[REVIEW] The Mist

title: The Mist
author: Stephen King
genre: adult, horror
published: June 5, 2018  by Scribner ( first published 1980)
my copy: Trade Paperback, 176 pages
purchase: Amazon | B&N | Book Depository
rating: 4.5 / 5 stars
goodreads

In the wake of a summer storm, terror descends...David Drayton, his son Billy, and their neighbor Brent Norton join dozens of others and head to the local grocery store to replenish supplies following a freak storm. Once there, they become trapped by a strange mist that has enveloped the town. As the confinement takes its toll on their nerves, a religious zealot, Mrs. Carmody, begins to play on their fears to convince them that this is God’s vengeance for their sins. She insists a sacrifice must be made and two groups—those for and those against—are aligned. Clearly, staying in the store may prove fatal, and the Draytons, along with store employee Ollie Weeks, Amanda Dumfries, Irene Reppler, and Dan Miller, attempt to make their escape. But what’s out there may be worse than what they left behind. 

This exhilarating novella explores the horror in both the enemy you know—and the one you can only imagine.

great combination of scifi and horror

II saw the movie a few months back and I became extremely curious of the novel as I've also found out that they concluded differently. BUT either way, I will still be reading it because of my interest on how the characters fear are presented in the book. And I have to say that my expectations were well met.

[REVIEW] Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore

title: Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore
author: Matthew J. Sullivan
genre: adult fiction, mystery
published: January 9, 2018 by Scribner (first published June 13, 2017)
format: trade paperback, 352 pages
purchase: Amazon | B&N | Book Depository | Fully Booked
rating: 5 / 5 stars
goodreads

When a bookshop patron commits suicide, his favorite store clerk must unravel the puzzle he left behind in this “intriguingly dark, twisty” (Kirkus Reviews) debut novel from an award-winning short story writer. 

Lydia Smith lives her life hiding in plain sight. A clerk at the Bright Ideas bookstore, she keeps a meticulously crafted existence among her beloved books, eccentric colleagues, and the BookFrogs—the lost and lonely regulars who spend every day marauding the store’s overwhelmed shelves. 

But when Joey Molina, a young, beguiling BookFrog, kills himself in the bookstore’s upper room, Lydia’s life comes unglued. Always Joey’s favorite bookseller, Lydia has been bequeathed his meager worldly possessions. Trinkets and books; the detritus of a lonely, uncared for man. But when Lydia flips through his books she finds them defaced in ways both disturbing and inexplicable. They reveal the psyche of a young man on the verge of an emotional reckoning. And they seem to contain a hidden message. What did Joey know? And what does it have to do with Lydia? 

As Lydia untangles the mystery of Joey’s suicide, she unearths a long buried memory from her own violent childhood. Details from that one bloody night begin to circle back. Her distant father returns to the fold, along with an obsessive local cop, and the Hammerman, a murderer who came into Lydia’s life long ago and, as she soon discovers, never completely left. 

mystery and books. what a perfect combination!

I love 'books about books' - books that involves bookstores, book readers, and being around books in general. It's an easy sell for me. And I bought this one because of that. I didn't read the synopsis, just that  title - the 'Bookstore' in the title and I'm sold.