Trapped in the Mexican jungle, a group of friends stumble upon a creeping horror unlike anything they could ever imagine. Two young couples are on a lazy Mexican vacation–sun-drenched days, drunken nights, making friends with fellow tourists. When the brother of one of those friends disappears, they decide to venture into the jungle to look for him. What started out as a fun day-trip slowly spirals into a nightmare when they find an ancient ruins site . . . and the terrifying presence that lurks there.

Geronimo's adventurous sister, Thea, narrates this fabulous adventure that's packed with action, mystery, and friendship!During a marine biology lesson at Mouseford Academy, the Thea Sisters learn about a mysterious shipwreck off Whale Island. According to legend, a very rare diamond called Jasmine's Heart was on the ship when it sank. When biology teacher Professor Van Kraken disappears, the Thea Sisters have to dive into the deep ocean to find him and the jewel. And just when they think their adventures are over, the Thea Sisters receive an invitation to travel to China to find another missing treasure. It's an adventure these five world-traveling mice will never forget!

Failed academic Frank Nichols and his wife, Eudora, have arrived in the sleepy Georgia town of Whitbrow, where Frank hopes to write a history of his family's old estate-the Savoyard Plantation- and the horrors that occurred there. At first, the quaint, rural ways of their new neighbors seem to be everything they wanted. But there is an unspoken dread that the townsfolk have lived with for generations. A presence that demands sacrifice. It comes from the shadowy woods across the river, where the ruins of Savoyard still stand. Where a longstanding debt of blood has never been forgotten. A debt that has been waiting patiently for Frank Nichols's homecoming...

Gabe can't wait to explore the Great Pyramid with his Uncle Ben, but once he gets inside to search for mummies and treasure, Gabe discovers he may never get out.Uncle Ben woke us up early the next morning and drove to the pyramids outside al-Jizah. The air was already hot and sticky. The sun seemed to hang low over the desert like an orange balloon."There it is!" Sari declared, pointing out the window. And I saw the Great Pyramid rising up from the yellow sand like some kind of mirage. This is the first book in the series that seems to slip beyond the borders of the formula used to write the preceding Goosebumps books. The horror isn't quite as horrifying. The threat to Gabe, while dangerous, isn't what the reader anticipates given the title of the book and its alluring cover art. There are several instances where this book reads more an action-adventure in the vein of Indiana Jones rather than a horror novel, thanks to the ever-present sense of exploration and discovery: Once again, the sour smell invaded my nose. I held my breath to keep myself from gagging. It was the smell of four-thousand-year-old bodies, I realized. A smell that had been bottled up in this ancient hidden chamber - until now. Where most Goosebumps books leave the reader with a chilling sense that monsters may yet be hiding under the bed, The Curse of the Mummy's Tomb reaches a conclusion that's a little too buttoned up. It is, nonetheless, an enjoyable read packed with mummified bodies, unexplored tunnels, and ancient secrets.

\
  Dear Reader,\
If you have just picked up this book, then it is not too late to put it back down. Like the previous books in A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS, there is nothing to be found in these pages but misery, despair, and discomfort, and you still have time to choose something else to read.Within the chapters of this story, Violet, Klaus and Sunny Baudelaire encounter a darkened staircase, a red herring, some friends in a dire situation, three mysterious initials, a liar with an evil scheme, a secret passageway, and parsley soda.I have sworn to write down these tales of the Baudelaire orphans so the general public will know each terrible thing that has happened to them, but if you decide to read something else instead, you will save yourself from a heapful of horror and woe.\
  With all due respect,\
Lemony Snicket

While not exactly spooky, Welcome to Camp Nightmare carries enough suspense and mystery to even be perplexing for adult readers. This is also one of R.L. Stine's earlier books in the Goosebumps series to feature more characters than usual, leading to more plot complexity when people start to go missing or appear to have been "removed" for some malicious purpose. For main character Billy, the increased gaslighting coupled with the creepy camp staff, strange events and bizarre rumors, leads him to start wondering if there's more going on than meets the eye, especially when he can't get a hold of his own parents and the camp doesn't seem to be taking any reported injuries seriously. The book reminded me a bit of the 1980's cult slasher film Sleepaway Camp, with the super-negligent staff and random deaths, although toned down from the violence and vulgarity considerably considering Welcome to Camp Nightmare is a middle grade novel. It's a fun summer read and not particularly long, but not too short or repetitive, either.

Simon Snow is the worst Chosen One who's ever been chosen.That's what his roommate, Baz, says. And Baz might be evil and a vampire and a complete git, but he's probably right.Half the time, Simon can't even make his wand work, and the other half, he starts something on fire. His mentor's avoiding him, his girlfriend broke up with him, and there's a magic-eating monster running around, wearing Simon's face. Baz would be having a field day with all this, if he were here — it's their last year at the Watford School of Magicks, and Simon's infuriating nemesis didn't even bother to show up.\
  Carry On - The Rise and Fall of Simon Snow\
 is a ghost story, a love story and a mystery. It has just as much kissing and talking as you'd expect from a Rainbow Rowell story - but far, far more monsters.

A sinister fire in a Copenhagen bookstore ignites a relentless hunt across four continents. Arson and murder reveal an insidious plot to steal a Bible that once belonged to Charles Darwin, the father of evolutionary theory. And Commander Gray Pierce dives headlong into a mystery that dates back to Nazi Germany . . . and to horrific experiments performed in a now-abandoned laboratory buried in a hollowed-out mountain in Poland.A continent away, madness ravages a remote monastery high in Nepal, as Buddhist monks turn to cannibalism and torture. Lisa Cummings, a young American doctor investigating the atrocity, is suddenly a target of a brutal assassin working for clandestine forces that want the affair buried at any cost. Lisa's only ally is a hidden pilgrim, Painter Crowe -- director of SIGMA Force, an elite command of American scientists and Special Forces operatives -- who is already showing signs of the baffling malady that destroyed the minds of the monks.Now it is up to Gray Pierce to save both Painter and Lisa -- and a world in jeopardy -- as SIGMA Force races to expose a century-old plot that threatens to destroy the current world order . . . and alter the destiny of humankind forever.Combining the historic scope of The Da Vinci Code with the relentless thrills of today's best action novels, James Rollins's Black Order is a classic adventure -- an ingenious and breathtaking tour de force that explodes with revelations . . . while offering a startling new view of our place in the grand scheme of existence.

Nevada is mostly a long stretch of desert you cross on the way to somewhere else. And with someone else, if you're lucky...because it's a scary place. Headed down Route 50 in the brutal summer heat are people who are never going to reach their destinations. Like the Jacksons, a professor and his wife going home to New York City; the Carvers, a Wentworth, Ohio, family bound for a vacation at Lake Tahoe; and aging literary lion Johnny Marinville, inventing a gonzo image for himself astride a 700-pound Harley.A dead cat nailed to a road sign heralds the little mining town of Desperation, a town that seems withered in the shade of a man-made mountain known as the China Pit. But it's worse than that, much worse. Regulating the traffic there is Collie Entragian, an outsize uniformed madman who considers himself the only law west of the Pecos. God forbid you should be missing a license plate or find yourself with a flat tire.There's something very wrong here, all right, and Entragian is only the surface of it. The secrets embedded in Desperation's landscape, and the evil that infects the town like some viral hot zone, are both awesome and terrifying. But as young David Carver seems to know--though it scares him nearly to death to realize it--so are the forces summoned to combat them. In Desperation Stephen King's sweeping brush paints an apocalyptic drama of God and evil, madness and revelation. His genius for suspense has never been so finely honed, his imagination so shudderingly vivid,as when his wayfarers--and readers who dare to follow their course--begin to discover the true meaning of the word desperation.

so i DID like this, and i don’t really have anything cool or fun to say about it for a review. but i just realized that i forgot to mention the boob euphemism of choice for this book was JAHOOBIES. i just wanted you all to know that....ok bye4/12

Nora Kelly, a young archaeologist in Santa Fe, receives a letter written sixteen years ago, yet mysteriously mailed only recently. In it her father, long believed dead, hints at a fantastic discovery that will make him famous and rich---the lost city of an ancient civilization that suddenly vanished a thousand years ago. Now Nora is leading an expedition into a harsh, remote corner of Utah's canyon country. Searching for her father and his glory, Nora begins to unravel the greatest riddle of American archeology. but what she unearths will be the newest of horrors...

Combines Issues #5-8.Nicholas Cox is determined to prove himself in the world of competitive fencing, and earn his place on the Kings Row fencing team, alongside sullen fencing prodigy, Seiji Katayama, to win the right to go up against his golden-boy half-brother.Tryouts are well underway at King’s Row for a spot on the prodigious fencing team, and scrappy fencer Nicholas isn’t sure he’s going to make the grade in the face of surly upperclassmen, nearly impossibly odds, and his seemingly unstoppable roommate, the surly, sullen Seiji Katayama. It’ll take more than sheer determination to overcome a challenge this big!From the superstar team of C.S. Pacat (The Captive Prince) and fan-favorite artist Johanna the Mad comes the second volume of this acclaimed, dynamic series. 

Warning: BEYOND THE ICE LIMIT is the sequel to THE ICE LIMIT. While BEYOND is a stand-alone novel, we want to warn potential readers that the copy below contains serious spoilers for THE ICE LIMIT, for those who wish to read that book first.That thing is growing again. We must destroy it. The time to act is now...With these words begins Gideon Crew's latest, most dangerous, most high-stakes assignment yet. Failure will mean nothing short of the end of humankind on earth.Five years ago, the mysterious and inscrutable head of Effective Engineering Solutions, Eli Glinn, led a mission to recover a gigantic meteorite--the largest ever discovered--from a remote island off the coast of South America. The mission ended in disaster when their ship, the Rolvaag, foundered in a vicious storm in the Antarctic waters and broke apart, sinking-along with its unique cargo-to the ocean floor. One hundred and eight crew members perished, and Eli Glinn was left paralyzed.But this was not all. The tragedy revealed something truly terrifying: the meteorite they tried to retrieve was not, in fact, simply a rock. Instead, it was a complex organism from the deep reaches of space.Now, that organism has implanted itself in the sea bed two miles below the surface-and it is growing. If it is not destroyed, the planet will be doomed. There is only one hope: for Glinn and his team to annihilate it, a task which requires Gideon's expertise with nuclear weapons. But as Gideon and his colleagues soon discover, the "meteorite" has a mind of its own-and it has no intention of going quietly...\
  \


Billionaire Palmer Lloyd is accustomed to getting what he wants--and what he wants for his new museum is the largest meteorite on earth. Unfortunately for Lloyd, it's buried on an inhospitable Chilean island just north of the Ice Limit in the most brutal, unforgiving seas in the world. Like Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child's earlier collaborations (Relic, Thunderhead, and others), The Ice Limit tools along swiftly, blending nicely drawn characters (excepting, regrettably, the book's true protagonist, the meteorite), a reasonably exciting narrative, and enough graspable science and plausible-seeming theories to bring readers happily up to speed and keep them climax-bound. Not the authors' best effort, certainly, but a fine diversion nonetheless. --Michael Hudson

My review of Quests for GloryMy review of A Crystal of Time•••••••••PRE-READ EDIT 4/15/2020:I'm so glad I caught the book trailer only a day after it was released so I wasn't the last to the party.There's not much to comment on, honestly, as the trailer didn't really give anything away. Probably because it's the very last book (or is it? Because we thought The Last Ever After was, literally, the last "ever after" and...) and everything will only be revealed within the pages. Anyway. I'll say it again, probably for the last time until June 2nd: Let's. Do. This. •••••••••PRE-READ EDIT 11/1/19:I actually saw the cover a while ago, but now I finally have a moment to comment on it.It's definitely got a different vibe than the other covers this series has had, but I don't think it's bad. I'm here for it, and honestly, Tedros looks the best he ever has on a cover (and no, it's not just because he's not prominent haha). Again, let's do this.As for the preview, (view spoiler)[it seems our Sophie isn't quite herself... and yet, at the same time, she is. Looks like Agatha's gonna have to set her head straight again, and make her remember that she had friends and character development last book. Also I get the feeling that Kei's gonna turn to Team Tedros (but, really, let's be honest, it's Team Agatha). (hide spoiler)]

In this fifth instalment in Soman Chainani's New York Times bestselling fantasy series, The School for Good and Evil, Sophie, Agatha, and their friends must find a way to overthrow the sinister evil that twists lies into the truth and seeks to rewrite their story.A false king has claimed the throne of Camelot, sentenced Tedros to death, and forced Sophie to be his queen. Only Agatha manages to escape.Now Agatha and the students at the School for Good and Evil must find a way to restore Tedros to his throne and save Camelot . . . before all of their fairy tales come to a lethal end.

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