WWW Wednesday – 22 May 2019

It’s time for WWW Wednesday! This blog hop is hosted by Sam over at A World Of Words. Link up with us by commenting on Sam’s post for this week, and just answer the three questions.

What have you recently finished reading?

I finished listening to Emily the Strange: the Lost Days by Rob Reger not long after Wednesday’s WWW. It was amusing, but very bizarre. I’m still not sure what it was actually about. Due to my confusion, I’m not planning to write a proper review of this one.

I finished The Extremely Inconvenient Adventures of Bronte Mettlestone by Jaclyn Moriarty about an hour ago. It was sweet but sort of wore thin after a while… the cutesy, whimsical style didn’t really work when there were nearly 500 pages. I’ll  have a review up soon.

Two reviews this week: His Name Was Walter by Emily Rodda and Enchantee by Gita Trelease.

What are you currently reading?

I started The Toymakers by Robert Dinsdale because That. Cover. Some of the reviews are comparing it to The Night Circus and I can see why. I actually started the audio book first but the narrator’s voice was annoying me so I switched to the ebook. But I really like the magical descriptions of Papa Jack’s Emporium so far.

What do you think you will read next?

I don’t really know what I’m in the mood for at the moment, but I just realised that The Red Labyrinth by Meredith Tate comes out on June 4, so I probably need to pick up the ARC pretty soon. Particularly considering I don’t know how much reading time I’m going to have over the next week or so.

What are you reading this week? 🙂

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“Magic was not something apart from her, something she could give up. It was the power of her deepest feeling, the power of who she was.” // Review of “Enchantée” by Gita Trelease

Title: Enchantée
Author: Gita Trelease
Audio book narrator: Justine Eyre
Genre:  Historical fantasy
Intended audience: YA
Date Read: 14/04/19 – 11/05/19
Rating: ★★★

Review:

I was super excited about a historical fantasy set at the outset of the French Revolution. This turned out to be a bit more character-driven than I was expecting, but I did like a lot of those characters, so I enjoyed it enough.

It does get a big samey at times. There is a lot of back-and-forthing from Paris to Versailles, and the main character, Camille’s, thoughts often get go around in circles.

I felt there were only three characters that were really fleshed out: Camille, her sister, Sophie and their friend, Lesar, an young engineer who is involved with building a hot air balloon to fly across the Alps.

There are a number of aristocrat characters that Camilile befriends, and I have to admit, that I couldn’t really tell them apart. When the eventual villain was revealed, I had trouble remembering if we’d met him before.

The descriptions are probably this book’s strongest point. Whether Trelease is describing the opulence of Versailles or the dirt and grime of the poorest parts of Paris, she immerses the reader there.

I don’t know whether it was actually that the book got more interesting, or that I simply got out of a slump/not being in the mood for audio books, but I did feel things picked up in the second half of the book. There is a definite shift in atmosphere after the storming of the Bastille; you could feel the unease rippling through the characters.  While this might not have been my favourite, I recommend it for historical fantasy fans.

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WWW Wednesday – 15 May 2019

It’s time for WWW Wednesday! This blog hop is hosted by Sam over at A World Of Words. Link up with us by commenting on Sam’s post for this week, and just answer the three questions.

First of all, sorry if I linked you to my writing blog rather than this one last week! I do blog hops on both blogs on a Wednesday and totally wasn’t paying attention to which link was on my clipboard!

What have you recently finished reading?

I finally finished Enchantee by Gita Trelease! My review will be up on Friday. I enjoyed it enough and I thought it tied up really well, but overall it was a three star read. Might have been partly because it took me so long to get through?

I also finished His Name Was Walter by Emily Rodda. I spent the whole book feeling a bit reading slumpy and thinking this would be a three-star read at most, and then things sort of all tied together in the last few chapters and got me right in the feels. To the point I teared up a little. So that was nice.

Only one review posted this week: The Things That Will Not Stand by Michael Gerard Bauer.

What are you currently reading?

I have started reading The Extremely Inconvenient Adventures of Bronte Mettlestone by Jaclyn Moriarty (yes, sister of Liane for the curious). Jaclyn is an author I keep going back to, even though I don’t always enjoy her books. So far, this one is giving me Nevermoor vibes in that it’s quite lighthearted and whimsical and a bit nonsense (in the best way), but I suspect it will also get me in the feels at some point.

I also started listening to Emily the Strange: the Lost Days by Rob Reger on a whim. It’s rather bizarre, kind of a Lemony Snicket/Welcome to Night Vale mashup. Strange things happen but it’s all delivered with a completely straight face. I think Emily might be a clone or something?

What do you think you will read next?

Not sure what I’m in the mood for. Also Bronte Nettlestone is quite long so there’s a good chance I won’t finish it this week with everything else I’ve got going on. I’ll also finish Emily the Strange pretty soon but I have no idea what I fancy audio book-wise, either.

What are you reading this week? 🙂

WWW Wednesday – 08 May 2019

It’s time for WWW Wednesday! This blog hop is hosted by Sam over at A World Of Words. Link up with us by commenting on Sam’s post for this week, and just answer the three questions.

What have you recently finished reading?

I finished The Things That Will Not Stand by Michael Gerard Bauer in a single day, which I was not expecting. It was very readable, and full of puns. Also some really strong characters. Having said that, I haven’t quite figured out how to review it yet, so that’s still pending.

Then I finished my ARC of Lucid by Kristy Fairlamb, which I ended up giving three stars. I think I was hoping for something a bit more thrilling. I posted a review here.

What are you currently reading?

Enchantee by Gita Trelease as got a bit more interesting. I think I’m at around the 60% mark now. I don’t actually know why it’s more interesting, I think it may be more to do with me than the book, if that makes sense. Anyway, I’m a bit more keen to find opportunities to listen to it now.

I’m also reading His Name Was Walter by Emily Rodda. This is the first book I’ve read of hers as an adult, though she was a favourite author of mine when I was growing up. At the moment, I’m not quite sure whether this is more ghostly or fairytale-y or what it’s going to be, but I’m pretty sure I will enjoy it.

What do you think you will read next?

Not sure at this stage. I’m really more in the mood for fantasy, but the books I have from the library are more contemporary in one way or another. I might have a look at my ARCs and see what’s coming up soon.

What are you reading this week? 🙂

WWW Wednesday – 01 May 2019

It’s time for WWW Wednesday! This blog hop is hosted by Sam over at A World Of Words. Link up with us by commenting on Sam’s post for this week, and just answer the three questions.

What have you recently finished reading?

I finished P Is For Pearl by Eliza Henry Jones, which is a lot more character driven than books I usually read. But the coastal town vibe was so well done and I really liked the characters so I still enjoyed it. I’ll have a review up soon.

Click to read my review of The Doll Maker, book four in Celine Jeanjean’s The Viper and the Urchin series. This was released yesterday and might be my favourite one of the series so far!

What are you currently reading?

Still listening to Enchantee by Gita Trelease. The last audio books I read were A Thousand Pieces of You and Ten Thousand Skies Above You by Claudia Gray and I was actively cleaning or folding laundry in order to have more time to listen. I… am not having the same desire with this book. It’s going to take me a little while to get through, I think.

I am also reading an ARC of Lucid by Kristy Fairlamb, about a teenager cursed to dream the final moments of the dying. I’m about 20% of the way through and there have been some interesting characters introduced and some pretty nasty dream descriptions, but I’m kind of waiting for the story to get going. There’s a weekend away with friends coming up so I suspect that might be where things start getting interestinig.

What do you think you will read next?

I have accidentally ended up with eight library books out at once! Though a few of them are ready to return, several are for my Children’s Book of the Year reading challenge, which I need to get back to. I think I’ll start with The Things That Will Not Stand by Michael Gerard Bauer.

What are you reading this week? 🙂

WWW Wednesday – 24 April 2019

It’s time for WWW Wednesday! This blog hop is hosted by Sam over at A World Of Words. Link up with us by commenting on Sam’s post for this week, and just answer the three questions.

What have you recently finished reading?

I spent Friday reading Romanov by Nadine Brandes and for a while I wasn’t sure how I felt about it. Part of that was because I was expecting it to be something it was not, but also in and of itself, there were things I had issues with. But I found myself thinking about the true story of the Romanovs a lot as a result, so it obviously got under my skin. Here’s my full review.

Then I read The Winter  Freak Show by Daniel Parsons, which has been on my TBR since about 2015! I want to give it the benefit of the doubt and say I’m just a bit old for it… but honestly, I think it was just not the best written book. I just never felt involved.

Last but not least, I finished my early copy of The Doll Maker, which is the fourth book in Celine Jeanjean’s The Viper and the Urchin steampunk series (she hasn’t got it up on GoodReads itself yet). I liked this more than the third book! I think because the conflicts were more personal to the characters, rather than the sweeping effects on a whole nation in the last book.

I don’t usually mentioned DNFs on WWW posts, but a couple of people were interested in Changing Gear by Scot Gardner when I mentioned it last week. I read about 90 pages and it’s possible that it was going to pick up after I left off. But the main character just made a string of terrible decisions and I didn’t have any sympathy for him!

I also reviewed Wolfhunter River by Rachel Caine this week. Click the title to read it.

What are you currently reading?

I’ve started P Is For Pearl by Eliza Henry Jones, which is next on the 2019 Children’s Book Council of the Year Award Notables list. It’s a contemporary, and the Aussie setting is really vivid and the teen characters actually seem realistic (with all the SFF I’ve been reading recently, everyone has seemed a bit older than their years). I’m not sure exactly what this one’s about but I’ve been warned to have the tissues handy.

Not much movement on Enchantee by Gita Trelease this week. To be honest, after finishing Romanov, I spent my solo driving time singing along with the Anastasia cast album,  so this got pushed aside.

What do you think you will read next?

I was scanning NetGalley the other day and Lucid by Kristy Fairlamb was available as a Read Now. I already follow this author on Twitter and had been considering reading the book, so I snapped it up.

What are you reading this week? 🙂

WWW Wednesday -17 April 2019

It’s time for WWW Wednesday! This blog hop is hosted by Sam over at A World Of Words. Link up with us by commenting on Sam’s post for this week, and just answer the three questions.

What have you recently finished reading?

I finished A Million Worlds With You by Claudia Gray. This was a great end to the series. I wasn’t sure how Claudia Gray was  possibly going to wrap everything up but she managed it, and it worked really well! Here are my reviews of the second and third books in the series.

I also read The Steam Engines  of Oz by Sean Patrick O’Reilly and Erik Hendrix with illustrations by Yannis Roumboulias. This was at the behest of my partner, who has started a YouTube channel talking about various Oz adaptations and how they relate to the original books. I didn’t love this. It didn’t have a whole lot of depth and while I’m not completely up on my Oz lore, even I spotted deviations from the original stories which didn’t really seem to add anything.

I also finished Wolfhunter River by Rachel Caine and enjoyed it despite it really only getting going in the suspense department in the last third. But it had a lot of really strong character stuff, and a pretty strong crime story, so still plenty going nfor it.

What are you currently reading?

I literally finished Wolfhunter River an hour ago, so I am something like 1% into Romanov  by Nadine Brandes.  I have really high hopes for this book, and I really hope it doesn’t disappoint. I had tickets to see Anastasia on Broadway later this year and then it closed in March so this book is all my Romanov-inspired fantasy for this year.

I have also started listening to Enchantee by Gita Trelease. I’m glad I’ve found an historical fantasy set in France that I am enjoying more than I enjoyed The Gilded Wolves. Though I think it is going to be a bit on the long side. We shall see.

On that note, thanks for your audio book recommendations last week! I appreciate it, and I’ve added a few to my wish list.

What do you think you will read next?

I’ve been saying this for weeks, but this week it really will be Changing Gear by Scot Gardner, another #LoveOzYA that is on the Children’s Book Council of Australia 2019 Notables list.

What are you reading this week? 🙂