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The Fireman
By Joe Hill
William Morrow & Company, Hardcover, 9780062200631, May 2016, 768pp.

The Short of It:

Find a cool, shady spot, grab a cold drink, and kick back because The Fireman is the hot read of the summer.

The Rest of It:

Draco Incendia Trychophyton is a plague which causes people to spontaneously combust. As people across the country become infected with “Dragonscale”, the hospitals in each big city try their best to contain it but there is no cure.

Harper Grayson, a nurse who took special care not to become infected, finds herself covered in “scale” and when her husband Jakob finds out, he doesn’t react the way she expects him to. Instead, she ends up with a group of people who have come together for survival. This group has figured out a way to live with the scale. Led by an unlikely hero in a bright yellow coat and fireman’s hat, they create a world where survival is possible.

I love read-alongs and this book was perfect to read as a group. It’s long (700+ pages) but I read it in under a week and never once felt its length. It’s got plenty of good storytelling, lots of action and some likable characters for you to cheer for. There is also one really bad seed. There’s one in every bunch.

What stood out:

Lots of name dropping and pop culture references
Hill is Stephen King’s son and I felt it in the writing (a plus!)
Reads like a movie and Fox has taken it on for development.
Definitely not horror even though it’s marketed that way.
We all felt that it should have been called, The Nurse.
Despicable characters are great fun to bash on Twitter.

I received a review copy of this book so imagine my surprise when another blogger pointed out material that was not in my review copy. Yes!! A slightly different ending given the additional material she provided. So if you have the review copy, seek out a finished copy so you can read that very last bit.

I was hoping for a good chunkster to read this summer and this was it. It’s a lot of fun and reading it with a group just made it that much better. I highly recommend it.

Source: Review copy provided by the publisher via Edelweiss.
Disclosure: This post contains Indiebound affiliate links.

Tuesday Nights in 1980
By Molly Prentiss
Gallery/Scout Press, Hardcover, 9781501121043, April 2016, 336pp.

The Short of It:

If a book can give you “feels” then this is the one to do it.

The Rest of It:

Synethesia: the production of a sense impression relating to one sense or part of the body by stimulation of another sense or part of the body.

James Bennett is an art critic but one unlike the ones you’ve read about in the past. James is synesthetic. He might experience a “taste” while looking at a painting, or he might “hear” a color, instead of just simply seeing a color. This gives him an edge in the art world but it also creates problems for him and his wife, as his obsession with certain pieces take over their lives.

This was such an interesting, and absorbing read. There are dual story lines in this novel and it is done so beautifully. It took me forever to read this one because nearly every other sentence was worthy of being highlighted. Prentiss does an amazing job capturing the New York art scene. It’s so vivid and full of life. Pulsing, really. There’s tragedy and hope and longing and it’s all so perfectly imperfect, if that makes any sense at all.

I adored this book. I need to own a copy in print just so I can hold it because fondling my Kindle copy is just not acceptable.

Source: Review copy provided by the publisher via Edelweiss.
Disclosure: This post contains Indiebound affiliate links.

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