Hunting Prince Dracula

Maniscalco, Kerri.  Hunting Prince Dracula.  2017.  Jimmy Patterson Books, Little Brown and Company, New York, NY.

Audrey Rose Wadsworth is back!  Fresh off of the challenge of the Jack the Ripper murders, Wadsworth and Creswell are headed off to study forensics at a castle in Romania.  Expecting to be admitted to the program, little do they realize that they are competing with other students for 2 spaces in the program.

As Wadsworth and Creswell settle in, they discover that their school is located in Count Dracula's castle.  While Vlad Dracula's died well over 100 years before, something is afoot in the castle.  Students and villagers are disappearing.  When their bodies are found days later, it is discovered that they have been drained of all their blood.  The villagers whisper that the vampires have returned.

Is it possible?  Could a strigoi be roaming the halls of the castle?  Could one be hunting the villagers?

As the members of the royal family - and heirs of Count Vlad Dracula become the latest victims of the mysterious killer - suspicions and rumors abound.

Can Audrey Rose and Thomas solve the mystery of the vampire killer before they, themselves become the final victims?

image source: https://www.worldcat.org/title/hunting-prince-dracula/oclc/1019604837&referer=brief_results

obsessed: a memoir of my life with OCD

Britz, Allison.  obsessed: a memoir of my life with OCD.  2017.  Simon and Schuster, New York, NY.


Allison Britz was your typical high school student.  A popular athlete with high grades, Allison was on the fast track to get into the college of her dreams.  Her parents were amazingly supportive and supported Allison in everything she did.


Everything suddenly came crashing down when Allison awoke from a vivid dream one night, convinced that she was going to die of Cancer.  She felt that she could only prevent the cancer from killing her or her family was if she performed certain rituals.


As these rituals began to drive her every moment, Allison began to slip further and further away from reality.  Horrified by what they were seeing, her parents and friends attempted to step in again and again in order to help her, but Allison continued to shut them out - trapped by her own compulsions into continuing what she knows is irrational behavior, yet unable to break away from them.


This fascinating read takes you deep into the heart of what it means to live with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) as we follow Allison from the sudden onset of symptoms to one of harmony with her new normal. 


We tend to think of OCD as a set of symptoms defined by hand washing and sitting things in a certain order.  This over simplification does not even begin to touch upon the horrifying reality of people with OCD live with every day.




Resources for Mental Health:
Taken from the back of the book


The International OCD Foundation
https://iocdf.org/


The National Institute of Mental Health
https://www.nimh.nih.gov/index.shtml
The National Alliance on Mental Illness
https://www.nami.org/


Active Minds
https://www.activeminds.org/

Cover Image Source: https://www.worldcat.org/title/obsessed-a-memoir-of-my-life-with-ocd/oclc/1022721996&referer=brief_results

Lost in Outer Space

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Olson, Todd.  Lost in Outer Space: The Incredible Journey of Apollo 13.  2017.  Scholastic Inc, New York, NY.




"Houston, we've had a problem"




Apollo 13 was supposed to be the Earth's 3rd manned space flight to the moon.  The astronauts on Apollo 13 were scheduled to walk on the surface of the moon just days after blasting out of the Earth's orbit.


56 hours and thousands of miles into the mission, an unexpected and life threatening problem occurred. 


An explosion rocked the space ship.  The oxygen levels began to drop.  Power began to fail.  The question quickly became not "when would the astronauts land on the moon" but "would the astronauts live long enough to make it back to Earth?"


As the three astronauts James Lovell, Fred Haise, and Jack Swigert struggled to remain calm in the face of death, the ground crew worked around the clock to find an innovative solution that would bring a crippled spaceship running on almost no power and no navigation systems around the moon and safely home, the nation wondered whether or not the three men would survive.


Told with fascinating detail, you can follow the journey of Jim Lovell's family on Earth, the struggle of the ground crew to find an answer that would normally take months in a matter of hours, and the desperation of the astronauts trapped in a space ship hoping to find a way home.  The three stories are dovetailed together with a riveting attention to detail.


This is their story.

Cover Image Source: https://www.worldcat.org/title/lost-in-outer-space-the-incredible-journey-of-apollo-13/oclc/952547663&referer=brief_results