The Night Parade by Ronald Malfi

Rating: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

First the birds disappeared.
Then the insects took over.
Then the madness began . . .

There is a new plague threatening to wipe out the human race…they call it “Wanderer’s Folly”.  It’s a disease of hallucinations, day dreams and nightmares.

Father and daughter, David and Ellie Arlen are on the run right from the start of the book.  Which is followed  by flashbacks revealing the events that lead to David running. The story continues like this, back and forth. David thinks he is protecting Ellie but she is a special girl, deep, insightful and she knows that he is lying to her.  She knows that her father is lying to her about her mother and exactly what they are running from.  Ellie is special….Ellie may be able to save the human race.

This book had me hooked from the beginning, it was eerie and full of surprises.  I have previously read his book “Little Girls”, which was fantastic as well!  The Night Parade could be a thriller or a horror novel, it was both and more!  I cannot wait to dig into some more books by Ronald Malfi, his writing is easy to follow as well as the story lines.  Check him out and all the books including this one that he has written!

My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry by Fredrik Backman

Rating: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

This was a fantastically sad and amazing story!  Elsa’s a seven year old girl whose best and only friend is her seventy-seven year old grandmother.  Now, her grandmother is not your normal stereotypical grandmother……she’s a tad crazy “standing-on-the-balcony-firing-paintball-guns-at-men-who-want-to-talk-about-Jesus-crazy” but Elsa loves her for it all.

When her grandmother gets sick and passes away, she leaves behind a series of letters, sending Elsa on a journey that bring to life the world of her grandmother’s fairy tales.  Before her grandmother passed away, they would take refuge in her grandmother wardrobe and fall into the stories in the “Land of Almost Awake and the Kingdom of Miamas” where everyone is different and nobody needs to be normal.

Now, Elsa is on a mission to deliver several letters from her grandmother apologizing to the people she has wronged and the great adventure begins.  Her grandmother’s letters lead her to an apartment building full of drunks, monsters, attack dogs, and totally ordinary old crones, but also to the truth about fairy tales and kingdoms and a grandmother like no other.

I loved this book!  It will tear you apart and pick you back up again. Beautifully written.

 

 

 

 

A Drop of Night by Stefan Bachmann

Rating: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

This book turned out to be something quite unexpected and in a good way!  Main character Anouk has been selected out of hundreds of people to go to France and help at an excavation site of an underground palace buried hundreds of feet below Paris.  The palace was built to hide an aristocratic family during the French Revolution.  Anouk and a handful of other teenagers will be the first to set foot inside the underground palace in over two centuries.  But….that wasn’t the case.

Once they all arrive at this bizarre place, they find themselves embroiled in a very sinister game that is extremely dangerous.  Why in the world where they brought here?  There is something evil in the depths of the palace that has been dwelling there for centuries and it’s been waiting JUST FOR THEM.

 

I read this book extremely fast because around every corner, you had no idea what was going to happen next!  I was so surprised at what these people found inside the palace…..it will give you the chills!