noellesmagicallibrary's reviews
322 reviews

 The Lies of Alma Blackwell is a supernatural mystery and horror for young adults. Set in a small, dreary seaside town, this gothic horror is the perfect start for the fall season.

Over a century ago there was a fatal train accident in Hollow Cliff. The Blackwell family has been thought to be both the cause of the derailment and the reason why the resulting vengeful spirits of the passengers stopped killing the town’s residents.

Alma Blackwell had magical capabilities. She used her powers to forge a lifelong vow binding herself to Blackwell House, allowing the spirits to freely roam within that space. Every generation, one member of the Blackwell family is given access to the remnants of Alma’s magic and continues to uphold the vow.

Present day, Nev has just graduated high school and is preparing to take the vow at this year’s summer solstice. But before that happens and she becomes tethered to Hollow Cliff forever, she needs to solve the mystery of her mother’s disappearance.


I will always love books about ghosts and witches. While a lot of the story is told from Nev’s perspective, the author also used an interesting device to have flashbacks from a different POV.
The cover is gorgeous and tells you exactly what kind of book you picked up -- “a sweepingly romantic gothic mystery”.



I was given an advanced copy for review, all thoughts are entirely my own. Thank you Union Square & Co. and TBR and Beyond Tours for the opportunity 

Absolutely adorable — I listened to it twice. I love this educational and funny field guide to capybaras.
Production for this audiobook is amazing.

I didn’t know these Young Zoologist books existed before I saw this ARC on NetGalley and now I need to collect them all for my son’s library. 

This Book Kills is one of the best YA murder mysteries that I’ve read in a long time. It also features one of my favorite locations: school campus. Specifically, a posh boarding school in England.

The most popular boy in school is found murdered in the woods on school grounds. The circumstances of his death are exactly like the details in Jess’s short story for class. 

Jess is determined to clear her name and help find the real killer. The police are incompetent and the private investigator is not the most helpful. Now that Jess has inserted herself into the investigation she has become a potential victim herself. 

I loved this story from start to finish. Jess is an amazing main character and I loved her growth through this story. The secondary characters are great too! Even the ones we aren’t supposed to like are interesting and fully developed. 

The mystery kept me guessing and everything made sense. 
I will look forward to any future books this author writes. 

 
 

 

So funny and sweet. I absolutely loved Pedro's graphic memoir.

His story takes place during the 1970s in California and Mexico. The family travels to their hometown in Mexico to bring Abuelito to the states. He's getting older and having a hard time tending to the land so he's going to live with the family in California.
Additionally, Pedro has a lot of siblings and they all get a little spot light through out these pages.

I loved the addition of Spanish. Don't worry. You don't need to know the language, there are translations at the bottom of the pages when needed.


Bring this book home today. It deserves a spot on every book lover's shelf. 

 I love how these stories end on a cliffhanger of sorts, it makes them more scarier this way.
There were some a loved, some I liked, and a couple that I didn't enjoy. I tried to put myself back in the mindset of 10 year old-Noelle when reading these. I think that I would have had a great time reading these when I was younger. Even as an adult there are a few that stand out.

These are my initial, very brief, thoughts on each story.

1. 👍A short story about middle school werewolves and cliques.
2. 😍 Sometimes your bad luck is just a curse from a little wooden imp.
3. 👎A scientist travels to another dimension and is stuck in the body of a dog.
4. 👍 Experimental monstrous pet fish.
5. 😍 Thanks to a haunted tree house you won’t look at walnuts the same way.
6. 👎A magician’s hat meets Mary Poppins bag.
7. 😍 This magician isn’t evil, he’s just Bad.
8. 😍 Zombie’s night out.
9.👍Don’t go choosing your dreams.
10.👎Guess you never know if someone else is pulling the strings. 

If you had told me I was going to enjoy a story titled “Gas Station Dick Pills”, I would have laughed in your face. But you know what? It was good! That story was ridiculous, horrifying, funny and sweet. It sounds crazy but a story about a murderous monstrous penis just works. 

As for the first one, Otter Chaos, I needed more. There was something there but the story wasn’t complete. I liked the bloodthirsty otters but what’s their deal? And we didn’t spend nearly enough time with any of the characters to care about their deaths. 

I shouldn’t have read this book but I’m glad I did. Having a stranger in my house is an honest fear of mine. If I wake up in the middle of the night and hear a noise downstairs, I’m convinced someone’s there. So reading a book about a mom protecting her young kids from an intruder did bad things for my anxieties. 

Nightwatching is written damn near perfectly. The story is only told from one perspective and is propelled forward with flashbacks. Up until the very end you’re left wondering what actually happened that night in the house. 



I always love to see representation for my career, but people, please! It’s “physician assistant” not “physician’s assistant”.

Well that was fun!
These characters are fully formed and realistic. They felt like real kids experiencing an exciting and terrifying backyard camping trip.
The creature is equal parts silly and cool and I liked the explanation in the end. There’s also a nice lesson about controlling fear. 
For a kid, this story is probably actually scary. It’s definitely a great introduction to horror for younger readers.

Chloe and her bff Avery are getting ready to have the best camp out in the backyard. But at the last minute Chloe’s cousin Madison joins in. She doesn’t really fit in with the group but they make the best of it. As the girls are getting ready to sleep they feel something moving under the tent. It feels like a snake slithering around. If that wasn’t scary enough, when they look out the tent flap, there are giant purple tentacles with thorns thrashing around.

The rest of the summary contains spoilers

No one can hear them scream and all of their cell phones have dead batteries. The tentacles are multiplying in number and they mean business dragging the kids around the yard. 

They make it to a tree house to hid out and formulate some new plans. The neighbor kid has joined them now too. He came over to the yard to play a prank on them but got sucked up into the nightmare. 

Unless you’re standing in the yard, you can’t see what’s going on; everything looks completely normal. So the grown ups don’t notice anything’s wrong until it’s too late. Aunt Cindy is sucked into the ground by a tentacle and once Avery escapes to the next yard she immediately loses her memory. 

More people are sucked into the earth. They finally have a solid plan to defeat the creature. But they all end up underground at some point and lo and behold, Chloe’s dad is there! He’s been missing for the past year. 

He admits to the group that he never worked in marketing. He’s actually a scientist studying strange alien monsters and this creature was his project. It thrives off of fear so they all have to calm their nerves to defeat. Which they do. 

I didn’t connect with this book too much which is weird because I usually love Greek mythology and retellings. Especially feminine forward ones. I think that had I read a print copy instead of the audiobook I would have liked it a lot more. 
The narrator didn’t make the book special. It came across as rather monotone and I had a hard time with some of these names. 

The story is about Aeneas, demigod, son of Venus and star warrior of the Trojan War. But it’s told from the perspective of the women in his life. Except for Venus, which I’m now realizing and think would have been pretty cool to add. To be honest, I didn’t know much at Aeneas, and nothing about Lavina or Creusa before reading this. I’m interested in learning more about them now. 

This book started out slow for me, I couldn’t get a handle on the characters or the plot. But once I did everything changed for me. 

These characters stole my heart and I was on the verge of tears the entire time. I even let a few slip out at the very end. 
I loved the urban legend of it all with The Patron and the creepy abandoned house in the woods. That’s one of my favorite horror settings. 


Three young queer teens are outcasts in their community and families. They find an abandoned house in the woods which becomes a safe place for them. One night only two of them leave alive and their memories have been altered. Fast forward 5 years and those memories start to return as does a ghost from the past. 


This book can be difficult/triggering for some readers. This story heavily revolves around transphobia and homophobia.