Vignette the Third: Ghosts Who Smile at Me

Vignette the First

Vignette the Second

"The poem I just wrote is not real.
And neither is the black horse
who is grazing on my belly.
And neither are the ghosts
of old lovers who smile at me
from the jukebox." - Joy Harjo

Joy Harjo. Library of Congress Life, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

I walk into the little Historic Downtown Irvington shop on Washington Street that used to be the ice cream shop that sold bubble tea. I see the new owner has rebranded it as a 1950s-themed nostalgia diner. The bubble tea options and anime keepsakes are gone, but the ice cream counter remains, as do about a dozen shiny, chrome milkshake blenders.

The brightly lit Wurlitzer jukebox in the corner has a hastily printed-off sign that reads, in Comic Sans font, "Do Not Play the Jukebox."

I glance around the diner. The only occupied booth is in the corner, where a snappily-dressed 20-year-old Edgar Allan Poe can't take his pale blue eyes off his broad-shouldered, 49-year-old date. Augustus Landor is dressed somewhat more shabbily than the young dandy he's courting but appears to be no less enthralled by his partner's company. Their table is littered with empty beer bottles, in the midst of which sits a single milkshake with two straws.

I sit at the counter and order a vanilla Coke and a veggie burger with lettuce, tomato, and pickles. As the server delivers my Coke, I ask her, "What's up with that jukebox? Is it broken?"

"Not broken, exactly," she says. She has a working class London accent, tall black hair, and an abundance of retro tattoos.

"Does it play songs that are also clues to local crimes like in Marlene Perez's Dead Is book series?"

"Nah, I don't think so," the server says, snapping her gum. "That's not it. It's just been acting weird ever since that writer Joy Harjo came in and played it."

I pause to think. Is she being subtly racist, maybe unintentionally, attributing some kind of magic to Harjo because the poet is an indigenous woman? Maybe she attributes magic to all poets. Isn't what they do with words a sort of magic, after all?

"Weird how?" I ask at last.

She reaches into her apron, produces a shiny quarter, and tosses it to me. "See for yourself."

I take her quarter to the jukebox and drop it in the glowing slot. I don't select a song from the touchscreen; I don't get the chance to touch the screen before the first notes of "Come On Eileen" play.

I shrug. "So it doesn't let you choose the song," I say, turning to the server. "That's not so unusual."

"Look again," she says, pointing to the jukebox. I turn back to its brightly-lit display and notice, for the first time, the faint outline of a face. Is it my reflection in the glass? But no, the faint outline becomes clearer, as if I'm looking into a crystal ball and an image appears from the clouded interior.

I know this face. He's Robert Sheehan. This time, he doesn't call me Eileen. He doesn't say a thing. He only smiles.

Well, not ONLY smiles; his eyes follow me as I shake my head. I move to the left and his eyes track me. I sense awareness, maybe even intelligence. I know the image I see isn't the real Robert, but it isn't exactly a mere image either.

"See what I mean now?" the server asks me. "The fuckin' thing's haunted. It shows you exes, old boyfriends and like that."

"It showed me my Annabel Lee," says Poe from the corner. "It played Gus a waltz and showed him his late wife."

Augustus groans. "Could I get another beer?" he asks the server.

"Eerie," I say, rummaging in my jeggings pocket for another quarter. I find one and feed it into the jukebox. Apparently its powers included showing me the faces of the dead as if they were alive and well; I wanted to test this property. "Play some Johnny Cash."

But it doesn't. As Robert Sheehan's smiling face fades away, the opening incidental music of "One Night in Bangkok" fades in and I glimpse the smiling face of Murray Head.

I smile back, remembering some of the sweetest hours of my life spent with the singer in the luxury of the Somerset Maugham suite.

The illusion is broken as the black-haired server sets my veggie burger on the counter. I sit and eat in happy reminiscence as the song plays out, my eyes darting between the jukebox and my burger.

The song cross-fades into "Are You Jimmy Ray?" and I wonder whose smiling face I'll see. Will it be my old friend Uma, whose first child Maya is now a grown woman, actor, and singer herself? Will it be my ex-flame Tim, complicated and morally gray, sometimes a peaceful Buddhist and at other times capable of great inner darkness?

The mysterious jukebox surprises me by showing me the face of my dear, departed friend James Dean. His smile is radiant. He looks so happy it gives me a little pang in my chest.

"You see?" says the server as she takes away my empty plate. "That's a dead boy, innit? It's right spooky. That Joy Harjo did something to it. She didn't have a quarter, she said, so she tried to pay for a song with a poem instead. Ever since she put her poetry into the, the bloody thing's been going off like a fortune teller's crystal ball."

"Amy!" pipes up Poe, addressing the server. "You didn't tell me you accepted poetry as payment!"

"Now don't you start, Eddie," says the server, whose name tag I can now clearly see says Amy. I think she might be less spooked by dead boys than she's been letting on. "You be a good boy and pay for your food and beers with your American dollars."

"You know he doesn't have any money," says Landor, with a slight slur to his voice after he's finished his last beer. He reaches across the table and takes Poe's hand. "Not that you need worry about paying the tab when you're with me. Old Augustus will keep body and soul together for you, Eddie."

Poe smiles and for a moment I think they're going to kiss. Maybe they do. I'm looking at the jukebox and the radiantly happily, eerily glowing face of James Dean, his eyes following my every move.

As he fades away, the notes of "Helter Skelter" fade in. Will I see a Beatle? Could John or George pay me a visit? And does the diner seem suddenly warmer?

I soon realize the reason for the extremely localized heat wave. I see the face of Steve McQueen, whom I first encountered steaming hot and soaking wet when I stumbled into the room as he took a bath.

As if reading my mind, Amy sets another icy vanilla Coke on the counter. I grip the straw and sip eagerly, thirsty in more ways than one. Steve's smile makes me feel like I'm evaporating into steam.

***

The vignette I just wrote is not real. But it does contain affiliate links.

#YABookReview: 'Dying to Tell Me' by Sherryl Clark

Dying to Tell Me by Australian author Sherryl Clark is a paranormal mystery with a young adult protagonist. Before I read it, my grandma read it. She doesn't usually read YA or paranormal, so I'm not sure where she picked it up. A friend must have passed it along to her. Her copy is inscribed, "To Emily York, Enjoy your book! Love in Jesus! Bro. Ed + Sis. Betty Borlik 9/5/11." I don't know the Borliks or Emily York, but maybe the Yorks are some of my grandma's neighbors. Alternatively, she may have bought this at the thrift shop.

It was a fairly quick read - I read a large chunk of it while waiting at my husband's doctor's office. I'd never heard of Clark before, but judging from the back matter, she's a popular children's picture book and young adult author Down Under. 

The heroine is Sasha Miller, age 13. Her mother recently left the family, so Sasha's dad Dennis is moving Sasha and her 10-year-old brother Nicky to the small town of Manna Creek. There, Dennis will be the new chief constable. 

Sasha isn't getting along very well in Manna Creek, though. Her first day, she slips near the creek and hits her head on a stone, landing her in the hospital with a concussion. Then she discovers a dilapidated old building in the back yard of the house they're staying in, and it turns out to be the town's first jail which, incidentally, is haunted by the ghost of a man who committed suicide a hundred years before. Or did he? 

That would be bad enough, but when some of Dennis's mates bring around King, a trained police dog, to be the newest member of the Miller family, Sasha thinks she's hearing things. In fact, she thinks she can hear King's thoughts telepathically, and he can hear hers. Is Sasha going crazy, or simply coming into her special powers? 

This book reminded me, to varying degrees, of three other things I really like:

1. Sookie Stackhouse, if she were a teenager

2. Marlene Perez's Dead Is series, although Dying to Tell Me is darker and less cartoonish

3. Veronica Mars

Still, these elements added up to a unique story. I liked this book, and my grandma liked it, too. Clark's storytelling makes this a compelling read even if you're not normally a mystery reader, not normally a paranormal reader, and/or not normally a YA reader. 

My grandma is currently reading, and enjoying, Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen, a Canadian author. I haven't read the book, but I did like the movie. I'm still working my way through Middlemarch - I'm almost at the middle - and my secondary book is The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling. 

#YABookReview 'Wuthering High' by Cara Lockwood

Wuthering High by Cara Lockwood
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I bought this from Better World Books because it combines two things I love: Cara Lockwood's writing and what's probably my all-time favorite book, Wuthering Heights. I've previously enjoyed Lockwood's Every Demon Has His Day and Can't Teach an Old Demon New Tricks (you can read my expanded review here on this blog), both of which were silly, fun chick lit and fairly quick, easy reads. This was similar, except the protagonist is 15 years old, placing it more in the young adult than chick lit categories (not that the two are mutually exclusive).

Teenage Miranda has made some bad choices, including one that resulted in her father's BMW colliding with a tree. As a result, Miranda's dad sends her off to a mysterious island. No, the plot doesn't exactly mirror Shakespeare's The Tempest, nor is it a modern retelling of Wuthering Heights like The Heights.

Instead, what this book has is some startling appearances of long-dead novelists, Heathcliff emerging from the pages of the novel from whence he came, a missing girl who may or may not be a modern incarnation of Catherine Earnshaw, a serial arsonist who seems strangely like Bertha Mason from Jane Eyre, a Satan-worshiping roommate, and possibly a vampire.


This book reminded me a little of Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, a little of Eileen Favorite's The Heroines (another book in which Heathcliff comes out of the novel and into reality - read the review here on this blog), and a little of Marlene Perez's "Dead Is" series. I like all those things. When I read the first few pages, I wasn't sure I was going to like Miranda (she seems a little spoiled at first, but she's really misunderstood), but she quickly grew on me. I wasn't sure I would like a young adult book that had the MTV logo on the front cover, but it was better than expected. In fact, I think I liked this even better than Lockwood's chick lit series.

This is the first in a 4-part series by Lockwood. I haven't yet decided whether or not I'll go on the read the rest of the series.

I purchased this book with my own funds and was not asked or obligated in any way to review it. This review represents my own honest opinion.

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YA Mystery/Paranormal Review: 'Dead Is Just a Dream' by Marlene Perez

This is the eighth book in the Dead Is series overall, and the third one in which the protagonist is Jessica Walsh. When we last saw Jessica in Dead Is a Killer Tune, she and her sister viragos (town-defending women warriors) had to solve the mystery of the bizarre behavior of Battle of the Bands contestants during Jessica's freshman year of high school. Just a Dream opens at the end of summer, with Jessica becoming a sophomore. It ends in early November, at a Day of the Dead celebration. 

This year's strange occurrences include a ghostly, red-eyed white horse stalking the town at night, a creepy clown who comes into town with the circus, an artist whose paintings give people nightmares, and a new art teacher with a marionette obsession. People die and appear to have been scared to death in their dreams - a nod to the Nightmare on Elm Street horror film series that Perez acknowledges by having one of the characters sing a song from the movies. 

A ghostly horse associated with the night and bad dreams, the Mara, rings a bell for me. Looking back over some of my previous blog posts, I realized I'd written about the Mara when I wrote about the Welsh goddess Rhiannon (she of the awesome Stevie Nicks tune). Known as Mare to the Irish, the goddess was said to ride through people's dreams as a white horse, bringing inspiration. Inspiration isn't nightmares, though, so I'm guessing the association with bad dreams comes from Christians saying, "Mare isn't a goddess, she's a demon." 

If you look up Mare in Wikipedia, whoever has written the article says nothing about Celtic legend, defines the folkloric terms as "an evil spirit or goblin in Germanic folklore which rides on people's chests while they sleep, bringing on bad dreams" and cites the 13th-century Ynglinga Saga (a work by Snorri Sturluson, an Icelander who serves as an important source of Norse mythology*) as a source for this Germanic etymology. 

That sleep paralysis and night terrors are caused by evil spirits is not a folk belief that has died out, by the way. You can, for example, go to YouTube and watch videos by Christian evangelists such as Chris White who explain sleep paralysis not in terms of neurological activity in the human brain, but in terms of "the demonic realm." Personally, I went to Roman Catholic schools from kindergarten through bachelor's degree, and although we believed in as many as six impossible things before breakfast, we also used science as the tool for understanding the natural (but not the supernatural) world. I don't quite get the mentality of religious belief that can't co-exist with 21st century medical knowledge - but that's just my worldview.  I have my spiritual and folkloric beliefs, but I open them in a different window than my scientific knowledge. 

The Mara, in Perez's telling, is a shapeshifter, sometimes a scary horse and sometimes a frightened little girl with wild hair. If your childhood included reading Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz (spookily illustrated by Stephen Gammell when I bought them; newer versions were illustrated by Lemony Snicket collaborator Brett Helquist), then you may remember the story "A New Horse." It's about a magical bridle and a witch who uses it to change people into horses, riding them at breakneck speed all night and returning them, exhausted, in the morning. Schwartz's footnotes say similar tales can be found worldwide, but that this particular version comes from rural Kentucky. 

Look back at the Wikipedia entry for Mare, and you'll see the rural Kentucky folk tale closely mirrors what the Norse peoples believed: 

"The mara was also believed to 'ride' horses, which left them exhausted and covered in sweat by the morning. She could also entangle the hair of the sleeping man or beast, resulting in 'marelocks,' called marflator mare-braids or martovor mare-tangles in Swedish or marefletter and marelokker in Norwegian." 

...which explains why the little girl has such wild, umkempt hair in Dead is Just a Dream. 

The other book that comes to mind when I read about the Mara is The White Witch of Rosehall by Herbert G. de Lisser. I've never been to Jamaica, but apparently if you go there, you'll find numerous copies of this novel, first published in 1929, for sale at all the tourist stops. The real Rose Hall is a plantation in Montego Bay, Jamaica, and the legend that forms the basis for the book regards a haunting by an Anglo-Irish witchcraft and Voudun practitioner named Annie Palmer. In de Lisser's novel, Annie commands the specter of a demonic horse. 

But back to the book at hand. 

In the acknowledgments, author Marlene Perez thanks the Houston Teen Book Con. Apparently someone asked her what she is afraid of, and "This book is the answer." It does have a certain creepiness factor that makes this volume a little more suspenseful than the last one, which offered very few surprises. 

The mysteries here still aren't very tough to crack - this series has always had more of a light, breezy paranormal tone than a hardcore mystery novel tone, after all - but I found myself liking this one a little better than Killer Tune. Maybe it's because the horse, the bizarre paintings, the weird puppets, and the eerie clown are more interesting and original than a Pied Piper retelling. 

As I've come to expect from this series, there's also a romantic wrinkle: Jessica faces a solid month of loneliness when her boyfriend Dominic announces he'll spend December touring with his band. She also faces competition when Dominic's ex-girlfriend Tashya comes to town - and Dominic's mother (also a virago) seems to prefer her to Jessica. 

No spoilers, but the ending is somewhat bittersweet. At this point, I don't know whether or not Perez intends to continue the series. I hope so, because if this ending is the very end, it doesn't seem quite definitive. Also, Jessica is really growing on me. Daisy got five books as the heroine, and I kind of hope Jessica gets the same. 

You can preorder Dead Is Just a Dream now. The official release date will be September 3, 2013. 

Disclosure: I received an advance reading copy of this book through Amazon's Vine Program. I was not compensated for this review in any way other than the free book. The review represents my own honest opinion.  I am an Amazon.com affiliate and if you buy this book or any product after clicking through the above link, I will receive a small commission of a few cents. 

*Much, much more about Norse mythology will go into my upcoming Mabon (autumnal equinox) posts.

Amazon Vine Update + A Wonderful Vampire Dream

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A Wonderful Vampire Dream 

I had the most wonderful dream last night. I was a carefree college student, and I was on a trip to a small city I didn't know very well, looking for a hotel to stay in. As I drove down the city's main street looking for a decent hotel, I saw a small pool of water (a large puddle or a small pond) and two men standing - leaning against a wall and a tree - a short distance away. I was vaguely afraid of them. When I looked down in the pool of water, I saw the reflection of a woman in the second-floor window of a house across an alley from the pool. I inferred that this woman was the lover of one of the two men, and this made me vaguely jealous. 

I chose a motel. Once inside my room, I don't think I was able to lock the door, or at least lock it to my satisfaction. The two men were outside my room and I manually held the white wooden double door shut to keep them out. They wanted me to let them in. Eventually, I felt compelled to let them in. I realized at least one of them was a vampire. He looked looked like Robert Pattinson (but not as Edward Cullen - there was no sparkling). 

Photo by Eva Rinaldi, 2012. Creative Commons license.

That part sounds vaguely menacing and not very wonderful, but the next part was what I really enjoyed. The vampire sat on the bed with me, and I noticed how beautiful his hands were. I told him so. After that, I wasn't afraid of the two strangers anymore.

I went into an adjoining room, where some other college students I knew were playing a card game at a big table. I sat in on the card game, and the two men also joined us. With all the conversation going on, we all got to know each other better. That was when the vampire told me he thought I, Erin, would be much happier as an immortal. I became very excited that he was going to change me.

I don't remember all of the details of what happened next, except that the vampire, his friend, and I were joyriding in the back of a convertible that someone else was driving. Whatever else we did, it was something frivolous and essentially innocent fun, and I loved the worry-free feeling of it all, as well as being excited that I was going to become a vampire. When I woke up, I just wanted to go back into the dream reality. 

I may have been thinking about Twilight a little bit before bed, thanks to seeing this on Pinterest. 

See? It's like the Twilight cover, only with Finnick Odair sugarcubes. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire was a hot thing in social media yesterday because the second official trailer is out now. 

But we still have to wait until November 22 to see the movie. 

Amazon Vine Update

Last Thursday was Amazon Vine Day 1 for the month of July 2013, and both of the free items I chose were books. They came in the mail yesterday. 

One was the latest Dead Is novel (paranormal, young adult mystery) by Marlene Perez, called Dead Is Just a Dream. Like the classic Nightmare on Elm Street horror films, it's about teenagers who die in their sleep. 

Its official release date is September 3, but you can preorder now. 

The second book is Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital by Sheri Fink. This is a nonfiction book (Fink is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist as well as a physician) about Memorial Medical Center, a New Orleans hospital inside the flooded zone during Hurricane Katrina. 

Again, the book is not available until September (the 10th), but you can preorder now. 

I'm 109 pages in, and it's so sad. I just read a passage in which a doctor has told a nurse that the hospital is out of oxygen tanks and she had to let an elderly patient die, but that information was wrong - the hospital did, in fact, still have oxygen. That devastating experience the nurse had of having the old man die in her arms could have been avoided. 

This is the problem with nonfiction - reality is heartbreaking. Now do you see why I want to live in a dream? 

Coming Attractions: Books I'll Be Reading and Reviewing for Amazon Vine

Being selected for Amazon Vine seems like unbelievable good luck to me. They send me two lists a month, on the third and fourth Thursdays of the month. I get to pick two free things from each list in exchange for reviews. Win-win. Some of my previous Vine reviews have included:

Kiss, Crush, Collide by Christina Meredith
Juliet Immortal by Stacey Jay
Beauty Queens by Libba Bray
The Abused Werewolf Rescue Group by Catherine Jinks
Family by Micol Ostow
The Bowl of Light by Hank Wesselman

I don't always order books. In fact, next week I'll be testing out a 7-Eleven Slurpee maker. But I do read a lot of books from Vine. The ones I just finished are:

- An excellent beginners'/young adult biography of Charlotte, Emily and Anne. I find it very sad to know that Patrick Bronte outlived all five of his daughters and his son, and that between them, the three Bronte sisters who lived into adulthood - known to the Victorian book-buying public as Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell - produced only seven novels and one volume of poetry between them. Charlotte was the only one who lived long enough to marry.

This book will fascinate readers (the intended age range is 10-14) interested in how the human body works. It focuses mainly on the science, but also explores a little bit of the mythology that's historically been associated with blood. Most of the science will be familiar to the average adult, but I learned a few fascinating tidbits about the blood of some other species, such as the horseshoe crab. The book is designed to look as if the pages were splashed with blood, so if you're very squeamish, it might be a bit much to handle. Blood doesn't usually bother me, but a few of the more gruesome medical passages made me feel a little squeamish.

The ones I have slated to read are:

I've read about a third of this one so far. Mine doesn't have the pretty cover. It's an ARC with a plain chartreuse wrapper. ("Plain chartreuse" is kind of an oxymoron, though, isn't it?) Having come from an educational background in psychology, I've read The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and An Anthropologist on Mars and count them both among my "permanent keeper" books. (Awakenings I like a little less, and although I read Musicophilia, I don't own a copy.) It's fascinating. I learned that the actor Silas Weir Mitchell, who plays Monroe on Grimm, is named for a 19th-century physician ancestor who experimented with mescaline and quantified his hallucinations.

I just finished the migraine chapter, which very much reminded me of a biography of Mary Todd Lincoln I read in college; her alleged "insanity" was very likely to have been a combination of PTSD and migraines.

Set in Key West, in the Hemingway residence that is now a famous tourist attraction, the one I visited in 2004.

I still don't think I care to read The Count of Monte Cristo, but that doesn't mean I'm not fascinated by the true story behind it.

The follow-up to Dead is a Battlefield. The only disappointing thing is that it's, by far, the skinniest volume in the series so far.

Of course, I still have to read the original Jane Eyre first. Sadly, it's true: the only one of the Bronte sisters' seven novels that I've read is Wuthering Heights. (But I've read it three times, if that helps.)

Everand (Scribd): https://www.everand.com/audiobook/1039689816/The-Sisters-Bronte

Kobo, Walmart: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/audiobook/sisters-bronte-the?sId=6a01a41a-6954-46e2-92b7-715ecb984101&ssId=rkt46HsVt7MIaCMsbQc2V&cPos=1

Review ~ Dead Is a Battlefield by Marlene Perez

This book marks the beginning of the Jessica Walsh era - Jessica takes over as heroine of the Dead Is series from Daisy Giordano. Psychic Daisy and her sisters are the Walsh's next door neighbors, and Daisy's boyfriend Ryan is the best friend of Jessica's older brother Sean. Jessica doesn't have psychic powers, but she does have a strange new tattoo that just appears without the use of needles. She learns she's a virago, a supernatural warrior-woman destined to guard her hometown of Nightshade, California.

I wondered if I would like this series as much with Jessica in charge as I did with Daisy. I did, pretty much. The ending was a little rushed, but I imagine some of the confusion will be further cleared up in the next volume, Dead Is a Killer Tune.

While battling an outbreak of a strange infection and an even stranger ant farm, Jessica develops a crush on the new lead singer of local band Side Effects May Vary: her fellow Nightshade High student Dominic Gray. But Dominic seems to have a split personality when it comes to Jessica; sometimes he seems into her, and sometimes he's all over Selena Silvertongue. What's up with Dominic? Will Jessica survive the danger - and Flo's virago workouts - long enough to find out?

Dead Is a Killer Tune is due out September 4, 2012.

When I read Beauty Queens by Libba Bray, the Maroon 5 song "She Will Be Loved" ("Beauty queen of only 18...") kept getting stuck in my head. I couldn't read this book without repeatedly singing "Love is a Battlefied" by Pat Benatar.



Fortunately, I like this song. It reminds me of when I was a little girl in the '80s. In She's a Rebel, Gillian G. Gaar wrote, "Female performers rarely experienced the attacks that groups like N.W.A., 2 Live Crew, or Judas Priest did, though their work was scrutinized by organizations like the PMRC, who, in analyzing sexism on MTV, gave Pat Benatar's 'Love Is a Battlefield' video a negative rating, citing: 'one performer fights with her ornery parents then leaves home to become a hooker.'"

I purchased Dead Is a Battlefield at my brick-and-mortar Barnes and Noble and was not compensated for this review in any way.

Marlene Perez's stylish Dead Is series could be the cure for HP withdrawal

As I write this, the final Harry Potter film is making its debut on the big screen. J.K. Rowling’s books have been with us since 1997, and the film series based on them has stretched out over the past decade. It’s amazing to see how the films’ young actors have grown up before our eyes. Who would have guessed little Emma Watson would grow up to be so stylish?

Before you go into young adult fantasy series withdrawal, check out the Dead Is series by Marlene Perez. The books follow California high school student Daisy Giordano. Her mother is psychic and her two older sisters, Poppy and Rose, also have paranormal gifts. Daisy’s powers are developing, and it’s a good thing, because their hometown of Nightshade is full of paranormal residents. Even the jukebox at Slim’s Diner seems to be haunted.

Each of Marlene Perez’s characters also has her own sense of style. Here’s a quickie guide to some random fashion moments (both formal and everyday) in the Dead Is series, and a few hints on how you can copy the looks.

The book: Dead Is the New Black
The look: Rocker Chick
Quote: “She wore a naughty nurse’s uniform paired with leopard-print tights, six-inch white plastic heels, and a towering hot pink hairdo that was obviously a wig.”
Sexy Evil Nurse Costume, $27.66 - http://www.costumecraze.com/SA393.html
Leopard-print Tights, $10.40 - http://www.gojane.com/52302-stuff-leopard-print-tights.html
6” White Plastic Heels, $38.95 - http://www.funkypair.com/6inchexoticdancerplatformshoes1.aspx
Hot pink beehive wig, $39.95, http://bgalwigs.ecrater.com/p/12345307/hot-pink-beehive-spitcurl-wig

Source: bgalwigs.ecrater.com via Erin on Pinterest

The book: Dead Is a State of Mind
The look: Daisy’s Perfect Prom Dress
Quote: “Samantha and Poppy both found their dresses, but everything I tried on was either too tight, too short, or too revealing. An hour later, I spotted it. It was strapless, pale gold with a beaded bodice and skirt, and much more sophisticated than anything I’d tried on before.”
Pale Gold Strapless Taffeta Gown: http://www.romolloy.com/dress23.html

Source: idresslove.com via Violetta on Pinterest

The book: Dead Is So Last Year
The look: Indie Librarian
Quote: “At the diner, I went back to the kitchen, but there was a stranger there with Slim. She was a short, curvy young woman with horn-rimmed glasses and blond hair, which was dyed with purple stripes.”
Oakley Women’s Horn-Rimmed Glasses, $195 - http://www.framesdirect.com/1/1/50553-oakley-women-pendant-2-0-12-483-brown-horn-eyeglasses.html
Hair dye in deep purple, joyride, pimpin’ purple, plum, purple smoke or wildflower, $12.99 each - http://www.goodgoth.com/hairdye.htm

The book: Dead Is Just a Rumor
The look: Pure Vintage
Quote: “It was midnight blue, with a square bodice and an ivory satin underskirt. There were little silk flowers at the waist and ivory embroidery at the wrists and hem.”
1930s Style Midnight Blue Gown, $130 - http://www.bluevelvetvintage.com/midnight-blue-classic-30s-style-hollywood-glamour-gown.html

Source: bluevelvetvintage.com via Erin on Pinterest

The book: Dead Is Not an Option
The look: Casual Fridays
Quote: “She was wearing a skirt and a T-shirt with cut-off sleeves. Today’s tee read, PLEASE DON’T FEED THE DEMONS.”
Corduroy Short Skirt, $39.50 - http://www.victoriassecret.com/ss/Satellite?ProductID=1265530833613&c=Page&cid=1308310593787&pagename=vsdWrapper
“For a Minute There You Bored Me to Death” T-shirt, $8.50 - http://www.badideatshirts.com/FOR-A-MINUTE-THERE-YOU-BORED-ME-TO-DEATH-FUNNY-T-SHIRTWHITE-INK--P658.aspx

You don't have to dress up (or down) to enjoy Perez's novel series. If you like mysteries with a paranormal twist, solved by an intelligent teenage heroine and shaken with a generous dash of high school drama, the series is for you.

Image Attribution:
Emma Watson photo by Chris Marra - Creative Commons license
Nurse costume photo by Brian K - Creative Commons license
Purple hair photo by Charles Johnson - Creative Commons license
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The Abused Werewolf Rescue Group - Review

I haven't read Catherine Jinks' previous book in the series, The Reformed Vampire Support Group, so I came to this series fresh. I don't think it made much of a difference. The 13-year-old narrator, Toby, doesn't know what's going on when he wakes up in the hospital after having been found in the dingo pen on a wildlife preserve. Not knowing what happened in the first book allowed me to figure things out at about the same time Toby did, though Jinks does drop lots of hints that Toby's new friends, especially Nina, might be vampires.

The title tells us two things: there will be a werewolf, and the werewolf will be abused. The book starts out in a somewhat light-hearted tone, with many references to Toby's perfectly ordinary suburban Australian life and the pranks he and his friends like to pull. Then, about 170 pages in, Toby gets kidnapped, and the story starts to get very bleak. If Toby were a little younger, more sensitive or more vulnerable, some of the things that happen to him might be horrible. But, with his maybe-werewolf DNA, Toby is just tough and resilient enough to emerge triumphant.

The middle section of the book is of the dark action-adventure variety, and there's a hefty dose of paranormal intervention towards the end. The last chapters imply that if there is a third book in the series, it's likely to involve zombies. The more menacing tone makes it a different class of YA paranormal from the breezy paranormals of Marlene Perez's Dead Is series, but it should appeal to young horror fans.

I received an ARC of The Abused Werewolf Rescue Group through the Amazon Vine program. I was not otherwise compensated for this review.