Saga Vol. 2 by Brian K. Vaughan (Writer), Fiona Staples (Artist), Fonografiks (Lettering and Design), and Eric Stephenson (Coordinator)

Previously, Alana, a person from Landfall, and Marko, a person from the moon Wreath, whose worlds have been fighting for as long as anyone can remember, travel through the Rocketship Forest with their newborn, Hazel. There they meet a specter named Izabel who agrees to be the child's babysitter and to help them find the rocketship tree hidden in the forest.  They are being chased by a Freelancer, The Stalk, who is killed. But there are others who seek them to kill them and take Hazel including Freelancer The Will and Prince IV.  They find the tree rocketship and blast off into space heading toward the author of their favorite book.

Alana and Marko make a stop at his parent's house and they aren't too happy to see Alana.  His mother banishes Izabel, which pisses off Alana and Marko, so Marko and his mother head out to wherever it is she got sent to to rescue her.  Alana and Marko's father get to know each other and she finds out that he does not have long to live but does not want anyone else to know.

Meanwhile, The Will has been trying to buy the freedom of a sex slave child at a whorehouse he went to because he just couldn't leave her there.  Gwendolyn, Marko's ex-fiance and the Wreath representative who have hired the Freelancers, shows up to find out what his deal is.  She fixes the problem and they blast off in search of Marko and Alana.  The Will is a great character with his cat that can tell if you lie.  You can't help but root for him while hoping that he changes his mind about killing Alana and Marko.  Marko's father is another great character. He's a good man who creates magic on a sewing machine and cares deeply for his granddaughter.  You also get to see the progression of Alana and Marko's relationship through flashbacks from the beginning which is interesting and sweet. This book is a worthy sequel to the first comic.  It ends on a cliffhanger so I am eager to get my hands on the next book to see what awaits this bizarre group of people. 

Link to Amazon:https://www.amazon.com/Saga-Vol-2-Brian-Vaughan-ebook/dp/B015XE1CV8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1524226687&sr=8-1&keywords=saga+vol+2

Doctor Strange Vol 5: Secret Empire by Dennis Hopeless (Writer), John Barber (Writer), Niko Henrichon (Artist/Colorist), Kevin Nowlan (Past Sequence Art), Scott Hanna (Past Sequence Art), Dexter Vines (Past Sequence Art), Mark Morales (Past Sequence Art), Terry Pallor (Past Sequence Art), Dan Brown (Past Sequence Art), Juan Frigeri (Presence Sequence Art), Java Tartaglia (Present Sequence Art), and VC's Cory Petit (Letterer)

A cosmic cube transformed Steve Rogers, once known as Captain America before Falcon took over the role into a Hydra sleeper agent and now after months of scheming and manipulation, the country is now under Hydra's control. Doctor Strange and some of Earth's street-level heroes are trapped inside the Darkforce bubble that envelops New York City.  Mordo has taken over the Sanctum Sanctorum.

When Daredevil who is with Jess (Spiderwoman), and Ben Ulrich decides to see what's up with the Sanctorum he gets caught in a prison ball.  Doctor Strange is working to get rid of a large bit of unpleasantness when he runs into the two of them and they mess up his spell.  They get caught up by the creature and then rescued by Wilson Fisk, AKA Kingpin. 

Kingpin promises a lead on magical artifacts from an old witch.  The problem is that all the artifacts in her vault are dark magic and carry a cost.  For example, the Carnyx War Horn can create monsoons that will wash away the enemy but be prepared to have ulcers and brain tumors.  Or the Necklace of Bodil where you can summon a ghost army of unkillable bears but you will have to spend one night a month as a werebear.  Jess is willing to do the Werebear, but her skepticism makes her a poor candidate.  The artifact wouldn't work on her.  Ulrich's pure soul would be ravaged by these dark pieces and Fisk's dark soul would be made even darker.  

But they don't have much of a choice. Mordor is attacking New York and Luke Cage, Iron Fist, and Cloak is having a hard time fighting him off. They need help.  And Doctor Strange has a plan. Hopeless and Barber take this series into a new territory from what was before.  Numbers 21-24 link up with what is going on in the Marvel Universe storyline, but Number 25 is a book on its own and very fascinating to read.  Overall this is a fabulous read and well worth the wait.  I can't wait to see what they have in store next for Doctor Strange and company. 

Link to Amazon:  https://www.amazon.com/Doctor-Strange-Vol-Secret-Empire-ebook/dp/B077ZH8CRT/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1523631649&sr=1-1&keywords=doctor+strange+vol.+5&dpID=61ymm%252B7PuRL&preST=_SY445_QL70_&dpSrc=srch

Raspberry Danish Murder by Joanne Fluke

It has been two weeks now since Ross disappeared on Hannah after their wedding.  Only her family and close friends know that truth. Everyone else has been told that he is off on assignment for K-COW television station.  Mike is discreetly hunting down leads to try to find out what happened to him.  Then one night Michelle gets a video call from Ross's assistant PK where he sounds drugged and he's driving Ross's car. He mumbles about feeling sick from eating candies and swerves off the side of the road.

There was no hope of saving PK. The candies were filled with a drug that stopped his heart. The only problem is that the candies were found at Ross's desk. So were the candies meant for Ross or PK?  If they were meant for Ross is that why he left to avoid being killed or putting them in danger?  Hannah can't investigate Ross's possible murder because no one will be honest with her so she sends her sister Andrea to ask around while she and her sister Michelle ask around about PK.

It turns out that PK had an enemy at work, Scott who resented that PK took the promotion he thought he should have gotten and then took over Ross's big office when Ross left causing envy.  And no one seemed to know much about PK's fiancee, Pinkie including her real name or her last name.  Just that they went to high school together and began dating there and from the local auto mechanic that PK bought her a Jeep that he had specially painted pink for her as an engagement gift.  Where is Pinkie?

Meanwhile, on the Ross front, Hannah finds out that he has deposited sixty thousand dollars into her personal banking account and left three accounts that were in his name to be signed over to her totaling four hundred thousand dollars. On top of that, there are another one hundred thousand dollars in cash in a safety deposit box along with a storage site key.  Why would Ross feel the need to hide the money? Is it from a bank robbery or is it counterfeit? Mike will search for these answers as Hannah grapples with trying to come to terms with whether or not she really knew the man she married.

On a side note, Moishe the cat isn't leaping into Hannah's arms anymore when she opens the front door and he sleeps all the time now. Is he just getting old or is something else afoot?  Recipes included in this book are Irish Potato cookies, Upside Down Pear Coffee Cake, Almond Custer Pie with Raspberry Glaze, Orange Marmalade Filled Oatmeal Muffins, and Chocolate Caramel Bar Cookies.  It's hard to keep a series fresh after so many books and this makes the twenty-fourth book in the series.  But Fluke still manages to pull off twists you don't always see coming.  By the end of this book, you will learn the fate of Ross.  If you read this series, you won't be disappointed. You'll be wondering how soon can the next one come out.

Link to Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Raspberry-Danish-Murder-Swensen-Mystery-ebook/dp/B071SK3STR/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1523449436&sr=8-1&keywords=raspberry+danish+murder+by+joanne+fluke

 

Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman

Gaiman has collected a series of stories culled from reliable sources and put them together in this remarkable book.  You will read about Odin, the all father, the mighty Thor his son, and Odin's blood brother the tricky Loki.  The first story is of the creation of the worlds and the gods and the others who populate the lands.  There is also a story on how Odin became so wise and how he lost his eye.

In one tale, Sif, Thor's wife, wakes up with her golden hair gone from her head.  Thor knows Loki is behind it and the gods demand that he do something about it. So Loki goes to the dwarves to have them create a special cap of skin with hair attached that will meld with the wearer.  But Loki being Loki he decides to cause trouble and tells the sons of Ivaldi that Brokk and Eitri have said that they are the best craftsmen and that the Ivaldi has challenged them to do better than them in a contest making gifts for the gods.

The Ivaldi take up the challenge, but Brokk and Eitri suspect that Loki is up to something and make a wager with him that if they win the challenge they can have his head.  He agrees and then proceeds to try to sabotage their greatest gift as they are making it in the forge by taking the form of a fly and biting them. For a long time it doesn't work, but at the very end, he gets Brokk to stop doing what he was doing for a second and that caused the gift to not come out as perfect as they intended.

When they face the gods the Ivaldi give Odin a spear that will always find its mark, they give Thor the hair for Sif, and they give Frey a piece of cloth that unfolds into a giant ship.  Brokk gives Odin an arm ring that will multiply, Frey a huge boar with bristles of gold to pull his chariot, and for Thor a hammer. The only problem with the hammer is that the handle is short due to Loki's interference and can only be held one-handed.  The gods agreed that Brokk and Eitri gave the best gift and so Loki had to give his head, but Loki being Loki he found a way out of it by saying that they couldn't cut into his neck. So they placed a leather strap across his mouth and sewed it shut which caused Loki no end of grief.

In another story, Thor woke up one morning to find that someone had stolen his hammer, Mjollnir.  Thor sent Loki out to find who had stolen it and Loki discovered that Thrym, lord of the ogres, has stolen it and won't give it back until he gets Freya's hand in marriage.  Heimdall, the watchman of the gods, has an idea, though he doesn't think Thor will like it much. Thor should dress up as Freya and Loki go as her maiden and infiltrate the ogre stronghold that way and wait until the hammer is given over to make his move. When that happens, Thor takes out all of the ogres.

There are so many good stories in this book. There's one that tells of Loki's three children from a frost giant that are named Fenrir, the wolf, Jormungundr, who became the Midgard serpent, and Hel, who became the ruler of the dead who died unworthy deaths.  Odin placed them where he wanted them to be such as the underworld or Midgard to get rid of them because he feared them, but during Ragnarok, they still come back to haunt him.  Ragnarok is the end of everything and a new beginning and is also a story in this book.  This is a fabulous and fascinating book that delves into these ancient stories and really brings them to life. Gaiman, a master storyteller, really shines here.  I highly recommend reading this book.   

Link to Amazon:https://www.amazon.com/Norse-Mythology-Neil-Gaiman-ebook/dp/B01HQA6EOC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1523276897&sr=8-1&keywords=norse+mythology+neil+gaiman

Motor Crush Vol 1 by Brenden Fletcher (Creator), Cameron Stewart (Creator), Babs Tarr (Creator), Heather Danforth (Color and Production Assistant), and Aditya Bidikar (Letterer)

Set in the city of Nova Honda, this comic tells the tale of Domino Swift a motorcycle racer whose adoptive father owns a repair shop and helps her out with her racing.  She is an up and comer in a sport that is dominated by Decimus Wexler.  At night she goes on illegal street races for crush, which is this pink liquid stuff that you put inside your motorcycle to make it run faster and is highly illegal, but everyone uses.  She never loses.

At this particular race, the man who works for her dad is there and is killed for trying to steal the crush prize.  When she gets home she finds that he stole her stash of crush as well. She is desperate to get it back and does something stupid to do so and loses her bike.  She ends up going to her old mechanic who wants nothing to do with her, Lola. Lola has problems of her own as she owes money to the producers who run things.  Lola does have a bike for Dom to ride though, and it's perfect.

Now Dom is being followed by a stranger who knows more about her than she knows about herself, like why she has to use her inhalers and what is in those inhalers, because she was in an accident and needed her inhaler and all she had was the  crush and she used it and it worked, which would have killed any normal person.  Soon Dom is doing something unthinkable to get them all out of trouble.  This is a fast-paced book that keeps you on the edge of your seat asking plenty of questions that you don't get all of the answers to.  I love the color of warm pink that permeates this comic, which is the color of the crush that seems to drive everything in the story.  This is a fabulous start to a new series and I can't wait to read the next book.

Link to Amazon:https://www.amazon.com/Motor-Crush-Vol-Brenden-Fletcher-ebook/dp/B06X9SZ545/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1523017984&sr=8-1&keywords=motor+crush

The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane by Lisa See

In the remote Chinese village called Spring Well Village, an Akha family goes about farming tea. The book is centered on Li-yan who is referred to as Girl by her family. She is smart and her teacher Teacher Zhang asks that she be allowed to continue her education to what we would refer to as middle school in America at the age of twelve.  She will continue to farm tea and learn to be a midwife from her A-ma or mother who is known throughout the region for her talents.

She falls in love with San-pa but both of their parents are against the marriage because of the animal each was born under and because of the trouble the two got into as children over a stolen pancake and cause the children to go out of balance with the world meaning that they will need to go through a cleansing ritual.  San-pa promises to go to Thailand to earn money enough to marry her and she will take the test to go to university.  But things change when Mr. Huang arrives from Hong Kong looking to make Pu'er tea. He is interested in the tea from Third Brother's tea trees that no one has been harvesting from to sell because they were seen as inferior. He also wants wild tea and some special tea trees that he has heard about.  Li-yan and her A-ma know he means her tea trees that are thousands of years old.  No man is allowed on the land and will die if they do go on it. The place is considered cursed and the tea is considered worthless.  Li-yan makes two tea cakes from the tea trees from her grove and sells them to him hoping to have the money for her and San-pa.

Li-yan finds out that she is pregnant which wouldn't be a problem if San-pa were here and could marry her, but he isn't.  If she is discovered to be pregnant with a child she would be banished from the village forever.  Her A-ma and her hide the pregnancy and when she goes into labor they go to the grove to have the baby. Even though her A-ma isn't supposed to deliver her daughter's baby because it could cause the death of the men in the family she breaks Akha Law.  But instead of killing the child like they are supposed to Li-yan walks into the big town and leaves the baby girl outside of the orphanage with a tea cake from her grove strapped to her, once more breaking Akha Law.

When San-pa comes back to ask for her hand they get married and head to the orphanage to collect their daughter but she has already been adopted by an American couple.  They leave and go to Thailand.  Things don't work out the way she wants them to, but she can't go back to her village so she goes to trade school and gets a job in the city and learns the ways of Pu'er tea.

Her daughter, Haley, grows up wandering about her and what the tea cake means.  Her life isn't easy being a child from two worlds and being pushed hard to do so much and succeed.  She spends her life searching for the mother who gave her away while Li-yan continues to search for the daughter she lost.  This is an amazing book about the strength of women and never giving up.  The characters will surprise you as you fall in love with them or want to kill them, as the case may be.  I was born in the Southern United States so the only tea that has ever interested me has been sweet iced tea, but this book has gotten me interested in Pu'er tea and exploring it.  I highly recommend reading this tremendous book.     

Link to Amazon:https://www.amazon.com/Tea-Girl-Hummingbird-Lane-Novel-ebook/dp/B01HMXRVL8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1522850206&sr=8-1&keywords=the+tea+girl+of+hummingbird+lane

Wait For Dark by Kay Hooper

This is the seventeenth book in the Bishop/Special Crimes Unit of the FBI series.  If you are new to the series, do not fret.  She always writes her books in trilogies. This should be the second if numerous past examples have shown, in such a trilogy.  Bishop is the head of a unit of FBI agents that he has specially formed, fighting an uphill battle with the bureau and other law enforcement officers along the way, completely with psychics. He recruits them and trains them as agents.  They learn what all agents learn: how to use a gun, profile, and old-fashioned police work. Their psychic abilities are just another tool in the toolbox, that sometimes can work against them.  Several books ago, thankfully, Hooper began including bios of the returning characters in the books and which books they were previously in (after a while, with so many, you tend to forget), definitions of terms, and a timeline of when the books take place.  Hooper, who lives in the mountains of North Carolina, sets most of her books in the southeast, mostly in Tennessee, North Carolina, and Georgia.

This book is set in Charity, North Carolina where there have been three violent accidents in a short period of time in a town where the last accident happened fifteen years ago.  The first was a young teacher who ran her car into a telephone pole and it exploded destroying any evidence of wrongdoing.  The second accident was when a grill exploded as the local grill master was manning it.  No one else was seriously hurt.  The third accident was a farmer who was shredded by his thresher which should be next to impossible to happen the way it did.

Sheriff Malachi Gordon has heard about the SCU as a group that solves odd cases but isn't aware that they are made up of psychics. He calls them in to help with these cases especially after he realizes that none of the people had their phones survive their ordeal.  He had the cell phone company download all calls and texts and all three of them received the same text at 3pm: Wait Until Dark.

Bishop decides that Hollis is ready to not only go back into the field after her ordeal with Samuel [see Haunted http://nicolewbrown.blogspot.com/2014/12/haunted-by-kay-hooper.html] but to lead the team.  Hollis started working with the SCU as a medium, but it seems every time she goes into the field she acquires a new ability. She also has the ability to see auras, heal herself and others, sense, define, channel and use energy, and she finally created a shield for herself.  Reece, who is in love with Hollis, doesn't think she's ready to go back out into the field. Reece has a double shield that he can use to protect others and he is also a telepath and ex-military sniper.  Also along for the ride are Cullen, a clairvoyant and Kirby, a young empath who is generally upbeat but also gets carded often if she wants to buy alcohol and is often underestimated. 

When they arrive a woman has just been found impaled on sharpened tree limbs outside her attic window.  So now it looks like murder.  How did she get out there and how did the killer subdue her?  The husband is devastated and he doesn't look strong enough to have pulled it off assuming the other deaths were to hide the murder of his wife.  Hollis is doubting herself beyond reason due to a spell the bad guy cast to hide from her.  Hollis is also developing a new ability which is hard for her to deal with as she tries to lead the team.  She will also have to make the decision of whether to save herself or risk dying to save a teammate.  This was a great book with interesting characters that you care about.  I was up all night reading to find out how it ended.  I really do recommend this book.

Link to Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Wait-Dark-Bishop-SCU-Novel-ebook/dp/B01AHKXIXI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1522671489&sr=8-1&keywords=wait+for+dark+kay+hooper