Phantoms - Dean Koontz

Title: Phantoms
Author: Dean Koontz
Genre: Horror
Rating: 4.5/5
# pages: 448
Date read: November, 2013

The lights are on in Snowfield, California, a cozy ski village nestled in the Sierra Madres, but nobody seems to be home. When Dr. Jenny Paige returns to the small town, she finds tables set for dinner, meals being prepared, and music playing in living rooms, but there's no trace of the people who put the water on to boil or set an extra place for company at the dinner table.

As she explores the town, Paige finds friends and neighbors felled by a mysterious force--the bodies show no visible signs of violence or disease, and no known plague kills victims before the ice in their dinner drinks has time to melt. But the deep quiet that surrounds her offers few clues about the fate of the town's inhabitants.

Dean Koontz is a bit hit-and-miss for me, but when he's good he's very, very good; and for pure thrill-value he beats most of Stephen King's novels hands-down. I read this in a day and absolutely loved the feeling of diving into a great book again. In atmosphere it reminded me quite a bit of "The Oath" by Frank E. Peretti, so I may have to reread that one now.

I love thrillers, but am not too fond of the gore often found in them. Fortunately this novel strikes the perfect balance and is very heavy on psychological terror while fortunately light on blood and guts. I felt totally immersed in the story and was deliciously scared pretty much from chapter 2 or 3.

... that "deliciously scared" feeling did turn into a "is this smart?" scared feeling after dark when I found myself home alone though... so knowing my husband was only an hour away from coming home, I briefly put the book aside in order not to scare myself too silly before he came back home again ;) I DID pick it right back up when he got home though, and made sure to finish it well before bedtime.

The ending was mostly satisfactory. For some weird reason it always sort of disappoints me when the explanation turns out to be supernatural - even when I've seen it coming - but I must admit that it gave me a thrill to discover that many of the mass disappearances mentioned were based on truth.

Possibly the best book I've read by Dean Koontz so far.

Crazy Aunt Purl's Drunk, Divorced and Covered in Cat Hair - Laurie Perry

Title: Crazy Aunt Purl's Drunk, Divorced and Covered in Cat Hair
Author: Laurie Perry
Genre: Memoir
Rating: 3/5
# pages: 268
Date read: November, 2013

Crazy Aunt Purl, a slightly neurotic, displaced Southerner trying to create a new life after her husband leaves her to 'get his creativity back.' (Whatever that means.) But will she get her groove back in a tiny rented apartment, with a mountain of boxes, visible panty lines, and a slight wine-and-Cheetos problem?

Yet, surprisingly, it's knitting that saves her and emboldens her to become fully engaged in life again--to discover new friends; to take risks, however scary; and to navigate the ins and outs of the modern dating scene.

The subtitle to this novel is "The True-Life Misadventures of a 30-Something Who Learned to Knit After He Split", so naive as I was I assumed this would be an essay collection about knitting - much like those written by the Yarn Harlot (whom I looooove!). Unfortunately, this turned out not to be the case, and instead I found what was basically a memoir about the first year (or so) of Laurie's life after she got divorced. Sure, knitting was mentioned here and there, but the focus was definitely on getting back on your feet after a divorce, rather than on the knitting itself.

Had my expectations been more in tune with the book's actual contents, I probably would have liked it more - because it did have its charms. As it was, I found myself (unfairly, perhaps) slightly cheated by it, and definitely not as keen to purchase her other books as I might otherwise have been.