Sarah Kurz

"I can't pinpoint the exact moment I realized that Ayoola was beautiful and I  was...not.  But what I do know is that I was aware of my own inadequacies long before." Korede has spent a lifetime protecting her younger sister, Ayoola.  She'd do anything for her.  Even help her cover up a murder...or three.  While Korede has always been the sensible, hardworking sister, Ayoola has always been the one to draw attention from the boys.  And lately those relationships, however long or fleeting they may be, have not ended well for her partners.  When she has no one else to turn to for help Ayoola looks to Korede.  And even though she knows it's wrong, Korede can't help but remain at her sister's side and help her cover up her mistakes. My Sister, the Serial Killer  is a wonderful little novel by Oyinkan Braithwaite.  It's a fast-paced read that can easily be done in a day or two.  Perfect for a road trip.  I picked it up thinking...

"The knot in Lukas's throat bobbed up and down.  His smile vanished.  "You aim too far," he said meekly.   Juliette smiled and squeezed her lover's hand.  "Says the man who watches the stars." Juliette Nichols, newly elected mayor of Silo 18, knows what's outside of the silo walls.  She knows, and she's angry.  She plans to make the world better for her community and take out the men responsible for the destruction of life all those years ago.  And she isn't alone in her quest.  Donald has found himself leader of Silo 1 and he's not entirely sure how he got there.  But he isn't about to let the opportunity go to waste.  Burdened by guilt and suffering from failing health, Donald reaches out to the Head of Silo 18 and it's mayor in hopes of helping them on their quest to more information and a better life. Dust  is the third and final book in the Silo Series by Hugh Howey.  It's every much as good as the first two,...

"Donald's legs went numb.  He sought the bed - but collapsed to the floor instead.  He kept saying he remembered even as more and more washed over him." The year is 2049 and Donald Keene finds himself a newly elected congressman.  He's both surprised by his win and excited to be a place of authority.  That is until Senator Paul Thurman brings Donald in to work on a top secret project with him.  A project that also involves the senator's daughter, Anna, a former lover.  Together, along with Donald's college friend Mick, they spend two years developing the plans for the silos.  Donald is nervous and wary the entire time, but he puts his trust in Senator Thurman.  It isn't until Donald wakes up in Silo 1 more than a decade into the future that he begins to question the Thurman's motives and what really happened to the world outside. The second book in the Silo Series by Hugh Howey,  Shift  is the prequel to the events that unraveled in...

"The island was teeming with life.  And now it had a new kind of life.  A strange kind of life.  Artificial life." ROZZUM unit 7134 had no idea when she woke up on the island that she didn't belong there.  Sure, the other creatures were afraid of her.  Called her a monster even.  But it was the only home she'd ever known.  And slowly, with patience and observation, Roz was able to show the island inhabitants that she could be part of their family. The Wild Robot , by Peter Brown, is the story of a robot who finds herself shipwrecked on an island full of life.  Initially Roz has a hard time fitting in, but it doesn't take her computer brain long to help her adapt.  And before she knows it she isn't just making friends with the animals, she's finding a family.   This chapter book is intended for older grade school children.  Mine are 10 and 12 and really enjoyed it.  We read it aloud before bed each night.  It's ...

"The heavy steel doors of the silo parted, and a great cloud of argon billowed out with an angry hiss." Somewhere in the future, society as we know it has collapsed.  The world has become uninhabitable and only a few humans remain.  They live in the silo, an entire society housed in one place.  People in the silo know their place and follow the rules.  And if they don't they are sent outside to clean the silo's sensors and never return. Juliette Nichols has enjoyed life in the silo.  She has been a mechanic in the down deep since she was young and she is very good at her job.  She enjoys living so far down with the people that have become family to her.  However, a sudden opening in the sherif's department has her traveling to the top level of the silo, much to her hesitation.  Her time up top leads to new information and lots of questions that will forever change the lives of Jules and the rest of the residents of the silo. Wool , by High ...

"This moment-this boy-could tear me apart and upend everything.  But in the heat of the cottage, wind rattling the glass in the windows, rain pelting the roof, with our skin flecked with salt water, I don't care." Welcome to Sparrow, OR.  A small coastal town has been haunted every June by three sisters for the past 200 years.  The Swan sisters were sentenced to death for witchery, and on June 1st of each year they return to Sparrow to inhabit the bodies of young girls and steal the life of young boys. Seventeen-year-old Penny Talbot has lived on the small lighthouse island outside of Sparrow her entire life.  She has led a quiet life with her mother and tried her hardest to avoid the Swan festival that takes place each June drawing in hundreds of tourist.  This year it isn't so easy.  Bo Carter, an outsider, has come to town to stay for the summer and he changes who Penny thought she was.   "Loving someone is dangerous.  It gives you ...

"This, even if it's crazy, and foolish, and I don't have a chance at succeeding, it's something.  Right now, it's really the only thing." The Other Side of Lost,  by Jessi Kirby, is the story of Mari, a girl who has created a perfect looking life for herself on social media.  She has a huge following and a knack for capturing stunning images that make her well loved in the world of Instagram.  But her real life is anything but perfect.  On the night of her 18th birthday, feeling more alone than ever, she sends a tear filled message out into the cyber world declaring herself a fake.  The next morning she wakes to find an inbox full of hateful messages.  She also finds a box on her front steps. Two months earlier Mari's cousin, Bri, tragically passed away.  As young girls the cousins dreamed of hiking the John Muir Trail on their 18th birthday.  Over the years the friendship drifted apart, but Bri still planned to hike the trail.  The...

"So we stood up there for a long while, watching the sunset and discussing how it was one of those things you could never truly capture in 8-bit, not with the 64's simplistic definition of violet (CHR$(156)), orange (CHR$(129)), and yellow (CHR$(158)).  There were too many other colors, thousands of colors.  The hardware could never do it justice." Sometimes you get so into a book that you read it obsessively and finish it in just two sittings.  That was  The Impossible Fortress.   The first novel by Jason Rekulak,  The Impossible Fortress  is the story of two 14-year-old computer geeks in a small New Jersey town in 1987. Life was fine for Billy.  He had a mother who loved him and left him home alone at night, giving him lots of freedom.  He had his two best friends, Alf and Clark.  He had his beloved Commodore 64 computer.  All of that changes one day when Alf shows up with news...Vanna White is on the cover of Playboy.  ...

"Where will this road end?  In a crater, an inferno, a rush of water?  I have spent my entire life inside a ten-mile radius.  There is something to be said about a place you can memorize." The year is 1985 and 15-year-old Pony Darlene Fontaine's mother has disappeared.  She has left the territory just as she appeared...suddenly and without a word.  Left behind the 88 bungalows, the women with their tracksuits, and the men with their matte black trucks.  Pony hasn't given up hope though.  She is determined to find her mother and help her with the mental break she has slowly been having.  Or maybe she's been having it the entire 15 years that she has lived in the territory?  Neither Pony or her father know the entire story behind Billie Jean Fontaine.  Only the family dog has the privilege of knowing all of the secrets.  But even she doesn't know what's happened to Billie Jean. Heartbreaker,  by Claudia Dey, was a fantastic ...

"Silence isn't lonely. -things the moon taught me" Nocturnal is a collection of poems by Wilder.  It's written into three parts, Dusk, Howl, and Lucid Dreams, and is filled with beautifully descriptive and emotional poetry.  The entire book made me feel as if it was written from the point of view of someone who was growing in their own self acceptance.  Someone digging through emotions and memories and hoping to find that little bit of courage. "i brake for birds that aren't ready to fly upward and carry spiders to new homes. and i'm still learning how to be this gentle with my own skin. -chloë" The book itself is beautiful.  Black and white nature related images.  I often got the sense of a dream.  The title itself is what drew me to this book.  I am, and always have been, a lover of the moon and the night.  Very much a nocturnal person.  So that spoke to my soul.  I wasn't disappointed.   I've been reading ...

"Until now, anytime that emotions, feelings, had threatened to unsettle me, I'd drink them down fast, drown them.  That had allowed me to exist, but I was starting to understand that I needed, wanted, something more than that now." Gail Honeyman's debut novel,  Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine , tells the story of a 30-year-old woman who feels like an outsider in this world.  Shuffled from foster home to foster home after a devastating childhood incident, Eleanor has never felt a sense of family or belonging.  And then she meets Raymond. Raymon is the IT guy at the office where Eleanor has worked her entire adult life.  He's laid back, aloof, and everything she has ever needed...only she doesn't know it just yet.  She has her eye on a handsome musician.  A man she hopes will whisk her away from her life of solitude and fix the hole in her heart that she's tried to hide so long.  Eleanor believes that the universe is pushing them together....

"Take away my days and nights but leave me forever mornings with those hazel eyes." The Dark Between Stars is the second collection of poems by Atticus. ( Atticus Poetry on Instagram )  It is beautifully written and explores both the highs and lows of relationships. "I love her because she steals my socks I love her because when I find her in them they never match I love her because they are always too big and the gray part for the heel sits far too high I love her because she wears them to sleep and one always falls off and then she wakes in the night and can't find it and her foot is cold - that is why I love her."  While I'm not always a huge fan of romance novels, I absolutely love romantic poems.  They are soul bearing and bring a smile to my face.  I love how one small set of words can trigger a memory. The book is also filled with beautiful black and white photos.  That was one of the appeals it had for me.  Many people may wonder,...

"Wear that dress too tight, give yourself permission to change, say what you're actually thinking, dance in public, be bold and intelligent and sexy as fuck, and refuse to apologize for your magic or hide your brilliance." Sometimes, not often, but sometimes the Universe hands you a gift.  Maybe even a gift you didn't know you needed.  That's exactly how I felt about this book. Bleeding Ink by Brooke Hampton is, in her own words, the ramblings of a dirty mouthed girl bleeding ink by the light of the moon.  And it's exactly what I need in my life right down. Nearly two months ago I quit my job on a whim.  I had no plan.  No ideas where to go in life.  Nothing.  I was sad and hurt and feeling extremely unappreciated.  So told the life I was living to fuck off and I quit.  On that very same day, while I was feeling a tad overwhelmed, I saw a post to pre-order this book.  I have loved following Brooke on Instagram for a while now so ...

"I don't know what makes a song a song and a poem a poem: they have started to bleed into each other at this stage." Useless Magic is a collection of lyrics and poems by Florence + The Machine front woman Florence Welch.  And it is wonderful.  A raw look at the mind of an artist.   What makes poetry and lyrics different from each other? Strip away the music and you'll find out.  With a song we not only hear the words, but the music.  The instrumental flows through us.  The rhythm affect us.  The Music influences us.  But you take those exact same words and put them on blank paper and you are left with nothing but your interpretations.  Nothing to influence you but your own thoughts and emotions.  They are just words, and words are powerful.  I was surprised to find that many of the songs I thought of as more upbeat took on and entirely new and darker meaning when the words were removed from the music. Lyrics and poet...

"Karina stood still, rubbing the stiff piece of parchment under her thumb as information about her new lifetime filtered into her mind." The Daughters of Maine  is the second book in the  Witches of BlackBrook  series by Tish Thawer and it was every bit as good as the first.  I read the entire thing in one sitting and now I'm sad that it's over. Finally reunited and with their powers in full swing, the three sisters are ready to get back to life as normal...or so they think.  They quickly learn that the troubles from their past aren't over yet and find themselves on the other side of a portal and in the year 1705.  Together, and with the help of a Native American tribe that harnesses powers of their own, they fight to get back to the present and put an end to their enemies once and for all. Once again Tish Thawer writes a delightful novel.  She builds wonderful chraracters and relationships while creating a delightfully witchy world.  ...

"Our reverence for independence takes no account of the reality of what happens in life: sooner or later, independence will become impossible.  Serious illness or infirmity will strike.  It is as inevitable as sunset." In his book, Being Mortal, surgeon Atul Gawande gives us a look at what it's like to age to the point of death in America.  Nursing homes, assisted living, and other ways that we care for our elderly are all examined.  And one question keeps popping up...do we really put the best interest of the individual first or are we more concerned with them living just to live?  Where do we draw the line from living life to enjoy it and living a careful life because they are old and frail? This book was both insightful and thought provoking.  Beautifully written and it'll lead you to wonder about the end of this crazy ride we call life.  It was at times emotionally difficult to read.  We often don't want to think about old age and dying, ...

"It's strange to grieve for your former self, and still I think it's something that any girl understands.  I've shed so many skins, I hardly know what I am now - muscle, maybe, or just memory.  Perhaps just the will to keep going." My book this week is The Last of August.  It's the second book in the series of Charlotte Holmes novels by Brittany Cavallaro. With a murder-filled semester at Sherringford behind him, Jamie Watson, great-great-great grandson of the famous Dr. John Watson, finds himself at Charlotte Holme's childhood home is Sussex for winter break.  All is normal, or as normal as it can be in the Holmes family, when Charlotte's uncle suddenly vanishes in the night without a trace. This leaves Charlotte with no choice but to go to Germany and search for him with Jamie in tow.  Naturally.  Along with the help of Milo Holmes and August Moriarty, the duo scheme to uncover the fraudulent art dealings of August's siblings while continuin...

"Laura was throwing away her old life.  It was going to be a messy business." The Keeper of Lost think is the story of Anthony Peardew and his collection of lost things.  Things he has found at random and picked up, hoping to someday find their owners.  When age catches up with Anthony he leaves the job to his assistant, Laura, a woman who is finding her own way in the world after divorce.  Laura quickly discovers that being the keeper of the lost things isn't an easy task, but she makes some new friends who gladly help her along in her journey.  Together they even begin to piece together the story of one of the greatest lost things.  The one that began Anthony on his quest all those years ago. Ruth Hogan writes a delightful novel that will make you laugh, cry, and contemplate life.  It may have just been the timing, but this book had me wide awake at 2am sniffling with my dog.  Very good for my soul.

"That night, Trin dreamt of Jason and crystals, Jeremiah and ropes, Kara and water, and Caris and herbs.  She tossed and turned, slipping through space and time.  Sister, lover, cousin, friend.  Her head spun as she tried to use her magic to break through this hellish mix of hopes and dreams, fear and regret." Last week's book was The Witches of BlackBrook by Tish Thawer.  It's the story of three sisters who are torn apart as a result of the prosecution of witches in the 17th century, a powerful spell, and a curse created to keep them apart.  Over the years their souls have entered into new bodies, but the three are never quite able to find each other at the same time.  Comfortable in her current life, and living with one sister, Trin has somewhat paused the search for her younger sibling.  But when  cousins Jason and Caris move into town things begin to change and Trin becomes hopeful that the three sisters will finally be reunited.  Peop...