Spoiler alert: It wasn't mannequins

Horrorstor was an incredibly quick, fast-paced read. I have to say that the story veered off in a direction that I was completely unprepared for (despite reading the blurb). It's somewhere between horror, thriller, and paranormal. I don't want to give anything away because I think you'd enjoy the journey a lot more with the mystery intact. I will say, however, that I enjoyed the visual aspect of the book which incorporated furniture ads like those you might see in an Ikea catalog. It was a unique approach to horror and I think you guys would get a kick out of it.

There's an author that's been on my radar for a while now (thanks to the many literary newsletters I subscribe to) and I'm happy to say that I've picked up both of his novels to review. The first one is his newest, The Rise & Fall of Great Powers. The author is Tom Rachman and he's being hailed as "one of the most exciting young writers we have". The story revolves around a woman with the odd sounding name of Tooly who is herself an odd sort of person. She owns a bookstore in a small town in Wales where she spends the majority of her days reading. However, it's her past that takes up a good chunk of the book and its mysteries are unraveled in pieces as the story progresses. At about a quarter through, I can already feel my excitement building for the astonishing conclusion (which I'm sure is going to be astonishing based on the nuggets already revealed). Review to be posted shortly!!

I hope you guys are enjoying your last few weeks of summer (or maybe you're like me and in denial that it's concluding at all) and you're reading HEAPS AND HEAPS of books. :-D

EDIT: I was just sent the link for Horrorstor's book trailer so I thought I'd share! :-D https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfrwSkUQEQo

The endurance of the human spirit or The Halifax Disaster

It's a little unsettling to me that prior to reading Curse of the Narrows I had never heard of the explosion that caused so much devastation in Halifax, Nova Scotia on December 6, 1917. When the munitions ship, Mont Blanc, collided with the Belgian Relief vessel, Imo, on that fateful day none of the inhabitants in Richmond could have predicted the loss that their town would incur. I have to admit that at the outset of this book I was struggling to comprehend what was occurring as much of the language was 'nautical' in nature which I've always found confusing. However, once Mac Donald began discussing the 'human element' I was hooked. Basically, the entire town was decimated in a matter of moments and thousands were killed, injured, orphaned, and made homeless. Oppenheimer used the statistics from the blast to calculate the effects of an atomic bomb (and used these calculations to create the bombs used in Nagasaki and Hiroshima). One of the unique factors in this event was that there was an historian on the ground that immediately began rounding up accounts and taking interviews in order to preserve the details of the day and the days and months preceding it. I highly encourage any fans of history (in particular WWI-era) to give this book a try. Additionally, the Appendix and Notes at the end of the book were absolutely phenomenal which is always one of my favorite parts in any nonfiction work and if you aren't reading these I highly encourage you to do so. :-D

Next up is Horrorstor (imagine the last 'o' has those little dots over it) by Grady Hendrix. I'm already impressed with the book based on its packaging (yeah, yeah don't judge a book blah blah blah) because it looks like a retail catalog. The reason for this is that the setting for the book is a furniture superstore called Orsk. When five employees agree to spend the night in the store to discover who is causing havoc each night they discover more than they had bargained for. O_O It's a horror story in a furniture store! (I am genuinely wary of mannequins so I really hope they don't turn out to be the baddies in this.) I can't wait to report back to you guys with my review!!