River Readers

Another Phoebe and Marigold adventure! This one was perhaps my least favorite but I still loved it!
This volume is back to being in comic strip form with the subject jumping around but it is still easy to follow. Perhaps one of the biggest disappointments in this volume was there was no educational excerpt at the back. This has been one of my favorite features of the series. The glossary is there (because of Phoebe's exceptional vocabulary, of course).

I am anxiously awaiting Volume 5 to become available at my library because it is another graphic novel.
 

Ghostbusters meets Brother’s Grimm!
This title was soo good, I read it at 2nd time; actually my husband and I read it to each other (and I submitted the review to the newspaper)

What if fairy tales pick people to be their vehicles, so their story can be told? What if some people are born predisposed to being an archetypal character or more precisely a fairy tale character? What happens in this tale, is that these narratives get out of control and become deadly. Because these aren’t Disney’s versions, these are the Brother’s Grimm.

Angie's description made this title sound similar to Seanan McGuire's book Indexing, where narratives can control people's lives. While I managed to finish this book, I found the tension to be excessive. Things go from struggling, to worse and worse, and the protagonist makes stupid decisions. Interesting, but not my cup of tea.

Hard on the heels of the return of her mother’s body from the frozen reaches of the Himalayas, Flavia, for her indiscretions, is banished from her home at Buckshaw and shipped across the ocean to Miss Bodycote’s Female Academy in Toronto, her mother’s alma mater, there to be inducted into a mysterious organization known as the Nide.

No sooner does she arrive, however, than a body comes crashing down out of the chimney and into her room, setting off a series of investigations into mysterious disappearances of girls from the school.

-Goodreads.com

A doctor with a rare—seemingly superhuman—neurological trait takes us on a compelling tour deep into the human brain in this blend of memoir and scientific exploration that combines the compassionate wisdom of Oliver Sacks and the personal revelations of Jill Bolte Taylor’s My Stroke of Insight.

The Arizona Territory was a dangerous place, but gunslinger Jake Redman was half-Apache and all man--more than a match for the wilderness. Sarah Conway was something else again. She was every inch an Eastern lady, yet she was determined to make Lone Bluff her home.

Jake was annoyed to find himself playing guardian angel to this tantalizing innocent--even more disgusted to find he liked it. Little did he suspect that beneath Sarah's ladylike demeanor beat the heart of a frontier woman ant that her body yearned for his hard embrace, her heart for his words of love .. . .

An emotionally gripping family drama from beloved New York Times bestseller Luanne Rice

Clare Burke’s life took a devastating turn when she tried to protect her sister, Anne, from an abusive and controlling husband and ended up serving prison time for assault. The verdict largely hinged on Anne’s defense of her spouse—all lies—and the sisters have been estranged ever since. Nearly twenty years later, Clare is living a quiet life in Manhattan as an urban birder and nature blogger, when her niece, Grit, turns up on her doorstep.

Julie Barenson's young husband left her two unexpected gifts before he died: a Great Dane puppy named Singer and the promise that he would always be watching over her. Now, four years have passed. Still living in the small town of Swansboro, North Carolina, 29-year-old Julie is emotionally ready to make a commitment to someone again. But who? Should it be Richard Franklin, the handsome, sophisticated engineer who treats her like a queen? Or Mike Harris, the down-to-earth nice guy who was her husband's best friend?

Another Phoebe and Her Unicorn Adventure down and I think it was my favorite yet! The other volumes have been compilations of comic strips which sometimes jump from subject to subject. This one was an actual graphic novel!
I enjoyed following an entire story with Phoebe, Marigold, Dakota and Max trying to discover the cause of a power outage.

When Feyre mistakenly kills a fae disguised as a wolf in her forest, she must pay the price laid out in the treaty. Spend her eternity in the realm of the fairies across the wall that was erected during a war between the fairies and humans years ago. She lives in dread as to what she will find there and wonders whether she will survive. Under the watch of the High Lord of the Spring Court, Tamlin, she finds life is not at all what she expected. Something ominous is happening in the Court Of Spring and Feyre must find out what it is and if it will affect the human family she left behind.

Stella Lane thinks math is the only thing that unites the universe. She comes up with algorithms to predict customer purchases--a job that has given her more money than she knows what to do with, and way less experience in the dating department than the average thirty-year-old.

Sweet, funny, and quietly poignant, Debbie Tung’s comics reveal the ups and downs of coming of age as an introvert.

This illustrated gift book of short comics illuminates author Debbie Tung's experience as an introvert in an extrovert’s world. Presented in a loose narrative style that can be read front to back or dipped into at one’s leisure, the book spans three years of Debbie's life, from the end of college to the present day. In these early years of adulthood, Debbie slowly but finally discovers there is a name for her lifelong need to be alone: she’s an introvert.

Xiomara tells her story through beautiful poetry. Hers is a tale of heartache and sorrow. Xiomara is buxom and beautiful in a way that causes men and boys to look at her and comment. She is not religious or devoted in the way her mother wants her to be and this causes endless strain between them. She is tough where her twin brother is not but she can't always protect him. Her poems tell the story of her struggles to find a voice and to find a place for herself. They tell of her struggles with her mother and her faith. They tell of her first love and first heartbreak.

Kent during the beginnings of WWII is nearly devoid of men. When choir mistress Prim decides to recreate the Chilbury Choir into the Chilbury Ladies Choir she shocks many of those around her. But that doesn't stop all the women from joining and creating a uniquely feminine sound. This epistolary novel is told through the letters and journals of several of the members of the choir. 

Bodyguard Bad Boys… Sexy, hot and oh so protective!