The Perfect Place to Die by Bryce Moore

The Perfect Place to Die by Bryce Moore was published by Sourcebooks Fire in 2021.

Publisher's summary:

Stalking Jack the Ripper meets Devil in the White City in this terrifying historical fiction debut about one of the world's most notorious serial killers.

In order to save her sister, Zuretta takes a job at an infamous house of horrors—but she might never escape.

Zuretta never thought she'd encounter a monster.  She had resigned herself to a quiet life in Utah.  But when her younger sister, Ruby, travels to Chicago during the World's Fair, and disappears, Zuretta leaves home to find her.

But 1890s Chicago is more dangerous and chaotic than she imagined.  She doesn't know where to start until she learns of her sister's last place of employment… a mysterious hotel known as The Castle.

Zuretta takes a job there hoping to learn more.  And before long she realizes the hotel isn't what it seems.  Women disappear at an alarming rate, she hears crying from the walls, and terrifying whispers follow her at night.  In the end, she finds herself up against one of the most infamous mass murderers in American history—and his custom-built death trap.

With real, terrifying quotes in front of each chapter, strong female characters, and unbearable suspense, The Perfect Place to Die is perfect for fans of true crime, horror, and the Stalking Jack the Ripper series.

This is historical fiction set in Chicago during the World's Columbian Exposition in 1893.  

I don't have much to say about this book except that I enjoyed reading it.  This is a good book, but it falls a bit short of the compelling read of Bryce Moore's Don't Go to Sleep.

Nancy Drew Diaries #26 Superstitions of "The Scottish Play"

Publisher's summary:

When Ned is cast in a stage production of Macbeth, led by the famous but peculiar director Bear Larouche, Nancy volunteers to help with the set.  She's also allowed to sit in on a few rehearsals, where she gets an earful from the director about theater superstitions: never say "Macbeth" out loud—only refer to it as "The Scottish Play"—never wear blue, no peacock feathers onstage, and so on.

The play is off to a promising start until Ned breaks the most important rule and accidentally says "Macbeth" in the theater.  And then accidents begin happening during rehearsals.  It quickly goes from odd to scary, and the director is ready to cancel the show.

Nancy might not believe in superstition, but she does believe in intuition, and hers is telling her that the cause behind these incidents isn’t a curse, but someone in the cast.  It's up to her to find out who before opening night.

When I read a book, how much I enjoy the book is influenced by what I just read.  Unfortunately, I read Don't Go to Sleep by Bryce Moore immediately before reading this book.  Don't Go to Sleep will likely be my favorite read of 2025.  For that reason, my reading experience with this latest Nancy Drew Diaries book was doomed from the start.

So, I read this book on the day of release.  When I finished, I thought about how I always do a review.  I wasn't interested.  I did not want to write anything about the book.  I mean... the book bored me.  What's the point?

Let's do it anyway.

Nearly the entire book bored me.  I quickly decided to speed-read the book so that my torture would end as quickly as possible.

How can they come up with so many boring books?

I found the subplot with Bess to be much more interesting than the main plot.  Yay, Bess!  The main plot didn't interest me until nearly two-thirds into it, and then it got boring again.

I do have to acknowledge that the books no longer mention Nancy's restroom habits.  I'm glad for that.  Nancy isn't depicted like an idiot.  The case is decent, although it's boring sabotage, and I never cared.

As I read, or rather, skimmed the book, I considered whether it was something that would appeal to children.  It very well might.  The director is eccentric, and children might get a kick out of that.

The book is okay, but it didn't do much for me.

Using AI to Help with a Minor Detail on a Post about Booksellers

I find that when I'm having trouble thinking of the right word to use in a post that AI can help get me started.  I don't take it any further than that.  This post gives an example from yesterday.

A high-end bookseller recently purchased a 1930A-1 Nancy Drew Hidden Staircase in dust jacket.  Fans are skeptical that this bookseller can turn a profit on a rough condition book and jacket that he purchased for $1,312.00.  I have no doubt that he will profit off the book.

Many people don't understand that a hierarchy of booksellers exists.  This bookseller is at the very top of the hierarchy.  He will be able to sell the book at an inflated price.

I am in the process of writing what will be either two or three posts about this situation.  I will cover convenience fees, the hierarchy of booksellers, and the auction itself.  Yesterday, I was working on the part about the hierarchy of booksellers.

I was struggling with how to describe the situation.  I was going to ask AI for help with what word or phrase to use, but I finally realized that "hierarchy" would be sufficient.  I then decided to use "tier" for each level.  But then I thought of the word "echelon," which I've always liked.

Since I had already started a question to AI, I decided to finish it by asking what it thought about "tier" and "echelon," knowing that I had already decided and didn't really need its help.  In fact, the process of composing my original question to AI caused me to figure out the answer on my own. 

I submitted this to AI:

I am writing an article about the types of booksellers.  Some booksellers purchase books from thrift stores and sell them online cheaply.  The next level consists of sellers who then purchase the cheap books online and then resell them online at higher prices at more exclusive sites.  The next level of bookseller purchases from the more exclusive sites and then marks the books up again to sell to wealthy clientele.  

I plan to refer to this as the "hierarchy of booksellers."  I want to use the word "tier" to describe each level.  The word "echelon" might also work.  Which term do you think would be better?

This is how AI responded:

That's a really interesting concept—you're capturing a kind of informal supply chain within the world of used and rare books.  Between "tier" and "echelon," the better choice depends a bit on the tone you want for your article.

Here's a comparison:

Tier

• Pros: Clear, accessible, and neutral.  Readers instantly understand that there are levels, like in a pyramid or pricing structure.  It also aligns well with modern language around commerce and services (e.g., "subscription tiers").

• Cons: Slightly more utilitarian or technical.  It may feel a bit flat if you're going for a richer, more literary tone.

Echelon

• Pros: Has a bit more elegance and nuance.  It can suggest social hierarchy, status, or exclusivity, which may work well for the idea of progressively more elite bookselling layers.

• Cons: Slightly more formal or military in origin, so it might feel too elevated or obscure for some readers.

Recommendation:

If your article has a journalistic, analytical, or blog-style tone, “tier” is likely your best bet—it’s clear, modern, and keeps the focus on the structure.

If your tone leans more toward the literary, cultural, or reflective, “echelon” might give your piece an extra layer of depth and sophistication.

Or—you could combine them!  For example:

"At each tier—or echelon—of this hierarchy, the value of the book is reshaped by context and clientele."

I find that AI can be useful for helping me to parse my thoughts.  I don't use it to write posts, since I want to write my own content based on what I think.  AI can't do that for me.

Don't Go to Sleep by Bryce Moore

Don't Go to Sleep by Bryce Moore was published by Sourcebooks Fire in 2022.

I used AI to create an image, seen at the left, that would be a better representation of what this book is.  I dislike the actual cover of the book and am certain that many of my readers, who aren't interested in teen fiction like I am, would ignore this review completely based solely upon the cover. 

Perhaps we shouldn't judge books by their covers, but I believe most of us do.  We can't help it.  I used the AI image on Facebook to draw the attention of series book fans, and I have placed it here for the same reason.

Here is what I put on Facebook on January 19:

I just read Don't Go to Sleep, a 2022 book written by Bryce Moore.  I used an AI image to evoke the atmosphere of the book.  I believe most of you ignore my YA posts, but this isn't one to ignore.  Please don't nitpick the faulty AI image.  I dislike the actual cover of the book, and it doesn't at all convey what the book is.

Don't Go to Sleep is an outstanding book.  I have no doubt that this book will be a top contender for the best book I read this year.  It's that good.

This book is set during late 1918 in New Orleans.  The deadly influenza is a looming threat, and an axe murderer is targeting Italian store owners.  17-year-old Gianna's family was attacked by the Axeman seven years before, and now Gianna has a strange psychic connection to him.  It's like Harry Potter's mental connection to Voldemort, and it's scary.  

I felt like I was reading a series book as I read this book.  It reads much like a May Hollis Barton or Blythe Girls book, except that an axe murderer is on the loose.  Gianna's family struggles to make ends meet as they worry that they will die of influenza or be killed in their sleep.  The book has some violence and murders, obviously, but fortunately, the author doesn't go into detail about the injuries.  (Note: I just read some reviews where they say that the gore is "intense," so your mileage may vary.  I thought it was fairly tame gore compared to other stuff I've read and nowhere near what it could have been.)

Publisher's summary:

It's 1918, WW1 is in full swing, and a Spanish Influenza outbreak is on the horizon.  In the midst of the chaos, families are being terrorized and people are being killed by a lone man with an axe.  As Gianna and her friend Enzo investigate the heinous crimes, she realizes she's connected to the killer in a way she could have never imagined.

Gianna is the average seventeen-year-old girl living in 1918 New Orleans.  She worries about her family's store, the great war, and a mysterious illness that's about to take hold of the city she loves.

It doesn't help that there also appears to be a mad man on the loose in her neighborhood.  The attacks started as burglaries but soon escalate to cold blooded murder.  There's a killer out there, and the police can't seem to figure out how to stop him.

Gianna enlists the help of her friend Enzo to investigate.  And as they study the crimes, they see a common link between the victims, and Gianna can't help but wonder if it's the same man who attacked her family years before.

As Gianna gets closer to the killer, she discovers a connection between them that she never would have suspected.

These are the ratings I use for books: did not like, good, very good, excellent, and outstanding.  I don't often describe books as outstanding, so I have given this book my top rating that I use only for the best of the best. I already know right now that this book will be either my top read of 2025 or will be one of my top two or three favorite books of 2025. Around a year ago, I read That's Not My Name by Megan Lally. I felt the same way when I finished that book, and I do consider it to be my top read of 2024. I don't find many outstanding books.

I felt a constant sense of foreboding while reading this book. The influenza virus could strike at any moment, and the axe murderer is targeting Italians. It's scary. As I mentioned in my Facebook post, Gianna has a strange psychic connection to the axe murderer which is just like Harry Potter's mental connection to Voldemort. By later in the book, it becomes apparent that the murderer also senses Gianna and is gaining information about her, so it is terrifying whenever Gianna is asleep and experiencing the connection. This is why the book is titled Don't Go to Sleep.

The book has some violence. The climax of the story is harrowing and violent. To me, the violence isn't that bad. The author doesn't go into detail about the injuries, although I cringed at least twice. Even a bare minimum description of an axe injury is gross.
The actual violence isn't the scary part.  The fear and horror about what might happen is quite intense.  This is a very scary book.  Violence is near the lowest level of what you can expect from books like this.  I've read some YA zombie books that are far worse than what is in this book.

One reader feels that the violence is inappropriate for teens.  The violence is fine for teens—children, not so much.  I was sheltered enough as a child that this book would have caused me to have nightmares.  It's definitely not a book for young children.

I also noticed a few readers said that the main part of the story is boring.  Vintage series books are all boring by modern standards.  This book nails the vibe of vintage series books, which I loved.  I found every bit of the story to be intensely interesting, and I felt nervous about what would happen as I was reading.  I didn't want to put the book down!  I had to force myself to go to bed for the night, and then resumed the book the next day.

I love this book.

Keeper of the Lost Cities #9.5 Unraveled Part 5 Eleanor Olivia Wright

This post contains MAJOR SPOILERS from late in the set.  Do not read this post unless you've read ALL of the books that have been published.  You've been warned.

The focus of this post is what we know and don't know about Eleanor Olivia Wright.

When Keefe asks Eleanor if she's Eleanor, she doesn't answer.  From the rest of the conversation with Keefe, we have to assume that this girl is Eleanor, but it strikes me as odd that she doesn't answer the question.

Eleanor's eye color is mentioned twice as green, probably to make sure that we know she's human.  But she could be someone in disguise.

Eleanor apparently knows what a pathfinder does.

After reading through the encounter with Eleanor several times and looking back through previous books, I realized that Keefe went to Ethan's home more than once.  On page 230, we learn that Alvar was supposed to deliver the letter and that Keefe was a last-minute substitution.  That could be, but Keefe definitely completed more than one delivery.

• Book 7, Page 423  Keefe remembers seeing a pair of green eyes that must have been human eyes.  This means he saw Eleanor.

• Book 8, Page 78  Keefe remembers seeing Ethan holding a letter that he had given him.  There is no mention of Eleanor.
  
  
• Book 9, Page 349  Eleanor saw Keefe drop a letter into the letter box.  Keefe didn't see Eleanor, but she saw him.

We can conclude that Keefe delivered a letter to Ethan at least twice and probably three different times.  Eleanor tells Keefe, "[Y]ou were the one making the deliveries."  That implies that she saw Keefe at her home more than once.  It also implies that Alvar never made any deliveries.

Page 350  "You're sure it was sealed?"  "Why?"  "I just really need to know, okay?"  She hesitated for a beat before she told him, "Yes, it was definitely sealed."

Why does Eleanor hesitate?  Is she lying?  Most likely, she knows that Keefe opened at least one letter.  She might be telling the truth about the instance he remembers, but she may know that he opened another letter, which caused her hesitation. 

Page 351  "So... someone erased some of my memories."  "Who?"  "Huh, I would've thought you'd start with 'How?' "

Why does Eleanor accept it as totally normal that someone erased Keefe's memories?

Eleanor admits that she saw Lady Gisela but refuses to give details.  She does say that Lady Gisela thinks she's dead and "it needs to stay that way."  Eleanor must know something about Lady Gisela.

Eleanor says that Ethan shut himself "in his office for days at a time."  This means that Ethan could have been an elf with multiple identities who was away doing other things.  He may not have been in his office the whole time he was locked in there.

Eleanor says that she doesn't have any pictures of her dad because he burned all of them.  Ethan was wiping the evidence of his existence.

And it's important that Ethan's obituaries don't mention his title.  It sounds like Ethan's death was very hastily staged via the obituaries.  

Page 360  His emotions kept clouding out hers, but he could still feel traces of fear.

Keefe can't detect most of Eleanor's emotions, but he does sense fear.  She's genuinely afraid.

A reader who posted in the Keeper wiki discussion forum suggested that Lady Gisela may have been tracking Keefe during the Eleventh hour and now knows that Eleanor is alive. 

1st comment: 

I have this horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach that Gisela knows about Eleanor. I predict that she used the shadow ripple tracker to find Keefe before Tam removed it, the day he went to visit the graves.

2nd comment:

Twice a day she has the opportunity to track him, 11am and 11 pm, so if she checked on him at 11am that day, she could have found him and followed him on his way back to the hotel, which is where Eleanor confronted him.

I feel certain that this person is correct.  I checked Stellarlune.  After the Spyball locates Keefe, Dex fiddles with the Spyball for an unknown amount of time.  The kids decide to go to London.  Even though it seems to happen fast, the kids probably don't leave until at least 15 minutes after they locate Keefe.  It could even be longer.  The kids then have to run all the way to the hotel.  We don't know what the distance is, but the kids probably need 30 minutes or longer to make it to the hotel.  I figure it takes them at least an hour to get to Keefe's hotel room door from the time they locate Keefe with the Spyball.

Meanwhile, Keefe leaves Eleanor and walks to his hotel.  We don't know this distance or how long it takes.  Let's say 15 minutes.  Keefe speaks to Alvar and then takes a shower.  Let's say another 15 minutes.  He then spends 30 minutes fixing his journal, and that amount of time is stated in the book.  Within another 10 minutes, Sophie is pounding on his door.  Keefe's time is at 1 hour, 10 minutes.

The times are close enough that I bet Keefe was with Eleanor during the Eleventh hour.  As fate would have it, Gisela probably checked on him and got very lucky.  It's likely that Eleanor is now in Gisela's clutches.

All of my past Keeper posts are linked from this page:

Keeper of the Lost Cities Summaries, Reviews, and Theories

Hidden Clues #11 Scarcity of Middle Volumes in a Series

We typically consider the final volumes in a series to be the most difficult to acquire. 

Hidden Clues #10 The Hardest to Find Books in a Series

While this is generally true for discontinued series, the middle volumes, while not usually difficult to find, often show up with less frequency.  There are multiple factors at play, including how long a series was in print and how often formats changed.  

I have noticed a pattern with many series, even the ones that were in print for many years after the publication of the final title or that remain in print to the present day.  The middle volumes in the set are slightly scarcer than the early volumes and the volumes well into the second half of the set with the final volumes being the hardest ones to find.  It goes something like this:

This is just a generalization based on observation of books that pass through my hands.  Let's start with Judy Bolton.

Judy Bolton Green Spine Picture Covers

Most of the Judy Bolton picture cover set is extremely scarce.  #5, 6, 8, 9, 11-29, 32, and 34 each went through just one printing.  The Judy Bolton picture covers that aren't as difficult to acquire are #1-4.  #35 is very slightly less scarce, and the rest of the set is quite scarce in this format.  Here's an approximate graph of the curve.

This is not scientific or exact.  It is just a rough idea of the scarcity of the volumes in the green spine picture cover format as compared to the rest.  The dip in the middle part of the set is likely a good bit lower than my estimate.  I didn't attempt to do that since I'm not sure where the truly scarcest books fall in the set. 

While #36-38 have always been priced high, volumes in the green spine format closer to the middle of the set are much, much harder to find than #36-38.  Collectors don't think about the middle books as valuable in this format since collectors who just want to read the books can settle for other formats.  

Those collectors who specifically want this format run into problems with completing their sets due to how uncommon the middle books in the set are.

Nancy Drew Revised Text Picture Cover Books

The first 34 Nancy Drew books were gradually revised from 1959 to 1977.  Books revised late in that period didn't go through as many printings, but they still aren't appreciably more difficult to find than the ones revised earlier.  This is because the print runs from the late 1970s were much larger because of the high interest in Nancy Drew due to the television series.  The massive print runs, particularly in 1978, made up much of the difference for the revised text stories that were revised last.

The revised text books that show up with slightly lower frequency are #14 to #34.  In particular, I find extra copies of #22 through 26 less often than the rest.  For the entire set of 56 books, #28 is the halfway point.  The slightly harder to find revised text books are in the middle of the Nancy Drew set.  

Nancy Drew Digest Books

The Nancy Drew Digest series consists of #57 through #175 in the Nancy Drew chronology.  The median volumes in the set are #115 and #116.  The very hardest to find volumes currently are #100, 114, 121, 122, 123, and 131.  Over the years, I have sometimes found #113, 115, and 124 to be scarcer than other books.  All of these books are no more than 15 books from the middle of the set, and the entire set has 119 books.  Many of the books towards the middle of the set are slightly harder to find than the rest.  There's a reason for this.

The Nancy Drew Digest series ran from 1979 to 2003.  Simon & Schuster dropped many titles as they continued to release new titles.  By late in the run, over half the set was already out of print.  Many of the middle titles went out of print much sooner than other titles.

Dana Girls Beige Spine Picture Cover Books

Some books in the middle of the Dana Girls set are more in demand in the beige spine picture cover format than you might expect.  I find that #19-26 are in lower demand than the rest of the beige spine set, aside from the very common early books in the set.  #19-26 are not hard to find in the beige spine edition, and they were also reprinted in the white spine edition.

#1-16, #17 in the original text, and #18 went out of print when the beige spine set ended.  This makes them more desirable.  The first six books are pretty easy to find in the beige spine set, then the books get a little harder to find.  

In short, #7 through #18 are the beige spine picture covers that are somewhat harder to acquire and may end up costing more than the low-numbered titles or the ones from #19-26.  

These same patterns tend to exist for many other series where collectors will find that certain middle volumes are somewhat harder to find than the average volume.