WWW Wednesday: 19th April 2017

April 19, 2017April 19, 2017 Ali@abookishlife13 Comments

The WWW Wednesday meme is currently hosted by Sam @ Taking on a World of Words and is a great way to do a weekly update on what you’ve been reading and what you have planned.

To take part all you have to do is answer the following three questions:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

Currently Reading

I just started Want You Gone by Chris Brookmyre yesterday so I’m only around 20% in but enjoying it so far. It’s the 8th book in his Jack Parlabane series but could probably be read as a standalone (I’ve certainly missed a few in the series). This time the story is about the dangers of the internet and I have to admit it’s already got me thinking about all of the information I put online. I received this from NetGalley and am on the blog tour so you can expect a review this weekend.

On audio I’ve finally managed to get my hands on Into the Fire by Jeaniene Frost. It’s the fourth and final book in her Night Prince series. This series is definitely one of my guilty pleasures and has already had me teehee-ing in the car.

Recently Finished

First book finished this week was Last Breath by Robert Bryndza which I received from NetGalley. It’s the fourth in the DCI Erika Foster series and is possibly the best in the series so far. This time Erika and the team are on the hunt for a serial killer who stalks and befriends his victims online.

It’s more of a police procedural than a who dunit but it doesn’t really matter as for me the highlight of Bryndza’s books are the characters. Erika isn’t necessarily my favourite but the secondary characters like Moss are brilliant. I should have a full review up soon.

Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist The next book finished this week was Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan. I have to admit I read this because it fit a challenge (yellow cover) but given my love for Dash and Lily’s Book of Dares I was quite excited about it. Unfortunately it turned out to be a bit of a disappointment.

It’s an easy enough read and really enjoyable in places but it just fell a little bit flat for me. It might be because I was comparing to the film or it may be I missed a lot of the music references or possibly just that I didn’t really take to the characters but something was definitely missing. And I Darken (The Conqueror's Saga, #1)

The third and final book finished this week was And I Darken by Kiersten White. I knew I wanted to read this the second I saw it was loosely based on the story of Vlad the Impaler. I’m not generally a fan of historical fiction but this is more of an alternative history where it’s Vlad’s daughter Lada who is the violent, slightly unstable and totally ruthless warrior on the hunt for power. Something that’s not particularly easy for a woman in that time period.

I loved this book and literally couldn’t put it down. It wasn’t just Lada’s story it was also that of her brother Radu who’s seen as a bit of a weakling and a coward but is actually the more cunning of the two. The relationship between them is fantastic and so is the story. I’m very much looking forward to the next book in the series when it comes out this summer.

Reading Next

My plan for the next week is to keep making some progress on my NetGalley shelf so I’m hoping to read A Dark so Deadly by Stuart MacBride and Sleep Tight by Caroline Mitchell. They are both crime/thrillers so I think I’ll probably need to mix it up a bit with either Flame in the Mist by Renee Ahdieh or Legion by Julie Kagawa

A Dark So Deadly Sleep Tight (Detective Ruby Preston ) Flame in the Mist (Flame in the Mist, #1) Legion (Talon, #4)

Have you read any of the books above or have any other book you’d recommend? Leave comments and links below and I’ll respond when I can.

Happy Wednesday Everyone!!!

Teaser Tuesday: 18th April 2017

April 18, 2017April 17, 2017 Ali@abookishlife13 Comments

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly bookish meme hosted by The Purple Booker. If you want to join in grab your current read, flick to a random page, select two sentences (without spoilers) and share them in a blog post or in the comments of The Purple Booker.

This week my teaser comes from And I Darken by Kiersten White which I both started and finished yesterday. It’s classed as YA fantasy but as there’s no magic this is probably a bit misleading. It’s more an alternate history of Vlad the Impaler but with Vlad changed to Lada a wild and ferocious girl. The fact that I couldn’t put this down should tell you everything about what I thought of it 😀

My Teaser

“I think of you like a sister,” he said. “Like a brilliant, violent, occasionally terrifying sister that I would follow to the ends of the earth, in part because I respected her so much and in part because I feared what she would do to me if I refused.”

She nodded. “I would do awful things.”

~ 73% And I Darken by Kiersten White

Blurb

No one expects a princess to be brutal. And Lada Dragwlya likes it that way. Ever since she and her gentle younger brother, Radu, were wrenched from their homeland of Wallachia and abandoned by their father to be raised in the Ottoman courts, Lada has known that being ruthless is the key to survival. She and Radu are doomed to act as pawns in a vicious game, an unseen sword hovering over their every move. For the lineage that makes them special also makes them targets.

Lada despises the Ottomans and bides her time, planning her vengeance for the day when she can return to Wallachia and claim her birthright. Radu longs only for a place where he feels safe. And when they meet Mehmed, the defiant and lonely son of the sultan, Radu feels that he’s made a true friend—and Lada wonders if she’s finally found someone worthy of her passion.

But Mehmed is heir to the very empire that Lada has sworn to fight against—and that Radu now considers home. Together, Lada, Radu, and Mehmed form a toxic triangle that strains the bonds of love and loyalty to the breaking point.

Review: Saint Death by Marcus Sedgwick

April 17, 2017April 17, 2017 Ali@abookishlife2 Comments

Saint Death by Marcus Sedgwick

My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

A fascinating and sometimes gripping look at life on the US/Mexican border. This is a book with a strong message which seems very appropriate in the current climate.

This was my first Marcus Sedgwick book and while I will admit that I found this a challenging read I absolutely loved his writing. Read More »

Review: The Upside of Unrequited by Becky Albertalli

April 15, 2017 Ali@abookishlife7 Comments

The Upside of Unrequited by Becky Albertalli

My rating: 4.5 of 5 stars

Smart, funny, sweet and emotional. I loved this book even more than Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda.

It’s incredibly well written, with a diverse and likeable cast of characters and an incredibly cute romance.

Synopsis (from GoodReads)

Seventeen-year-old Molly Peskin-Suso knows all about unrequited love. No matter how many times her twin sister, Cassie, tells her to woman up, Molly can’t stomach the idea of rejection. So she’s careful. Fat girls always have to be careful.

Then a cute new girl enters Cassie’s orbit, and for the first time ever, Molly’s cynical twin is a lovesick mess. Meanwhile, Molly’s totally not dying of loneliness—except for the part where she is. Luckily, Cassie’s new girlfriend comes with a cute hipster-boy sidekick. If Molly can win him over, she’ll get her first kiss and she’ll get her twin back.

There’s only one problem: Molly’s coworker, Reid. He’s a chubby Tolkien superfan with a season pass to the Ren Faire, and there’s absolutely no way Molly could fall for him.

Thoughts

OK confession time, I didn’t love Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda. I wanted to, had really high hopes for it but while I did enjoy it there was that little something missing for me.

This book however, this book I did love. I don’t know if it was just that I went into it with slightly lower expectations (my expectations were through the roof for Simon vs) or if I could just relate more to Molly but I thought it was so much better.

Albertalli’s writing is absolutely wonderful. She manages to capture the voice and feeling of being a teenager so well that it took me right back to my teenage years. There isn’t a huge story, it’s pretty much your usual coming of age/YA romance but main character Molly is so likeable it’s difficult not to get hooked in.

Molly was definitely a character I could relate to. She’s smart, creative and close to her family and friends but is self conscious, anxious and quiet when it comes to meeting new people and boys in particular. She develops crushes at the drop of a hat but is too scared to act and therefore ends up worshiping the boy of the moment from afar.

I loved how her character developed over the course of the story and in particular the very real way in which the author portrayed the changing relationship with her twin sister. In many ways the romance within the book was almost secondary, although it was very sweet and one of the highlights for me.

One of the other highlights was the amount of diversity. This is possibly one of the most diverse books I’ve ever come across and it felt like almost every group was represented in some way. Molly has two moms, she’s Jewish, her sister is a lesbian who is involved with a pansexual character, she has weight issues and suffers from anxiety. In the beginning I did wonder if this was too much and the author was forcing too much in but thankfully this turned out not to be the case. It all feels very natural and the issues raised are dealt with in quite a subtle and realistic way.

Overall a great read and one I’d definitely recommend if you like YA contemporary with diverse characters.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC. As always all views are my own.

WWW Wednesday: 12th April 2017

April 12, 2017April 11, 2017 Ali@abookishlife24 Comments

The WWW Wednesday meme is currently hosted by Sam @ Taking on a World of Words and is a great way to do a weekly update on what you’ve been reading and what you have planned.

To take part all you have to do is answer the following three questions:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

Currently Reading

I’ve finally started Last Breath by Robert Bryndza, woohoo!! This is the fourth in his Detective Erika Foster series and a book I’ve been looking forward to since finishing the previous one in the series.

Very early days, I’m only a few chapters in but so far so good and I’ve seen some incredible reviews for it so I have high hopes.

Recently Finished

First book finished this week was The Cornish Escape by Lily Graham which I received from NetGalley. The story is about a woman who, after her husband admits to having an affair, escapes to a village on the Cornish coast. While out for a walk one day she discovers a derelict cottage hidden away near the cliffs. Curious about it and all of the local rumours about a curse she begins to dig into its past.

This was somewhat different from the light and fluffy romance I was expecting but I really enjoyed the mystery around the cottage. My biggest gripe was the ending which left me feeling very frustrated. You can read my full review here. Saint Death

The second book finished this week was Saint Death by Marcus Sedgwick, which was another NetGalley pick. It’s about two guys who live near the Mexico/America border and end up on the bad side of one of the gangs. They have 36 hours to find a lot of money or they’ll likely end up dead.

Have to admit to having very mixed views on this one. For the most part I liked the story, the writing was good and there are some brilliant scenes but I found the whole thing a little slow and difficult to focus on. It’s not the easiest of topics to read but is probably worth sticking with. Review should be up later this week.

Reading Next

OK I have to confess that last week I got distracted by 13 Reasons Why on Netflix (watch it if you get a chance) but this week I’m hoping to get a bit more reading in particularly over the Easter weekend. Next up from the NetGalley shelf will most likely be Want You Gone by Chris Brookmyre and A Dark so Deadly by Stuart MacBride (my two favourite Scottish crime authors). I also have Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor so I’m still hoping to squeeze it in somewhere.

In other news I discovered a new real life book club the pick for which is Anatomy of a Soldier by Harry Parker. Initially when I heard it was a story told by a series of objects I kind of thought “oh no!!!” but having listened to a bit of the audio I’m actually kind of excited about it. I managed to get a copy of the book from the library but I’m thinking I may try and get the audio instead.

A Dark So Deadly Strange the Dreamer (Strange the Dreamer, #1) Want You Gone (Jack Parlabane, #8) Anatomy of a Soldier

Have you read any of the books above or have any other book you’d recommend? Leave comments and links below and I’ll respond when I can.

Happy Wednesday Everyone!!!

Teaser Tuesday: 11th April 2017

April 11, 2017April 10, 2017 Ali@abookishlife1 Comment

This week my teaser comes from Saint Death by Marcus Sedgwick which I received from NetGalley. I’m around halfway through and while I’m liking the writing and it has had some very tense and gripping scenes I have to admit I’m not finding it the easiest read. I think it’s the subject matter but also I feel like it jumps around a lot rather than just telling the story.

My Teaser

And is it better, Arturo has wondered, to be a fly who spends the whole of its short life banging against a closed window, buzzing crazy, buzzing, buzzing until its life runs out and it drops to the windowsill, slowly twitching, or to be a fly who finds an opening, a gap in the window frame, and flies out to who knows where? Who knows what?

~ 7% Saint Death by Marcus Sedgwick

Blurb

A potent, powerful and timely thriller about migrants, drug lords and gang warfare set on the US/Mexican border by prize-winning novelist, Marcus Sedgwick.

Anapra is one of the poorest neighbourhoods in the Mexican city of Juarez – twenty metres outside town lies a fence – and beyond it – America – the dangerous goal of many a migrant. Faustino is one such trying to escape from the gang he’s been working for. He’s dipped into a pile of dollars he was supposed to be hiding and now he’s on the run. He and his friend, Arturo, have only 36 hours to replace the missing money, or they’re as good as dead. Watching over them is Saint Death. Saint Death (or Santissima Muerte) – she of pure bone and charcoal-black eye, she of absolute loyalty and neutral morality, holy patron to rich and poor, to prostitute and narco-lord, criminal and police-chief. A folk saint, a rebel angel, a sinister guardian.

Review: The Cornish Escape by Lily Graham

April 6, 2017 Ali@abookishlife4 Comments

The Cornish Escape by Lily Graham

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The Cornish Escape was my first book by Lily Graham and, in the best possible way, was completely different from what I thought it would be. I was expecting a light and fluffy beach romance but, while there are in fact two romances, what really captivated me was the mystery. There’s something very haunting about it in places and I loved the authors writing style. It drew me in completely and I found it very difficult to put it down

It has also convinced me that I absolutely must run away to Cornwall.

WWW Wednesday: 5th April 2017

April 5, 2017April 4, 2017 Ali@abookishlife15 Comments

The WWW Wednesday meme is currently hosted by Sam @ Taking on a World of Words and is a great way to do a weekly update on what you’ve been reading and what you have planned.

To take part all you have to do is answer the following three questions:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

Currently Reading

I started The Cornish Escape by Lily Graham yesterday and am already around a quarter of the way through. This was a book I requested from NetGalley when I was in the mood for a summery (or spring) romance and while it’s not exactly what I was expecting I’m really enjoying it.

The story is about a woman who, after her husband admits to having an affair, escapes to the Cornish coast. Out for a walk she comes across a derelict cottage hidden away and falls in love with it. Deciding to buy it she starts looking into its troubled past.

There hasn’t been much in the way of romance so far but I’m loving the mystery around the cottage. There’s something a little bit creepy about it.

Recently Finished

First book finished this week was The Red Road by Denise Mina. This was a book club read and the fourth in a series (why???) so it’s safe to say it was a bit of a struggle. It was easy reading but there were too many characters and not enough of a plot so I found myself really not caring. It wasn’t a who dunnit or a police procedural or even a character driven story so I’m just not sure what the point of it was. I don’t think I’ll be rushing to read any of the authors other books.

Blacklist (Beautiful Idols #2) The next book finished was Blacklist by Alyson Noel which is the second in the Beautiful Idols trilogy and a book I received from NetGalley. The series is suspense/mystery about a group of teens who get mixed up in the club promotion and celebrity scene in Hollywood.

I read the first book around this time last year and really enjoyed but I think this one was better. Someone is missing and someone is being accused of their murder so there are a few twists and turns as they investigate what happened. It’s easy and kind of addictive reading but finished on a cliffhanger which is very frustrating. Swan Lake (Timeless Fairy Tales, #7)

The final book finished this week was Swan Lake by K.M. Shea. It’s the seventh in her Timeless Fairytales series but they can all be read as standalones. I usually love this authors books but this retelling of Swan Lake fell a little bit flat and is probably my least favourite of her stories so far. It did have a lot of the familiar themes I love but I thought the writing was weaker and I just didn’t take to any of the characters.

Reading Next

This week I am determined to make some more progress on my NetGalley shelf (and stop requesting books) so I think my next reads will be Last Breath by Robert Bryndza, Saint Death by Marcus Sedgwick and A Dark so Deadly by Stuart MacBride. I also have Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor so I may sneak that in somewhere too as I’m going to a book signing a week on Friday.

Last Breath (Detective Erika Foster, #4) Saint Death A Dark So Deadly Strange the Dreamer (Strange the Dreamer, #1)

Have you read any of the books above or have any other book you’d recommend? Leave comments and links below and I’ll respond when I can.

Happy Wednesday Everyone!!!

Review: Blacklist by Alyson Noel

April 4, 2017 Ali@abookishlifeLeave a comment

Blacklist by Alyson Noel

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Blacklist, the second book in Alyson Noel’s Beautiful Idol’s series is even more addictive than the first. It’s a fast paced and enjoyable read and there are plenty of reveals and twists to keep you hooked. With another cliffhanger ending I will definitely be looking out for the third and final book in this trilogy.

Note as this is the second in the series there are some spoilers for the first book.

Teaser Tuesday: 4th April 2017

April 4, 2017April 3, 2017 Ali@abookishlife8 Comments

This week my teaser comes from More Than This by Patrick Ness. I first read this last year but it’s been picked (by me) as our next book club read (I had 10 mins to pick and had a bit of a panic) so I’m re reading. I love Ness so it’s not really a hardship and it’s well timed as he’s doing a book tour next month (which I’m ridiculously excited about).

My Teaser

Whatever happened to you down there, whatever the world looks like now, that’s not how it always looks. That’s not how it’s always going to look. There’s more. There’s always more.

~ 63% More Than This by Patrick Ness

Blurb

A boy drowns, desperate and alone in his final moments. He dies.

Then he wakes, naked and bruised and thirsty, but alive.

How can this be? And what is this strange deserted place?

As he struggles to understand what is happening, the boy dares to hope. Might this not be the end? Might there be more to this life, or perhaps this afterlife?