gilda_elise | Entries tagged with alphabet soup 2025

World Fantasy award-winning, bestselling author Robert McCammon makes a triumphant return to the epic horror and apocalyptic tone reminiscent of his books Swan Song and Stinger in this gripping new novel, The Border, a saga of an Earth devastated by a war between two marauding alien civilizations.

But it is not just the living ships of the monstrous Gorgons or the motion-blurred shock troops of the armored Cyphers that endanger the holdouts in the human bastion of Panther Ridge. The world itself has turned against the handful of survivors, as one by one they succumb to despair and suicide or, even worse, are transformed by otherworldly pollution into hideous Gray Men, cannibalistic mutants driven by insatiable hunger. Into these desperate circumstances comes an amnesiac teenaged boy who names himself Ethan—a boy who must overcome mistrust and suspicion to master unknowable powers that may prove to be the last hope for humanity's salvation. Those same powers make Ethan a threat to the warring aliens, long used to fearing only each other, and thrust him and his comrades into ever more perilous circumstances.

A major new novel from the unparalleled imagination of Robert McCammon, this dark epic of survival will both thrill readers and make them fall in love with his work all over again.

I love McCammon’s work. Whether historical fiction, science fiction, or horror, he always brings his worlds to life. This one, a blend of horror and sci-fi, is no exception. The plot, though not his first foray into a post-apocalyptic saga, is still imaginative and leads the reader into surprising twists and turns. But even more compelling are the characters; in that regard, McCammon is up their with King.

There is Dave McKane, a rough and taciturn man who hides a tender persona; John Douglas, or JayDee as he’s affectionately known, doing the best he can to doctor those injured, both physically and emotionally; Olivia Quintero, a strong woman who holds their fortress together. But best of all is Ethan, a young boy who doesn’t remember who he is, and wonders what he is. There are others, both good and bad (though even the bad ones had some good,) who move our small band of heroes forward to their ultimate destination.

There were clues as the ending drew nearer, yet it was (almost) a perfect surprise. I read the book almost ten years ago, so much of it was like reading it for the first time.

Mount TBR 2025 Book Links

Links are to more information regarding each book or author, not to the review.

1. The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War by Erik Larson
2. The Silence of the Girls (Women of Troy #1) by Pat Barker
3. Withered + Sere (Immemorial Year #1) by T.J. Klune
4. The Traitor's Son by Wendy Johnson
5. All That Heaven Allows: A Biography of Rock Hudson by Mark Griffin
6. You Like It Darker by Stephen King, Thomas Hayman (Illustrations)
7. The Fireman by Joe Hill
8. The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein
9. Lark Ascending by Silas House
10. Memorials by Richard Chizmar
11. The Russo-Ukrainian War: The Return of History by Serhii Plokhy
12. Clytemnestra by Costanza Casati
13. The Border by Robert McCammon

Border, The

Cosmic Horror

1. The Border by Robert McCammon

For fans of Madeline Miller's Circe, a stunning debut following Clytemnestra, the most notorious villainess of the ancient world and the events that forged her into the legendary queen.

As for queens, they are either hated or forgotten. She already knows which option suits her best...

You were born to a king, but you marry a tyrant. You stand by helplessly as he sacrifices your child to placate the gods. You watch him wage war on a foreign shore, and you comfort yourself with violent thoughts of your own. Because this was not the first offence against you. This was not the life you ever deserved. And this will not be your undoing. Slowly, you plot.

But when your husband returns in triumph, you become a woman with a choice.

Acceptance or vengeance, infamy follows both. So, you bide your time and force the gods' hands in the game of retribution. For you understood something long ago that the others never did.

If power isn't given to you, you have to take it for yourself.

A blazing novel set in the world of Ancient Greece for fans of Jennifer Saint and Natalie Haynes, this is a thrilling tale of power and prophecies, of hatred, love, and of an unforgettable Queen who fiercely dealt out death to those who wronged her.

On parr with Madeline Miller’s The Song of Achilles, Clytemnestra tells the story of the Spartan princess who would become the queen of Mycenae. But this time the story is told through Clytemnestra’s eyes.

I never understood why Clytemnestra would be portrayed as a monster for killing her husband; not only does he have one of their daughters sacrificed to the gods for fair winds, but he had her first husband and their infant son killed. If that isn’t reason enough for murder, I don’t know what is.

Which is why I so loved the retelling of Clytemnestra’s story. So often she’s in the shadows of her more famous relatives: her sister, Helen, the beauty of Troy. Her brothers Castor and Polydeuces, who lived on in the sky. Her mother, Leda, seduced (or raped, depending on who’s telling the story,) by Zeus in the form of a swan. Even her cousin, Penelope, who would marry Odysseus. Here, at last, her story is brought to the fore.

She is a strong woman who had her faults. But she didn’t deserve the story created about her. She was a bitter woman who looked for justice the only way she knew how.

Despite repeated warnings from the White House, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 shocked the world. Why did Putin start the war―and why has it unfolded in previously unimaginable ways? Ukrainians have resisted a superior military; the West has united, while Russia grows isolated.

Serhii Plokhy, leading historian of Ukraine and the Cold War, traces this conflict to post-Soviet tensions. Providing a broad historial context and an examination of Ukraine and Russia’s ideas and cultures, as well as domestic and international politics, Plokhy reveals that while this new Cold War was not inevitable, it was predictable. Ukraine, Plokhy argues, has remained central to Russia’s idea of itself even as Ukrainians have followed a radically different path. It is now more than ever the most volatile fault line between authoritarianism and democratic Europe as a new division of the world emerges around the economic superpowers of the United States and China.

Such an auspicious beginning. The 1994 Budapest Memorandum was supposed to give Ukraine a security guarantee from the West for handing over the nuclear weapons on their soil. If Russia was ever to attack them, the West would be there. Didn’t quite work out that way.

I think I know why Putin and Trump get along so well. They both think that, just because they say something, it’s true. Putin seems to be under the assumption that Ukraine is part of Russia just because it was at one point. So I guess France should hand over Normandy to England.

Why, exactly, did Putin invade Ukraine? While many believe it was his desire to rebuild the USSR, Plokhy gives another reason. Most Russians, including Putin apparently, believe that their nation originated in Kyiv, the center of what was known as Kyivan Rus, and encompassed parts of what are now Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia. The fact that that particular entity was destroyed by the Mongols in the thirteenth century doesn’t seem to mean a great deal in Putin’s delusional mind.

It was awful, reliving Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, remembering Russia’s atrocities and seeing them played out again on the pages of the book. I often had to stop, I was so infuriated, that Putin could, and still is, getting away with murder. Literally.

It’s amazing how much Russia has tried to dominate Ukraine over the last century and more. The bizarre thinking of that country’s leaders is hard to fathom.

1983: Three students from a small college embark on a week-long road trip to film a documentary on roadside memorials for their American Studies class. The project starts out as a fun adventure with long stretches of empty road and nightly campfires where they begin to open up with one another.

But as they venture deeper into the Appalachian backwoods, the atmosphere begins to darken. They notice more and more of the memorials feature a strange, unsettling symbol hinting at a sinister secret. Paranoia sets in when it appears they are being followed. Their vehicle is tampered with overnight and some of the locals appear to be anything but welcoming. Before long, the students can’t help but wonder if these roadside deaths were really random accidents…or is something terrifying at work here?

I really do have to remember to stay away from horror books whose protagonists are teenagers. Because, no matter if the book is noted as a YA or not, chances are the plot is going to be moved forward by those characters doing some really dumb things. And, boy, do they ever.

Would an adult have heeded the warnings given? I’m inclined to think so. I know I would have. And that’s what often made this book hard to read. It’s not that I didn’t like the characters, because I did. But too often I found myself wanting to shake them and yell, “What the hell is wrong with you?!!” But I knew what was wrong with them. Or at least I assume that’s what the author wanted us to think. That they were doing what they were doing because they didn’t know any better.

All that is a shame because I thought the basic plot of the book had potential. I have read horror books where the teenage protagonists aren’t all, well, dumb, so I know it can be done. I just wish it had been done here.

Another problem with the book is that I don’t like endings that aren’t endings. Either bring things to a conclusion, or note that there’s a sequel. Using a “there’s more to this story but I’m not going to write about it,” just seems lazy.

Folk Horror

1. Memorials by Richard Chizmar

Let It Snow 2025.jpg

With fires devastating much of America, Lark and his family first leave their home in Maryland for Maine. But as the country increasingly falls under the grip of religious nationalism, it becomes clear that nowhere is safe, not just from physical disasters but also persecution. The family secures a place on a crowded boat headed to Ireland, the last place on earth rumored to be accepting American refugees.

Upon arrival, it turns out that the safe harbor of Ireland no longer exists either—and Lark, the sole survivor of the trans-Atlantic voyage, must disappear into the countryside. As he runs for his life, Lark finds two equally lost and desperate souls: one of the last remaining dogs, who becomes his closest companion, and a fierce, mysterious woman in search of her lost son. Together they form a makeshift family and attempt to reach Glendalough, a place they believe will offer protection. But can any community provide the safety that they seek?

Lark Ascending is a moving and unforgettable story of friendship and bravery, and even more, a story of the ongoing fight to protect our personal freedoms and find our shared humanity, from a writer at the peak of his powers.

It’s strange that such a terrible time would be so beautifully told. While it’s never said, the time seems to be in the not-too-distant future. Things are falling apart; much of the country is on fire or already a burned out landscape. Religious fanatics have taken over the government. As the fires near, Lark and his family and friends decide to try for the one place they believe to still be safe; Glendalough, in Ireland.

But when Lark finds himself the sole survivor of the voyage, he must continue on alone. It is this tale, of the companions he finds along the way, that is the core of this story. There is Seamus, a beagle, probably the last dog left. And Helen, a woman on her own quest. Each has lost their family.

Lark is now in his nineties, and as his end nears he looks back on that time when, as a young man, he found a family to replace the one he’d lost. It’s an amazing and uplifting story, though also bittersweet. There is much grief, but also joy. I only wish we were given more of their story.

I can't thank

severina2001 enough for recommending this book.

Enzo knows he is different from other dogs: a philosopher with a nearly human soul (and an obsession with opposable thumbs), he has educated himself by watching television extensively, and by listening very closely to the words of his master, Denny Swift, an up-and-coming race car driver.

Through Denny, Enzo has gained tremendous insight into the human condition, and he sees that life, like racing, isn't simply about going fast. On the eve of his death, Enzo takes stock of his life, recalling all that he and his family have been through.

A heart-wrenching but deeply funny and ultimately uplifting story of family, love, loyalty, and hope, The Art of Racing in the Rain is a beautifully crafted and captivating look at the wonders and absurdities of human life ... as only a dog could tell it.

I wanted to read the book after seeing, and really enjoying, the movie. But while the book is entertaining, I felt that the movie was better. Some readers have bemoaned some of the plot points in the book, and in many ways I agree; they’re not in the movie, which shows how much better the story is without them.

But while the book held my interest, I didn’t find the characters, other than Enzo, to be fully formed. I suppose most of that is due to the fact that the book is in Enzo’s perspective. I think switching POVs might have helped. Having Enzo sort of figure out what the other characters were thinking just didn’t do the trick.

It was a quick read and a nice book, just not a great one.

FEB – Art, Golden, Dream, First, Club, Went, Stay, Live

The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein

Let It Snow 2025.jpg

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.

Each time I read a Joe Hill book, it just gets better and better. This one was no exception. I loved Harper, John Rookwood, Allie and her brother, Nick, Renee, and so many others who shared their journey. And what a journey it is. There are so many ups and downs; I was hooked from the very beginning. Which is saying a lot, considering it’s almost 800 pages long. Just when I thought the story was going to settle down, off it would go again.

I thought the pandemic infection was quite original and thought out. And there is more to the story than just a good sci-fi/horror plot. There’s substance to it, as we read how different people react to their situation, whether as the infected or as one of those still clear of the disease.There are good people and bad people on both sides; it’s very much a tale of two worlds.

If you read the book, be sure to read the credits. The story isn’t complete without them.

Black, gray, orange, or red cover

1. The Fireman by Joe Hill

2025 Monthly Motif.jpg

FEB- “Emotional Rollercoaster”

Read a book that will make you feel all the feels! A romantic rollercoaster ride; psychological rollercoaster ride; any emotional journey works. Take your pick!

The Fireman by Joe Hill

You like it darker? Fine, so do I', writes Stephen King in the afterword to this magnificent new collection of twelve stories that delve into the darker part of life—both metaphorical and literal. King has, for half a century, been a master of the form, and these stories, about fate, mortality, luck, and the folds in reality where anything can happen, are as rich and riveting as his novels, both weighty in theme and a huge pleasure to read. King writes to feel 'the exhilaration of leaving ordinary day-to-day life behind', and in You Like it Darker, readers will feel that exhilaration too, again and again.

'Two Talented Bastids' explores the long-hidden secret of how the eponymous gentlemen got their skills. In 'Danny Coughlin's Bad Dream', a brief and unprecedented psychic flash upends dozens of lives, Danny's most catastrophically. In 'Rattlesnakes', a sequel to Cujo, a grieving widower travels to Florida for respite and instead receives an unexpected inheritance—with major strings attached. In 'The Dreamers', a taciturn Vietnam vet answers a job ad and learns that there are some corners of the universe best left unexplored. 'The Answer Man' asks if prescience is good luck or bad and reminds us that a life marked by unbearable tragedy can still be meaningful.

King's ability to surprise, amaze, and bring us both terror and solace remains unsurpassed. Each of these stories holds its own thrills, joys, and mysteries; each feels iconic. You like it darker? You got it.

King rarely disappoints and he certainly doesn’t with this collection of short stories. While some really are short, there are several semi-novellas in the mix. I found them to be my favorites, especially Two Talented Bastids, Danny Coughlin’s Bad Dream, and Rattlesnakes, which is probably the darkest of the stories. Set years after Cujo, its connection to that story still resonates. And I loved the Duma Key connection.

The shorter stories have their great side, too. Laurie is a prime example. Though there’s a darkness to it, there’s also a sweetness to it, too. The other side of the coin is Willie the Weirdo. It truly surprised me.

I’m not usually a fan of short stories, but this collection was a true winner.

Katsu, Ketchum, King, or Koontz

1. You Like It Darker by Stephen King

Let It Snow 2025.jpg

Caught between a king and a kingmaker, young Richard Plantagenet knows he’ll have to choose...

1461: Richard Duke of York, King by Right, has been branded a traitor and slain by his Lancastrian foes. For his eight-year-old son—Richard Plantagenet—England has become a dangerous place.

As the boy grapples with grief and uncertainty, his elder brother, Edward, defeats the enemy and claims the throne. Dazzled by his glorious sibling, young Richard soon discovers that imperfections lurk beneath his brother's majestic façade. Enter Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick—cousin, tutor, luminary—whose life has given him everything but that which he truly craves: a son. A filial bond forms between man and boy as they fill the void in each other’s lives. Yet, when treachery tears their world asunder, Richard faces an agonizing dilemma: pledge allegiance to Edward—his blood brother and king—or to Warwick, the father figure who has shaped his life and affections.

Painfully trapped between duty and devotion, Richard faces a grim reality: whatever he decides will mean a fight to the death.

A meticulously written book, the reader is swept along as the future of England, and that of the House of York, is decided. With young Richard Plantagenet, the future Richard III, as the main focus, the story begins with the loss of his father and takes you to the Battle of Barnet, where, at least for awhile, the throne is secured. But it’s not a straight path, and the changes in fortune of those close to Richard, and to himself, are thoroughly charted.

That given, I did feel that Richard is portrayed as rather too broken, too undecided and unwilling to stand up against what he perceives as bad decisions. He vacillates too much between his affection for his cousin and his loyalty, not to his brother, oddly enough, but to his dead father and what he perceives the man stood for. I understand that he’s still basically a boy, yet I felt that the author focused too much on that part of his personality.

Still, in the long run it’s a fine book. The wiring is excellent, and I liked that, now that the information is out there, we see Richard’s reaction to the scoliosis which is beginning to affect him.

This is supposed to be the first book in a trilogy. Given that it took the author ten years to write this one, readers could be in for a long wait.

Once upon a time, humanity could no longer contain the rage that swelled within, and the world ended in a wave of fire. One hundred years later, in the wasteland formerly known as America, a broken man who goes only by the name of Cavalo survives. Purposefully cutting himself off from what remains of civilization, Cavalo resides in the crumbling ruins of the North Idaho Correctional Institution. A mutt called Bad Dog and a robot on the verge of insanity comprise his only companions. Cavalo himself is deteriorating, his memories rising like ghosts and haunting the prison cells. It’s not until he makes the dangerous choice of crossing into the irradiated Deadlands that Cavalo comes into contact with a mute psychopath, one who belongs to the murderous group of people known as the Dead Rabbits. Taking the man prisoner, Cavalo is forced not only to face the horrors of his past, but the ramifications of the choices made for his stark present. And it is in the prisoner that he will find a possible future where redemption is but a glimmer that darkly shines. The world has died. This is the story of its remains.

This is not at all what I’ve come to expect from Klune. To say it’s dark is putting it mildly. There’s been a nuclear war and the people who remain are barely keeping it together. Some have resorted to cannibalism. The world is a dreary place.

Just about everyone is broken in some way; Cavalo and his prisoner both hear “bees” a lot. Maybe too much. I get it; they’re not playing with a full deck. Get on with it. I did feel that there was too much emphasis on the fact that Cavalo is going insane. And in a sort of convenient way. Just as things are going along well, BAM, he loses it and does something really stupid.

What makes the book for me are Cavalo’s two companions. SIRS, the robot, is slowly degrading, his processors dying. But he’s still a likable sort. The best, of course, is Bad Dog. Found by Cavalo as a puppy, he is devoted to “MasterBossLord.” I love that Cavalo can hear Bad Dog’s thoughts. Or at least that’s what we’re led to believe and I’m going to believe it.

I’d like to read the sequel, but only if Bad Dog survives; I’m funny that way.

JAN- “Punctuated Titles”
Read a book that uses a form of punctuation in its title. Question marks, commas, periods, exclamation marks, etc.

Withered + Sere (Immemorial Year #1) by TJ Klune

Queen Briseis has been stolen from her conquered homeland and given as a concubine to a foreign warrior. The warrior is Achilles: famed hero, loathed enemy, ruthless butcher, darkly troubled spirit. Briseis's fate is now indivisibly entwined with his.

No one knows it yet, but there are just ten weeks to go until the Fall of Troy, the end of this long and bitter war. This is the start of The Iliad: the most famous war story ever told. The next ten weeks will be a story of male power, male ego, male violence. But what of the women? The thousands of female slaves in the soldiers' camp - in the laundry, at the loom, laying out the dead? Briseis is one of their number - and she will be our witness to history.

I like that many of the ancient Greek myths are now being told from the females’ side. They are the main characters, instead of a mere footnote. And Barker has done an exceedingly good job in bringing one of them to life.

Briseis is given short shrift when it comes to her story in The Iliad. A pawn between Achilles and Agamemnon, one has to wonder what her thoughts were, going from queen to slave. Well, wonder no more. Here, she is the central focus of the last days of the war. As her fortune swings back and forth, she, and the reader, are left to ponder her ultimate fate.

And while we are always aware of what fate holds in store for Achilles, his story as he moves toward it is almost as intriguing. I say almost because knowing that end removes some of the drama.

This is the first book in a trilogy; I eagerly look forward to the next story.

JAN – Storm, Time, Know, Return, Break, Hour, Twist, Silence

The Silence of the Girls (Women of Troy #1) by Pat Barker

The #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Splendid and the Vile brings to life the pivotal five months between the election of Abraham Lincoln and the start of the Civil War—a slow-burning crisis that finally tore a deeply divided nation in two.

On November 6, 1860, Abraham Lincoln became the fluky victor in a tight race for president. The country was bitterly at odds; Southern extremists were moving ever closer to destroying the Union, with one state after another seceding and Lincoln powerless to stop them. Slavery fueled the conflict, but somehow the passions of North and South came to focus on a lonely federal fortress in Charleston: Fort Sumter.

Master storyteller Erik Larson offers a gripping account of the chaotic months between Lincoln’s election and the Confederacy’s shelling of Sumter—a period marked by tragic errors and miscommunications, enflamed egos and craven ambitions, personal tragedies and betrayals. Lincoln himself wrote that the trials of these five months were “so great that, could I have anticipated them, I would not have believed it possible to survive them.”

At the heart of this suspense-filled narrative are Major Robert Anderson, Sumter’s commander and a former slave owner sympathetic to the South but loyal to the Union; Edmund Ruffin, a vain and bloodthirsty radical who stirs secessionist ardor at every opportunity; and Mary Boykin Chesnut, wife of a prominent planter, conflicted over both marriage and slavery and seeing parallels between both. In the middle of it all is the overwhelmed Lincoln, battling with his duplicitous Secretary of State, William Seward, as he tries desperately to avert a war that he fears is inevitable—one that will eventually kill 750,000 Americans.

Drawing on diaries, secret communiques, slave ledgers, and plantation records, Larson gives us a political horror story that captures the forces that led America to the brink—a dark reminder that we often don’t see a cataclysm coming until it’s too late.

Led by a group of slave-owners, who then in the height of self-delusion called themselves “the chivalry,” the South would dive headlong into a destructive path that ended with secession. That so few men could cause the worst calamity the nation has known only goes to show how easily people can be maneuvered into going against their own best interests.

I found the words of William Russell, a London Times correspondent, especially telling after he visited the South once Sumter had been taken.

”The utter contempt and loathing for the venerated Stars and Stripes, the abhorrence of the very words United Stares, the intense hatred of the Yankee on the part of these people, cannot be conceived by anyone who has not seen them. I am more satisfied than ever that the Union can never be restored as it was and that it has gone to pieces, never to be put together again in the old shape, at all events, by any power of earth.”

Of course, it would come together, but so many of the old grievances would remain, to be taken up by their descendants and those who still believe that they are entitled. It would remain, and infect those in other parts of the country.

The book reads almost like fiction, so compelling written that the reader can’t help but be drawn into the tragic events as they unfold. Mistakes are made which will continue to affect the country as the years pass.

Going by recent events, the demon is still with us.