Bone: Tall Tales

I bought Bone: Tall Tales just after I finished reading Bone.  I enjoyed that story so much that I wanted more from Jeff Smith's Bone universe.  I bought a couple of other books at the same time (Rose and the Bone Handbook).  But for a variety of reasons, I didn't end up reading them right when I bought them.  So today, I decided to remedy that.  I was originally planning on reading Rose, but instead read Tall Tales; I wanted something a bit lighter to read than I imagine Rose will be.

And Tall Tales is a relatively light read.  It's got four tall tales, which are all told during Smiley Bone's camping trip with Bartleby and the three bone scouts Ringo, Bingo and Todd. The first one concerns Smiley's cousins, Fone and Phoney Bone, back in the valley (during the events of the Bone story).  They're supposed to be doing the laundry, but Phoney Bone finds a treasure map and insists on following it.  Hilarious hijinx follows.

The other three tales concern Big Johnson Bone, the founder of Boneville.  First is the tale of his birth, and how he stood up to Old Man Winter.  Next is the tale of his eating contest against the Cobbler Gobbler.  Finally is the story of his lost years, when Big Johnson was wandering the land, exploring.  The first two stories are both short and lighter reads.  But that last one started to feel a whole lot like the epicness of the original Bone.  Sure, it's shorter, being only one story in the book rather than 9 volumes.  But some of the ideas were the same, and that's not at all a bad thing when it comes to Bone. 

So overall, I really enjoyed reading Bone: Tall Tales.  If you're a fan of the original story, you should definitely give this a read, too.

A Kiss Before the Apocalypse

I haven't cried so much at the end of a book since Brightly Burning by Mercedes Lackey. Thomas E. Sniegoski's A Kiss Before the Apocalypse was an amazing, beautiful book. Midwest Book Review describes it as a "Heart-wrenching, beautiful urban fantasy," which is the perfect summary of it.

This is the story of Remy Chandler, an angel who has decided to renounce Heaven and live on the earth as a human. He is a private investigator, is married and has a black lab, Marlowe. Yet his life is turned upside down when he discovers that the Angel of Death is missing, along with the scrolls that will summon the Apocalypse. And so he is hired by his Seraphim brothers to find the missing Israfil and avert the Apocalypse.

I was enchanted right off the bat by the characters. Everyone, from Remy to Marlowe, is well thought out (Remy can talk to animals, and so Marlowe and he always converse). Everyone has their own quirks, and while not all of the characters are likable, they are all unique individuals whom I enjoyed reading about.

As I said before, the story is both amazing and beautiful. It is full of magic and adventure, but at its very heart, A Kiss Before the Apocalypse is a love story. It will speak to anyone who has ever lost someone they loved.