there's that one thing that's usually published whether it be spelling errors grammar problems whatever it might be there's always something I said on twitter that I can count on one hand the number of indie small press authors that I have read where I can't find at least one thing that screams this is indie or small press Laurel Hightower is now one of those authors nothing about this book says indie or small press and I felt like I was reading something from Crown Publishing or Scrivner even FSG in fact I would go as far as to compare this book and this is going to sound odd coming from someone who doesn't love Dean Coons anymore but this is almost like Dean Coons wrote a Clive Barker story the story is dark it has supernatural elements there's a lot of Clive Barker in this book but the writing is honed almost perfectly there's an error here or there but it's like 2 or 3 which you would find in a traditionally published book it's not full of errors it's just minor typos that happen to the best of us but Dean Coons has a very polished way of writing you don't find too many errors or problems or anything with his writing that's what I felt here is very technically sound well put together there were some aspects of the story itself that kind of made me not really not really cringe but maybe go eh no I don't like that it had some stuff to do at the end about it like a chosen one kind of deal and anything that has like a chosen one or matrix storyline kind of deal I kind of shut down on so that would be the only thing where I would give any kind of criticism is that there were certain story elements that did not vibe with me and I'm going to give it a very strong 4 stars a Goodreads or Amazon or whatever I would probably give it 4.5 stars only because of certain story aspects like I said completely subjective that I myself didn't like the writing, the publishing, the everything about this book is fantastic there are no problems with the technicalities of this book like I said it's just that one story element now if I'm going to talk about criticisms another thing is that we didn't get to know the kids all that well in fact right now I just got through finishing the book tonight I don't remember the kids name oh Lily, Lily is one of the kids name and not Sam, Sam's name, Tommy Lily and Tommy, we didn't get to know them as much as I would have liked I don't know if there was even time for that kind of development so maybe not and yes I am being overly critical here because that's how I am you are probably not going to notice any of this stuff if you are just an average reader coming across this book you will probably think that this book is perfect that is fantastic and you would not be wrong I've had, I've read so much indie small press fiction that I have become hyper critical of anything that comes out from that market and it's just the way I am. This book is perfectly fine, there are no problems with it as far as the general public will feel I am very impressed that this is a first book that Laurel Hightower is a new author because it certainly doesn't feel like she's a new author it feels like a book that you would go down to Barnes & Noble or Books of Million or anywhere really any chain store, even Walmart that you would walk in there, go over to their book section this feels like a type of book that you would pick off of the shelf there it is that well done it speaks to the quality of Laurel's writing alone that I would say that because like I said, I can count on one hand I'm not going to say who's who I can count on one hand the authors in small press indie area that I can say that about I do know as a disclaimer, I do know Laurel on Twitter, we're not best friends or buds or anything, but we do talk back and forth, we follow each other, we've had interaction, she's an acquaintance of mine that has not colored my review at all, whatsoever if anything, it probably makes me a little more critical because people will point out hey, you talk to this person every now and again so of course I'm going to be a little more critical because people are apt to say oh you're only saying that because you know this person but yeah, have you read The Whispers in the Dark? let me know what you liked about it what you didn't like about it whatever your feelings about this book down there in the doobly-doo last thing I want to say is thank you so much Kevin for sending me the book because if you hadn't sent me the book I never would have read this so I really do appreciate you man that's Whispers from the Dark by Laurel Hart Laurel Hightower but that's it for this time on Recent Reads if you have any comments about any of the books that I read or any of the gifts that I received or any of the books that I got from the library leave all your comments down there in the doobly-doo you have two weeks of best of stuff coming up so next week and the week after that will be full to the brim and then I'm going to take an entire week off I will continue to warn you guys but after these next two weeks of videos I'm going to take a week off and just go and do absolutely nothing with my family but until next time I have been E, you have been U this has been another Recent Reads video I'll talk to you guys later, bye bye