Tag Archives: #YABooks

Hooray for holiday reading!

My books, Reading, Writing, , , , , , , , ,

Oh my goodness, I thought I might slacken off when I didn’t have my Alphabet Reading Challenge to keep my nose in a book. I’m delighted to say that hasn’t happened at all!

Rachel E Carter's Black Mage series
Start with the prequel and I bet you won’t want to stop.

Since blogging last I’ve had a lovely week off, taking a holiday by the seaside. I also caught up on some of the books I wanted to read “just because” rather than because they start with the necessary letter of the alphabet to fit my challenge.

Try the preview

I got through the whole of Rachel E Carter’s Black Mage series (terrific – the list of imaginary worlds in which I want to take a holiday grows exponentially!). I read an out of left field 5* book that just happened to catch my eye in a Facebook group I’m a member of. Ember Burning was unsettling in the best way – creative, eerie and populated by fabulous characters.

Cover of Cortney Pearson's The Perilous In-BetweenAnd finally, I read a book by a fellow author in the Shattered Worlds collection. I decided to start with Cortney Pearson’s The Perilous In-Between to check out her take on steampunk, and it’s glorious – delightfully fantastical and beautifully written.

I’m now back to work and writing hard on my clockwork war series – book two is about to go to my proof-readers, and I’m on the home straight to complete the writing of book three. While I’m doing that, my reading is research for what I’m going to write next (ideas are coalescing, but I’m not certain which story I’m going to pick just yet). I’ll keep you posted!

He could be my book boyfriend any day!

If you’ll excuse me a plug, Shattered Worlds is out now and today is the last day to get it at launch-day-bargain price of .99. Next week it will be going up to the regular price of $2.99, so if you’re dithering, dither no longer and grab a copy!

Amazon
Nook
iBooks

Q is for … quite slow-going

Reading, , , , , , , ,

So, leading on from my last alphabet post where I noted that you can rate my enthusiasm for a book from how long I take to read it, I’ll start by telling you I finished my Q book, started more than a week ago, at 10pm last night.

I don’t quite know what happened because I thought I’d love Shadow Queen. Maybe I’ve been thinking about reading it for so long I’d ended up with expectations that were never going to be fulfilled.

Cover of CJ Redwine's Shadow Queen
Check it out for yourself.

Irritatingly, there’s nothing specific I can point at to say, “That was wrong; that’s what I didn’t like.” It just didn’t set me on fire the way I always want a book to do. It was written in 3rd person, which was a change, but a refreshing one since 98.27% of YA books appear to be written in the first person. There were three points of view, which again is a lot for YA, but I don’t see how she could have told the story without all three, and they were very different voices and didn’t jar.

It read a little bit generically, slightly as though it had been composed by numbers of what’s ‘in’ right now. It’s clearly a retelling of snow white, with what felt a little like grisha magic thrown in along with dragon shifters (is it just me, or are dragons EVERYWHERE right now?). There were new and creative elements (the apples were revoltingly fantastic!), but overall I didn’t feel as though it was completely heartfelt. Sorry.

Check back in for my R book next week – I’ve only just started, but I’m already gripped by Risuko by David Kudler, long may it last!