'Salem's Lot - Stephen King

Prime example of why it took me so long to really get into his books. I feel like if you start off with this book, or Pet Sematary, you will have a hard time reading King. Or getting into King. Yes. I believe his work got better through the years. Not to say that this was as bad because it wasn't. It was a very good book. Just hard to get into, dragged in some parts and was extremely wordy.

This was book about vampires. But not the cushy, sparkly ones that we have grown to love (or hate) recently. This book was the bad sort. The ones who can't walk in daylight, allergic to garlic, can't stand the sight or feel of anything holy. And they want to over take the town of Jerusalem's lot. And take it over they do. A handful of townsmen try and stop them. As the daylight hours get a fewer and fewer there are less people to and more vampires.
This is very much like Dracula - old Vampire stories and legend. I enjoyed it for what it was, but it really took me way to long to read less the 400 pages. Maybe I just wasn't in the mood. Maybe I am desensitized from horror and vamps. Who knows. Fact is it didn't scare me. I am being to wonder if anything can.

Outside In - Maria Snyder

A wonderful sequel to Outside In. After they over through the Trela family and take control of the ship, things should be perfect right? Of course not, now the controllers are communicating, and they want it. Are they friendly or not? Who to trust on the inside? Who is right? The wrong decision gets people hurt or worse. All the while there are fights and riots breaking out because, even though they took control back and formed a committee, most of the scrubs and uppers don't believe in working together. There is still to much old prejudiced. Just when Trella thinks she can quit, she finds her world needs her more then ever.

Night Shift - Stephen King

As per his usual - Stephen King delivers. That being said, I am not a huge fan of short stories. I like to get involved with the characters and places and short stories don't allow you do that, if anything they make you yearn for more. This was no exception with King's. While I don't like them, he made me want more.

I will do a quick summery of the stories (admittedly I didn't read all of the stories, I know I am awful.)

Jerusalem's Lot - A man inherits a house that the locals considered cursed. Him and his man soon find out that they noises in the walls aren't rats, and something very sinister happened in the neighboring town, that was left deserted some time ago.

Graveyard Shift - When a group of workers is asked to work overtime cleaning out a basement, they get more then they bargained for. A huge colony of rats has over taken the sub-ground levels, unfortunately, that is the least of their problems. (Pretty sure this got turned into a movie)

Night Surf - A group of teenagers are the last survivors of a plague called Captain Trips. (setting us up for The Stand) 

I am the doorway - A man has a problem with some space parasite taking over his body.

The Mangler - When an industrial laundry machine gets a taste for blood, its up to a police officer and his friend to try and cast out the evil spirit.

Gray Matter - A man turns into a gray glob after drinking bad beer.

Trucks - All the trucks have come alive, and they want us to serve them (Setting for Maximum Overdrive)

Sometimes they come back - A teacher who had a very tragic incident involving a local gang and his brother happen to him, tries to put it behind him. New job, new students. Except, there are some new faces, problem is...they should be his age, not in high school and more over...they should be dead. - Setting for Sometimes they come back  - movie

Children of the Corn - A couple trying to fix their marriage go on a road trip (Side jaunt DUMB IDEA!), and they end up lost in a small town in Nebraska. There they find not adults, but children, none over 19, have been running things, or something more sinister has been running them. - Setting for Children of the Corn movie. 

One for the road - Man comes to a bar saying him and his family got stuck and need help. They got stuck in Jerusalem's Lot. The locals know that this is a cursed place and loath to go there, but they must help this man. Sure enough when they get there, the creatures are waiting. - Setting for Salem's Lot (book and movie I would imagine.)

All in all a great bunch of stories (and there were more I didn't read). Its amazing that with some of these full length movies were made. Stephen King can condense his thoughts and ideas and get to the point, but personally, I like it when he rambles.

Inside Out

This book was creative. Trella - a scrub - works cleaning the pipes. Her and hundreds like her, live each day to keep the compound clean. They work in ten hour shifts, life is measure in hours and weeks. She is a loner, by choice and her one true friend is a boy named Cog.

She helps Cog hide the Broken Man, who preaches about a gateway and gets herself deep into a mystery and an unlikely rebellion.

With the help of some uppers (the people who 'run' the compound) she and her fellow scrubs start taking control of their lives, and looking for the gateway. What waits outside the pipes and walls?

This is a first book. The second one is called Outside IN...and thankfully is out. Its the next book I am reading. I found this to be interesting. A very easy read, but I liked it.

Bag of Bones - Steven King

Only Stephen King. Seriously I feel that is all the review necessary. Only Stephen King.
If one hasn't read a single story by him then its hard to understand. I too, when I started reading him, found him wordy...dragging sometimes. We get it, he dug a grave. We don't need to know how hard, cold, musty the dirt was. But we do. Oh yes. We do. Stephen King has a way of making the simplest phrases stick in your mind...forever. And take a whole knew meaning. You might be walking along, looking through a window and see a pretty soap stone statue and say "Hey this would look good in my living room next to that picture of Aunt Martha." And then, somewhere in the back of your mind, where his words live you hear "that's my dust catcher."  And that is when you decide that you don't need another dust catcher anyway. And continue walking.
He makes bathrooms places of misery, flying kites tragedies, proms scary, dogs evil, sewer drains terrifying and God help you in the woods. The something about Stephen King is if you can read through his books, then you are no longer reading his books. You are living them. They become a part of you and his nightmare's become yours. His characters and places take hold of you like no other. Perhaps, its because I lived in Maine, so I am familiar with the places he speaks of. I can easily see a Maine woods, or a Maine lake. When he mentions real towns, I have been through them. But honestly, I felt the same way in The Stand, and I have never been to Nebraska, or Colorado. Its his descriptions. Its him, telling us for four pages how the grave looked and smelled and felt. For an entire chapter describing the very essences of the dark man. If it wasn't for that, then his books wouldn't catch us the way they do.

Bag of Bones is seriously no different. In this book Mike Noonan is trying to get over the loss of his wife and decides to go back to their summer home in TR-90...Sara Laughs. Here he gets in the middle of a legal battle with Mattie and her three year old daughter Kyra and Kyra's grandfather. But something else is happening, something other worldly. His feelings for Kyra and Mattie intensify just as he starts to really understand the history and truth that haunts TR-90 and Sara Laughs.

A great book by Mr. King. I am not going to tell you that now I am going to run out and read them all. Because I am not. Some of his stories have not pull for me. The darktower series for one. I just can't seem to get into it. Maybe someday. Salem's Lot I might try though. I enjoy getting pulled into his world...into his mind. I look forward to another journey with him.

Divine Evil - Nora Roberts

I had read this book before. I knew it almost after the first chapter. Still it was a fun re-read.
A small town has a dark secret...a group of men practice devil worship. For years the practice in the background. But things get out of hand. A runaway goes missing, one of their own dies, the new sheriff is asking too many questions. Artist Clare Kimball comes back to town to answer a few questions from her past. What she uncovers is far worse then anything she ever dreamed.

Ransom My Heart - Meg Cabot

Okay so this book is exactly what it sounds like. A cheesy romance novel. Thankfully though, not too bad. It had a plot which was actually really intriguing.

Set back in the 1200's Finn isn't like other girls. Where they wait for husbands and children, she hunts and fishes. When one of her sisters asks for help she goes to find a man to ransom for money. When she comes across Huge Fitzstephen, an Earl all she sees is the fat coin purse he is waving around. He lets her believe he is a knight and allows her to "capture" him. During their travel back to her village, they fall into lust. He decides he is to marry her, unbeknownst to her. When she finds out he is in fact and Earl and not a knight, and soon to be her husband, she is beside herself. She has already been down this road, and doesn't want to go down again.

But all that is just the beginning, for in the Earl's absents, his cousin has ruled and not kindly. Nor does he want to give up the manor.

Its hard reading period pieces because they use words we don't use. But more, because men and woman's rolls were so much different back then. It was okay for a husband to hit his wife. And that, to me, is just despicable, so when I read about even the threat of a man hitting a woman I just cringe. I have to remind myself that it was a different time, different era. Still I enjoyed this book very much.

The first days - Rhiannon Frater

I didn't think I would like this book. I love the idea of zombie's but I rarely find zombie books or movies that I actually like. Odd I know. Having said that, I enjoyed this book. A lot. I love the character's, I love the setting, I love the dialog and I loved the zombies.
In this Kate and Jenni find each other during the first few hours of a zombie outbreak. Fighting their way through the cities and small towns - the finally make a stand in a small Texas town with about a hundred other survivors. Now they try to make a little home while zombie hoard keeps moving in.

I can't wait to read the next books!

HIgh Noon - Nora Roberts

Another fun book by Nora Roberts. This book was all the lines of Angel Falls and the like, with a killer in the midst and not knowing who or why. Phoebe MacNamara is negotiator with the Savanna PD. She has a beautiful seven year old daughter, an agoraphobic mother and a past that still haunts her, but has made her what she is today. Her life is plenty full. Full enough that the pursuits of one Duncan Smith don't seem worth her time. Of course, this changes. This is a good book, filled with suspense, romance and humor.

On a personal note, wouldn't it be nice if romance writers wrote the lead character plain. Or even...with some deformity? It gets kind of...tiring to always read of the hot, sexy insert coolest career ever, who meets hot sexy insert loner boy career here. For once I'd like to read of a school teacher who never had a date, who gets swept off her feet by waste management guy. Just saying.