Dear Readers, March was a pretty good month I feel like I broke my reading slump spell at the end as I’m reading two book currently and almost finished for a good start to April. I did not complete my goal of 6 books this month, I read only 5. I read 2 horror, 1 mystery, I science fiction and 1 new release thanks to Netgalley. I read 4 books from a book series Goosebumps ,Harry Bosch Universe, Batman Knightfall. And Star Trek Vangaurd I read one 5 star book, two 4 star books, and two 3 star books.

Five Star Reviews:

Goosebumps – The Headless Ghost by R. L. Stine is a good old fashioned ghost story. The Headless Ghost is Goosebumps book 37 in the original series order. The story of the ghost and how he became headless is really great and scary, reminded me of a good campfire ghost story. The story takes place at Hill House which is an homage to the Shirley Jackson ghost story The Haunting of Hill House. This story is focused from the beginning and one of the best paced Goosebumps. The story is spooky and the danger feels real. The two co-leads Stephanie and Duane felt like good friends that really cared about each other. The twist at the end was pretty good and went with the story pretty well. This story is a personal one for me, as I can remember reading this story to bed for one of my little sister.

Four Star Reviews:

A Darkness More Than Night by Michael Connelly is a team up novel of 3 of Michael Connelly’s characters that have had their own books. A Darkness More Than Night is part procedural and part court room drama. The book is an interesting team up between Mc Caleb who sees the world more black and white and Bosch who sees the world more grey. The morality of the two is tested when all signs point to Harry Bosch having stepped over the line, and murdered a horrible person that escaped justice based on a technicality. The pace of the book is a little slow Terry McCaleb is a very detailed investigator and goes over stuff more than Bosch which slows down the pace, once Harry Bosch is involved the story moves faster. The ending was fairly satisfying. There’s a really good reveal at the end with some of Connelly’s best writing.

Star Trek: Summon the Thunder by Dayton Ward and Kevin Dilmore is the second book in the 9 book Star Trek Vangaurd series. This book takes place very soon after Harbinger by David Mack ended. This book does not feature anyone from the Star Trek the Original series, like the last one did, but with events that happened in this book Kirk, Scotty, Chekov, and Uhura will all return in the series soon. The event of this book take place in the far reaches of space between The Klingon Empire and Tholian space on Starbase 47 also called Vangaurd. The Starfleet mission is set up to look like a peace keeping mission, but really the Starfleet Federation is looking at a higher life form and a potential weapon. The first book had a lot of internal conflict and character development, this book continues the conflict but loses some of the character development. This book had more action than the first.

Three Star Reviews:

All Hallows by Christopher Golden is a Halloween horror that takes place in 1984. The story is slow paced for about 70% of the story then goes at rapid pace and doesn’t stop until the end. The horror and the gore when we finally get there is intense and no holds barred. The narrative of the story consist of 15 perspectives which for the most part is families parents and children. This was an element I did not care for it was too much too soon, I had a real hard time keeping up with who was related to who and who was friends with who. It was pretty messy, until the 50% mark then I was able to put it together. I felt the parents were a lot more memorable than the kids, and generally liked most of their stories over the kids who at the beginning only one kid really stuck out. I felt the lore was lazy and missing a lot for me to by the premiss. This book was almost a do not finish but the last half was actually good and finally caught my interest. The finale has some good moments and gets pretty intense. Thanks to Netgalley and St. Martin Press for giving me a free copy to review. All Hallows was published on January 24 2023.

Batman: Knightfall Volume 2 -Knightquest by Chuck Dixon continues the long saga of Knightfall the big Batman DC Comics event of the 90’s. Batman -Bruce Wayne has been broken by Bane and he handed the reigns over John Paul who was Arzael a conflicted hero. John Paul turns the batsuit into a dangerous weapon with a full redesign, he beats Bane and starts his crusade to take Gotham back all the while not using the same rules. This starts Knightquest! The comics are all leading to something but it is really unfocused, and when it gets to the end I don’t know if it was totally earned. It reminds me of the current MCU, the first phases were so focused all leading to a big event like the first volume of Knightfall, then phase 4 was a mess with no direction like the second volume of Knightfall. I did like where the volume ended up and think this is the best direction for the final volume of the series. This volume was missing a lot of notable villains, it featured Joker, Catwoman, Clayface III and Lady Clayface.