Lora Terrill

Thank you for joining me here!   I hope you enjoy this series and I’d love to hear from you about what you are reading these days.

Book #1:

Amari and the Night Brothers by B.B. Alston (Length: 413 pages).   This is a middle-grade (fourth grade and up) fantasy book that reminds me a lot of Harry Potter, but a bit more grounded in reality. I really enjoyed this book, and I’m not a huge fantasy reader. I believe I first learned about this novel while listening to the Currently Reading podcast (a fantastic listen for book lovers!) and I’m so glad I picked it up. The plot is propulsive as it centers around a young teen girl who goes to a type of summer school or training ground for those with supernatural powers, in hopes of finding her older brother who had gone missing from the same school. The character development is decent, and I’m hopeful there are sequels to this amazing book. The setting (the training school) is the star here. This is absolutely worth a read, for middle grade to adult!

Book #2:

Hollow Kingdom by Kira Jane Buxton (Length: 321 pages). I freaking LOVE this book!!! This is a fantastically imaginative story about an intelligent crow living in Seattle named ST (short for Shit Turd) who, along with the rest of the animal kingdom, domestic and wild, survives a zombie apocalypse triggered by a worldwide virus. This is laugh-out-loud funny (and I rarely find things funny enough to laugh about while reading), sad, very creepy thanks to some gory and scary scenes, with a hell of a plot. This is not for everyone (and admittedly the above description had kept me from picking it up for a while) but since many people whose opinions and reviews I respect highly recommend it, I finally took the leap. I’d suggest reading the first chapter and if that doesn’t hook you, don’t keep reading. I couldn’t put it down, and I am recommending it to everyone (with an open mind) I know. Five stars for sure!

Book #3:

Lonesome Cowboy by Debbie Macomber (Length: 177 pages).   I picked this one up at a library book sale, honestly just because it was cheap and I’m sometimes in the mood for novels where I don’t have to think too hard. This one is the first novel in the author’s Heart of Texas series. It’s cute, without much depth, which is typical of these types of romance novels. There is a enough plot here to keep the reader interested (will the sister of a brother/sister duo running their inherited ranch strike out on her own, personally and professionally?). The author also teases the significance of a nearby ghost town called Bitter End, in an effort to keep you reading further in the series. Since I also have the next novel in the series (Texas Two-Step) and that novel further develops characters introduced here, I’ll likely check it out. This is a quick beach read, worth at least a library check out.