The Princess Diarist

WARNING: There are some spoilers ahead. Short non-spoiler version: It was good… you should read it 🙂 Yay Carrie Fisher!

Ahh The Princess Diarist… When I found out this was coming out I made sure the library was getting a copy. With the release of the Star Wars VII there was a lot of renewed interest from our patrons in Carrie Fisher’s books. As well as pretty much anything that could in some way maybe be slightly related to anything Star Wars 🙂

When we got it in there was definitely interest and I wanted to read it myself so I put on a reserve and waited patiently. Unfortunately no librarian perks when it comes to the reserves queue hahaha.

When I borrowed the book I got a few chapters in that night and the next day Carrie Fisher passed away. Some of what she wrote in the book talked about her eventual passing and it was just too weird and sad to continue reading it at that time so I returned it and let the other masses waiting for it go first.

So a couple of months down the track now the hordes have cleared I decided to give it another go. I really enjoyed this book. Bios are not generally something I steer towards, but I have found that when they are well written and interesting I do enjoy them.

It was quite interesting to see the differences between the writing styles of “present” day Carrie and the pages of 19 year old Carrie’s journals. It was very apparent from 19yo Carrie’s writing that she was very much infatuated by Harrison, though present day Carrie is reasonably discrete about the affair itself 19yo Carrie seemingly (to me) struggled under the banner of secrecy. If you are looking for some ground shattering literary genius out of those diaries you are not going to get it. They are what you would expect of a creative, somewhat angsty 19yo who’s smoking joints and head over heels. Kind of felt as though perhaps she had gotten hold of some of my old journals except I had more of a penchant for songs than poems.

I really enjoyed the behind the scenes parts of the memoir and I liked how she simultaneously loves and hates cons. She has a special tongue in cheek love for her fans as well.

Her writing style is quite quirky and you can almost imagine her saying the words as you read along. Actually the audio book would probably be great!

She does make a few references to her inevitable passing as well as that of her mother which made reading the book quite touching, but beautiful at the same time. One of the most poignant parts of the book for me was in the acknowledgements when she thanks her mother for “being too stubborn and thoughtful to die, “I love you, but that whole emergency, almost dying thing, wasn’t funny. Don’t even THINK about doing it again in any form.” Given that her mother died just one day after Carrie what was probably meant to be a wry joke took on a much more tender meaning.

If you are a fan of Carrie Fisher you will enjoy this book. If you are looking for some scandalous tell all on “Carrison” then this is probably not for you 🙂 But you will likely find some amazingly graphic fan fiction online hahaha. Whatever floats your boat, no judgement.

 

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The Beauty of Darkness

The Beauty of Darkness is book 3 in The Remnant Chronicles saga and is my book number 2 for 52 books in 52 weeks.I talked about the second book in a recent post and was looking forward to reading the final installment. I will be as vague as possible, but some might consider what I will write slight spoilers 🙂

This was a thick book at 679 pages, so if you are someone who cannot commit to long books you might struggle, but I don’t mind them personally and I felt it was worth the read. When the story is good I don’t generally notice how long it is. Plus I was already two books in, I wasn’t about to stop now 🙂

Love the cover art for this series!!!

There was this really interesting message through this whole story that I felt repeated over and over again through different storylines and that was that ‘no one is too great to fall’. This is SUCH a true message in day to day life for every person as well as in this book and I think that is why I appreciated it. It also shows how those that fall respond, do they become desperate and cruel or evil, or do they have an inner strength and sense of self that sustains them through the harshest of times. Let’s not mince words, these characters went through some hellish ordeals, particularly the female protagonist Lia. From a waited on princess to someone’s prisoner covered in filth and blood wearing a hessian sack, Lia’s resolve never faulted and her inner strength and leadership qualities just grew. Everything was taken from her and she didn’t crumble. This is a great book for young women to read for this message alone.

The other thing I liked about Lia and some of the other main characters is that they often didn’t make the popular choice. They were not afraid to make the difficult choice that would be immensely harder and possibly end in death because ultimately it was the right thing to do and could save many lives. Too often you read books where people throw the lives of thousands out to dry in the name of love and whilst I understand that being an impossible choice I do get frustrated by the sheer amount of these type of novels – like the Fallen series for example (not that I didn’t enjoy it – you can tell here and here).

Relationships were so interesting in this book. To be honest it didn’t end the way I wished it had. The ending I wanted wouldn’t be the popular version, but to me it was more realistic and I cannot say much more about how I felt about this without spoiling things so I will stop here.

I was a fan of the overall ending and was definitely a fan of many of the messages in the book. I was a particular fan of the women in this book. There is a strength to the women in this book that you cannot help but admire. Seriously SUCH a great read for young women today.

It’s okay to be me

This post was inspired by WordPress’ Daily Prompt ‘It Builds Character’.

I have already accidentally deleted this entire post twice because of strange things that the new interface does. I am unimpressed to say the least. So I will now write this in Word and copy paste 🙂

When I think back on characters that have had an effect on me, there is one in particular which stands out as being integral to the person I have become.

When I was young (prepubescent young), I was already aware that I was different from most of the other girls in the class. Whilst they were obsessed with ‘The Baby Sitters Club’ and ‘Sweet Valley High’ (both of which I read and enjoyed, but mainly they just gave me numbers for the read-a-thon each year) I was off reading ‘Matilda’ and authors like R.L Stine (not the Goosebumps books, the advanced stuff) and Tamora Pierce. I had great access to YA novels because my Mum was a Teacher Librarian at a High School.

Other girls my age wanted to play makeovers and weddings and I wanted to ride bikes and run through the bush. The girls I knew made games of imagining their weddings to a member of the Backstreet Boys or Hanson whilst I danced about the house singing to the score of ‘The Pirates of Penzance’.

Jo March from ‘Little Women’ was a trailblazer, in a time where it wasn’t proper for women to run through the woods, traipse about through brooks without shoes, yell out to or play with boys or write epic novels she did it all and everyone who mattered accepted her and loved her for who she was. Everything about this girl/woman appealed to me. It would be fair to say that as a young girl my biggest dream was to grow up to be Jo March. She was a hero to me. To this day she remains one of my favourite literary characters. In fact Jo March is probably the reason I have the guts to write online.

Jo also appealed to me because of her love of the written word and her strength of character and independence. You have probably noticed from my reviews of my books for 52 Books in 52 Weeks that I have a thing for strong female characters that shuck the norm and stereotypes. I still believe that this love of certain qualities in this character made me try to develop those characteristics in myself. As soon as I was old enough to work (14) I got an after school job. This made me feel amazing because I didn’t have to ask my mother to buy me things like deodorant and tampons (you have no idea how amazing it was as a 14 year old to not rely on someone else for your tampon stash!), this was my first step to real independence and I liked it. I saved my money from my job and when I graduated I paid my own way on a holiday with my friends, that is a pretty huge thing for an 18 year old to be able to do. Then when I was 19 I moved interstate to the desert, yup I moved to Ayers Rock, it was arid, hot, confronting and I was pretty innocent at the time (I hardened up quick though – read more about that here), I had no safety net there. I knew no one. It was the bravest and most awesome thing I think I have done. It was an amazing experience and I am so glad I did it to this day!

I believe I have a lot to thank Jo March for. I have previously written about my love of both the book and movie and after reading back over this post I realise how big an impact my love of this character has had on me. As far as role models go I am pretty proud that she has been and continues to be mine.

 

The brilliance of eBooks

Have I told you all how much I love eBooks? No? Maybe? All the time? Well I can’t help it, I totally do.

With my library card from work I have access to literally hundreds of eBooks at the tap of a screen. If I go through the Library website I have access to a number of online reference books (like medical and legal volumes plus encyclopedias) and online databases.

My library also has two eBook platforms; Overdrive and BorrowBox. Overdrive is American and therefore has a wide range of eBooks and audiobooks on it whereas BorrowBox is Australian so concentrates more on Aussie and NZ authors which is great too.

Due to the fact that it is winter and therefore snowy, rainy and cold out, plus the fact we just got a boatload of new content on BorrowBox here is one of the promos I put together for our social media promotion.

Created using befunky.com

Normally I pick up physical books whilst at work because hey, I’m already there right? But sometimes I forget (I do get very busy) and find myself stuck on the weekend without a precious novel (THE HORROR). Then I remember not to fret, I do not have to go down to work on my day off because I can just pick up my iPad and open the app for either Overdrive or BorrowBox and find a great book to read 🙂 Most recently I chose ‘The Lie’ by C.L. Taylor which was great, you will see my brief review in my June 52 Books in 52 Weeks list, it is number 31 🙂 – I promise June will be out soon, a little shorter than normal, but it is definitely coming!

You will know from past posts of my fall from grace due to my Netflix addiction, you do have to pay for Netflix, (let’s be honest though, the amount is less per month than a single visit to the movies) but wouldn’t it be amazing if soon you could get Netflix access through your library card too.

Gotta love my job 🙂

Library returns

So… a 14 year old boy returned these to the Library yesterday…

I assume the Bible is the chaser for 50 Shades so he can get over his guilt??? This amused us endlessly during our 2 hour desk shift. It is possibly the best return combination I have ever seen.

I would love to hear some of your borrowed or returned stories 🙂

52 Books in 52 Weeks – March

I was keeping up the steam well in February. Unfortunately I am out of Belador books for now haha, perhaps more will come along. As I said I am looking to mix it up a bit this year so keep your eyes out for some non-fiction books coming up in this list soon as well as biographies.

9. The Rosie Project – Graeme Simsion

I really, really, really enjoyed this book! I totally gave it 5 stars on Goodreads! This story is about a brilliant Professor who happens to have undiagnosed Asperger’s and his journey through life and trying to locate a suitable life partner. I think part of the reason that I enjoyed this book is because I really respect that way that the brains and thought processes of “Aspies” work. I like their honesty, you never have to worry that they have another agenda going on and they are so often incredibly intelligent and great conversationalists. I once went on a date with someone with Asperger’s and had no idea until he sent back his thickshake sighting that they had provided him a milkshake not a thickshake because… he then sighted how thick it should be and the ratio of milk to icecream that should be included. The poor server… it was hilarious though 🙂 Good for him. It didn’t work out, we just weren’t that interested in each other, he told me upfront… awesome! No time wasted hahaha. This book is totally and completely worth your time, read it. I actually laughed out loud when he presented a talk about Asperger’s to Aspie’s, that is a great few pages. Please read it! Very bummed because my Library doesn’t have the second book, I sent through a suggestion for purchase 🙂

10. Fallen in Love (Fallen #3.5) – Lauren Kate

This book… hmm. I just, I could have done without this book. I get what she was trying to do here with explaining all the background of the other characters and their love experiences, etc., but I just felt like it didn’t work for me.

Perhaps by the time I got to this book I was just kinda over the storyline or something? It was drawn out over many books and whilst with the Belador series I have just got more into it, that didn’t happen for me with the Fallen series.

By the end of the last book of the series I was kinda ready to walk away from the characters and story, plus I felt Cam got royally ripped off. The best book in this series was the one where she went through a bunch of her past lives with Bill.

I was kinda glad it was done to be honest.

11. Rapture (Fallen #4) – Lauren Kate

Okay, so this was the last of the series. I liked the Lucifer elements and the twists with he and Luce – they were good and well thought out. The characters of Daniel and Luce themselves really started p-ing me off bigtime. I get it okay you choose love, over and over again. In doing so you have put many Angels through years of torture and broken the hearts of how many thousands of families throughout time (meaning Luce’s families)? That seems incredibly selfish and then they just kept making the same mistakes. Just damn stupid. I was pretty dissatisfied with most aspects of this final book in the series. I would not recommend it. I also feel like Cam just got handed the sh*t stick over and over again throughout history. No wonder he went dark side!

12. Defiance (Defiance #1) – CJ Redwine

This book was kind of different, I actually liked the way it threw you straight into it without a tonne of back-story so you had to get the pieces of the story as you went along. I can see that a lot of people would hate it because it is not the conventional way to tell a tale, but I liked it. *SLIGHT SPOILERS* Damn there was a lot of death and psychological torture for a YA novel. At first when they talked about the Cursed One I was kind of reminded of that Kevin Bacon cult classic Tremors hahaha.

There is not a lot of world building which would normally annoy me except for the fact that the story is told from the points of view of the two main characters so you can only build the world as much as they understand or decide to think about it that day. To be honest it p’s me off when a character randomly decides to think of the entire history of their world… who does that? We are told enough to figure out that it is loosely set in the future where man mined too far into the ground searching for resources and they released the Cursed Ones that proceeded to destroy the planet and turn everything to ashes. A group of men were able to hold them back and those men created their own cities and became the leaders (or protectors). The impression I got was that the rules of each city are basically completely developed by the ruler and in this particular city he likes his women dumb and subservient, because… POWER blah blah blah. I am not surprised that at least one woman wants to rebel… wow I would find that kind of existence sooo suffocating. There is a reason they cut the umbilical cord at birth, you know?! Anyway I digress. I really liked how different this was, it seemed to take quite a bashing on Goodreads, but the things they were upset about (most of which I have discussed) were things I liked so I will leave it up to you.

13. To wed a wicked Earl (Devine & Friends #2) – Olivia Parker

I said I would try and read different sorts of books right? Well, this was one of those. I gave it a one on Goodreads, it just wasn’t my thing you guys. I mean it was okay and all, it wasn’t the worst romance novel I have ever read and at least there was no mention of someone’s “quivering member” so it has that going for it.

I just… can’t with this book. The characters were kinda likeable, the plot was kinda okay. The only real drama happened right at the end of the book and equaled all of 2 pages of text… wtf? Apparently this is the second in the series… oops. Just for the record I am not going back for the first. I need a bit more meat in my romances, not man meat… plot meat.

52 Books in 52 Weeks – February

Well I got off to a great start in January, 5 books done. This is such a fun challenge! 🙂 After this month I have run our of Belador books so you won’t be hearing about them anymore. I’ll try to vary up the reading moving forward, but sometimes you come across a series and you can’t help but become a bit consumed by it until you finish it and then you get that reader’s remorse happening for you hahaha. Anyone else suffer from reader’s remorse?

6. The Curse (Belador series #3) – Sherrilyn Kenyon & Dianna Love

Yup, more Beladors and let me just say that I was not disappointed. The entrance of Trolls in this book was pretty great, I liked the storyline and loved Evalle doing her hulk impression 🙂 I also really admire her sense of loyalty above all else. These Beladors have treated her horribly, true they treat her better than her aunt did, but for the most part they treat her like dirt. Yet she would lay down her life for any of them, that is the heart of a true warrior in my eyes. The storyline was good. I do feel like these “Gods” and “Goddesses” need a boot to the head. They are just ridiculous. Whenever any of them get involved I feel like I am reading about High School drama. Just craziness. The Goddess Macha in particular could use a time out, she is very strange and I don’t understand her motives in much of this. I am hoping to figure that out soon. Again the amount of action was great, so was the gore… just the right amount of guts 🙂 I loved the further development between Evalle and Storm. I have just really taken a shine to this series 🙂

7. Toxic Heart – Theo Lawrence

Toxic Heart is the second in the series. The first book was “Mystic City” which I really, really liked. So I was pretty excited when the sequel finally came out 🙂 From the cover I expected this book to be a lot about Hunter’s journey, but it really wasn’t. I felt like this book was very much still based around Aria’s evolution. Whilst Hunter’s changes were vast and directly impacted on many people I don’t feel that he was at the core of the novel. I love the character of Aria, a young girl who got herself into this position with the rebels by following her heart and what she truly believes in right. She is owning her decisions and pushing herself, I love that she believes so much in what the right thing is that she will risk anything to achieve it. You can see her slowly developing very naturally into the kind of leader who would do anything for her people. Not that she actually is a leader, but that is my belief of the kind of person who would make a good leader. Hunter lost a lot from me in this book, he just seemed like a lost little boy. Turk was the man in this book, he was humble and good and true and loyal – I mean seriously people what more could you want out of a man. I still love both the first and the second book. To be honest I felt really proud of the Aria character at the end of this book, girl has some guts 🙂

8. Rise of the Gryphon (Belador series #4) – Sherrilyn Kenyon & Dianna Love

The action continues. I was worried that this book was going to finish earlier than it did so it was an awesome surprise when it went on – trying to avoid spoilers, but it was a really good thing you guys 🙂 Macha is still the Goddess of ‘Bitchdom’ and ‘No Chances Land’. This Goddess seems to have something long and cylindrical permanently stuck up her butt. Sen is a jerk as always, I think I have avoided talking about him in the past because I didn’t want to give him any air time, but I think the point of this character might be arising soon. Storm is awesome, Evalle is wonderful – I love the trust these two have. It’s kinda beautiful haha. Lanna is an interesting character, it took me awhile to read her chapters easily because her thoughts are written in broken English which is quite interesting. This book has an awesome ending! So good. I am not entirely sure where I am going to score the 5th one from, but I’ll figure it out haha.

52 Books in 52 weeks – December

I didn’t quite get this post out before the end of 2014, but I did get it done. This post is going to be a little different. For my last post on 52 Books in 52 Weeks for 2014 I read a trilogy my mother recommended to me written by Nora Roberts. I haven’t really read Nora Roberts before and to be honest I had the impression that she was a romance novelist and I usually like my novels with some more meat than that. But… I was wrong.

Here is the list 🙂

Number	Title	Author
50	Blood Brothers (Sign of Seven trilogy #1)	Roberts, Nora
51	The Hollow (Sign of Seven trilogy #2)	Roberts, Nora
52	The Pagan Stone (Sign of Seven trilogy #3)	Roberts, Nora

I am going to write about the trilogy as a whole. I probably should have written my thoughts about each of them down as I finished them, but by now you guys would know that when I get to reading a series I pretty much rip through it hahaha. This trilogy I finished in 3 days.

Sign of Seven trilogy – Nora Roberts

As I said before I resisted this trilogy at first, but my Mum has a lot of reading experience and has put me onto many great authors over the years and I trust her judgement so I decided to give it a go. As usual I will try to keep my review as free from spoilers as possible, but that is kind of hard.

Overall I really enjoyed this trilogy, I loved the mix of fantasy, thriller, romance etc. One thing I believe is that Nora Roberts is either an amazing researcher and should possibly have also been a librarian or she is just extremely knowledgeable about a tonne of topics. Generally speaking the trilogy was awesome. I loved the character of Cybil, she was my favourite – being a researcher are you really surprised I identified with the character of the same profession?

I actually really liked that the story initially starts with 3 male protagonists. It’s not often that seems to happen in books like this so it was nice to see. I loved the grandma character of Elsie, one weird thing I noticed was that in the first book she was 97 and in the second she was referred to as 93… apparently the Grandma is Benjamin Button… who knew? hahaha. Sorry for nitpicking, I can’t help it.

Whilst it was an easy read it dealt with some intense things at times. I kind of liked that it made me uncomfortable, most writers would stop before writing about taboos like rape (don’t worry this isn’t much of a spoiler). To me the fact that this writer didn’t shy away from writing about the kind of things that would in reality happen if the situation could happen in reality shows some balls. Kudos.

The only other thing that bothered me is the epilogue at the end of the series. I felt there either needed to be a second epilogue or that the first one should have been written differently. There were three things in particular I wanted to know about. If I write about what they are though it would be a HUGE plot spoiler so I seriously can’t.

All in all I would definitely recommend reading this series if you are into supernatural thrillers/romances. The details are great and the characters are well developed. Each of the 6 (yes, 6) main characters are well fleshed out and I like the details about their families and the town. All in all, good stuff and a great end to my 2015 52 Books in 52 Weeks. I am definitely considering repeating this challenge for 2015, I have found it very fulfilling and fun. I didn’t get to the Hobbit 😦 unfortunately it is still packed in boxes waiting to be moved to our new house which is not yet finished. But with my new job I will have access to a tonne of books this year, so if you have any suggestions please write them in the comments below.

52 Books in 52 weeks – August

This month I read quite a bit actually, three books over my quota. Certainly not complaining though as it has been nice to immerse myself in reading 🙂

Here is the list 🙂

Number	Title	Author
32 – Aug 4-10	Good Omens	Pratchett, Terry & Gaiman, Neil
33 – Aug 11-17	The Last Book in the Universe	Philbrick, Rodman
34 – Aug 18-24	“Fallen”, “Torment” & “Passion”	Kate, Lauren
35 – Aug 25-31	Splintered The Giver	Howard, A.G. Lowry, Lois

I had the BEST month of reading!!!

Good Omens – Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman

I actually started this book last month, I struggled to really get into the text and I am not sure why. It was more towards Pratchett’s way of writing which is right up my alley, but then you could see Gaiman’s style coming through too. To be honest I think the two together for me personally did not work. I did love the characters of Crowley and Aziraphale; their interactions were (for me) the best parts of the book. Really I should have loved this book and I can’t understand why I found myself disinterested, skimming and reading another book then coming back to it.

I feel that this book would be loved by someone who clicked with the writing, unfortunately it didn’t work for me which was quite sad because I do love Terry Pratchett’s other works.

The last book in the Universe – Rodman Philbrick

This book, wow. I found this book at a book sale, it was the end of the day and they were selling you a box for 50cents – you got to fill it with as many books as you could manage (I know, heaven right?!). This was one of the books I grabbed, it looked like the cover had never been cracked and read as though it would be a good book for young male adults. I am always on the lookout for books like this because some of the stuff out there for guys is garbage and I like to have a few ideas on what to suggest for clients.

I was so surprised by this book, the setting is in a post-disaster (of some kind of earthquake I think – let’s blame climate change) city, the protagonist is a teenage boy they call Spaz. One of the interesting things about this book is that this society basically does not read, quite a few of them do not even talk, this whole society basically learns and is educated by either observing or (if they talk) being told. The language that they do have is incredible literal, for example; Spaz is named thus because he has epilepsy, but all the others know is that he ‘spazzes out’. The city is called the “Urb” as in suburb. It is quite fascinating to see how this society functions, also interesting is the idea of “Eden” being a paradise where the “Proovs” (improved or genetically altered humans) live.

I quite enjoyed it, if you have a young man that you are trying to get to read maybe try him on this. It is not magic and broomsticks like Harry Potter, but it has great grit and I think young males will enjoy the language.

“Fallen”, “Torment” & “Passion” – Lauren Kate

Yeah I got a bit carried away here and read three of them haha. I did not really enjoy the first book until the last couple of chapters; there were quite a few times where I felt the characters were acting about 14 years old instead of the age they were supposed to be acting. Oh god dammit I have just read they are making a movie of this for 2015 release, sigh, I have never heard of the actors they have cast (even though I have seen some of the movies/shows they are apparently in) though one is an Aussie who looks like a member of One Direction so it will probably be a huge hit 🙂

The epilogue of the first book intrigued me so much that I went to get no. 2 (Torment) from the Library. This novel was much better than the first, I would still like to slap the female protagonist around because she is completely stupid at some points and is obviously nowhere near finishing puberty. I really liked the school Shoreline and the new characters that were introduced, I thought her roommate and new male friend were great characters. Ending was a solid-ish lead into no. 3.

Book 3: I really, really, really liked this book. I loved that there were these pinpoint references in time that the geek in me easily recognised like the fire at the Globe theatre and the Aztecs etc. It was pretty cool, teenage history buffs are going to be all over this one. It was the best of the series so far, so good that I am scared to read any more of them hahaha.

Splintered – A. G. Howard

Hilariously, I picked this book up because it had a pretty cover. Little did I know that I was about to discover this crazy amazing, slightly nightmarish hat-tip to Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s adventures in Wonderland. Alyssa’s family can trace their lineage all the way back to Alice Liddell, the inspiration for the tale. I read this story in a day you guys! I was that swept away by it. I loved the characters, I adored the spin on the classic characters from Carroll’s book. Morpheus was an amazing character (my favourite), whilst reading I often pictured him somewhat similar to Adam Lambert dressed in costume as Starchild, kinda sexy, kinda scary, very trendy and kinda steampunk.

The Giver – Lois Lowry

I have had this on my “to read” list for a while now. I thought it was good, but to be honest I kind of felt like the story didn’t start until Jonas left the village and then the book ended just as I felt something was about to happen. This book really didn’t fit the norm when it comes to overcoming trials and adventures, very interesting. I liked the idea about a supposedly Utopian society and how the “sameness” slowly loses its appeal and the society is suddenly viewed as a Dystopia, to me it says a lot in relation to points of view. A lot is left up to your own interpretation of how something is possible which I suppose makes sense when you are reading it, but is still an odd thing for a young adult novel.

Oh my gosh I just read the cast list for the movie! This is going to be a money-maker guys! Seriously! We have Jeff Bridges, Meryl Streep, Alexander Skarsgård, Katie Holmes and Aussie Brenton Thwaites as Jonas, I haven’t seen much of him, but I hear good things. I have seen Odeya Rush in films before and quite enjoyed her so that’s a good pick too. My only casting question is, what the hell were they thinking casting Taylor Swift?

And so we go into September… so many books… so little time.

52 Books in 52 weeks – June

Some different books this month including one I was quite surprised to like.

Here is the list 🙂

Number	Title	Author
23 – Jun 2-8	False Impressions Stamping Sisters mystery #3	Thayer, Terri
24 – Jun 9-15	City of Dark Magic	Flyte, Magnus
25 – Jun 16-22	City of Lost Dreams	Flyte, Magnus
26 – Jun 23-29	Darkfever	Moning, Karen Marie

 

Continuing on my path of aiming to read books I wouldn’t normally I went to the Library and grabbed a couple of books by authors I had never read – I will neither confirm or deny that part of my choice was based on alluring covers 🙂

False Impressions: Stamping Sisters mystery #3 – Terri Thayer

This was an oops, I didn’t realise it was number three until I got it home… damn fine print 🙂 Luckily this series is one of those that does not have to be read sequentially so we got along fine. I found the characters interesting and the story overall was quite good. I liked that the book was different from your typical mystery and there were character/economic points that I felt really fit with real life situations, for example the main character April has to live in her fathers restored barn with his partners parents because she does historical stamping for restoration projects for a living and there is not much call for that so she has no money – so there are those kind of side stories that make the characters more “real” and relatable which is great. I am definitely considering going back to read the other two – although I am hoping the villain is better hidden because I figured out who it was really quickly and everything after that just confirmed my thoughts until the big reveal and I was kind of sitting there going, ‘oh come one April, you are not this stupid!’

 

 

City of Dark Magic – Magnus Flyte

This book held surprise for me, here I was thinking I was getting a paranormal suspense novel with a female protagonist (Sarah Weston) who is a music student working a summer at Prague Castle Cataloguing Beethoven’s manuscripts (hello! I am a Librarian and a muso – like that wasn’t going to catch my attention haha). What I wasn’t expecting was a sexual element – which at first was really strange and to be honest whilst I now understand why she had a high libido I am not entirely sure it needed to be talked about so much, but I suppose danger, magic and sex kind of go hand in hand. Once the sexual element came in I really wasn’t expecting to like the book, I admit… I judged. I figured it was going to be literary porn masked as a serious novel, but I was pleasantly surprised and indeed rather swept away with the twists and turns in the book. It hooked me and I really, really enjoyed it – it certainly was not porn and as you got into the story you came to understand what that first shock had been about. There is a book two and I am hot on the trail to finding it 🙂

 

 

City of Lost Dreams – Magnus Flyte

I found book two! 🙂 Hooray! I do hate when you start reading a series and have to wait forever for the next book *cough cough* George R. R. Martin *cough*. Slight spoilers, but not really.

This book did have a different feel from the first one, the story was split between Prague and Venice so whilst the main protagonist was still Sarah you spent more time than in the previous book seeing the story unfold from others points of view. I really enjoyed these books for their uniqueness, it was a really different concept that not only challenged the way you looked at the world, but also in the end looked at how people choose to spend their lives. Two different immortals; one who spent their life trying to achieve and brought science and medicine forward in leaps and bounds and one who spent their time frivolously searching for a way to end it all – don’t worry they are not Vampires 🙂 Just humans.

 

 

Darkfever  – Karen Marie Moning – SOME SPOILERS

This one I just grabbed from Overdrive because I had nothing to read and it sounded interesting and had a pretty cover. Turns out I was right with my earlier assumption… danger and magic mean that at some point or other in a book you’re going to end up with sex… why is that? Whilst the whole book was not a sexual tone the couple of times it was it was kind of a shock.

I found the story okay, you have no clue who is bad and who isn’t for the entire book. The female protagonist kind of grows on you, but she spends a lot of the book insisting she is not a bimbo, but whining about her looks and nail polish… I get the impression that the fact is at the beginning she WAS a shallow bimbo, but she is supposed to be slowly changing into someone of depth due to what is happening around her. I have no clue what is going on with the character of Barrons, if I was living in that place I would be spending my days (when he is not around) going through his house from top to bottom searching for ways to protect myself from him – he seems like a psycho and throws Mac around – it’s very strange!!!

One thing that really annoyed me was that I didn’t feel like the ending was an ending, I thought it was the end of the chapter, turned the page and there was the glossary… umm wtf? I google the title… dammit it is a series and nowhere has the second book, this annoyed me because the book had no kind of conclusion, seriously… the narration is done from some point in the future as though she is telling the story of how she got there… naturally I figured the end of the book would at least get me to the point the narrator was up to, but no… nothing. It was really weird, but it also drew you in so I kind of want to read the others, although admittedly that could be my love of closure 🙂 Don’t even get me started on how Mac magically transformed into Buffy TVS after one lesson on where to stick the pointy end… just… don’t.

And so we go into July… so many books… so little time. What are you reading at the moment? I am open to suggestions 🙂