​Before I lost most of my tolerance for the ubiquitous lady thrillers, I read the author's Last Flight and thought it was pretty good. So I figured I'd see what she's up to now with her latest. 
The main draw here for me, actually, was that I very much enjoy books about writers. This one has two, a father and a daughter, once estranged and now reunited for their first and last project together.
The father has made a career of writing scary stories and is now losing his mind to dementia.
The daughter has made a career of ghostwriting other people's stories before losing it all to a very public feud with a nasty and litigious man in her field. (Attention - message! Because, of course, you can't have a book without a message these days.)

The father has spent fifty years living under a dark shadow of a double murder (both his siblings) of which he has been suspected but never convicted. Now he decides to set the record straight once and for all through a memoir. And who better to write it than the daughter who has spent most of her adult life telling people he's dead.

That's the basic premise of the story, and it is a pretty compelling read ... until you realize that literally all of the mystery and suspense here is based solely of the distribution of information. As in, the reader is strategically fed only a tidbit of info at a time. Which a. gets frustrating, and b. after a while just seems stupid. I mean, the character doesn't go talk to a crucial part of the puzzle person until the last fifth so of the novel. 
It's like, come on. I know you're getting paid per word here, and you've got to hit your 368 pages, or the reader apparently won't recognize what they are reading, but still ...

In the end, this is still very much a genre cliche, meant to check all the right boxes. And as such, it cannot be too challenging, lest it alienates the mainstream audience, thus alienating the more demanding one.
User mileage may vary. Thanks Netgalley.

There are some perfect creative combinations in this world - the literally literary equivalent of peanut butter and jelly. This is a fine example of one, a writer and an artist that complement each other perfectly. In this case, strikingly enough, one outshines the other.

I've been a Lemire fan for a while now, admiring both his gift for storytelling and his creative versatility. I even like his art, when he does both for some of his books. And when he doesn't, he tends to find superb collaborators. But this one is above and beyond. Not just the artistry itself, but the panel work is simply the most original I've ever seen.

In this book, for me, the art was the main draw. Which is to say, I liked the overall plot very much - moody, creepy, and I'm crazy for apartment-based scares - but the actual characters and dialogue left me largely indifferent. So I was in it for the forest, not the trees. Overall, having read other Bone Orchard books, I'd say this isn't Lemire's strongest work.
But the art was stunning on every page, making this book an absolute feast for the eyes. Which makes this tenement well worth a visit.

Finally, a proper five star read. This was one of the best and smartest books I've read in a while. If I had to describe it in just two words, I'd say, "America. Explained." But GR generously affords their readers and reviewers many words, so here we go ...

The US is unique, even amid the other first-world countries. It has been explained in flattering terms like exceptionalism, determination, drive, etc. and less flattering terms like ... greed, egotism, etc.
But Jane Borden hits the nail just right by describing it as a cult. It makes so much sense. An alarming amount of sense. And once you'll read this book, you'll have a difficult time thinking of it in any other way. Which is perfectly appropriate for a cult, of course.

So, welcome to cult Borden, ruled by intelligence, humor, erudition, and compassion. Learn all about how a country settled by Puritans held onto its repressive values and later adapted them for a future where rampant inequality, obsession with money, and gung-ho individualism devolved into an unhappy doomsday cult, desperately seeking to hang all its hopes and dreams on impossible promises.
Abandon all logic, ye who enter here.

This book was a result of five years of work for the author and it shows in the meticulous research and complete mastery of the subject.  She makes her arguments strongly and compellingly, and they are presented well through excellent and wonderfully humorous writing.
Yes, she turns into a stoner hippie Pollyanna at the end, which seemed a bit incongruous with the tone and findings of the book, but aside from that, it's a really great read. Moreover, an important one. Recommended.  Thanks Netgalley.

The publishing industry abhors originality these days, sticking instead to the safe and familiar tropes. One of those is quaint books about old people. Another one are amateur sleuths with some sort of cognitive impediment.
Accordingly, the protagonist of this novel is an old woman who begins to suspect that something might be going wrong in the care facility. Don't expect a Miss Marple sort of sleuthing though, for this lady has Alzheimer and therefore only a rather precarious grasp of all the words she knows.
Thus, she is limited in expressing her suspicions, which creates the entire driving force behind this novel.
It's an intriguing concept, but this is less of an odd detective novel and more of an old person journey, complete with trips down memory lane and navigating the changing modern world (insert a strategically placed trans person of color here to make a point).
It is difficult for people with intact memory to know what it must be like for someone who is losing theirs. The author did a pretty good job of imaging that, down to some clever world play. Interestingly, his protagonist remains remarkably upbeat through it all, wither because she's just that Australian or because it's just that kind of a novel.  
The book is too feel-good by design for a lot of poignancy but has a main character likable enough to override that at time.  It is a very quick, easily marketable and digestible read, so if you're into that sort of thing, go for it. Thanks Netgalley.

It's always frustrating to see the author whose work you really liked to begin with go awry. Yet, it seems like an apt way to describe Moreno=Garcia's trajectory, given her recent track record.
She started off so strong fresh out of the gate and then began to veer into romance and fantasy and all that popular garbage out there.

With this book, it seems that she has tried to go back to something like Mexican Gothic but failed somewhere along the way.  Between the writing so flat and twee that it makes me question if her earlier work was actually good or if I was a less demanding reader then, the uneven weaving of three timelines (where it should have likely been two), and the truly cringe romance aspects, including a potent current of incest (sexy uncle), this was a very long 368 pages.

Moreno-Garcia has been plying the same formula steadily for years now - female protagonists and Mexican angle. A rather extreme case of "write what you know" that has worked well, but it makes you question whether the author wants to or even can do anything else? One may also question how much of this recent underwhelming work has been pandering to the market inexplicably and tragically gung-ho for romance and fantasy and the abominable portmanteau of both. 
Either way, the result leaves much to be desired. This book is readable. She can do that much well enough by now.  I enjoyed how dark her take on witches is and the few nice surprises toward the end, so I'll rate it generously. Tis the season and all.  But I am disappointed. Thanks Netgalley.

It stands to preface this review by saying that fantasy isn't my thing. But there was a chance that an author whose work I have read and enjoyed for many years, might make it worth a shot.
And so, I've set off to read this strange dark fable of a creature that once was Willem, a twelve-year-old boy in a medieval English village but is no longer that.
Brought back to life by an evil wizard, he is shunned by his parents and the locals and therefore retreats into the woods. Meanwhile, the wizard mad with power and ambition, seeks to take over the regional seat of power, starting with once Willem's village, and the villagers has no option but to turn to those they have scorned and ostracized (or worse) before for protection.

Once Was Willem is a dark, beautifully written fairy tale of monsters and men, magic and second chances. Your enjoyment of read will likely directly depend on your enjoyment of fantasy genre. Thanks Netgalley.