Robot

Daryl M.

Librarian


Posts by Daryl M.

  • Tim Mason and his first adult novel, The Darwin Affair

    Interview With an Author: Tim Mason

    Tim Mason is a playwright whose work has been produced in New York and throughout the world. Among the awards he has received are a Kennedy Center Award, the Hollywood Drama-Logue Award, a fellowship…

  • Del Howison and his first novel, The Survival of Margaret Thomas

    Interview With an Author: Del Howison

    Del Howison is an award-winning editor, journalist, fiction author, and actor. He has been nominated for the Bram Stoker Award four times (and won it once), for the Black Quill Award twice, for the…

  • Author Casey McQuiston and her first novel, Red, White & Royal Blue

    Interview With an Author: Casey McQuiston

    Casey McQuiston grew up in the swamps of Southern Louisiana, where they cultivated an abiding love for honey butter biscuits and stories with big, beating hearts. They studied journalism and worked in…

  • Author Sarah Gailey and her novel, Magic For Liars

    Interview With an Author: Sarah Gailey

    Hugo award winner Sarah Gailey lives and works in Los Angeles, California. Their nonfiction has been published by Mashable and the Boston Globe, and their fiction has been published internationally…

  • Kris Waldherr and her book

    Interview With an Author: Kris Waldherr

    Kris Waldherr is an award-winning author, illustrator, and designer. She is a member of the Historical Novel Society, and her fiction has been awarded with fellowships by the Virginia Center of the…

  • Seanan McGuire and her book Middlegame

    Interview With an Author: Seanan McGuire

    Seanan McGuire is the award-winning author of the October Daye urban fantasy series, the InCryptid series, and the Wayward Children series. In addition, she writes darker fiction under the pseudonym…

  • Author Yangsze Choo and her latest novel, Smoke and Summons

    Interview With an Author: Charlie Holmberg

    Charlie N. Holmberg was raised a Trekkie alongside three sisters, who also have boy names, in Salt Lake City, UT. She plays the ukulele, owns too many pairs of glasses, and finally adopted a dog. Her…

  • T.J. Martinson and his debut novel, The Reign of the Kingfisher

    Interview With an Author: T.J. Martinson

    T.J. Martinson grew up just outside Chicago. He received his MA in literary studies from Eastern Illinois University and is currently working toward a Ph.D. at Indiana University Bloomington. The…

  • Anthony Horowitz and his latest Mystery series book, The Sentence is Death.

    Interview With an Author: Anthony Horowitz

    Anthony Horowitz is a prolific journalist and writer for television and the author of both young adult and adult literature. He has been commissioned by the Doyle and Fleming estates to write new…

  • Author Yangsze Choo and her latest novel, The Night Tiger

    Interview With an Author: Yangsze Choo

    Yangsze Choo is a fourth-generation Malaysian of Chinese descent. She is a graduate of Harvard University and the author of The Ghost Bride, which is currently being adapted by Netflix into a…


Reviews by Daryl M.

  • Cover image for The Picture Bride

    The Picture Bride

    The year is 1917 and a seventeen-year-old girl named Willow, who lives with her widowed mother and two younger brothers in a small, rural village in southeastern Korea, is asked by a traveling matchmaker if she wants to get married. The older woman shows Willow a photo of a young...
  • Cover image for Darling Girl: A Novel of Peter Pan

    Darling Girl: A Novel of Peter Pan

    • By: Michalski, Liz
    • Reviewed By: Daryl M.
    We all know the story of Peter Pan, the boy who refuses to grow up. J.M. Barrie wrote and published a play and two books about Peter and his adventures in the early 20th century, recounting how Peter visited the Darling children: Wendy, John, and Michael, and spirited them away...
  • Cover image for Acts of Violet

    Acts of Violet

    • By: Montimore, Margarita
    • Reviewed By: Daryl M.
    In early 2020, Margarita Montimore published her debut novel, Oona Out of Order. It followed a woman who awakes every January 1st at a different point in her life. She lives in that year, and in that body, until December 31st, only to awaken the following morning beginning a different...
  • Cover image for Hawk Mountain

    Hawk Mountain

    • By: Habib, Conner
    • Reviewed By: Daryl M.
    In the late afternoon, Todd sits on the beach watching 6-year-old Anthony, his son, play in the surf. A man approaches Todd, and, after a minute, he recognizes him. It is Jack, who bullied Todd relentlessly during their senior year in high school. In spite of their shared history, Jack...
  • Cover image for The Kaiju Preservation Society

    The Kaiju Preservation Society

    • By: Scalzi, John
    • Reviewed By: Daryl M.
    In early March of 2020, Jamie Gray is unceremoniously demoted from marketing executive to “deliverator” at füdmüd, an internet startup company in New York City. As the COVID pandemic worsens, Jamie struggles to get by until a chance delivery happens to be to Tom Stevens. Tom tells Jamie that he...
  • Cover image for A Prayer for the Crown-Shy

    A Prayer for the Crown-Shy

    • By: Chambers, Becky
    • Reviewed By: Daryl M.
    In 2021, Becky Chambers introduced readers to the moon of Panga, where, centuries ago, the civilization’s robots gained consciousness and, en masse, walked off into the surrounding wilderness and were never heard from again. Until the day a robot named Splendid Speckled Mosscap walked up to Sibling Dex, a tea...
  • Cover image for Remarkably Bright Creatures

    Remarkably Bright Creatures

    • By: Van Pelt, Shelby
    • Reviewed By: Daryl M.
    After her husband’s death, Tova Sullivan took a job cleaning the Sowell Bay Aquarium. She works evenings after the aquarium has closed to the public, mopping the floors, clearing the trash cans, and cleaning the glass walls of the exhibition tanks until they shine. As she works her way around...
  • Cover image for The Children on the Hill

    The Children on the Hill

    • By: McMahon, Jennifer
    • Reviewed By: Daryl M.
    Monster. The word brings to mind ugly, misshapen creatures wreaking havoc wherever they go. Perhaps the most famous monster is Frankenstein’s monster from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. It’s been over 200 years since the teenaged Shelley created one of the most enduring tales of all time. And over the last two...
  • Cover image for Siren Queen

    Siren Queen

    On a whim, a young Chinese-American girl pays with an inch of her hair so that she and he sister can see Romeo and Juliet at the new nickelodeon in their neighborhood. From that moment on, she has a single desire: to be a motion picture star. Not simply an...
  • Cover image for Never Been Kissed

    Never Been Kissed

    • By: Janovsky, Timothy
    • Reviewed By: Daryl M.
    As Wren Roland celebrates his 22nd birthday with his best friends and roommates, Mateo and Avery, he begins to lament the fact that he has never been kissed. He’s been close, but has yet to experience what his degree in film studies has convinced him will be a life-altering and...