shrouded skeleton statue

Daryl M.

Librarian


Posts by Daryl M.

  • Author Douglas Westerbeke and his latest book, A Short Walk Through a Wide World

    Interview With an Author: Douglas Westerbek

    Douglas Westerbeke is a librarian who lives in Ohio and works at one of the largest libraries in the US. He has spent the last decade on the local panel of the International Dublin Literary Award…

  • Author Christina Estes and her debut novel, Off the Air

    Interview With an Author: Christina Estes

    Christina Estes is an award-winning reporter who has spent more than 20 years covering crime, public policy, and business in Phoenix, Arizona. Her reporting has been heard on National Public Radio…

  • Author Jacqueline Holland and her latest novel, The Mystery Writer

    Interview With an Author: Sulari Gentill

    After setting out to study astrophysics, graduating in law and then abandoning her legal career to write books, Sulari Gentill now grows French black truffles on her farm in the foothills of the Snowy…

  • Author Justinian Huang and his debut novel, The Emperor and the Endless Palace

    Interview With an Author: Justinian Huang

    Born to immigrants in Monterey Park, California, Justinian Huang studied English at Pomona College and screenwriting at the University of Oxford. He is now based in Los Angeles with Swagger, a…

  • Author Sophie Wan and her debut novel, Women of Good Fortune

    Interview With an Author: Sophie Wan

    Sophie Wan is a Bay Area native who is now battling the winters in Philadelphia. She graduated from UC Berkeley and spends far too much time drafting emails and drinking tea. Women of Good Fortune is…

  • Author Shubnum Khan and her debut novel, The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years

    Interview With an Author: Shubnum Khan

    Shubnum Khan is a South African author and artist. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times; McSweeney’s Quarterly; HuffPost; O, The Oprah Magazine; The Sunday Times (London); Marie Claire; and…

  • Author Izzy Wasserstein and her debut novel, These Fragile Graces, This Fugitive Heart

    Interview With an Author: Izzy Wasserstein

    Izzy Wasserstein is a queer, trans woman who teaches writing and literature. She was born and raised in Kansas and received her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of New Mexico. She is the…

  • Author Rebecca Serle and her latest novel, Expiration Dates

    Interview With an Author: Rebecca Serle

    Rebecca Serle is the New York Times bestselling author of One Italian Summer, In Five Years, The Dinner List, and the young adult novels The Edge of Falling and When You Were Mine. Serle also…

  • Author: Yangsze Choo

    Interview With an Author: Yangsze Choo

    Yangsze Choo is the New York Times bestselling author of The Ghost Bride (now a Netflix Original series) and The Night Tiger, a Reese's Book Club Pick, and a Big Jubilee Read selection for Queen…

  • Author Kacen Callender and their latest novel, Infinity Alchemist

    Interview With an Author: Kacen Callender

    Kacen Callender is the bestselling and award-winning author of multiple novels for children, teens, and adults, including the Stonewall Honor Book, Felix Ever After and the National Book Award for…


Reviews by Daryl M.

  • Cover image for The Secret Life of Sam Holloway

    The Secret Life of Sam Holloway

    • By: Thomas, Rhys
    • Reviewed By: Daryl M.
    Sam Holloway is a good guy, who is kind and thoughtful, with a stable, but not terribly exciting, job with an electronic parts distributor. He meets up with a couple of friends several nights a week at a local pub, where they talk about comics, movies, videogames and what it...
  • Cover image for The Monster of Elendhaven

    The Monster of Elendhaven

    • By: Giesbrecht, Jennifer
    • Reviewed By: Daryl M.
    A young man washes up in a harbor with no knowledge of who he is or where he came from. He doesn’t even have a name. He is tall, with dark hair and pale skin. He also possesses a strong sense of survival, driving him to do whatever is necessary...
  • Cover image for The Ruby Slippers of Oz: Thirty Years Later

    The Ruby Slippers of Oz: Thirty Years Later

    • By: Thomas, Rhys
    • Reviewed By: Daryl M.
    “Keep tight inside of them. Their magic must be very powerful, or she wouldn't want them so badly," said Glinda, the Good Witch of the North, talking about the ruby slippers.In L. Frank Baum’s children’s novel, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, the magic shoes worn by the Wicked Witch of the East...
  • Cover image for The Survival of Margaret Thomas

    The Survival of Margaret Thomas

    • By: Howison, Del
    • Reviewed By: Daryl M.
    The Western has been an established genre of fiction for well over a hundred years. In the early to mid20th century, Western fiction grew in popularity, largely driven by similarly themed motion pictures and television programs. In the 1970s, however, the genre began to fall out of favor with the...
  • Cover image for Red, White & Royal Blue

    Red, White & Royal Blue

    • By: McQuiston, Casey
    • Reviewed By: Daryl M.
    Alex Claremont-Diaz is the 21-year-old First Son Of The United States (FSOTUS). He has lived in the White House with his older sister, June (FDOTUS) for the last three years, during his mother’s first term in office. He is a media darling, being continually followed, photographed and dissected by the...
  • Cover image for The Reign of the Kingfisher: A Novel

    The Reign of the Kingfisher: A Novel

    • By: Martinson, T. J.
    • Reviewed By: Daryl M.
    The first appearance of Batman was in Detective Comics in the Spring of 1939, making 2019 the character’s 80th anniversary. Batman is a sharp contrast to most “superheroes” in that he possesses no “super” powers. His prowess, whether physical or intellectual, comes from rigorous training and study. He patrols the...
  • Cover image for Magic for Liars: A Novel

    Magic for Liars: A Novel

    • By: Gailey, Sarah
    • Reviewed By: Daryl M.
    When Sylvia Capley, the Health instructor at Osthorne Academy for Young Mages, is found in the school library bisected from head to toe, cleanly down the middle, the National Mage Investigative Service (NMIS) concludes that her death was an accident, a spell gone wrong. The Headmaster of the school doesn’t...
  • Cover image for The Lost History of Dreams: A Novel

    The Lost History of Dreams: A Novel

    • By: Waldherr, Kris
    • Reviewed By: Daryl M.
    When famous, and some would claim infamous, poet Hugh de Bonne dies unexpectedly, his last remaining family relations are called upon to enact his final request. De Bonne wishes to be buried on the moors near Shropshire, in a chapel of stained glass he had built 16 years earlier as...
  • Cover image for Your Favorite Band Cannot Save You

    Your Favorite Band Cannot Save You

    • By: Moore, Scotto
    • Reviewed By: Daryl M.
    It’s happened to all of us. You hear a song and it instantly raises your spirits. Or, you hear a different song and it instantly makes you feel melancholy. Some music makes you want to move, while other music makes you want to relax and be still. Something reminds you...
  • Cover image for Middlegame

    Middlegame

    • By: McGuire, Seanan
    • Reviewed By: Daryl M.
    Roger Middleton is a rather typical seven-year-old boy. He lives with his adopted parents in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He seems to be exceptionally gifted when it comes to grammar, spelling, anything to do with languages, really. But he struggles with even the most basic levels of mathematics.Dodger Cheswich is not a...