March Down the TBR Pile 📚💙 and #bookreview Moving Fear by D.L. Hammons

Back in 2017, at the former location of this blog, I took part in a regularly-scheduled bloghop called "Down the TBR hole." The objective was to highlight books the blogger intended to read, highlight books the blogger intended to purchase, and/or highlight the fact that we have huge piles of books we intend to read (to-be-read= TBR) but fail to make the time to do so (hilariously, by spending time making a list rather than reading). I used it for the buying purpose, as my Amazon wishlist (https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/ZRW0Y5LGHMN9) grows out of control and I forget why I intended to buy certain books!


[My "Price "wishing" for: $ (US 💵💰)" section is because I'm cheap lately as income has decreased significantly over the last five years, and is in NO WAY a reflection of the value I know books have, but rather the 💸 lack of my own funds.]

1. TITLE: A Snake Falls to Earth by Darcie Little Badger
   LINK: https://amzn.to/4rYKiWQ
   Interested because: YA Native American friendship paranormal story
   Price "wishing" for: 🛒 purchased
   


2. TITLE: The Bad Muslim Discount by Syed M. Masood
   LINK: https://amzn.to/4bhDcpd
   Interested because: Diverse book by debut author
   Price "wishing" for: 🛒 purchased
   


3. TITLE: After the Fall by Kate Hart
   LINK: https://amzn.to/4b7PDDS
   Interested because: YA with complicated relationships
   Price "wishing" for: 🛒 purchased
   


4. TITLE: None of the Above by I. W. Gregorio
   LINK: https://amzn.to/3P5WRAU
   Interested because: LGBTQIA+ YA Story of Intersex Teen Identity and Self-Acceptance
   Price "wishing" for: 🛒 purchased
   


5. TITLE: The Last Labyrinth by Gwendolyn Womack
   LINK: https://amzn.to/47MQQzw
   Interested because: speculative fiction
   Price "wishing" for: 🛒 purchased
   


6. TITLE: Ruthless Kingdom by Cathrina Constantine
   LINK: https://amzn.to/47wuSkc
   Interested because: A 400-page high fantasy looks interesting.
   Price "wishing" for: $3.99 (US 💵💰)


7. TITLE: The Secret Winners Club by Donna Galanti
   LINK: https://amzn.to/4bJA9Yc
   Interested because: Read a blog post about this 300 page MG book. Sounds cool.
   Price "wishing" for: $2.99 (US 💵💰)


8. TITLE: First Love: The Art of Making Doughnuts - IWSG Anthology
   LINK: https://amzn.to/4dmiAP8
   Interested because: IWSG
   Price "wishing" for: 🛒 purchased


9. TITLE: The Last God by Jean Davis
   LINK: https://amzn.to/3P7P4CO
   Interested because: god-like beings, violent battle between gods
   Price "wishing" for: 🛒 purchased


10. TITLE: Things Fall Apart (African Trilogy, Book 1) by Chinua Achebe
    LINK: https://amzn.to/47z0hCB
    Interested because: Things Fall Apart provides one of the most illuminating and permanent monuments to African experience. Achebe does not only capture life in a pre-colonial African village, he conveys the tragedy of the loss of that world while broadening our understanding of our contemporary realities.
    Price "wishing" for: 🛒 purchased

Moving Fear by D.L. Hammons
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

It has been my great privilege and pleasure to read this book. It's a heart-pounding adventure full of mysteries and horror. There's some tragedy, a very light budding romance, lots of chills, plenty of haunting, a good dose of thrills and action, many plot twists, felt unpredictable (I'm usually pretty good at guessing the "whodonit" but not this time), very entertaining, a strong author’s voice (reminds me of Christoper Pike), and a bit of diversity.

The Prelude may seem unconnected at first, but by Chapter 36, the reader knows for sure it was not. The second prelude also comes back around.
The main character, Knox, is a teenage boy, so this is technically a YA mystery horror. Knox chapters are in first person, from his point of view, other chapters are third person point of view. (Chase Knox, he opted to go by his middle name after his father remarried.) I like that he has done some light writing, nothing he's shared or published, but that he has put pen to page.
Travis, a teenage boy in a black wheelchair with fire-engine red spokes, is a social butterfly. Lindsey (the scholarly one) and Jadie (the popular one) are identical twin sisters. There's a retired 74-year-old grandmother who seems fairly active with her career.
Lewis is a pretty interesting character, as his "negative trait" and his big secret are so perfectly opposite of each other.
The dad is in the Navy, which is why they move around so often. (I never knew there were landlocked naval bases, or Navy officers living off-base so far from the coast, such as in Oklahoma. Honestly, I never thought about it.)
I really enjoyed the character arc of Brad "Tug" Dempsey, who is only a minor character yet gets fully fleshed out.
It's great how Brodie is described as beautiful, yet that's not what's interesting about her, it's her toughness and her mind that make her special.
Wilfred was a surprising character, in the end, and such a twist.
Chapter Fourteen reminded me of a scene in the original Ghostbusters movie, with the books. I loved in Chapter 19 when Knox and Lewis discussed the metric system. And I loved the incorporation of the theory of the multiverse. Lewis reminded me of Sam and Dean in the show Supernatural, hitting the books and the Internet to find out about the lore. Chapter 24 mentions the television show Monk (the defective detective), which I like.
The revelation about Lewis' dad in Chapter Twenty-Five amused me.
Chapter Forty-Eight ends with a huge twist that was the exact opposite of what I expected.
What was written on the balloon in chapter fifty-one? That's the only unresolved question for me.

The title makes sense, and I like the cover with the boxes (one black one, words on duct tape).
Triggers - Chapter 9 has vomiting, there's a scene where someone has a firearm while at a school (but not for the usual headline-news reasons), there is some animal death, and demon possession.

The theme is about not underestimating people. I felt most connected to the Lewis character, and would like to live in his basement, please.

I've been a fan of this author for many years, having followed his blog and taken part in several of the same online social groups, but we do not know each other. I am thanked at the end for supporting the Kickstarter for this book. This review is my honest and unbiased opinion.


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