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Over Sea, Under Stone by Susan Cooper Book Review

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 Over Sea, Under Stone  (The Dark is Rising #1) By Susan Cooper  Published Year: 1965 Page Count: 240 pages  Medium Used: Kindle PW Genre: High Fantasy, Action, Adventure, Middle Grade, Children's Fiction, Fatedness, King Arthur, 2026-read. Rating : 3.5/5 😎😎😎  First off, being a story targeted towards children, this is very easy to read. But no matter how much I tried, I just couldn't hold my focus to the story. I found my interest wandering. I admit that I took over an hour to read 10 pages in the middle of the book. The beginning and ending were interesting but all the details of the adventure the three kids embark upon are boring, to be frank. How did they get all those insights to solve the puzzle? This quest has been eluding everyone for centuries. Is it fate and their destiny that lead them on? Perhaps, it is!  Nevertheless, I wanted the story to wrap up. I could guess the ending because the characters are few and the story is predictable. Perhaps ...
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The Surrogate by Tania Craver Book Review

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 The Surrogate  (Brennan and Esposito #1) By Tania Craver  Published Year: 2009 Page Count: 438 pages Medium Used: Oneplus Nord Ce6, Moon Reader  Genre: Horror, LGBTq, Thriller, Crime,  Mystery, Detective, Surrogacy, Blood and Gore, 2026-read.  Rating : 4/5 😎 😎 😎 😎  This is not as bad as I had expected it be. I learnt the basic story of the book before jumping in. I fully prepared myself to face some seriously deranged characters, some nauseating scenes but somehow I felt the author didn't let herself go fully in. She refrained herself from making horrible things happen to those babies. I am thankful to her for that. Some scoundrel wants to gift his wife babies because she cannot make them herself and goes about doing it by carving those babies out of pregnant women's wombs. The silly reason given is that this makes the bonding between the baby and its pretend mother complete. The woman into whose hands these children were driven was hateful, obnox...
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The Last Wish by Andrzej Sapkowski Book Review

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 The Last Wish  (The Witcher #0.5) By Andrzej Sapkowski  Published Year: 1993 Page Count: 280 pages Medium Used: Paperback  Genre: Classics, Horror, Fantasy, High Fantasy, Epic Fantasy, Vampires, Sorcery and Magic, Dark Fantasy, Anthology, Short Stories, 2026-read. Rating : 5/5 😎 😎 😎 😎 😎  This book is a collection of stories about the encounters of the witcher - who is a sorcerer and magician that kills demons for money - with different, troubling, evil characters and demonstrates how he tackles them - in some cases, he reverses the spells that made them monsters, in some he kills them and in others, renders them impotent of their mischief. The writing is gorgeous. The world created is spectacular and dark in every way. It's like being transported to a different time and space. I wondered if the author even inhabits our dimension(earth) in his mind's eye! The names of people and places signal the breadth of his imagination  because they don't sound rea...
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The Demon Star by Jesse Aragon Book Review

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 The Demon Star  By Jesse Aragon  Published Year: 2026 Page Count: 400 pages  Medium Used: Oneplus, Moon Reader  Genre: Science Fiction, Horror, High Fantasy, Dark Fantasy,  Fake Gods,Magic, Young Adult, LGBTq, 2026-read.  Rating: 3/5  This is a debut novel and I think the author made a bold attempt. She definitely has a command over english language but not enough on story telling or world building. The logic that holds together a brilliant plot felt handicapped here. The writing felt boring and confusing at times. The world building could have been better. This is not part of a series(as far as I know) and I am disappointed and dissatisfied with the ending. There are no breath hitching twists except for the one or two which are frankly passable. In some scenes, I didn't grasp what was happening. The author couldn't impress me with a shocker element even when she has had me in a thrall. Pity!  Coming to the story, there are three main charac...
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Annie Bot by Sierra Greer Book Review

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 Annie Bot  By Sierra Greer  Winner of Arthur C Clarke Award 2025  Published Year: 2024 Page Count: 240 pages  Medium Used: Oneplus phone, LibreraX  Genre: Suspense, AI bots, Sentience, Human AI interaction, Science fiction, Evolution, 2026-read. Rating : 3/5 😎 😎 😎  Frankly, I should like this book better. I mean, the author has transported herself into the thoughts of a rapidly evolving AI cuddle bunny robot, Annie and tracked the evolutionary process with integrity and much imagination. But I don't like it as much because I hated the ending. I hated the personality Annie has grown into, after much work from both herself and her owner, Doug. Sure they had hit a rough patch along their three year plus journey and he showed some inconsistent,self serving and cruel behaviour which rattled/traumatised her deeply but that is only to be subverted in the face of change in him for better with time, right? He has certainly never demonstrated his punishing c...
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Black House by Stephen King, Peter Straub Book Review

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 Black House  (The Talisman #2) By Stephen King, Peter Straub  Published Year: 2001 Page Count: 624 pages Medium Used: Paperback  Genre: Horror, Thriller, Fantasy, Multiverse, Good vs Evil, Action, Young Adult, Magic, 2026-read. Rating : 5/5 😎😎😎😎😎  I liked this story almost close to the first book in the series, the Talisman. I could venture a guess here that the first and last parts are written by Straub while the middle two by King. I enjoyed King's writing better. I can't explain how he has such a strange hold on the language and the reader. In this book, we don't see so much of the Territories other than for a couple of episodes. The focus is laid on a Black House - both covered in black paint and also feels depressing, bleak inside - which acts like a worm hole between the infinite worlds in existence. In this book, we meet the grown up coppiceman(a cop) Jack Sawyer, twenty years after Talisman adventure has ended. So, he is 32 now.  He has worked...
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Hungerstone by Kat Dunn Book Review

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 Hungerstone  By Kat Dunn  Published Year: 2025 Page Count: 336 pages  Medium Used: Oneplus Nord Ce6, LibreraX  Genre: Horror, LGbtq, Lesbians, Blood and Gore, Suspense, 2016-read.  Rating : 2/5   I usually give an outline to the story before delving into my thoughts and impressions. But for this novel, my disappointment is so obvious. The loopholes are wide and glaring. I don't understand the numerous rave reviews this has got. First off, the writing felt repetitive, dragging and  boring. I didn't understand the title. Why is this called the Hungerstone? Is this because the main character's emotions have gone so dry and droughty before the end? Or is it because some murder is committed at a hungerstone and if this is the case, why is it so important to become the book title? I don't know the answer.  And then the character of Carmilla. Is she a vampire? Or some other supernatural entity? It isn't clear to me how she has the profound, na...
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Mister Monday by Garth Nix Book Review

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 Mister Monday  (The Keys to the Kingdom #1) By Garth Nix  Published Year: 2003 Page Count: 200 pages  Medium Used: Kindle PW Genre: Adventure, Action, Young Adult, Children's Fiction, Middle Grade, Fantasy, Urban Fantasy, 2026-read. Rating : 4.5/5 😎 😎 😎 😎 😄  There once was an Architect who created the House and the Secondary realms from Nothing. It is possible to navigate to different realities from the House. After a while, she goes off, leaving behind her Will. The Will document is broken into pieces and one of them is stored away on a distant star. The book starts with this component escaping and continues with a man called Mister Monday and his steward approaching an asthmatic kid, Arthur, who is struggling to catch his breath, alone on his school's playground. This man, Monday, gives him a Minute Key - his property/power -  because he is tricked by something into doing so. After that the adventures of Arthur start. He is a randomly chosen heir to...
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The Book of the Dead (Part 3) Edited by Jonathan Strahan Book Review

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 The Book of the Dead  ( Part 3 ) Edited By Jonathan Strahan  Published Year: 2026 Page Count: 475 pages  Medium Used: Oneplus Nord Ce6, Moon Reader  Genre: Horror, Thriller, Suspense, Anthology, Short Stories, Collections, Various Authors, 2026-read. Link to Part 1&2 stories  Part 1 Stories Review Part 2 Stories Review Now Watch Me as you hold your Breath by Sylvia Park  Rating : 4/5 What a crazy story!! This tells the experiences of a girl who has lost her parents and dog in a car accident. She cannot relate to the world and mainly to sex. She has no cravings for it. She has two friends - Aya, whom she once saw having sex with a local band vocalist where she literally snacks on him(creepy and is this the narrator's imagination!!?) , and Rinko who finds happiness only through relationships with older men that inevitably turn sour. I can understand why this story made the cut into this book. I mean there is death in this even though not like in th...
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The Book of the Dead (Part 2) Edited by Jonathan Strahan Book Review

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 The Book of the Dead (Part 2) Edited by Jonathan Strahan  Published Year: 2026 Page Count: 475 pages  Medium Used: Oneplus Nord Ce6, Moon Reader  Genre: Horror, Thriller, Suspense, Anthology, Short Stories, Collections, Various Authors, 2026-read. Link to the part 1 stories in the book  Part 1 stories review Link to Part 3 stories in the book Part 3 Stories Review Wait by Cassandra Khaw  Rating : 3.5/5 A woman of forty thinks that the arrival of a certain dog means her death is near. Long time ago, her mother had shot herself, orphaning her and her sister. Her friend requests her to wait before committing suicide herself. Then on the day she decides to drown herself, she meets a stranger. And her plans get foiled. What I liked about this story is the message that no matter how aware people are about the certainty of death, when time approaches, they want to tarry. No one wants to die because there is always something worthwhile to do, to accomplish! ...
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