#WWW Wednesday – July 12, 2017

t’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?

It’s been a couple of weeks since my last WWW post, and in that time, I’ve finished several books.

I finished listening to The Prestige by Christopher Priest. It was really hard to not compare it to the movie, which I think tells the same story in a much tighter way. I posted my review here on Monday.

I then began July by returning to Lemony Snicket’s Series of Unfortunate Events. I read The Ersatz Elevator, The Vile Village, The Hostile Hospital, The Carnivorous Carnival and The Slippery Slope (books 6-10) in quick succession. I thought for a while that The Vile Village was the last one I had read as a child, but I definitely read this far. I have a memory of Sunny cooking with wasabi, which I haven’t come across yet, so I guess I read far more of the series back in the day than I thought.

Other reviews posted since my last WWW post are The Mystery at Maplemead Castle by Kitty French and Interview With the Vampire by Anne Rice.

What are you currently reading?

I am still reading  Dracula by Bram Stoker and The Ship Beyond Time by Heidi Heilig, though there has been little movevment on any of them recently. I only finished the 10th ASOUE book this afternoon, so I will probably return to one of these tomorrow. I need a break from Snicket before I finish the series.

What do you think you’ll read next?

I got The Year of Freaking Out by Sarah Walker out from the library today. I think this is a YA Contempory, and I’ve got it on my TBR for the Australian Women Writers Challenge. I also posted my July – September TBR, which you can read here. It’s a mix of ARCs and challenge books. e

What are you reading this week? 🙂

 

P.S. If you feel so inclined, head on over to my writing blog, Letting the Voices Out, where I’ve shared an excerpt from my current WIP today.

Book Review: “Mystery at Maplemead Castle” by Kitty French

Title: Mystery at Maplemead Castle (Chapelwick Mysteries #2)
Author: Kitty French
Genre: NA/urban fantasy
Date Read: 21/06/2017 – 22/06/2017
Rating: ★★★☆

Review:

As with the first book in this series, this installment was a lot of fun, though a bit long, and I could have used a bit more focus on the ghosts.

Melody Bittersweet’s second gig with the Girls’ Ghostbusting Agency is to clear Maplemead Castle of ghosts before a film crew shows up the following week. The new owners of the Castle love media attention, so she has to work with her ex, Leo Dark, around again,  as well as put up with the presence of Fletcher Gunn, who is doing a story on her for the local newspaper. Fletcher continues to to seek to discredit Melody’s ghost-seeing abilities, but at the same time, the attraction between them can’t be denied.

If I’m honest, the mystery itself was fairly basic, and could have been solved a lot earlier if some of the characters had just communicated a bit better. However, the way in which the ghosts ended up finally able to move on required the characters to spend time together first, so I guess it is fair that the story was strung out a bit longer. I did still really enjoy the ghost characters, even though their story ended up quite sad.

A lot more of the book was spent on the tricky love-hate relationship between Melody and Fletch. For the most part, the lustful banter was fun and there was a pretty great phone sex scene in there as well. I still felt a little ambivalent about Fletcher, though, and the tragic backstory we learned about in this book felt a little forced and at odds with the snark and innuendo he was throwing around so often.

The other side characters, from Melody’s colleagues Marina and Arthur, to her mother and grandmother, and the owners of Maplemead Castle, were all well drawn and fun. They all have their own distinct personalities which makes for an entertaining ensemble cast. While I don’t feel these books are any kind of literary masterpiece, they are definitely the perfect book for when you need something light and frothy and I will definitely be continuing with the series.

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#WWW Wednesday – 28 June 2017

t’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 had a good week this week, polishing off two books from my April-June TBR. I’m not quite going to get everything ticked off but I’ll come close! The books I read were  The Mystery and Maplemead Castle by Kitty French, which was just plain fun, and Beneath the Apple Blossom by Kate Frost, which was a lot heavier, but I couldn’t put it down.

I also posted reviews of Ensnared by Rita Stradling and Beneath the Apple Blossom. Click the titles to read them.

What are you currently reading?

No movement on Dracula by Bram Stoker this week. I’ll get back to it in July.

I have listened to the majority of The Prestige by Christopher Priest now. I was a bit worried that the second half was going to drag (I thought it was heading towards the climax then realised that I was only at 45%) but it is still interesting and I’m about two-thirds of the way through now.

And I have finally started reading The Ship Beyond Time by Heidi Heilig, the sequel to The Girl From Everywhere, which I read about 18 months ago and reviewed here. I haven’t had much time to read so I’m still only at about 15%, but it’s starting to get going. I am worried it might be focusing more on the romance than the time travel, but some of the reviews assure me this is not really the case, so fingers crossed.

What do you think you’ll read next?

I’m going to try reading The Bloodshade Encounters/The Songspinner by K. C. Finn. This is two novellas in one volume, they are prequels, I guess? to The Book of Shade, the first part of the Shadeborn series. I’ve read about 10% and I have a bad feeling this is going to suffer a bit from it’s-been-too-long-since-I-read-the-first-one syndrome; I can’t really remember who the characters are so reading their backstories isn’t meaning much. But I did buy it so I’m going to give it a bit more of a go.

What are you reading this week? 🙂

 

P.S. If you feel so inclined, head on over to my writing blog, Letting the Voices Out, where I’ve shared an excerpt from my current WIP today.

#WWW Wednesday – 21 June 2017

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 realised that I totally missed a book last week that I actually read during my WWW Wednesday hiatus. That book was Starting Out as an Indie Author: A Beginner’s Guide to Preparing, Publishing and Marketing Your EBooks by Ruth Nestvold. I will definitely be coming back  to this book when I’m preparing to self-publish again. It has heaps of valuable information and links to other resources that will definitely be a help.

This week I also read Ensnared by Rita Stradling and it… was not great, in my opinion. The romance was a little too weird and unhealthy for me to really get behind it. My review will be up on Friday.

I also switched from audio to paperback and finished Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice today. I enjoyed it enough to give it three stars, but I’m not 100% sure what I’ll be saying in my review yet. Some of it was a bit squiffy.

What are you currently reading?

Dracula by Bram Stoker continues to be ongoing. I’m focusing on getting as much of my April-June TBR ticked off before the end of the month, but in July I wil try to go back to my two-or-three-chapters-a-week plan with this book.

On audio, I started The Prestige by Christopher Priest today. I’ve seen the movie a couple of times and really loved it, so I was intrigued when I saw it available on Overdrive. I knocked off about three hours while I was cooking and then driving later on, and I’m really enjoying it so far. Nineteenth century illusionists are always a fun topic to explore.

What do you think you’ll read next?

My next print read will be The Mystery and Maplemead Castle by Kitty French. I’ve been looking forward to this one for a while and revisiting Melody Bittersweet and Co. and their ghosthunting shenanigans.  It’s time for something a little more lighthearted.

What are you reading this week? 🙂

 

 

P.S. If you’ve come here looking for WIPpet Wednesday, head on over to my writing blog, Letting the Voices Out.

“Growing up as a Bittersweet, I’ve come to rely on a different set of life skills to most girls.” // Review of “Melody Bittersweet and the Girls’ Ghostbusting Agency” by Kitty French

Title: Melody Bittersweet and the Girls’ Ghostbusting Agency
Author: Kitty French
Genre: NA/urban fantasy
Date Read: 22/07/2016 – 26/07/2016
Rating: ★★★

Review:

I love the cover of this book and it was definitely a cute story. However, there were a few things that prevented it from getting a higher rating.

Melody Bittersweet comes from a family of psychics, and when she opens the Girls’ Ghostbusting Agency with her best friend and young man called Art who came recommended by the ghost of his dead father, their first case pops up nearly straight away. They need to rid an old house of its three ghost inhabitants, but to do that, they would need to solve a 100-year-old murder.

Melody and her two assistants are great characters. Melody’s best friend Marina is loud and outspoken, while Art is painfully shy and only just finding his feet. Melody sits somewhere in the middle of these two, and the three of them make a great team.

The mystery was my favourite part of this novel, though it honestly wasn’t a very complicated one. I did enjoy watching Melody tease out details of the family from the three ghosts, Jasper, Lloyd and Isaac, all three of whom had individual, well-established personalities along with a long family history.

What I didn’t enjoy so much was the romance element, as I didn’t like either of Melody’s love interests. Both Leo Dark, a rival psychic and also Melody’s ex, and Fletcher Gunn (I’m going from memory here, but I think that was his name), a skeptical reporter determined to expose both the Bittersweets and Leo Dark as frauds, are Class A Alpha Male douchebags. Both of them were rude and unlikable, and only redeemed themselves a little by assisting Melody with the case towards the end. To be fair, Fletcher was fully open about the fact that he was in lust with Melody rather than in love, but in a book calling itself a romantic comedy, I expect some proper romance, dammit!

This is a cute series opener, and I recommend if you are in the mood for some light-hearted urban fantasy. I will probably check out the next book in the series when it comes out, but I won’t be waiting with baited breath for it.

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#WWW and #WIPpet Wednesday – 27 July, 2016

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

• What are you currently reading?

Still going with the audio of Paper Daisies by Kim Kelly. It’s going on a bit, but I’m kind of at that “Well, I’ve committed now” point.

In print, I have started The Interrogation of Ashala Wolf by Ambelin Kwaymullina. This is one of my Indigneous Australian author reads for the Australian Women Writers Challenge. I only started it today, but I like it so far and I’m hoping it might be the book that ends my long slew of 3-star reads and gets a four or a five.

• What have you recently finished reading?

As expected, I finished Wonder Women by Sam Maggs, and my review went up on Monday. I do want to go back through it and note down some of the books written by the featured women and bios written about them, because I would love to find out more.

I then proceeded to finish Isla’s Inheritance by Cassandra Page very quickly (less than 24 hours). It was enjoyable enough, but I didn’t feel compelled to continue the series.

After that, I finished off Melody Bittersweet and the Girls’ Ghostbusting Agency by Kitty French, which I saw on someone else’s WWW posts in the last couple of weeks. It was cute, though I did not like the love interests at all, which did put a damper on the “romantic comedy” aspect. I did really like the mystery, though.

Last night, I read the preview excerpt of Vicarious by Paula Stokes, which is available on NetGalley in the lead-up to the release next month. If I had actually read the listing properly and realised it was a preview, I probably wouldn’t have requested it, but it was interesting.

I also posted my review of Blood of My Blood, the third in the Jasper Dent series by Barry Lyga, on Friday.

• What do you think you’ll read next?

I also Am I Black Enough For You? by Anita Heiss out from the library for the AWW Challenge, so it may well be next. I also have a few books of my own that I’m going to try to read soon.

And now for WIPpet Wednesday. This is another blog hop in which writers share excerpts from their current WIP that somehow relate to the date. Clicking the blue guy on the right will take you to the linkup for this one.

In this scene, Frederick has just told Grace that he shouldn’t teach her any magic, and should instead tell her to go back to her room and never think about it ever again. Seven sentences for the seventh month.

Grace looked at him with a wry expression. “You think you can just tell someone to forget about this sort of thing?”

“No,” he replied. “I know you can’t. No one can. That’s what makes it so powerful. The second you get a taste for it, it has a hold over you.”

Frederick does have his reasons for showing Grace the magic in the first place. I’m not saying they’re good reasons (in fact, they’re pretty weak), but they are reasons nonetheless.

This week I’ve been writing from Frederick’s POV, and that’s been interesting. He’s very private but I’ve managed to needle out a lot of his past, which has been good. I also had an epiphany the other day (after writing the first 16k, of course!) that the whole thing would work a lot better if Grace were the governess to Frederick’s children, rather than a maid in his household. So I’ll have to a whole lot of revision there, but that’s okay.

That’s it from me, as I have a few things I need to get done tonight. I also need to consume the rest of this delicious lemon meringue pie sitting next to me. See you on your blogs!

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