To be human: breathing, eating, sleeping, running, laughing, crying, wanting, missing, loving, losing, talking, yelling, whispering, staying up late, long car rides, adventures, funny faces, music, movies, comfort, and life. All these things we associate with being alive and being ourselves. What if all this was taken away from you by dying and turning into a ghost, being bitten by a vampire or by a werewolf?
Ghost Writer takes its title literally, as a deceased women's fiction writer guides, nags, and ultimately haunts a woman into co-authoring the last piece of fiction he would ever create under the nom de plume, Maxine DuBois. Whether his collaborator ever even wanted to write the novel is another matter entirely.
Because she was an employee of We Keep Up Your Spirits Inc., at first no-one took Madam Granowski seriously, even after she dramatically interrupted an afternoon panel on Dyslexic Ouija Boards and What To Do About Them. This she contrived by rushing in screaming about a manifestation in the bathroom before fainting at the foot of the podium. I was there at the time, and it certainly impressed me. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
Nick Groff, with the help Jeff Belanger, has a very strong personal voice in Chasing Spirits: The Building Of The Ghost Adventure Crew. In fact such a strong voice that it is easy to imagine hearing him tell you his story. As a reader, I like a good story teller’s voice. When someone is writing their personal stories, it’s nice to “hear” their voice as you read. In spite, or perhaps because, of Nick’s salty language you feel as if his narrative is live. Reading his story is much like sitting at dinner with a friend as he tells you about his day.
This supernatural drama series (ABC, Sunday at 10 p.m.) stars Terry O’Quinn (Lost) and Vanessa Williams (Desperate Housewives, Ugly Betty) as the rich and creepy Dorans, owners of the fabulous Drake apartment building on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Rachael Taylor (Charlie’s Angels, Transformers) and David Annable (Brothers & Sisters) play Jane and Henry, the young couple who land the plum job of resident managers for this elegant Beaux Arts building.
Not being a fan of paranormal plots, I was pleasantly surprised by this one! Marabella Vinegar–was there ever a girl blessed with a worse name?–has had “mother” issues for all her life and eight years of group therapy to overcome them.
This week I have the delight of reviewing Jan Burke's supernatural thriller The Messenger. For those of you who have not yet seen it, I am also posting my video interview with Jan from Left Coast Crime, and at the end of this review is a chance to win a copy of The Messenger!
If you had told me before last summer that MTV would start making great scripted shows, I would have laughed at you. If you had told me that that show would be a re-imagining on the popular Teen Wolf movie from the 80s that featured teenagers and lacrosse, I would have told you that you have no idea what good television is.
It Takes A Witch by Heather Blake is the delightful mystery featuring Darcy Merriweather who has moved to the Enchanted Village of Salem, Massachusetts with her sister Harper after the death of their father.
Two big eyes peered out from a little face framed by floppy, brown-and-white speckled ears. The little Cocker Spaniel rested in the grass beneath the bench on which his master, an old man with a cane, was sitting.
