Tag Archives: books

Book Review: Queen of Earth and Stone by Tricia Meyers

29 Wednesday May 2024

Posted by in Reviews

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Author: Tricia Meyers
Publisher: Curious Cow Publishing
Series: Crescent Queens; Bk 1
Genre: Fantasy Romance
Rating: 4.5 Stars
Medium: eBook

The blurb from Amazon: 

Eve Darrow seeks to take the throne in a kingdom where women aren’t permitted to rule.

Split into three kingdoms, the continent of Aestera is divided by more than just geography. In contrast to her southern neighbors, the kingdom of Darkegrove has not seen a ruling queen in five centuries.

Following her father’s unexpected death, Eve aims to turn a kingdom resistant to change on its head, whether they agree or not. Her path is fraught with danger, and a mysterious warrior is called upon to protect her.

Callan Thorne, answering a plea for aid that he is bound to answer, finds himself protecting a princess determined to make history. Unexpected danger lurks around every corner, challenging even his resilience.

As she finds even people she trusts stand against her solitary revolution and will attempt to deter her by any means necessary, she must rely on the mysterious warrior summoned to keep her safe.

Friendships are made, secrets are revealed and hearts are broken. On her quest to forge her own destiny, Eve will discover that none can stand against fate and that not everything is as it seems.

Review: 

Let me start out by saying, I really loved this story, and will 100% dive into book two.

The beginning of the book is a little slow, as a forewarning if you’re looking to give this book a try. I’m not saying this to put anyone off, but more to curb expectations. For me, it picked up about chapter 8-9 and once I hit that mark, I didn’t want to stop and put the book down. I ended up spending my entire Saturday finishing the book off, not doing anything else because by that point I was that invested in Eve and Callan.

Now, you may be going, why is the book slow to start but still good and worth giving it a chance, right? Let me tell you, it’s because the world building took time. There’s care given to the world building, and the slow is partially, in my option and how I took it, done so in order to let it evolve organically. Because of that care, I think I had a deeper investment to our Princess and what she was going through.

My only mild irritation was that a couple things were repeated over and over again, like the author didn’t want me to forget, this is part of the lore. This is important. Don’t forget this. And for that, I wanted to go, yes! I got it! Please don’t repeat this again! Trust us as a reader, that we’ll remember it. Maybe something important warrants being said a second time, but when we get to fourth, sixth, tenth, my brain wants to remind people that it can retain information. Please don’t treat us like we’ll forget after a hundred pages THIS ONE THING.

But, I mean, it took me four days to read the book, and I spent an entire day consuming the end of it to make sure I didn’t have to deal with work while itching to read it.

If you like fantasy, badass Princesses, a bodyguard with secrets, and an immersive world that’s waiting for you to give right in with a rich lore, definitely give this book a try. You won’t be sorry. I certainly wasn’t.

Book Review: Hemlock Island by Kelley Armstrong

19 Thursday Oct 2023

Posted by in Reviews

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , ,

Author: Kelley Armstrong
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
Series: Stand Alone
Genre: Horror
Rating: 2 Stars
Medium: Audio Book

The blurb from Amazon: 
Laney Kilpatrick has been renting her vacation home to strangers. The invasion of privacy gives her panic attacks, but it’s the only way she can keep her beloved Hemlock Island, the only thing she owns after a pandemic-fueled divorce. But broken belongings and campfires that nearly burn down the house have escalated to bloody bones, hex circles, and now, terrified renters who’ve fled after finding blood and nail marks all over the guest room closet, as though someone tried to claw their way out…and failed.

When Laney shows up to investigate with her teenaged niece in tow, she discovers that her ex, Kit, has also been informed and is there with Jayla, his sister and her former best friend. Then Sadie, another old high school friend, charters over with her brother, who’s now a cop.

There are tensions and secrets, whispers in the woods, and before long, the discovery of a hand poking up from the earth. Then the body that goes with it… But by that time, someone has taken off with their one and only means off the island, and they’re trapped with someone—or something—that doesn’t want them leaving the island alive.

I went into this book really looking forward to it. It’s spooky season. Kelley Armstrong is one of my favorite authors – I hands down love her Women of the Otherworld series. Though, if you caught the star rating above, you’ll already know that unfortunately I didn’t really love it.

Also just a warning there may be some spoilers in the review so if you haven’t read it and want to make your own opinion before reading mine, I suggest reading it and coming back to read my review.

The book started off well. We’re introduced to Hemlock Island by Laney getting a phone call from her current renters because there’s blood in a closet. Naturally, they aren’t interested in staying and want a refund for the shock. And after that call, Laney decides to head out to the island to check it out, and her ward and niece Madison in tow. As she gets to the island, we’re introduced to her ex-husband, Kit, who had actually been the one to gift her Hemlock Island and the house on it as a wedding present and his sister Jayla. After arriving on the island by boat, an old high school friend and her brother also show up. So we have a motley crew of six people that are checking out what’s going on in the house.

As the book develops we find out slowly the history between Kit and Laney, as well as Jayla and Sadie. As friendships go, their story is a spiderweb knotted history and the past only puts tension between all of them. Which, in the beginning, does help to amp up some of the tension for the novel too because they’re not sure what’s going on and things start to not add up.

It culminates in them finding a severed arm sticking out of the ground at the house and some back and forth on if it’s a real arm or a Halloween prop prank because people have been trying to push Laney into selling Hemlock Island.

The book as a whole at this point is giving slasher thriller vibes to the horror genre it was placed in, and as a whole I was here for it. Especially when they go to try and get off the island only to find that the boat is missing, but so is one of the six so the logical conclusion is they took off in the night with the boat and left them stranded. And a check to the personal shed where there should be some kayaks only leads to everything but a paddle board being destroyed. This leaves the remaining five trapped on the island with no way off and no communication to the outside world because there’s no service on Hemlock Island.

About half way through the book, give or take, the story veers into some really strange choices. Now that we’re halfway into the book, we start to get hints of strange paranormal happenings – like body parts that aren’t connected to the rest of the body still twitching and moving kind of hints. With body parts being used in strange ways, I was still kind of riding this, okay maybe it’s a weird Satanic cult kind of thing going on because some of the symbols were pulled out of Satanic books and off websites and things. Because it also means that in some ways, we’re still in that slasher, trapped on the island with the killer kind of vibe. After all, the killer could have used the current dead to raise something or feed the land kind of sacrifice need. So strange but still kind of riding that wave.

Then while trapped in the house, because of what they’d found with the body parts, the story careens sideways with this romance bubble where Laney and Kit have this heart to heart – because apparently now is the time to really work out what went wrong in their marriage, and also oh surprise there’s a secret kid in the mix to further complicate everything between everyone that had come to the island. The whole side-step of the narrative really felt off and out of place because as a whole, it didn’t have anything to do with the plot. The secret kid/how she was conceived felt purely there to be the full and soul reason for the rift between some of the group and fell a little flat as a whole. Though it could also be because all it did was add to the sideways pull from the horror genre we were supposed to be in.

To fully push us off the story cliff, or in tv land as we say, to jump the shark, surprise the big bad is the island spirit thing itself that’s been killing and fucking with them because apparently Laney broke a promise to it. Once she hadn’t even realized she’d made when Kit had brought her to the island and they decided to buy it and build the house on it. What really disappointed me was for someone who wrote a full paranormal series, the paranormal in this horror book fell so flat. There was gore for the sake of gore instead of a horror scare. The paranormal limitations of this creature/spirit/thing didn’t add up or make sense. And because it all came out of no where, for me at least because like I said before, I was totally down the slasher-trapped on the island with the killer – maybe it’s a paranormal cult killing. So to have it be some island spirit of the land thing was kind of weird.

Like I said above too, the limitations of the powers of this thing didn’t make sense, or well technically the lack there of. It’s creating a cloud of birds thick enough that the characters can’t see through – which means it likely would have had to pull them from the mainland realistically? It’s killing with the foliage – and making the vines sharp enough to actually sever limbs. It’s taking over the dead bodies to speak through them and make them move, but can also appear as the dead person as if they were whole and fine. Also it can take over NOT dead people? Like, this thing basically has the powers of a god, but also couldn’t stop someone from being killed because they were sleeping. When you really look at all the things this creature thing has done, the rules under which its being written and explained don’t make a whole lot of sense, almost like Kelley wasn’t able to actually give her full attention to ensuring that there were world rules on its powers and what they would be. It feels more like, let’s throw the kitchen sink at it when it comes to powers and what it can do, who cares if they all make sense together. Which again, since I love one of her paranormal series where she writes the vampires, werewolves, and other supernatural with a clear boundary of their powers and limitations, was severely disappointing to me.

All in all, I guess if you don’t mind not looking too hard at the whys, and don’t mind a little genre whiplash, take a try of this book. Though I would recommend waiting until you can get it on sale.

New Year, New Goals

12 Wednesday Jan 2022

Posted by in Personal Thoughts, Writing

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

So how are we all feeling now that 2022 has fully set in?

My Holiday season was filled with family, a friend that came for a visit, and some rest. My Aunt was kind enough to grab the Self-publishing Marketing books I requested for Christmas and my Cousin got me some more things for my Cricut so I need to get back into doing the coasters and mugs. I still haven’t actually set up my mug press in my Craft Room.

With the new year, and having a friend over for the Holidays, it made mom and I even more aware that we need to reorganize the Craft Room – with some shifting of the stuff in there we can fit a day bed in it and make it a guest room as well – because right now any guests have to sleep on the pull-out couch which 1) I didn’t realize how hard it was for sleeping all night and 2) is in the living room so barely any privacy.  But I’ve been wanting an excuse for a deep clean anyway, so this gives the perfect reasoning.

So that leads well into 2022 and my goals. I have a few, but I’m trying to keep them to a manageable amount.

  1. Clean the Craft Room and set it up as a partial Guest Room.
  2. Finish Book 2 of the Ragnarok Trilogy with my co-author and publish in July.
  3. Finish editing Into the Faerietale and get that out this year – thinking September-ish for it.
  4. Finish writing, edit, and get a short novella-length story out on my other pen name.
  5. Get my Ko-Fi shop running a little better both with book merch, books, and the necklaces I’ve been making.

All in all, it’s a manageable list, I think. A secondary goal is to create some more merch for both Hotel Fen and Into the Faerietale. I have the bookplates that I need to get up on the shop – so if people buy the physical book through Amazon or B&N and want our signatures on them, they can grab one. I also splurged and made pins:

Which I think came out amazing! They’re metal and enamel with butterfly clasps on the back. And I made special pin backings for them that match the bookplates the signatures are on.

But yes, those are my 2022 goals. What are your goals for the year? I’d love to hear them!

Book Review: Caffeinated Calamity by Amanda M. Lee

08 Wednesday Dec 2021

Posted by in Reviews

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Author: Amanda M. Lee
Publisher: Amanda M. Lee
Series: A Two Broomsticks Gas & Grill Witch Cozy Mystery
Genre: Paranormal Romance, Cozy Mystery
Rating: 4 Stars

Can you tell that I’m enjoying the series already since we’re now on book two?

Yes, we’re back with Stormy Morgan, new witch in the small town of Shadow Hills, Michigan. Well, technically, make that only witch in Shadow Hills since her great-grandmother moved away to Florida years back. Which means that she’s navigating this new power all on her own, while she tries to keep it fairly quiet from her family, the town and her not-quite boyfriend, Hunter.

Overall, the writing is cute and I’m enjoying the characters and continuation of the story and what’s going on with Stormy. Book two actually opens up with a Prologue set in Hemlock Cove, a town over from Shadow Hills with Bay and Thistle Winchester. From reading other reviews, of the first book and this book I had already picked up that this was a series set in a much bigger universe from her other series. This prologue, for those who haven’t read any of her other series, pretty much confirms it. I did a little digging to link that the Winchesters are from her ‘Wicked Witches of the Midwest’ books, of which there are currently nineteen out. Something I might tackle later because I can’t say I’m not interested in reading Bay’s story from the beginning.

Spoilers weaved in and out of my review ahead, so read at your discretion.

I did like this book a little more than the first, though I think part of it is because while it’s frustrating Stormy, Hunter is trying to actually do the right thing by not just jumping into a relationship with Stormy so soon after his breakup with Monica. Stormy as a whole is worried that it’s because she’s not sure if it’s due to Hunter having second thoughts, but he does confirm it’s because he knows he was in the wrong with how he treated Monica and wanted to give it some time before the relationship was more or less rubbed into Monica’s face.

While the town might still be gossiping about them, I actually appreciate him trying to do the right thing and not give the town MORE to gossip about or throw in her face.

As well, Stormy is starting to come to terms with her being a witch, with her friend Sebastian dragging her off to Hemlock Cove to the Winchester’s store in an effort to get her to kind of feel out the family because it’s a well-known not-secret that they are in fact witches.

The speed at which the murders are happening in town since Stormy came back is a little concerning though. We’re only a few weeks after the conclusion of the first book, where someone was murdered behind the family restaurant when one drops dead as she’s leaving from breakfast – the ultimate conclusion for death being poisoned. So again, another murder. (And I’m already partway into book three, which takes place only a few weeks after this one, and again, a new murder) So we’re talking like, three murders in the span of like a month and a half – two months? That’s a LOT, especially for a small town. It asks for a lot of suspension of disbelief – it’s easier to believe the speed of murders were it in a larger town, because more people, but in a town where everyone knows everyone and the largest gossip outside of the murders is that Hunter’s truck was parked behind the restaurant so everyone knows he spent the night at Stormy’s apartment – it takes a decent amount of disbelief for ‘reading reasons’ to wonder why people haven’t fleed this town ages ago if this is how fast people are dropping.

The book had a similar feel of book one, where we’re focusing on Stormy and her magic, or Stormy and Hunter a lot and sometimes it does feel like the murder and the mystery of it get pushed back a little for the other things. I like that magic is starting to take a bigger roll in the books as Stormy is learning about it and of it, though I also feel like if there was a little more time between each book (and murder) there’s some hand waving, Stormy has been learning and so we can speed up the rate at which she’s learning to use it a little more. However, I do feel like we had a little more sleuthing about the murder and into why it happened than the first book, so the conclusion of the who, how, and why came a little more in flow with the rest of the book.

I’d definitely still recommend it if you’re looking for a cute, cozy mystery to read with a hint of paranormal/witchy flare. And I will say with the cameos from the Winchester family, I am curious to read their story from their perspective – or well, Bay’s perspective mostly. Their appearance makes me wish I knew of them before picking up this book, and you can tell there’s a large family dynamic going on among them, but at the same time, I think they were handled well in that I don’t feel that I was missing anything from not reading their books that affected how they interacted with Stormy and her story as a whole.

Book Review: Sinfully Delicious by Amanda M. Lee

03 Friday Dec 2021

Posted by in Reviews

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Author: Amanda M. Lee
Publisher: Amanda M. Lee
Series: A Two Broomsticks Gas & Grill Witch Cozy Mystery
Genre: Paranormal Romance, Cozy Mystery
Rating: 4 Stars

Sinfully Delicious is a Cozy Mystery that follows our main character, Stormy Morgan, as she tries to settle back into her hometown of Shadow Hills, Michigan after having left it for several years. We learn quickly that she left Shadow Hills for college and to become a writer, which she was successful with for the first book.

With the failure of her second book, her publisher canceled her contract and with no prospects at the moment, and little to her name or cash in her bank account, she finds herself back in her hometown.

Overall, Sinfully Delicious was a cute start to a new series. I haven’t read any of Amanda Lee’s books before now, so this is my entrance into her as an author as well and overall I do like what I see. I can confirm I’m already eight chapters into the second book for this series, because I liked it enough to want to continue and see where this story goes with the main character Stormy, as well as her grandfather and her ex.

Spoilers weaved in and out of my review ahead, so read at your discretion.

Stormy is an interesting character, and while she does come off a little whiny at life and her lot in it with having to find herself back in her hometown, living above her family’s restaurant by the grace of her grandfather’s working with her on the rent to lease the place, if you really think about it wouldn’t you be a little whiny if you were in her shoes too? No one expects to make it, break it, and find themselves back at home after college. I will say, I would have liked to see her pull her bootstraps up a little bit more than she did as a whole with being an adult that’s almost thirty, but to be fair and realistic, I’ve seen this attitude first hand so I can’t say it’s not wrong or inaccurate with how people are sometimes either.

Her grandfather is possibly one of my favorite characters in the book. Especially with his disappearing acts whenever Hunter, local cop and Stormy’s ex-boyfriend, comes around to try and talk to him. Especially when he pops back up after Hunter leaves like he’d been at the counter cooking the entire time she’d been looking for him and Hunter was there.

I do have to say I wasn’t thrilled with Hunter as a whole, more with how he was using his current girlfriend throughout the book. It’s both said about him from a friend, as well as he does more or less outright say he knew that it was never going to work with Monica, but he kept her around because he wanted to have a wall or shield against having Stormy come back so he could have a super easy way of keeping Stormy at arm’s length. Which is 100% not fair to Monica to be strung along for almost a month just because he was scared of how it might go between him and his ex-girlfriend. While I didn’t like Monica, I do sympathize with her a little because she was, in effect, a pawn to Hunter when she thought he actually cared about her.

Sinfully Delicious is sold as a Witch Cozy Mystery, and while like I did say I’m into book 2 already, the first book doesn’t do a lot for bringing in the paranormal to the book to tag the first book a witch book. We slowly learn, with Stormy, that she has powers that she accidentally unlocked one night while playing with a Ouija board. By the end of the book it’s clear she has powers and comes from a witch line on her grandfather’s side – and honestly with the way her grandfather seems to be able to pop in and out of sight at the drop of a hat I wouldn’t be surprised if later on in the series we find out that he does have at least a small bit of magic he keeps to himself. But as a whole I wish for a WITCH cozy mystery there’d been a little more WITCH to it.

As well, while there is a death and a mystery, I did find myself feeling like the mystery aspect of it took a large backseat to the romance aspect with the push and pull of Stormy and Hunter as they tried to navigate their feelings for each other.

Maybe I’m just used to the cozy mysteries where the main character has her nose in EVERYTHING when it comes to trying to sniff out the who dun it, with the story focusing on the mystery and the romance being the secondary plot so having it almost flipped left me a little disappointed with the mystery as a whole. But it felt like the wrap-up of the mystery was a little rushed in this book. As a whole, the mystery was wrapped up decently well and it all made sense to the story and plot, it just felt a little like we realized we had gotten to the end of the book and needed to wrap it up so let’s get on that, kind of ending.

But at the end of the day, it’s also a cozy mystery, and it was a cute and cozy read.

Cover Reveal: These Wicked Delights by Jessi Elliott

14 Wednesday Apr 2021

Posted by in Cover Reveal

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Title: These Wicked Delights
Author: Jessi Elliott
Genre: YA Contemporary Fantasy
Release Date: June 15, 2021

Synopsis

When eighteen-year-old Emery Leclerc is taken from her home by a man who claims she has
magical powers, she isn’t sure who to call first: the police or the psych ward.

After discovering that the magic running through her veins is the reason her parents died years
ago, Emery wants nothing to do with it. She’d like nothing more than to return to her boring,
small-town life. But left unchecked, her newly awakened abilities prove dangerous. She must
learn to control her magic or risk having it consume her—and dying before making it out of high
school would seriously suck.

Unfortunately for Emery, learning magic isn’t as easy as her new housemates make it seem. As
her frustration grows, she learns that, while she may not want her magic, there’s a Wielder who
does… and the hauntingly familiar and wickedly charming Remington will do whatever it takes
to have it. As Emery battles him, she struggles to unravel the truth about her magical block and
the undeniable pull she feels towards her enemy.

They say the truth will set you free, but for Emery, it could be the very thing that kills her.

Pre-Order

Amazon | Apple | Nook | Kobo | Google

You can also Pre-Order a signed Paperback and get an exclusive Swag Pack FREE! Click Here!

Meet the Author

Jessi Elliott is a law clerk and author of both young adult and new adult romantic fiction. Her love of writing was born after many years of reading and reviewing books on her blog.

She lives in Southwestern Ontario with her adorable cat, Phoebe. Yes, named after the Friends character.  

When she’s not plotting her next writing project, she likes to spend her time hanging with friends and family, getting lost in a steamy romance novel, watching Friends, and drinking coffee.  

You can find Jessi at www.jessielliott.com, on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. You can join her newsletter to stay up to date on book news and upcoming releases.

Catch Up

12 Monday Apr 2021

Posted by in Personal Thoughts, Writing

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I’m not even sure how we’re almost half way through April, I’m going to be completely honest with you. February and March passed quickly, leaving barely a trace of themselves behind as I stand here blinking at the progression of time. I mean, I know that they passed, my co-author and I worked really hard to finish our first draft by the end of Feb, which we ALMOST met deadline for. We technically finished it on March 1st, but that’s a close enough finish that I’m super happy with it.

March flew past in a blur. Things ramped up at work and I used March as a month to let the draft sit and get some space from, though we’re almost halfway into April and I am reminded that I need to dig into the edits now. I have some edits to make because I had someone read it and note all across it, plus re-reading to see where it needs edits myself as well. But I have faith that I’ll get there, and that we’ll get there, because my co-author is planning to read through and edit the draft after I run through it.

Meanwhile we’re already trying to outline books two and three so they’re all in line with each other from the start. We want to make sure the book plot and the overarching plot of the trilogy work well across the three books. So all the outlining and planning for us. And still pretty on par with our July release deadline we set for ourselves.

Life wise, things have been as they have been. Which is to say, the world is still in a pandemic, we’re mostly still stuck at home. I and my mother have both been fortunate enough to get the vaccine, we both work with hospital staff and doctors, pharmacists and residents who see patients so we were in the 1B section of the population. For those who might be wondering, neither of us had much in the way of side effects. I slept for the day after getting it, she was tired the day after but over all after 24 hours we were both fine. And we’re still making sure to be super careful and follow all the masking and hand washing recommendations.

I’m really glad that the weather has warmed up again, I’ve decided that while I’m working from home I’m going to strive to take like, an hour or two on the laptop and work outside so I can get some fresh air and get out of the house a little while still working. Of course, after the first day of doing this, it’s rained every day since. So, fun times there. And because of the rain, my migraines haven’t been great, though I’m trying a new medication recommended to me, over the counter, and it seems to be helping some. I still have them, but they’re less crawl under my desk and cry these days. So I can work through them so long as I’m in a hat or a non-florescent lit room. Small favor.

Over all I’m hoping to get back to writing on here more consistently. Wish me luck.

I hope, dear readers, that you’re staying healthy and safe.

And time vanishes

12 Tuesday Jan 2021

Posted by in Personal Thoughts, Writing

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

So I lost my weekend to the best reason possible. All the words. All the words is definitely a good thing to lose time to though. My co-author on Project Norse and I decided to try and do a 10K words in a day challenge for our respective Saturdays.

As a whole, the challenge went well. We realized fairly early on that our time zone difference made for an interesting addition to the challenge, because with her in the Philippines and me in the United States, being fourteen hours apart means we can’t just boomerang the novel back and forth between us all day. For a good chunk of the writing time, one of us was sleeping while the other was writing.

We made it work though by working on different scenes in the novel at once. Like, I think we were working on four or five different areas to go back and forth with each other, but then also we had a couple areas where one of us took the lead on a certain scene and ran with it.

Neither of us hit 10,000 words on Saturday, but both of us got a little more than halfway through. She finished her 10,000 words on her Sunday. I didn’t, because I ran into a secondary challenge for a long da like that. So back in May 2019 I had my dominant hand’s wrist in a cast. And ever since that accident I’ve had serious problems with my wrist when I over work it.

Well apparently it feels that 6,372 words it decided was over working it. My morning went super well and I was able to get a little over 2,000 words before breakfast, but it had started to ache after that and just get progressively worse through the day as I tried to alternate between resting it and working on more words as I could.

Sunday was pretty much a get nothing done, only rest it day. Also, all the grocery shopping and things I had meant to do that I pushed off from Saturday, so no real other words happened over the weekend. But still, we were able to get about 16,000 words collectively on our novel over the weekend, which is awesome! Since we have that July deadline for publishing, it’s great that we’re able to make so much progress on it as a whole for draft one. As well, when we were awake at the same time and not writing, we were able to flush out our outline to really hone into the timeline of what we what to happen when and how we kind of want it to go so we have guiding things to get us there. Overall, it’s a super productive weekend.

And then yesterday I also realized part of the problem with my wrist is that when I have to work on campus and cover the front desk, that the angle the desk is at compared to the chair is part of my problem. We’ll see if anyone complains about the chair, because I lowered it by like a TON, but I’m hoping since it’s just a little lever, that they’ll just shift it for them when they’re on campus and no one will complain. But the angle was not okay for me anymore. within the first hour of working at the desk my wrist felt like it did after writing 6K words from Saturday, only worse. So yeah, something had to change. I also shifted how the monitors were set on the desk, but those were put back after my shift so no one had to worry about them.

I’m hoping my work week goes fairly quiet as a whole, and I can continue to get words in on the novel. I really want to continue this momentum that we’ve found on getting things done on the different chapters. I’d personally love it if we could have draft one finished by either the end of January or the really early beginning of February so we can get those edits in hard and fast.

Hope your week goes well, readers! And if you did anything you’re proud of, drop a comment and let me know!

Also, if you’re wondering what the image has to do with this post, well, it’s partially just because it’s my kitty and I love him. And partially because that’s legitimately how tired I feel right now.

2021 – Forward We Move

04 Monday Jan 2021

Posted by in Personal Thoughts, Writing

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Can you believe that we’re already four days into the new year? Hopefully your New Years celebrations, even if quiet, was good. Mine was mostly quiet with some Star Trek Discovery watching with my mom and some Among Us with some friends before that.

So far, I’d say my year is progressing well as a whole. I’ve been getting some writing in, but then my co-writer and I have set a very ambitious goal for our joint book so can’t take too many days wtihout touching it.

Let’s just get right into my goals for 2021!

  1. Finish, edit, market, and publish the book I’m working on with my co-author. Our ambitious deadline for it all is July. Six months. We’re that ambitious. But we’re also extremely motivated to get it done!
  2. Finish editing and publish faerie novel.
  3. Finalize and publish at least two shot story/novellas
  4. Read 24 books – this is two books a month. Which, if I carve out a little time occasionally, should be more than doable.
  5. Be more active on both Instagram and Twitter.
  6. Work on both Esty shops to get them up and going a little better.

They’re fairly ambitious goals for the most part, but they’ll keep me going through the year. And they’ll hopefully mean that I’ll get all the things done. Though for the first six months of the year, my main focus is definitely going to be on that first goal. I’m super excited to both work on it but also get it out in the world. We both are. Closer to it’s release, I’ll share a little more details about it.

To keep up with visuals of my progress, be sure to check out my Instagram account! You can find both my Instagram and my Twitter in the left side bar on this blog.

Do you have any goals for the new year? If so, please let me know in the comments below!

Book Review: Rogue Huntress by Thea Atkinson

30 Wednesday Dec 2020

Posted by in Reviews

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Author: Thea Atkinson
Publisher: Thea Atkinson
Series: Rogue Huntress Chronicles
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Release Date: July 6, 2016
Rating: 4 Stars

Find Rogue Huntress on Goodreads

Brief Synopsis

Shana, an assassin for the Beo pack, has been taken hostage by her foster brother, Caleb, after he kills her father, the alpha. By pack law, Caleb is now the alpha of the pack, but Shana and her brothers are a threat to his leadership and he’ll do what he can to force Shana into submission with the lives of her brothers.

Can Shana fake submission long enough to turn the tables on Caleb and take her pack back? Or will the human mercenary Caleb’s brought in be too much of a distraction that she’ll lose it all?

Review

The book starts off right in the thick of everything. We don’t start before Shana’s capture to get to know any of the characters, but with Shana already captured, trapped in the manor she called home. Caleb, her foster-brother turned captor wants her to submit to him and be his mate, but naturally Shana doesn’t want to mate to the man who had killed her father and put her essentially in a cage, even if her wolf thinks the idea of mating to such a powerful wolf isn’t a terrible idea.

A lot of the backstory about Shana and Caleb comes to us through Shana reflecting back on the past and both who she thought people were coupled with what Shana has gone through to make her the woman she is today. She thinks several times that she’s not sure who this Caleb is, because he wasn’t the man she’d grown up with, trained with, and knew as a brother. Though short of those comments we aren’t ever shown that juxtaposition against the Caleb we see keeping her captor and wanting her to be his. It’s a lot of telling in that respect.

Throughout the book, we’re teased back and forth with Jeb, the human mercenary that helped Caleb take over the pack and had been helping keep Shana captive. He seems cold and calculating, but then there are glimpses where we think we can maybe trust him, that he’ll be there and come through to help Shana take Caleb down and free her pack from his influence.

The worldbuilding that exists is good, because we’re mostly kept at Shana’s manor and the surrounding woods and ravine around it there isn’t too much to have Shana describe or see to us. But the descriptions of the old trees, the roots that in some scenes are large enough for Shana to duck under or around, the bramble bushes with their pricklers are described nicely to be able to visually see what Shana is going through. Even the description of the halls of the large manor as we’re taken through it in the different scenes left me fairly confident I knew about where things were from walking the halls with Shana.

The characters are mostly well thought out. Shana, being the main character feels the most alive, and her inner thoughts, motivations, and drive are well written. She’s very much a well flushed out character. As were the others over all. I don’t know if I’m over thinking it too much, but the only piece of the puzzle I feel like I’m missing is Caleb’s motivation for killing Shana’s father and taking over the pack.

Throughout the book Shana’s telling us that this isn’t the man she grew up with, and yet Jeb mentions at one point that this had been years in the planning. And Caleb didn’t take the pack over by way of the normal trial by combat normally associated with an alpha battle but crept in the shadows and took the wolves he knew he couldn’t beat fairly by deception and blind surprise. It leads well to why some of the pack wouldn’t follow him because it reeks of cowardliness despite the strength Shana’s wolf tells us Caleb has.

While I liked the book over all, it’s the lack of understanding Caleb’s motivation for turning on the people that had welcomed him in as a family for centuries if Shana’s offer of growing up with him is caught correctly is what leaves this more at a four star read. The story does hook you, and I followed it happily. I am also considering picking up the next book to see where Shana goes. However, even after I read it, I still have the serious, but why did he do it, nagging at the back of my head. There were also quite a few noticeable errors in spelling and punctuation being funky that while it didn’t completely pull me out of the story, were distracting.

Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout in exchange for my honest, unbiased opinion. All thoughts are my own, and were not colored for receiving a free copy.