Tag: fantasybooks

A Spell for Murder Review

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Another review this fine Thursday afternoon.

This is a very fitting read for the month we are in with Witches, Occult themes and a murder mystery.

Down a quiet lane in town sits a little shop full of oddities you’d probably miss if you weren’t looking for it. This is Love’s Curiosities Inc., and its owner, Temerity Love, is sought by experts all over the world for her rare and magical gift: the ability to find lost things and learn their stories. When Lost Maidens’ pretty local school teacher is found murdered by a poisoned cup of tea, a strange antique hand mirror is discovered nearby. Temerity – with the help of witchy sister Tilda, their cats Scylla and Charybdis and the lovingly eccentric local townspeople – is determined to divine the story behind the mirror and its part in Miss Molly Bayliss’ untimely death. If only grumpy out-of-towner Angus Harley of Lost Maidens Police wasn’t on the scene. Temerity can’t solve the crime without him, but he’s distracting, and in more ways than one. Can this unconventional duo solve the most mysterious murder ever to blight Lost Maidens Loch before the killer strikes again?

Click the title to read more!

September Wrap Up 2019

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Here are all the books I read in September of 2019.

Titans of History by Simon Sebag Montefiore (2 stars)

So, this book is a biography about many famous people of history and it started off pretty great. I was loving all the people included and was finding out some pretty interesting facts and then… I just got bored. The writing was boring, the closer you get to the present the more boring the “titans” chosen were and I just lost momentum with this massive book. So, I was not a fan by the end.

The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan (5 stars)

Personally, I am a bit biased when it comes to this book. I read this series when I was younger and absolutely adored it. A couple of years later, nothing has changed. I loved Percy’s POV and his witty sense of humour and I loved just being able to be apart of this world again.

Mort by Terry Pratchett (4 stars)

I was a bit worried after reading Equal Rites as I was quite disappointed with that book. So, going into this one I was apprehensive as I didn’t want to be disappointed again. Thankfully, that wasn’t the case. This was so much fun. The world building was immaculate, I wanted to explore every facet of this part of the series and I was very sad when the book ended.

The Body on the Train by Frances Brody (4 stars)

My first ever Netgalley review! I thoroughly enjoyed this novel, the main character was an amazing female character, the plot was enticing but nothing beat the amazing atmosphere she conjured up. I felt on the edge of my seat all the way through this book.

The Final Empire Review

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  • Author: Brandon Sanderson
  • Series: Mistborn #1
  • Genre: High Fantasy
  • No of pages: 647
  • Year Published: 2006
  • Dates read: 19.07.19 – 30.07.19
  • Rating: 5 stars (Favourite)

I cannot put into words how incredibly amazing this book is.

Going into this book I was worried that it may be over-hyped and that I might not enjoy it as much as everyone else did but that was NOT the case, AT ALL!!

Plot: In a world where ash falls from the sky, and mist dominates the night, an evil cloaks the land and stifles all life. The future of the empire rests on the shoulders of a troublemaker and his young apprentice. Together, can they fill the world with colour once more?

First of all, all the characters you meet are just written so incredibly well. I loved every single one of them both good and evil! They were also so varied all the character felt a bit grey and even if they were more on the good side, they had their doubts, worries and moments of anger. They felt like real people, not just classic stereotypes.

Vin, especially, was amazing. I really enjoyed her character arc within the story. Watching her grow was so fun and you couldn’t help but root for her and want to see her succeed. It was so good to see a strong female character kick ass in a more male-dominated world.

I loved the world-building. Sanderson just created such a rich world that is so layered, that I know all the detailed info we received about the world is just the tip of the iceberg to how intricate the Final Empire is. The Government and the Nobility were such interesting factors in the story. I loved learning about how the higher classes worked and how the Empire functioned alongside the Nobles. The political intrigue, which was a massive theme in this book, was so good. I loved all the secrets, backstabbing, false loyalties everything. This is something that I am slowly becoming more interested in and this book fuelled my passion to read more books with political intrigue in.

The magic system was so much fun. I loved learning all about Allomancy and what it can and can’t do. At first, I found it a bit difficult to grasp, I still don’t totally know how SteelPushing and IronPuling work in regards to moving around a city quickly, but it was so much fun to learn. I really liked how we learned about the metals over the course of a couple of hundred pages and how we learnt different facets of the system alongside different characters. It gives us more of an insight into the characters and allowed for better development and also it was a fun way to not shove all info down our throats at the very beginning.

The writing as a whole is really accessible. I found myself reading with ease and the first 100 pages were probably the most drawn into a story I have ever been. The combat was done really well, most of the time I find combat scenes hard to read and just skim over them but because Sanderson’s writing is accessible and easy to follow. I found the scenes so enjoyable after one particular scene my heart was beating so fast!

One of my biggest disappointments in this story is the lack of female characters. Thankfully, Vin is a brilliantly written character but we literally only had a choice of 4 female characters and one of them is dead and only mentioned in the past tense! While the characters were interesting, they were not as varied as the numerous male characters we meet along the way. I hope in the sequel we will see more varied female characters. Thankfully, the characters we were given were written well and shown as capable women in this tough world. I just wanted to see more.

Overall, I get the hype. It is well and truly deserved. I cannot wait to read the sequel and read more of Sanderson’s work as a whole!

The next book I will be reviewing will be another Agatha Christie novel, The Big Four. I felt that I should have a break from the fantasy genre as my TBR consists of mostly fantasy at the moment and it might just be too much to read one after the other so I decided to break it up with a small cosy murder mystery.

A Monster Calls Review

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  • Author: Patrick Ness
  • Series: Standalone
  • Genre: Fantasy
  • No. of pages: 237
  • Dates read: 16.07.19
  • Rating: 4 stars

I don’t have many things to say about this book.

I devoured it. I read it in about 2 hours and sobbed all the way through the end.

I had been putting this book off for some time as I knew what it was about and having experienced similar situations in my life like Connor is experiencing I didn’t want to be reminded. I felt, in the end, the best thing to do was just read it and get it over and done with.

Plot: Conor has the same dream every night, ever since his mother first fell ill, ever since she started the treatments that don’t quite seem to be working. But tonight is different. Tonight, when he wakes, there’s a visitor at his window. It’s ancient, elemental, a force of nature. And it wants the most dangerous thing of all from Conor. It wants the truth.

I loved the Monster. He was my favourite character, I loved his stories, his attitude his wisdom. He was such an interesting character and honestly I would love another book where we learn more about him and the other people he has met through his life.

The ending was beautiful. The atmosphere was written so well, the messages were detailed so perfectly but without it being shoved in your face. But I can’t deny the ending tore me in two. I sobbed so much. It was the first time I had ever had such a strong reaction to a book.

As the book goes I didn’t think it was extraordinary. The writing was pretty basic and I didn’t really feel things until the ending but I could not deny the ending was so perfectly done and I can understand why people rate it so highly.

Like I mentioned already, I was apprehensive going into this book as I had a rough idea of what was going to happen at the end. Over the past couple of years I have dealt with some personal situations that slightly reflect what is going on with this book so reading this brought back a lot of emotions and memories for me. I felt that, since I read this book so quickly I would go back and re-read it. Now, after some time, I personally don’t want to experience how I felt after reading the book. My heart physically ached and I felt very low. Because this was my physical reaction to the book and especially the themes in this book I have decided to not re-read this novel. I have never reacted like this too a book and while it was an interesting experience it’s not one I want to experience again any time soon.

The next book I will be reviewing is a book I have wanted to read for ages. The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson. I can’t wait to jump in and see what all the hype is about.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire review

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  • Author: J.K Rowling
  • Series: Harry Potter #4
  • Genre: Fantasy
  • No. of pages: 636
  • Dates read: 01.06.19 – 23.06.19
  • Rating: 5 stars (Favourite)
  • Challenge: 2019 sequels and ONTD Challenge June Theme, “A book about friendship or where friendship is the main theme.”

I love the Harry Potter series! It is one of my favourite series of all time. I love the movies, the theme parks, everything. I listen to all the podcasts about it and last year I decided I was going to re-read my favourite series as I couldn’t remember much of Order of the Phoenix, Half-Blood Prince and Deathly Hallows, so I wanted to remind myself.

When I knew I was going to re-read this book I decided I wanted to approach the re-read with a different focus in mind. I had recently been listening to a podcast called Harry Potter and the Sacred Text. This podcast would take a deep dive into each chapter of the books and focus on a specific theme. They would analyse the chapter and have in-depth and insightful discussions on the events in that chapter. I binged this podcast and I thought to myself. I would love to adopt this idea of reading each chapter with a theme in mind, I would like to see if it shaped my way of thinking.

I also decided to annotate favorutie quotes and passages I found in the book. So I grabbed two highlighters, a pen and a ruler and got to work!

My takeaway from this experience was, that while I enjoyed looking for where the theme was in each book this needs to be a practice that you do over a long period of time. You can’t condense this into a short period of time. I tried to fit Goblet of Fire into one month and it was tricky at times as I felt I was putting a timetable in place to make sure I got it done. It felt more like homework than the joy of reading. That’s on me.

Some chapters were easier than others to annotate and some themes were easier to find corresponding quotes or passages. I did find though that I didn’t enjoy the book as much as I could of if I was just highlighting quote that I like and just reading the books as normal. But it was a vital practice for me to take a longer and more intricate look at the story. I felt that I learned more about the motivations of characters; I learned the catalyst for poignant moments in the novel that I may not have picked up on if I had just read it normally and I appreciated Rowling’s plot a lot more than I initially did as I was looking at it through a magnifying glass.

That being said, I will not be adopting this practice for Order of the Phoenix for two reasons.

  1. The book is incredibly long with some mundane chapters so I don’t want to be spending two months annotating, getting bored of the practice and then ruining my re-read experience. Also, making me want to step from the practice all together for future novels.
  2. I feel like I grasped the meaning of the practice and I am ready to move on and try something new.

I may come back and annotate the book for the theme’s in a future re-read but for now I will take a step back.

This review was more focused on my experience annotating a novel more so than the content of the book. The book was just as extravagant, heart-breaking and fun as I had thought so when I previously read it about 5 years ago. One thing that did change for this re-read was that I got very emotional over Cedric’s death and the following scenes after that. I feel like this was because I knew what was going to follow Harry after this moment and it broke my heart. Cedric’s death is such a cataclysmic moment for the series as a whole and it really got me.

I hope to read Order of Phoenix later on this year but I have some many books on my physical tbr we shall see what happens.

Equal Rites Review

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  • Author: Terry Pratchett
  • Series: Discworld #3
  • Genre: Fantasy
  • No. of pages: 288
  • Dates read: 17.06.19 – 24.06.19
  • Rating: 3 stars

This book was kind of lack-luster!

Plot: The last thing the wizard Drum Billet did, before Death laid a bony hand on his shoulder, was to pass on his staff of power to the eighth son of an eighth son. Unfortunately for his colleagues in the chauvinistic (not to say misogynistic) world of magic, he failed to check that the baby in question was a son. Everybody knows that there’s no such thing as a female wizard. But now it’s gone and happened, there’s nothing much anyone can do about it. Let the battle of the sexes begin…

Let me explain… the first half I loved. I loved getting to know Eskarina and watching her magic grow and her setting off on her adventure. The second half, to be honest when she meets Simon and gets to the Unseen University, I got bored. The plot centred so much on Simon and I never really grasped why and I never really cared because I didn’t care for Simon as a character.

Simon was an average character introduced, in my opinion, too late into the story. I didn’t connect with him so when all the stuff that went down at the end, I didn’t really care what happened to him.

I felt the ending was rushed and not really well thought out. It felt like it came out of no-where. I didn’t get how we got into the situation and then how we managed to get out of the situation. I was just very confused with the final 50 pages and I didn’t really like how it was all tied up. I would have preferred a story in which we watch Eskarina grow up to learn to use her powers and learn to control the staff with or without the help of wizards. I just didn’t like where the narrative went in the second half of the novel.

What I did love, as per, was Pratchett’s witty dialogue. I laughed out loud at some points, especially with Granny Weatherwax. I enjoyed his tangents on mundane objects or about characters that we will never meet again in this book, after this one interaction. I thought it was fun and light-hearted.

I loved Eskarina’s character. She was so ballsy and wouldn’t let anyone stop her on her journey to control and learn about her powers. Her relationship with Granny Weatherwax was so interesting. I loved watching them grow to love each other and how they look out for each other no matter what!

I also LOVED Pratchett’s commentary on gender equality. Constantly there were references to how women would never be able to do a man’s job and how women weren’t allowed in places of high education. I loved how the women in this book dismissed these statements and paved their own way and how the narrator made a note to add he disagreed with the misogynistic characters and things they were saying. Plus, the image of Granny Weatherwax slamming open the doors to the great hall and duelling with the Archchancellor of the Unseen University made me very happy!!

The next book I will be reviewing is The No.1 Ladies Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith. From what I have grasped so far, is that it’s a mystery novel of missing child set in Botswana.

May Wrap Up 2019

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Here are the books I read in the month of May.

Resort to Murder by TP Fielden (4 stars)

This was another good instalment to the new murder mystery series by TP Fielden. I found the case to be far more engaging than the previous book, the addition of the character Valentine to be a brilliant choice and the ending to be a lot more satisfying than the original novel. That being said I did find some problems with the characterisation of one of the female characters in this book. She could have been written a lot better.

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger (1.5 stars)

This was boring! I DNFed this book at 25% and because I only read 58 pages of the 230-page book, I didn’t feel like I had enough reasons or have read enough of the book to review it. This is my first 1 star of the year! To me, since it’s a character-driven novel, I had no idea where the plot was going, nor did I care! I also found the main character to be annoying and whiny. His stream of consciousness kind of monologue was dull and painful to read.

The Girl in the Tower by Katherine Arden (5 stars)

Another book which avoided 2nd Book Syndrome! I read the first novel and felt underwhelmed. But I decided to pick up the second book as I quite liked the direction it was going and it blew my mind! I loved how it kept to what made the first book so great, most importantly the folklore creatures but it also expanded on where it initally faultered. Vasya’ character development was done very well in this book.

The Boundless by Kenneth Oppel (2 stars)

This was a disappointing one for me. Mainly it felt like a middle grade trying to be YA. Also the book was full of a variety of genres that I couldn’t quite put my finger on, one minute it’s historical fiction and then it’s fantasy. The writing was lacking for me as well and I was just completely underwhelmed with it all.

Viper by Bex Hogan (3 stars)

This one I enjoyed. One of the last books I read from my Fairyloot subscription boxes and I loved it. I had never read a pirate story before so I was excited going into it. My favourite thing was the father/daughter dynamic between our main charcter and her father the infamous Viper! This story is incredibly action-packed and heart-breaking. I recommend everyone should give this a read!

To Best The Boys by Mary Weber (4 stars)

My last book for May and I have left the month very happy. This was one of my highly anticipated reads of 2019 and I loved it!! A book that every young girl should read. It’s incredibly empowering with an amazing message with two strong female characters at the forefront of the story. This story is like Viper, full of twists and turns and you root for girls the entire way through the novel. It also has a deadly labyrinth and who doesn’t love Labyrinths!

To Best The Boys Review

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  • Author: Mary Weber
  • Series: Standalone
  • Genre: Magic Realism/Action Adventure
  • No. of pages: 314
  • Dates read: 21.05.19 – 29.05.19
  • Star Rating: 4 stars

WOW!!!!!!

This is the kind of book I need more of in my life! This book is incredibly empowering and is something that all young girls should read.

Plot: Every year for the past fifty-four years, the residents of Pinsbury Port have received a mysterious letter inviting all eligible-aged boys to compete for an esteemed scholarship to the all-male Stemwick University. In the province of Caldon, where women train in wifely duties and men pursue collegiate education, sixteen-year-old Rhen Tellur wants nothing more than to become a scientist. As the poor of her seaside town fall prey to a deadly disease, she and her father work desperately to find a cure. But when her mum succumbs to it as well, Rhen decides to take the future into her own hands—through the annual all-male scholarship competition. With her cousin, Seleni, by her side, the girls don disguises and enter Mr. Holm’s labyrinth, to best the boys and claim the scholarship prize. Except not everyone is ready for a girl who doesn’t know her place. And not everyone survives the deadly maze.

First of all, you have a female protagonist who aspires to be the first female scientist while also dealing with dyslexia, I love it. While dyslexia only plays a small part in her character it really shows her determination to want to learn and succeed. I thought she was an amazing protagonist and I found myself relating to her a lot!

One of the main themes of this book is about a women’s place. Who she should be in accordance to the male characters, you see Rhen try to break free from the societal constraints placed on her and she says numerous times that she is not owned by any man and that she is her own person to make her own decisions. Then you have Seleni who enjoys the more stereotypical roles of a housewife and mother and I loved that both women were empowered to lead their very different lives and the Seleni wasn’t ridiculed for her choices by Rhen and vice versa.

Seleni and Rhen’s relationship was one of my favourite parts of this book. I love their support for each other, their love for each other and how Seleni didn’t bat an eyelid in taking part in the contest to support Rhen. They were never really pitted against each other and even if they were they had each other’s back which I loved to see.

Many men in this book were awful! Point blank awful. I have never wanted to launch a book across the room as much as I have with this book, as some of the boys (the privileged, rich kids) were so rude and horrible. We had attempted assault, gaslighting, classism etc. Weber did a great job of making you hate these characters. I also felt that Weber did a great job though in separating the bad men from the good men who were allies to Rhen and Seleni. Like Lute, Beryll, Sam etc. These boys were a ray of light, especially Lute, who didn’t feel emasculated next to the girls and didn’t feel the need to bring them down but actually lifted them up and gave them opportunities to succeed.

What I liked about Beryll, especially, was he was raised exactly like the horrible boys were. Rich, privileged lives but he didn’t look down upon others and he took his experiences and the people he met and ultimately learned from it and tries to be the best ally he can me and I loved that about his character!

The setting for this book is really interesting. It’s sort of light fantasy/magic realism and I really enjoyed the setting. I loved that it was the norm to avoid going out at a specific time or specific areas because of ghouls and monsters and how some people didn’t bat an eyelid about it. The labyrinth was my favourite part of the plot, I do think we could have spent more time and I was disappointed that it was over so quickly. I felt it was incredibly imaginative and that not all was as it seemed, I love seeing the character dynamics play out with each obstacle. But I felt more time should have been spent in there.

The next book I will be reviewing is Mortal Engines by Phillip Reeve. I have heard some amazing things about this novel so I’m excited to give this a go. I will also be re-reading Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire at the same time. I will go into a bit more detail about my re-read and why I am re-reading the series in a future post.