Kobo Kono

So, this book is far out of my comfort level for genre. I’m don’t know myself to venture outside of my regular norm. From my regular WWII historical fiction, to police procedural, I rarely venture into uncharted territory of Guillermo Del Toro. I rarely find myself branching out to any sort of science fiction or fantasy. I think the last fantasy novel I read was the City of Heavenly Fire by Cassandra Clare back in 2014, and that one was dragging the series out too far and ended up being a 2/5 star book for me.   Where all I can say is that I thoroughly enjoyed those book, and ended up giving it 5/5 on my Goodreads account.             The Shape of Water was an absolute knockout of a book. I was hesitant to pick it up at first, and that’s mainly due to the nature of the story. The giant creature and a human being, and the love story are usually an off switch for me. I think that’s because it usually makes me think of Be...

So it’s been quite some time since I have posted on the kobokonos, and I thought that I would explain as to where my head has been. Most of the books that I have posted about on this webpage were free preceding copies provided by publishers and Netgalley. I became frustrated with the webpage when all of my preapproved copies expired on my device whole I was out one day attempting to read a new story. So I left to read something that I had on my device that didn’t have and expiry date, which wasn’t the worst thing, but I started to go through the books that I found on my own. With a lack of a demand to have to post it looks like there wasn't much of a reason to do so. To be honest with you it looks like I miss writing about books. Looks like we are on the comeback tour. I was sitting at home finishing the shape of water, and I loved the book that I thought I would write a post for it because the book is beautiful. So in short it looks like I am planning on coming back and post...

Perfect Silence by Helen Fields Book four of the DI Luc Callanach series. On my good reads account, I rated this book a 2.0 star out of five. I would honestly have liked to have given the book a 2.5/5 but whole stars only apparently. This book starts off quite similar to most murder mystery books, of course with an atrocious killing to captivate the reader.  The body of a woman is found brutally mutilated, and left for dead on the roadside. Chunks of flesh taken by the killer, which eventually returns in a sick twisted doll created from the removed flesh. A second case is opened where the assailant is attacking the homeless ‘spice’ users and cutting their faces while they are intoxicated. Their memory is not reliable,and any grain of evidence is hard to obtain from the victims. What I found captivating was once the police managed to get a lead in the story and the chase began. The way that the killerstarted to respond, and the explanation from the killers per...

The book starts with seventeen year old Eleanor 'Ellie' Parker waking up on the embankment of a river half in the water, in the early hours of the morning. Ellie has little recollection of the night before. She manages to get home, but throughout the morning she begins to find that she has significant bruising on her chest and arms, she finds that she can’t get warm, and cannot eat or hold anything down when she eats. After no food, no sleep, and no experience of pain since awakening on the river embankment, Ellie becomes convinced that she died that night. She has no explanation as to how she is still conscious and functioning as she did prior to the forgotten night. Ellie and her family lives in a small town where gossip appears to be one of the main currencies. Nothing is private in the town, and for anything that is a well kept secret, becomes embellished beyond belief through rumours, and lies. Ellie’s brother Oliver has been the centre of scrutiny in the previous y...

My Real Name is Hanna By Tara Lynn Masih. This is a book of Hanna Slivka and her family’s many struggles during the Nazi occupation of Ukraine. Hanna, fourteen at the time and as the occupation continues, Hanna wonders if she will be able to survive long enough to see her next birthdays. Her family is well respected in their small community, they are able to utilize news from other parts of the country to try and stay ahead of the Gestapo. The book begins with the Silvia’s hiding different people in their barn for usually overnight. Eventually the family feels it a time to go into hiding themselves they find themselves in a cabin in the woods for a short period of time. The eventually realize that the SS are drawing nearer in their searches for any of the remaining Jews within the area. The family finds their way into a dark (mostly uninhabited) cave. With the constant worry of food, and survival necessitates always running on low, the family is always...

I am thankful for my advanced copy of The Death of Mrs.Westaway from the publisher via NetGalley. Hal is a young woman who seems to always be down on her luck. The story starts off with Hal, going through her current mail, and seeing all of her bills are pretty much all final notices. Invoice after invoice, Hal realizes that she’s running financially on empty. While she is going through her mail, she finds a hand written letter informing Hal that she is the heir to a somewhat large fortune. This doesn’t seem to make sense to Hal as she lost her mother in a tragic hit and run accident before Hal could finish high school. Her loss put her in emotional turmoil, and swept the only thing that was secure right out from under her feet. The loss of Hal’s mother forced her to have to change, and grow up fast. She takes up her mother’s business to attempt to make ends meet. Provides tarot card readings, and palm readings as she has witnessed her mother do many times over. Hal fi...

So I have been MIA over the past few weeks, and that's because I have been moving. So reading and reviewing has been at an all time low. I have finished Rachel Lynch's Dark Game (DI Kelly Porter 1), and a review is coming. I have also started reading Deep Fear by Rachel Lynch as well (DI Kelly Porter #2). Unfortunately for Deep Fear I have something like 3 days to finish the book before it's locked out of my library. So all in all it looks like the race is on.

Then She was Gone by Lisa Jewell. Laurel, whose life is forever changed when her teenage daughter mysteriously vanishes on her way to the library. Ellie going missing was just the catalyst for the falling apart of what Laurel has come to know as her life. She loses all of the close relationships as she mourns the loss, and the lack of closure she has gotten over the past 10 years of Ellie's disappearance. Ellie was your typical teenage girl. Ellie has her typical teenager stresses, such as studying for exams, and home troubles. One day on her way to the library to study for her upcoming exams, she vanishes without a trace. No body discovered and there is no concrete evidence of foul play in the disappearance of Ellie Mack. After ten years missing the police are forced to contact Ellie’s parents to relive all the known facts of the case, when Ellie’s schoolbag that she was using at the time she went missing is found in the wilderness. The many years of loss left Laurel in...

Still Water by Amy Stuart I initially picked up the first book of this series before reading Still Water, I picked it up so I could get the entire intended experience of the series. Still Water is the second installment of the Still Series by Amy Stuart. This book begins with Clare on the run again after the ending of her previous case in Blakemore where Shayna Fowls has gone missing. After Shayna Fowls is found in Blackmore alive and well, Malcolm manages to convince Clare to escape most of the media before it ramps up, exposing Clare and her location to her friends and family from her previous life. Clare and Malcolm spend the next few weeks in a motel where Clare can recover from the gunshot wound she received in the Blackmore mines. Once she has mostly recovered Malcolm sends Clare is to the small town of High River with a new identity, and a new mission. In High River, Sally Proulx and her son William have vanished overnight, without a trace. Police have no leads, only an eye w...

  "My sharpest memories are the dark ones"  -Sill Mine by Amy Stuart Amy Stuart's Sill Mine is an unstoppable book. This book is about the mystery of missing Shayna Fowles. Shayna was the typical teenager up until she finds herself getting mixed up with Charlie Merritt. Clare O'Callaghan (O'Dey), a woman with a pretty spotty past who's on the run from her abusive husband. After the loss of her unborn child through physical, and emotional abuse from her husband, on top of Clare’s substance abuse, Clare decides enough is enough. One day she just vanishes from her previous life, and changes her identity.  Clare’s husband hires Malcolm Boon to aid in helping to find Clare. Once Malcolm manages to catch up to Clare, rather than reporting back to Clare’s husband Malcolm makers Clare an offer to work for him. Clare hesitantly accepts Malcolm’s offer and is sent to the small mining town of Blakemore, where a young woman named Shayna Fowles has vanished without a tr...

I spent the first portion of 2018 reading The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood. This is a classic that insites the underlying feminist movement in any individual.I found as I read further into the book, the more I got into it. I throughly enjoyed loved this book. I gave this book ⭐⭐⭐⭐/5. I felt a little lost in the beginning of the book, attemptinf to try to figure out what the rules are, and the reationalization for the way that society had become. This books is a CLASSIC, you Cannot go wrong with it, I would absolutely recommend this book to my friends. Once I finished the Handmaid's Tale, I moved one to the main genre so far of 2018. The main genre that I have most recently fallen in love with, and ot happens to be historical fiction (mainly focussing on WWII). For some reason the under dog story of any resistance toward the Nazi rule during 1935-1945 has been turning my crank for the end of 2017 and the beginning of 2018. This is when I decided that I would read ...

After I finished Jillian Cantors The Lost Letter I picked up Red Sparrow by Jason Matthews. The first book of the Red Sparrow trilogy. I rated this book ⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 on my goodreads account which generally means that the book couldn't get much better, but usually lacking an emotional connection with the book. When I finished this series, I didn't have to tame time before choosing the next book to read. I'm not usually one to pick up a present day espionage book, let alone take on a trilogy. What really had me is that I kept seeing all of the trailers for the first movie. Once I ackowledged that it was going to be a movie I couldn't seem to get away from the book reviews. From there I was hooked, and I kmew that I had to read the books before they became films. I could have just waited and watched the movie when it came out, but the adaptations are never as good as the book is. Nathaniel Nash the rising CIA handler of high value informants within the Russian intelligence...

The Girl in the Blue Beret By Bobby Ann Mason. Marshall Stone, an ex-pilot forced into retirement from his commercial airline. Stone decides after he no longer has any obligation to the airline, that he is going to get in touch with the various individuals who helped him and his air crew escape German occupied France. Marshall was one of the pilots who flew a bomber for the allies during the Second World War. On a return mission Stone and his crew are shot out of the sky, and are forced to initiate and emergency landing. Once on the ground in France, the surviving crew attempt to escape the German forces. Along with the aid of the surrounding villagers the crew manage to evade capture, and return home. This book was a difficult read for me, it was the complexity of the reading, but it was the dryness and the story itself. On my Goodreads account I gave this book ⭐⭐/5. I think one of the fatal flaws of this book for me was Marshall Stone’s character. Stone is obsessed with every...

This is a blog. It's nothing special, nothing fancy. Just a place on the internet that I can call my own. What's the plan? Well this is a web page in which I plan to review the various books, quotes, and various authors that I manage to stumble across. I do use goodreads , but I think that it's not the right type of platform for me to post my thoughts and ideas of the books that I read. I know its a site for reviews, but there isn't really much that can be done once the star rating, and the review is posted. I actually mostly use good reads to get recommendations to build an ever growing and never stopping monstrosity of a to be read shelf. Currently I believe the to be read count is at about 530. I don't think I will end up reading through all the books, but it's a place to start. in retrospect I suppose what I was really looking for is somewhere to do my own thing... well.. here it is.... and here we go. :D