Hello and welcome to another reading roundup.  Since my last roundup I have read two pretty good books which I’d like to share with you. [book-info]I received an Advance Reader Copy of The Poisoned Blade by Kate Elliott at BEA.  It’s been on my TBR for a while, but it’s only recently I read it.  The Poisoned Blade is the second book in a planned trilogy (I believe) and continues the story of Jessamy, a young woman caught between two cult...

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The Blood Mirror by Brent Weeks is the fourth in a planned series of five epic fantasy books.  The series has a wonderfully imaginative magic system in which magic users can turn light into a physical substance. luxin.  Each spectrum of light (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet) produces luxin with different properties and uses.  If you’ve not yet started this series, I heartily recommend it.  Go start with The Black Prism.  ...

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Empire of Storms is the fifth and penultimate book in Sarah J. Maas’s Throne of Glass in which a former assassin uses her skills and her magic to save her kingdom.  Being the second to last book in the series, it focusses very much on getting our protagonists into the right place for the finale. What I liked The pacing.  Despite the fact that Empire of Storms is primarily focussed on getting the team into place for the final confrontation...

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Court of Fives by Kate Elliott is a YA fantasy book and one that I found myself being sucked into even in the middle of a reading slump. I found the protagonists engaging and loved the world. I found it had a bit more substance than some YA fantasy novels. What I liked Cultural tensions. This is very much a tale of being caught between two cultures.  Our protagonist, Jessamy, is the child of a Saroese father and Efean mother and struggles to fit...

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Paper and Fire by Rachel Caine is the second in The Great Library series and is the sequel to Ink and Bone, which was one of my favourite reads from last year.  I realised I never did a full review of it.  Bad Evelynne.  Paper and Fire was also one of my most anticipated reads for 2016 and it did not disappoint.  For those of you not familiar with this series, it is a contemporary alternate reality/fantasy in which the Great Library of Alexan...

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Julian Fellowes’s Belgravia is a new book/audiobook/app series from the creator of Downton Abbey.  It is set in the Belgravia quarter of London in 1841 with a prequel set in Brussels in 1815.  The lives of two families, the rich, titled Bellasis family and the nouveau riche Trenchards are brought together at the Duchess of Richmond’s ball and the effects are felt down the years.  It is available in ebook format, as an audiobook and as an a...

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The Wheel of Osheim by Mark Lawrence is the third and final book in his Red Queen’s War trilogy.  It continues the story of Jalan Kendeth as he continues to follow the path upon which fate has set him. The Red Queen’s War trilogy is set in the same world as, and dovetails with, Lawrence’s earlier Broken Empire trilogy.  In some ways that is both a blessing and a curse.  It’s a blessing because the world in which the trilogies are set i...

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A Thousand Pieces of You by Claudia Gray is a YA sci-fi mystery in which teenager Marguerite Caine must use technology developed by her parents, the Firebird, to chase her father’s murderer across multiple dimensions.  She finds out that things aren’t as they first seemed. I picked this book up partly because of this concept and partly because I’ve enjoyed books (Star Wars) by Claudia Gray.  Thanks to Amazon’s Whispersync for Voice I pi...

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Eligible by Curtis Sittenfeld is the fourth in the Austen Project of modern retellings of Jane Austen’s novels and attempts to bring her classic Pride and Prejudice into the 21st century.  Having read the other three Austen adaptations, I was intrigued to see how Sittenfeld would update the story of Elizabeth, Darcy, Jane and Bingley.  From experience I know that Austen adaptations, when done well, can be wonderful. (check out The Lizzie Benn...

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Now, pretty much anyone who has an interest in popular culture is aware that the first Star Wars movie since 2005, The Force Awakens, was released on December 18th 2015.  Full disclosure: while I consider myself a fan of Star Wars, I have only dabbled in the Extended Universe/Legends supplementary material.  Like many, though, I was anxious to see what J.J. Abrams would make of Lucas’ legacy and booked my ticket to a showing on release day. Â...

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Upcoming releases in May 2015
Miscellaneous / April 29, 2015

There are three books being released in May about which I am very excited.  Some good books to have ready for my vacation in a couple of weeks! The one about which I am most excited is A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas of Throne of Glass fame.  This is a retelling of the classic fairytale Beauty and the Beast and tells the story of Feyre, a young woman who becomes entangled with the mysterious fey in order to save her loved...

Reading roundup – April 27th 2015
Reading Roundup / April 27, 2015

It’s always fun to come across a great new series by accident.  A couple of weeks ago, Audible sent me one of their new release by author X emails advising me that book five in Jodi Taylor’s Chronicles of St Mary’s series had been released.  For those of you who aren’t familiar with this series, it’s about time travelling historians, or as I like to think of it, Connie Willis with more tea.   The premise sounded interesting...

Reading roundup – April 21st 2015
Uncategorized / April 21, 2015

As I mentioned in my last reading roundup, I’ve been catching up with John  Stephens’ Books of Beginning in preparation for the release of The Black Reckoning.  As I’ve been on nightshift, I’ve listened to these books in audiobook format, narrated by Jim Dale.  I’m generally not a big fan of Dale’s narration – a personal opinion; I know many listeners value his work highly – but I did enjoy his narration for t...

Reading Roundup – April 13th 2015
Reading Roundup / April 13, 2015

This week for me has been a week of Skull Thrones and Star Wars and Shakespeare, Oh My!   One of the big releases of last week was The Skull Throne, the fourth in Peter V Brett’s Demon Cycle fantasy series.  I have read and enjoyed the three previous ones so I was keen to read the fourth.  More accurately, I should say listened to as I experienced this book in audiobook format. In general, I did enjoy it, but I did have a few issu...

Reading roundup – April 3rd 2015
Reading Roundup / April 3, 2015

Good morning and welcome to another reading roundup.  This was another week of nightshifts so a lot of audiobook consumption was involved.  Here are some of the books I enjoyed this week.  The Wicked Will Rise is the second novel in Danielle Paige’s reimagining of L Frank Baum’s Oz in which Dorothy has turned evil.  Some of you who read my review of the first novel, Dorothy Must Die, may remember that I had a few issues with it,...

Reading roundup – March 27th 2015
Reading Roundup / March 27, 2015

Yikes, has it really been a month since my last reading roundup?  My apologies for the delay – life got in the way as it often does. As I’m back on nightshifts again (cue: sob, wailing, gnashing of teeth) I have been listening to a lot of audiobooks.  My favourites, and a highlight of my reading/listening month, were the NPR radio adaptations of George Lucas’ Star Wars. I picked the first one up, Star Wars, some time ago whe...

Most Anticipated releases of April 2015
Miscellaneous / March 26, 2015

Good evening dear readers!  I’m sorry I’ve not blogged for some while.  I’ve been busy adjusting to my new graveyard schedule, and that’s going to go on for some while, so I may not be blogging regularly for some while.  On the plus side, I did get through a few audiobooks – I will be publishing a reading roundup at some point soon in which I will discuss some of them. In any case, here are my most anticipated upcoming ...

Reading roundup – February 28th 2015
Reading Roundup / February 28, 2015

Good afternoon!  I’m sorry for the lack of posts in the last couple of weeks, but I have been on vacation.  It was a very relaxing vacation spent visiting family and I got to read a whole bunch, which was excellent.  With being on holiday, I added so much to my library. I was really in the mood for a quirky contemporary romance, so I added Rainbow Rowell’s Landline to my collection and read and finished it straight away.  It was...

The Mime Order by Samantha Shannon – Review
Audiobook reviews , Book Reviews / February 11, 2015

The Mime Order by Samantha Shannon is the second in her dystopian fantasy series – it is the follow on to The Bone Season which I have read and reviewed.  It follows straight on from the ending of The Bone Season and deals with the aftermath of the events of that novel.  I will say straight off that I enjoyed The Mime Order much more than the series opener.  Much of the heavy lifting in terms of worldbuilding has been done R...

Reading Roundup – February 6th 2015
Reading Roundup / February 5, 2015

Hello and welcome to this week’s reading roundup. In actual fact I don’t have a great deal to talk about this week.  I’ve been reading/listening to Samantha Shannon’s The Mime Order, the sequel to her Bone Season.  I very much enjoyed it and a full review will be coming soon.  I just finished it, and have not yet decided what book to pick up next.  I am rather tempted to listen to Sanderson’s Mistborn This week I found out...