Header image with four cats and the text: Pussreboots, a book review nearly every day. Online since 1997
Now 2025 Previous Articles Road Essays Road Reviews Author Black Authors Title Source Age Genre Series Format Inclusivity LGBTA+ Art Portfolio Purchase Art WIP

Recent posts


Month in review

Reviews
Al Capone Throws Me a Curve by Gennifer Choldenko
Beyond: the Queer Sci-Fi & Fantasy Comic Anthology edited by Sfé R. Monster
Birding Is My Favorite Video Game by Rosemary Mosco
Border Markers by Jenny Ferguson
Buried in Books by Kate Carlisle
The Cat of the Baskervilles by Vicki Delany
Chicks Dig Time Lords edited by Lynne M. Thomas
Click'd by Tamara Ireland Stone
Comics Will Break Your Heart by Faith Erin Hicks
Dim Sum of All Fears by Vivien Chien
Disney Manga: Magical Dance Volume 1 by Nao Kodaka
Drum Roll, Please by Lisa Jenn Bigelow
Ghostbusters: Crossing Over by Erik Burnham and Dan Schoening
Here and Now and Then by Mike Chen
Lost in the Labyrinth by Patrice Kindl
Old City Hall by Robert Rotenberg
The Neighbors Are Watching by Debra Ginsberg
On the Come Up by Angie Thomas
The Penderwicks on Gardam Street by Jeanne Birdsall
The Sign in the Smoke by Carolyn Keene
Song for a Whale by Lynne Kelly
Summerlost by Ally Condie
Swap'd by Tamara Ireland Stone
Sweet Legacy by Tera Lynn Childs
Tigers in Red Weather by Liza Klaussmann
Tiny Infinities by J.H. Diehl
To Night Owl from Dogfish by Holly Goldberg Sloan and Meg Wolitzer
Tops & Bottoms by Janet Stevens
The Weight of Our Sky by Hanna Alkaf
Which Big Giver Stole the Chopped Liver? by Sharon Kahn
Yellow Brick War by Danielle Paige

Miscellaneous
Curating while reading
February 2019 Sources
February 2019 Summary
It's Monday! What Are You Reading? (March 04)
It's Monday! What Are You Reading? (March 11)
It's Monday! What Are You Reading? (March 18)
It's Monday! What Are You Reading? (March 25)
The slippery slope of trying to read current
When February is three months long

Road Essays
FF00CC: orphans in the maze of the city

FF0099: an orphan in a city labyrinth: a close reading of Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere

FF0066: Orphans going offroad in the city

FF0033: An orphan's journey to the big city by way of the Blue Highway

Road Narrative Update for February 2019

Previous month



Rating System

5 stars: Completely enjoyable or compelling
4 stars: Good but flawed
3 stars: Average
2 stars: OK
1 star: Did not finish


Privacy policy

This blog does not collect personal data. It doesn't set cookies. Email addresses are used to respond to comments or "contact us" messages and then deleted.


The Sign in the Smoke: 03/20/19

The Sign in the Smoke

The Sign in the Smoke by Carolyn Keene is the twelfth of the Nancy Drew Diaries. Nancy has been roped into being a summer camp counselor by her friends. They're working at the recently reopened and renamed camp.

Nancy is hoping to have some time off from sleuthing. But there's no escape, especially when the camp appears to be haunted by a girl who supposedly drowned at the previous camp.

This Nancy Drew series has so far avoided ghosts. The set up, beyond the paranormal angle, was similar to Secret at Mystic Lake, book six in this very series. What's different here is that there are clearly multiple people and multiple motives all feeding into the overall "haunting."

My main complaint with this book is that it's too similar too soon to previous books in the series. There are times that this mystery feels like a collage of previous books.

The thirteenth book is The Ghost in the Grey Fox Inn (2017). I am currently reading it.

Four stars

Comments (0)


Lab puppy
Name:
Email (won't be posted):
Blog URL:
Comment:

Tumblr Mastadon Flickr Facebook Facebook Contact me

1997-2025 Sarah Sammis