Review: Wolfhunter River by Rachel Caine

June 3, 2019June 2, 2019 Ali@abookishlife4 Comments

Wolfhunter River by Rachel Caine is an enjoyable read but for me was probably the weakest book in the series so far. It still has the wonderful characters and is very readable but I did think the story was a little confused. It does however start to take main character Gwen in a new direction and I think there’s a lot more great books to come in this series.

Spoiler Alert: While there are no spoilers for Wolfhunter River as this is the third book in the series there may be some very mild spoilers for books one and two from here on in.

THE BLURB

She can’t ignore a cry for help. But in this remote hunting town, it’s open season.

Gwen Proctor escaped her serial-killer husband and saved her family. What she can’t seem to outrun is his notoriety. Or the sick internet vigilantes still seeking to avenge his crimes. For Gwen, hiding isn’t an option. Not when her only mission is to create a normal life for her kids.

But now, a threatened woman has reached out. Marlene Crockett, from the remote town of Wolfhunter, is panicked for herself and her daughter. When Gwen arrives in the small, isolated rural community, Marlene is already dead—her own daughter blamed for the murder. Except that’s not the person Marlene feared at all. And Gwen isn’t leaving until she finds out who that was.

But it may already be too late. A trap has been set. And it’s poised to snap shut on everyone Gwen loves. Her stalkers are closing in. And in a town as dark as Wolfhunter, it’s so easy for them to hide…

MY REVIEW

Wolfhunter River is the third book in the Stillhouse Lake series and while I absolutely loved the first two books I have to admit that I thought second book, Killman Creek, was the end of the story. It seemed to wrap things up pretty satisfactorily leaving me wondering whether a third book was needed and where the story could possibly go next. I did consider not picking this up (I’ve found Caine has a habit of keeping series’ running longer than they should) but curiosity got the better of me and I had to know what was next for the Proctors and Sam Cade.

Unfortunately however while Wolfhunter River is an engaging and enjoyable read it lacks the punch of the first two in the series and it feels a little muddled in places. I’ve read a few reviews describing this as a sort of bridging book and I think that’s spot on.

The story picks up not long after Killman Creek and continues some of the storylines and issues from the previous books but also starts to take it in a new direction. Gwen and her family are still facing threats from associates of her serial killer ex husband and dealing with suspicion and accusations of complicity in his crimes, Gwen and Sam (brother of one of her ex husband’s victims) are trying to figure out whether they can really have a relationship, and someone from the past is making threats against them. At the same time Gwen is receiving phone calls from strangers looking for help or advice, one of which leads her to Wolfhunter River, a small town with something sinister going on.

There’s a lot going on in the story but it still manages to feel at times like there’s not much in the way of action and it becomes a little slow in places. The different storylines don’t seem to fit naturally together and it often feel like they’re competing against each other, one elbowing its way to the fore only to be shoved aside by the other a few chapters later.

That’s not to say there’s not a lot to like about this book. Caine knows how to write an engaging story and I more or less devoured this in one go. It may be a little confused in terms of plot but main character Gwen is pretty awesome and I’ve been loving watching her, and her family, develop and grow. It’s also good to see a bit more from Sam this time around, he’s an intriguing and possibly the most conflicted character.

I did get the feeling from this book that there’s a lot more to come in this series and hopefully now that the building blocks are in place it can move forward. I’m not sure I’ll stick with it but I definitely want to read the next one.

Thanks to the publisher for providing me with an advance copy via NetGalley. This has in no way influenced my review.

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Seven Fantasy Series I Can’t Bring Myself to Finish

June 2, 2019 Ali@abookishlife12 Comments

With the big finale of a certain TV show a couple of weeks ago I’ve been thinking a lot about endings and how much I both love and hate them. I can’t wait to find out how things finish but either don’t want it to be over or fear that it won’t live up to expectations.

I think this may be why I’ve developed this bad habit of not finishing series’ of books. I will faithfully read every book released, will add the final book to my most anticipated books list, will even pre-order it and count down the days to publication but once I have that shiny new copy in my hands I just can’t bring myself to read it. This seems to be particularly true of fantasy series for some reason and the more excited I am about it the less likely I am to read it any time soon.

There are a lot more than the seven listed below but these are the most recent cases where I’ve read every book in the series but the last one. I also have a bad habit of reading the first book in a series and going no further, but that would be a MUCH longer list.

Book of the Ancestor by Mark Lawrence

So I absolutely adored the first two books in this series and have been going on and on about how much I can’t wait to read this ever since I finished Grey Sister. There has been so much foreshadowing of what’s to come I need to know how it ends but this is one of those cases where I don’t want it to be over. I have no doubt that the ending will be phenomenal but I have a bad feeling some of my fave characters won’t make it and I’m not sure I can take that.

Caraval by Stephanie Garber

This series has been a little up and down for me, I was a bit meh about Caraval but I absolutely loved Legendary (Tella made a much better MC for me). I’ve therefore been a bit wary about the third and final book. It could be brilliant or it could be meh… and the reviews I’ve spied so far haven’t exactly been glowing

Rebel of the Sands by Alwyn Hamilton

Similar to Caraval, it’s the reviews that have been putting me off reading the final book in this trilogy. I’ve very much enjoyed the first two but despite owning book three since it was released over a year ago I’ve not quite managed to read it yet.

The Infernal Devices by Cassandra Clare

Umm… unpopular opinion time but I’ve just never really gotten into this series. I loved The Mortal Instruments (well most of it – let’s not talk about a couple of incidents) but the first couple of books in this trilogy kind of bored me. Not sure if it’s because it’s steampunk (I rarely get on well with steampunk) or if the whole love triangle thing is getting dull (just pick someone Tessa) but other than a few moments the first two books were a hard slog. I do think though that as I have slogged my way through most of the trilogy I should just finish the bloomin thing. Plus it seems that The Dark Artifices is full of spoilers for this and the Mortal Instruments.

Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard

For some reason a lot of people seems to hate on this series but I’ve enjoyed pretty much every book. OK yeah there’s been some stuff I haven’t been so keen on but I do want to know what happens to Mare (stupid name) and the others. In this case it’s the fact that it’s a big giant hardback that’s stopped me from reading so far. It’s too heavy to carry about… and ok that’s a rubbish excuse and if I really was desperate to read it I would have read it by now but umm I still haven’t read it.

Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor

I loved Strange the Dreamer but given how heavy it is on description I didn’t find it the easiest read. That style of writing and me just don’t mesh well, I need to be in the right kind of mood and have enough time (and peace and quiet) to give it my full attention. Needless to say that hasn’t happened as yet so Muse of Nightmares is still sitting patiently on my bookshelf. I will get to it, just not sure when…

Throne of Glass by Sarah J Maas

This is probably another unpopular opinion but for me this series peaked at book two and it’s been downhill ever since. It feels to me like Maas is trying to make them too big and putting in all this unnecessary stuff (and characters). I’ve technically not finished Tower of Dawn, for some reason I gave up ten pages from the end, but I do think I’ve made it this far so should just bloomin read it. If only it wasn’t sooo big.

I actually made a bookish resolution that this year I would finally finish off some of these series but so far I’ve failed miserably. Maybe this post will encourage me to just do it… although it seems unlikely.

Have you finished any of these? Should I just read them? Do you ever put off finishing a series?

Happy reading

Ax

WWW Wednesday: 22nd May 2019

May 22, 2019May 21, 2019 Ali@abookishlife22 Comments

The WWW Wednesday meme is 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

My NetGalley request for How To Be Famous by Caitlin Moran was approved at the end of last week so I couldn’t resist starting it pretty much immediately. It’s the sequel to How To Build A Girl, a book I read a couple of years ago and absolutely loved. Main character Johanna is most definitely one of a kind and a lot of the things she comes out with are either shocking or absolutely hilarious (and often both). I’m only around 25% through so far as I struggled a little at the start (a bit too much social commentary and not enough action) but getting into it now.

Recently Finished

It’s been a pretty awesome reading week with three books finished and each of them almost in one sitting (there has been some binge reading). Skyward by Brandon Sanderson did take me a little longer but only because I had to go to work. I could have very happily disappeared into the world Sanderson created. I will admit the story is possibly a little longer than it needs to be but I loved it regardless. There’s something classic and a bit epic about it. Not sure how I’m going to manage the wait for a sequel.

Skyward did leave me with a bit of a book hangover but I spied Top Secret by Sarina Bowen and Elle Kennedy on Amazon and decided to splurge. Him is one of my all time fave M/M romances so I was very excited when I found out they were teaming up for a new one. I probably didn’t love Top Secret as much as Him but it made for addictive and enjoyable reading.

The third and final book read was Finding Audrey by Sophie Kinsella. I love Kinsella and this had been sitting on my TBR for a while. Have to admit it’d been sitting on my TBR for so long I’d forgotten what it was about but that may not have been the worst thing as it was quite nice going in blind. It’s actually a YA story about a girl with severe anxiety and depression so not always the easiest of reads but there’s a lot of humour in it too and it deals with the condition quite sensitively.

Reading Next

I started a new reading challenge on Monday so I’m planning to read I Heart New York and Magic Bites for a couple of the tasks. Both of these have been on my TBR for a while so it’ll be nice to finally knock a couple of books off the backlist. I also really want to pick up One Word Kill by Mark Lawrence. I’ve heard lots of great things about it.

Magic Bites (Kate Daniels, #1) I Heart New York (I Heart, #1) One Word Kill (Impossible Times, #1)

Have you read any of the books on my list this week? Any others you’d recommend? As always please feel free to leave comments and links below.

Happy Reading ❤

Teaser Tuesday: How To Be Famous

May 21, 2019 Ali@abookishlife2 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 How to be Famous by Caitlin Moran, sequel to How to Build a Girl. I’m not very far in to it as I just started reading yesterday but so far so good. I absolutely loved How To Build a Girl so have high hopes for it, Johanna is such a brilliantly unique character.

My Teaser

You don’t live in London. You play London – to win. That’s why we’re all here. It is a city full of contestants, each chasing one of a million possible prizes: wealth, love, fame. Inspiration.

4% How to be Famous by Caitlin Moran

Blurb

A hilarious, heartfelt sequel to How to Build a Girl, the breakout novel from feminist sensation Caitlin Moran who the New York Times called, “rowdy and fearless . . . sloppy, big-hearted and alive in all the right ways.”

You can’t have your best friend be famous if you’re not famous. It doesn’t work. You’re emotional pen-friends. You can send each other letters—but you’re not doing anything together. You live in different countries.

Johanna Morrigan (AKA Dolly Wilde) has it all: at eighteen, she lives in her own flat in London and writes for the coolest music magazine in Britain. But Johanna is miserable. Her best friend and man of her dreams John Kite has just made it big in 1994’s hot new BritPop scene. Suddenly John exists on another plane of reality: that of the Famouses.

Never one to sit on the sidelines, Johanna hatches a plan: she will Saint Paul his Corinthians, she will Jimmy his Pinocchio—she will write a monthly column, by way of a manual to the famous, analyzing fame, its power, its dangers, and its amusing aspects. In stories, girls never win the girl—they are won. Well, Johanna will re-write the stories, and win John, through her writing.

But as Johanna’s own star rises, an unpleasant one-night stand she had with a stand-up comedian, Jerry Sharp, comes back to haunt in her in a series of unfortunate consequences. How can a girl deal with public sexual shaming? Especially when her new friend, the up-and-coming feminist rock icon Suzanne Banks, is Jimmy Cricketing her?

For anyone who has been a girl or known one, who has admired fame or judged it, and above all anyone who loves to laugh till their sides ache, How to Be Famous is a big-hearted, hilarious tale of fame and fortune-and all they entail.

WWW Wednesday: 15th May 2019

May 15, 2019May 14, 2019 Ali@abookishlife23 Comments

The WWW Wednesday meme is 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?