November is for Novellas Challenge #3 and #4: Dress Your Marines in White (Monument 14 #0.5) and Jake and the Other Girl (Monument 14 #1.5) by Emmy Laybourne

These are two e-books I've had on my e-reader since I first found them available.  I've read both books that are out in the Monument 14 series, and so these fit perfectly in.  And like the last two, these also were pretty good.  The first one more than the second, but both were useful stories to the series.  Or not useful, because they weren't necessarily "needed."  But, they weren't a waste of time to read.  They filled in information that we didn't have, didn't "need", but it definitely added to the story.  While I didn't list them on my original November is for Novellas Challenge post, it was definitely a good time to read them.  Plus, I ended up choosing them because I finished my book I reviewed yesterday, The Living, as I was waiting for the Fierce Reads Event, and the Monument 14 series is a Fierce Reads series.  Again, like the last two e-novellas I reviewed, these were both short, and they go together, so I'm reviewing them together.

This is a good "review" of what led to the development of the disease that breaks out in the first Monument 14 book.  Disease, or should I say the gas that causes the problems.  It's a look at the military scientists who developed it for a weapon, and how they demonstrated it for their superiors.  And honestly, since I already knew how the gas affected each of the blood types, this was still a really detailed look at the reactions in a controlled environment.  Even knowing that there was a way they could "stop" the effects, something of course had to go wrong, and it ended up as even more horrifying than it was supposed to be in this "controlled" demonstration.  Quick read, if you like the series, read this.

Now Jake is a character you don't like much in the first book, at least I didn't.  And so he left to try to find help basically.  Well, in this short story he returns to his previous personality in that he gets so freaked out by what he sees and thinking of the responsibility he'll have when he gets back that he takes off.  He drops the video camera and takes off.  While he has been out, he's been thinking back to life before that fateful day.  He was known as basically the horniest guy at school.  In fact there was a girl that he used to go visit for lunch all the time just to have sex with her.  And he brought her chocolate every time.  So he takes a Snickers bar and goes to her house to see if she is still there and if she is still alive.  She is, but her father is still there, and his blood type is O, the kind that turns into a dangerous monster.  A pretty short story, again, I'll let you read it yourself to find out more about what happens.

In conclusion, these stories did add to the original series, unlike the ones I read earlier this week.  Definitely worth the read this time, no doubt about it.  Now we just have to wait for the next book.

Extremities: Stories of Death, Murder, and Revenge by David Lubar

First thanks to Macmillan-Tor Forge and Netgalley for allowing me to read an egalley of this book of short stories.  I am very grateful in this case because of how good the stories are.  They remind me in a way of how good Stephen King's short stories are.  Some of the stories were really scary, and they were in no way wishy-washy little kid "scary" stories.  In fact it warns even in the beginning of the book that it is not for little kids.  I would say probably no younger than 7th or 8th graders, about ages 12-13 and up.
Let me tell you about a couple of my favorite stories.
The very first story is one that I really liked.  It's called Running Out of Air and it is kind of a revenge story, but one that I think kids can relate to.  It's about a really horrible, mean gym teacher.  And she is hard on all the girls.  Especially one with asthma.  She is so hard on the girl that one day she collapsed in class and they had to have an ambulance come take her to the hospital.  The girl's friends tried to stick up for her, and all that did was get them a worse grade.  So one night the main character, Deeva, stayed late at school, and saw the four girls also at school late.  You see Betty, the girl with asthma was in bad shape, but the teacher, Ms. Pelham didn't get in trouble at all for what happened.  So the girls have come to get the teacher back for this.  They tape her hands up with masking tape, and tell her she has to race them.  If she can beat them in one lap, then they'll let her go.  But it's not just being tied up, they want her to feel what it was like when Betty was trying to run with asthma.  So they tape a plastic bag around her neck.  You can guess what happens from there.
There's a really good story about teenagers who have to stay in a haunted house over night for a reality tv show to make money.  And, well, is the house really haunted?  One guy who has watched all the episodes, thinks he knows how it works, and plans to win.
There's a story about a boy who lives with a dad that abuses his mother, and his plan to take care of the problem.
A story about a beautiful girl who moves to the school and seems to make the boy she is with as happy as can be.  Until he seems to do something so reckless it is almost suicide.  Then she goes to a friend of his, and the pattern seems to repeat.  Until, our main character gets the beautiful girl.
There's a story about what seems to be a Chinese good luck/bad luck or really maybe a supernatural creature that is killing people in the import/export business.
There are 13 stories in the book.  Some are shorter than others, but all have a good little kick at the end.  One or two, kind of predictable, but still in a good, scary way.  Can't wait to recommend this to people who are looking for good scary stories.

Vengeance (Transcend Time #2) by Michelle Madow

So this is the 2nd "book" in the Transcend Time series by Michelle Madow.  I wrote in my review of the first one about getting to meet the author last year at BEA, so I won't bore you about that again.  The reason I say book in quotation marks is because it is really just a short story.  When I ordered it in to the bookstore where I work, I was disappointed to see how small it was.  I actually was worried that it was just a sampler, and not a real book, and I was afraid I'd get in trouble for ordering it in.  But I was wrong, it is the actual short story in book form.
The premise is a good one.  It picks up with Lizzie's friend Chelsea at the point where Lizzie tried to explain the connection that she had with Drew, and why they were now dating.  And the story is about Chelsea wanting to get back at  her best friend.  We learn that there was another time that Chelsea felt she stepped back from a boy for Lizzie, although Lizzie didn't ever know how Chelsea felt.  But this time Lizzie knew, and that is what hurts Chelsea.  And Chelsea has found a new ally, Shannon.  One of Jeremy's new friend's girlfriend.  Someone that Lizzie never could quite get to like, as much as Jeremy asked her to try.  But Shannon has someone in her life who also knows about past lives.  And she helps Chelsea to realize that she has one, and that things aren't going the way they did last time, which was in Chelsea's favor.
I'm very interested to see how this leads into the 3rd book in the series, Timeless, and hope that I can get that ordered into my store soon now that it has been released.
Short review I know, but, short story!