Tag Archives: love books

T is for … truly spell-binding!

There was a bit of a wobble this week, reader, I’ll confess. I had a “T” book that was recommended by a friend whose books I love. Sadly, the book wasn’t half as good as her own and simply wasn’t for me. Referring back to my “speed of reading” measurement, when I’d been reading for 3 days and barely reached a quarter of the way through I knew we weren’t a good match.

So I shelved that and tried to find something (I was only mildly panic-stricken; no biggie). Taking what I’ve learned about searching on Amazon I picked a likely word, “Truth” and went in. Anita Oh’s The Truth Spell caught my eye. Oh, my goodness, it was a delight! It’s a first-person narrative and Lucy was so lively and spiky and fabulous the novel was a joy to read.

Cover of Anita Oh's The Truth Spell
Click to check it out.

I zoomed through it in two evenings’ reading, it was that good!

And a first for me – this was the first book I’ve read entirely on my phone. I often have short stories on my phone in case I’ve got five minutes to fill, but I’ve never tried to read an entire novel on my phone thinking it would be annoying to be continually swiping, but not at all. Clearly, if the narrative is gripping enough it doesn’t matter how I’m reading.

The Truth Spell is highly recommended if you like a fresh and modern paranormal tale. I’m now going in to find myself a “U” book, with the keyword “Under” – check back next week to see how that goes.

My free reading challenge: straying outside my genre

I read a lot of YA fiction. Reading is a high priority in my life. I work, I’m a mum, I write books myself (45.5k words through Nanowrimo – whoop!) and I still squash in reading 2 – 3 books a week. I’d be lost without them. But I can get a bit jaded. Just to check if I was tiring of my free reading challenge I decided to shake things up. Instead of YA I picked a few books from other genres to read.

What a pleasure!

Small town life writ largeFirst up was Libby Kirsch’s The Big Lead. This is part-romance, part-crime and a whole lot of fun. It reminded me of the Jennifer Crusie novels I read years ago to de-stress when I was in the middle of exams. It was an absolute pleasure – small town America with some glorious, off-beat characters to brighten the place up. Plus, I never read crime. I know there were clues there, but they didn’t impinge on me. I was simply along for the ride, so when it all came together in a fabulous, heart-pounding finale I was completely taken by surprise. I’ll definitely look out for more!

Deliciously creepy
Deliciously creepy

Short and far from sweet

Next up was a collection of short stories. I love short stories (a great way to fill a few unexpected minutes queuing or similar) and I probably don’t read enough. That was certainly my opinion after reading these. I downloaded Icy Sedgwick’s Checkmate: Tales of Speculative Fiction. Woah, they were seriously good – creepy and high unsettling as well as being gorgeously imaginative!

Who dunnit?
Who dunnit?

Kept in suspense

And finally, for something completely different I picked up Tracey Pedersen’s All Adrift. I’d probably tag this as romantic suspense as it’s very definitely a romance, but with a strong crime/suspense element.

Also unusual for me, it’s the third in a series. I’m glad to say that didn’t spoil my reading pleasure at all. I was hooked into Jenna and Ryan’s romance from the start, and wanting to find out what was going on with the mysterious, unknown (or was she?) woman. I’m delighted to say all my guesses were completely wrong in a very satisfying way!

Note: putting in links to the books I apologise if they aren’t showing free for you – I think they may have been on a free offer rather than permafree when I picked them up. Having read them, I would say they’re all worth paying for, though!

My free reading challenge: a delightful glut

Well, last week’s giveaway source of free books provided rich pickings. I’ve only started three so far, and I’ve already finished and loved two of them – the third I’m not so sure about, but we’ll see.

To be fair (and to armour myself against future disappointment), I started with the ones that attracted me most. I’m a very picky reader and I’ll be pretty surprised (and delighted) if I continue to like two thirds of all of them (there were ten authors to try in all), but even if I’ve only – ‘only’! – found two new authors to love I’m thrilled.

Drown in books

And I’m delighted to report that these freebies have perked me out of a bit of a reading slump. I’d had a bit of a slog with a couple of read-for-review books I’d selected that didn’t turn out to be as strong as I’d hoped from the previews (gotta love the preview feature; it’s saved me from many a mistake). So zipping through three books in four days has been hugely satisfying. My reading mojo is back and I have oodles more books to feast my eyes and my imagination upon. Life is good.

Right, now I’d better get off and write the reviews I said I would for the books I liked.

Back next week with another update!