How to Ditch Dead Guys (The Witch`s Handbook #2) by Ann M. Noser

Description
"After everyone EMMA ROBERTS raises from the dead sinks back into the river, she longs for a purpose. A schedule. Something to accomplish.
Then OFFICER WALKER leaves a message on her voice mail: "There's been another murder, and I need your help."

With a bag of witchcraft supplies slung over her shoulder, Emma performs a séance for Walker at the site of the murder. But nothing happens until Emma gets back home.
Black smoke swirls inside the bathroom. An invisible force slams her head onto the tiled floor. A golden snake slithers across her legs, then impales her wrist with its icy teeth.

As the smoke clears and the images fade, the truth becomes clear.
This time around, Emma won't just watch what happened. She'll live it.

As Emma helps Officer Walker solve murder cases, she relives the horror of each victim's last moments of life. From the edge of the river to the underground lair of the gang who murdered Steve, she endures it all.
As Emma weakens, both the victims and the murderers who killed them fight for control of her body and mind.
She's possessed, and the voices inside her head won't let her ask for help.
Even the Book of Shadows can't save her now"

In this captivating sequel to How To Date Dead Guys (The Witch's Handbook #1) we find Emma pretty much where we left her at the end of the first book. Though she is now a bit wiser and a lot stronger, which is a good thing because she is facing some much bigger challenges than she did in the first book. I don't want to spoil it for you if you have not yet read book 1 (which you really should.)  I will just say that this is the further adventures of Emma and her friends, though this book is much darker than the first. Emma is dealing with some seriously evil entities this time but her sarcastic wit still makes it a fun read.

I received a complimentary copy for review.

Sister Dear by Laura McNeill

Description
All Allie Marshall wants is a fresh start. But first she has to deal with the past.

Convicted of a crime she didn't commit, Allie watched a decade of her life vanish. Now, out on parole, Allie is determined to clear her name and reconnect with the daughter she barely knows.

But Allie s return to Brunswick, Georgia, sends earthquakes through the small, coastal community. Even her daughter Caroline, now a teenager, challenges Allie s claims of innocence. Refusing defeat, a stronger, smarter Allie launches a campaign for the truth, digging deep into the past. Her investigation threatens her parole status, her own safety, and the already-fragile bond with her family. What Allie uncovers is far worse than she imagined. Her own sister has been hiding a dark secret one that holds the key to Allie s freedom.

10 years ago Allie Marshall had it all. A beautiful little girl, a plan to become a surgeon, and the love of her life by her side. Until one night when it all came crashing down and she lost everything in an instant. Allie had reason to suspect some illegal activity and ends up in prison for a murder that she did not commit. Meanwhile the real killer is still loose. The book begins when she is finally released from jail, and we are filled in on the back story through a series of flashbacks to the days before Allie was convicted.
 She is warned to let the past stay buried. Her friends want nothing to do with her, and even her own daughter who has been manipulated by her sister is upset that she is home. Allie sets out to prove her innocence and uncovers shocking secrets. This was a highly suspenseful, and thrilling read.

I received an advance copy for review

She's Come Undone by Wally Lamb

Description
"Mine is a story of craving; an unreliable account of lusts and troubles that began, somehow, in 1956 on the day our free television was delivered." So begins the story of Dolores Price, the unconventional heroine of Wally Lamb's She's Come Undone. Dolores is a class-A emotional basket case, and why shouldn't she be? She's suffered almost every abuse and familial travesty that exists: Her father is a violent, philandering liar; her mother has the mental and emotional consistency of Jell-O; and the men in her life are probably the gender's most loathsome creatures. But Dolores is no quitter; she battles her woes with a sense of self-indulgence and gluttony rivaled only by Henry VIII. Hers is a dysfunctional Wonder Years, where growing up in the golden era was anything but ideal. While most kids her age were dealing with the monumental importance of the latest Beatles single and how college turned an older sibling into a long-haired hippie, Dolores was grappling with such issues as divorce, rape, and mental illness. Whether you're disgusted by her antics or moved by her pathetic ploys, you'll be drawn into Dolores's warped, hilarious, Mallomar-munching world.  


I fell in love with Dolores within the first couple of chapters. I don't think she had "come undone" as much as I think she was already broken, and being raised in an unstable home didn't help any with putting the broken bits back together, The first half of this book was spectacular, but once again as in Wally Lamb's other book "I know This Much Is True" I hated the therapist, the therapy and the time Dolores spent in it. My interest really waned from that halfway point until 3 quarters or so of the book and I was as happy as Dolores herself to be done with it. The last quarter of the book thankfully had nothing to do with the psychiatrist and pretty much went back to being a spectacular story.
4 out of 5 stars from me.

The Fireman by Joe Hill

Description
From the award-winning, New York Times bestselling author of NOS4A2 and Heart-Shaped Box comes a chilling novel about a worldwide pandemic of spontaneous combustion that threatens to reduce civilization to ashes and a band of improbable heroes who battle to save it, led by one powerful and enigmatic man known as the Fireman.
The fireman is coming. Stay cool.
No one knows exactly when it began or where it originated. A terrifying new plague is spreading like wildfire across the country, striking cities one by one: Boston, Detroit, Seattle. The doctors call it Draco Incendia Trychophyton. To everyone else it’s Dragonscale, a highly contagious, deadly spore that marks its hosts with beautiful black and gold marks across their bodies—before causing them to burst into flames. Millions are infected; blazes erupt everywhere. There is no antidote. No one is safe.
Harper Grayson, a compassionate, dedicated nurse as pragmatic as Mary Poppins, treated hundreds of infected patients before her hospital burned to the ground. Now she’s discovered the telltale gold-flecked marks on her skin. When the outbreak first began, she and her husband, Jakob, had made a pact: they would take matters into their own hands if they became infected. To Jakob’s dismay, Harper wants to live—at least until the fetus she is carrying comes to term. At the hospital, she witnessed infected mothers give birth to healthy babies and believes hers will be fine too. . . if she can live long enough to deliver the child.
Convinced that his do-gooding wife has made him sick, Jakob becomes unhinged, and eventually abandons her as their placid New England community collapses in terror. The chaos gives rise to ruthless Cremation Squads—armed, self-appointed posses roaming the streets and woods to exterminate those who they believe carry the spore. But Harper isn’t as alone as she fears: a mysterious and compelling stranger she briefly met at the hospital, a man in a dirty yellow fire fighter’s jacket, carrying a hooked iron bar, straddles the abyss between insanity and death. Known as The Fireman, he strolls the ruins of New Hampshire, a madman afflicted with Dragonscale who has learned to control the fire within himself, using it as a shield to protect the hunted . . . and as a weapon to avenge the wronged.
In the desperate season to come, as the world burns out of control, Harper must learn the Fireman’s secrets before her life—and that of her unborn child—goes up in smoke


Harper Grayson was only trying to help others the day she became one of the infected. Now that she has the tell tale signs of contagion, her husband blames her and wants nothing to do with her. Scared and pregnant she has nobody to turn to. She considers trying to make it to her brother's house but does not want to put his family at risk. The cremation crews make it nearly impossible to leave home but when she is forced to run she meets up with a group of people who may be her salvation, or they may be too good to be true.
Joe Hill knows how to tell a story.  On par with "The Stand" and my all time favorite "Swan Song" is my new favorite The Fireman. Fast paced and heart pounding action packed.  It's the end of the world as we know it. A plague of epic proportions brings out the best in our unlikely heroes and the worst in others. This book is full of twists and turns that left me never knowing who to trust from one minute to the next and I loved every minute of it. 5 out of 5 stars from me.

I received an advance copy for review