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Book Review: Serwa Boateng’s Guide to Vampire Hunting (Serwa Boateng #1) by Roseanne A. Brown

Cover art for Serwa Boateng's Guide to Vampire Hunting by Roseanne A. Brown

Serwa Boateng’s Guide to Vampire Hunting (Serwa Boatang #1) by Roseanne A. Brown

Rick Riordan Presents, 2022

ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1368066365

Buy: Bookshop.org | Amazon.com

 

 

This is a wild ride of a book. Serwa Boateng is a Ghanaian-American (born in Ghana) 12 year old, the daughter of Slayers of vampires called adze, who look like fireflies and can possess people, and obaifyo, witches who use black magic. She has always been homeschooled, but after a supernatural attack on her home, her parents are sent on a mission she can’t be a part of and she is sent to live with her Aunt Latricia and cousin Roxy in Rocky Gorge, Maryland, a supernatural dead zone, where she will have to attend middle school and deal with microaggressions, hostility, racism, and an adze who has crossed into the dead zone, without help from her parents or the council that directs their missions.

 

When Serwa accidentally starts a food fight in home ec, she and four other students end up with detention, picking up trash in and around the school. While picking trash in the woods, they are attacked by an adze, and when Serwa explains what’s happening, they want to help. Eujun used to be friends with Roxy but when forced to pick between friends picked popular mean girl Ashley. Gavin is Black and a jokester. Mateo is Guatemalan and a model student, who stutters. Roxy’s father has been deported to Ghana. Their teacher, Mrs. Dean, has it out for Serwa, who she calls Sarah Boating, and Serwa thinks she is the adze.

 

The kids are terrible fighters and have no magic. Serwa calls on the earth goddess with a request to bless them with divine wisdom. They are sent to the underworld to retrieve her sword, which never stops fighting. Their mission is successful, and also incredibly funny. The goddess gives the kids divine wisdom and an elemental blessing that will let them draw on the power of their element.

 

The art teacher, Mr. Riley. reveals that the origin of the dead zone is unique because his ancestor, who had divine wisdom, and Roxy’s, who had black magic, combined them to protect enslaved people during a rebellion.

 

Ghanaian mythology is not something I was familiar with, so this was a fresh approach to the “chosen one” storyline. Serwa has a distinct voice and point of view that make her stand out from the current crop. While the story is sometimes predictable, I was wowed by the energy and rage at the end. Never underestimate a teenager in an emotional storm. Highly recommended.

 

Reviewed by Kirsten Kowalewski

Posted on July 28, 2024 by , Reply

Book Review: Asylum (Selected Papers from the Consortium for the Study of Anomalous Phenomena #3) by Sarah Hans

Cover art for Asylum by Sarah Hans

Asylum (Selected Papers from the Consortium for the Study of Anomalous Phenomena #3) by Sarah Hans

Raw Dog Screaming Press, 2024

ISBN:: 9781947879683

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition

Buy: Bookshop.org  |  Amazon.com

 

Asylum is a quick, less than 100 page novella that seem to be all the rage nowadays.  It’s fast fun, and good enough for a couple hours of escapism.  This one could have gone on longer, if it had been fleshed out in a few places.

 

When you have four meth junkies (Ashleigh, Connor, Dean, and Kayla) on the run from the cops, what’s the logical place for them to hide out?  Why, an abandoned asylum on a mountain, of course!  Most of the story takes place in the asylum, as the four of them wind up with more than they expected.  For the necessary supernatural element, it’s the legend of Perry the Panther, some sort of cat-man that supposedly resides in the area.  As might be expected, four addicts who soon run out of meth will be at each other’s throats, and they quickly are.  Naturally, a creepy asylum needs something to make it abnormal, and in this case it’s the large number of cats who inhabit the building.  A feral colony, or servants of Perry?  Everything quickly devolves into survival, as the four humans not only have themselves to contend with, but the weird things happening at the asylum as well.

 

The writing is fine, and good enough to keep your attention through the 93 pages.  There aren’t really any unexpected twists, and the plot can be guessed reasonably well as you go along.  But, as long as it’s written well enough, and this is, it really doesn’t matter.  As noted earlier, this is one that actually had the potential to be a longer and better story.   Most of the book focuses on the characters, and there isn’t a ton of attention paid to the cats and Perry.  Developing that angle further would have given a nice boost to the story, as they are the big unknown in the story, and part of what keeps you interested.  Furthering that backstory would have increased the ‘fear of the unknown’ factor, and given the story more lift.  As it is, it’s a good book, but it could have been better..

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If you need a quick horror story to pass an evening or two, this will do it, but let’s hope for further development of Perry and the cats at some point.  They are intriguing enough to warrant revisiting.

 

Reviewed by Murray Samuelson

 

 

Posted on July 27, 2024 by , Reply

Book Review: Gravebooks by J.A. White

cover art for Gravebooks by J. A. White

 

Gravebooks by J.A. White

Katherine Tegen Books, 2022

ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0063082014

Available: Hardcover, paperback, Kindle edition, audiobook

Buy:  Bookshop.org |  Amazon.com

 

In this sequel to Nightbooks, Alex Mosher wakes up trapped in a nightmare of a strange graveyard of stories, commanded, mysteriously, by the witch Natacha (who kept him captive and died during his escape in the previous book), and her jackal friend Simeon. Each of Alex’s unfinished story ideas are buried in a grave.. Natacha tells Alex he needs to dig each grave up and open the coffin. Inside each coffin is a blank book. Alex has to take the book out and jump down into the grave world to finish the story. When he finishes, the book bursts into flames, but the text of the story is transferred to the world above as the grave world crumbles. Telling the story causes a flower to grow: the better the story, the more unusual the flower.

 

Natacha and Simeon kidnap Alex’s friend Yasmin to threaten Alex into doing his best work, but he makes a deal with them that if they leave her alone, he will write them stories every night.. Yasmin feels responsible for Alex’s situation, and seeks out another fairytale witch, Maria Goffell, doomed to cut the hair of the dead. Maria tells Yasmin  she will need objects that represent Yasmin’s greatest fears, and Yasmin realizes she will have to return to Natacha’s apartment, where she and Alex were imprisoned in Nightbooks. Yasmin finds items in the apartment she can use and is able to defeat Natacha, finally. Maria and Yasmin finally trap Simeon, and Alex is able to escape, resurrect his friendship with Yasmin, and defeat his writer’s block, for the price of a story read to Maria.

 

This had a slow start, but picked up fast, and was a great companion to Nightbooks, which I cannot recommend enough to horror-loving middle-graders. J. A. White knows how to write nightmares.

 

White also name-checks the authors from his dedication: Bradbury, Matheson, King, and Jackson are all Easter eggs in the book, making this a fun book for adults as well. It’s a great book for horror-loving parents to read with their kids. Nightbooks was made into an excellent movie: I hope Gravebooks gets a similar treatment. Highly recommended.

 

 

Reviewed by Kirsten Kowalewski

Posted on July 21, 2024 by , Reply
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