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 Empty Grave (Lockwood & Co. #5) by Jonathan Stroud and it was a very satisfying conclusion to the series. Sometimes when I had read the previous installments, I didn’t really get why the characters were doing things or going to certain places, but everything drew together very nicely at the end. I’m really looking forward to seeing what Stroud comes up with next. I posted my review on Monday.
What are you currently reading?
I have started reading Every Breath by Ellie Marney. Ellie Marney was one of the instigators of the #LoveOzYA movement, so I’ve been keen to check out this series for a while. I am only in chapter 2 at time of writing so it’s very early days, but based on the couple of chapters and the blurbs for all three books (I picked up all three from the library at the same time), it might be one of those YA series that could either go very, very right or very, very wrong.
I am still going with The Hospital by the River by Catherine Hamlin on audio but I have made some good progress and I think I’m at about the 80% mark now.
What do you think you’ll read next?
As it was last week,I’m not quite sure. I would like to knock one more book off my Jan-Feb TBR before the end of January, as then I’ll be halfway through it. I also need to look at some of my ARCs pretty soon.
Title: The Empty Grave (Lockwood & Co. #5) Author: Jonathan Stroud Genre: YA/urban fantasy Date Read: 11/01/2018 – 21/01/2018 Rating: ★★★★
Review:
There’s always a sense of bittersweet when you come to the end of a series you’ve enjoyed. While the fourth installment of Lockwood and Co left me underwhelmed, everything from the previous four books came together in this one to give a really satisfyinng conclusion.
I have to admit that this wasn’t as scary as the other books. I think this was because Lockwood & Co. didn’t actually deal with that many ghosts in this one, and when they did, they dealt with them fairly swiftly. Something I loved about the earlier books was that some of the scenes where Lockwood & Co visited various haunted sites had me staying up late because if I didn’t see the battle out, I knew I wouldn’t sleep that night. Book four didn’t do that, and neither did this one. The conflict in Book 5 was more to do with the origins of the Problem, and the early ghost-hunting agencies.
Still, I loved the team dynamics here. I had often felt a bit uncomfortable with the way George was made fun of, usually due to his weight, so it was nice to see how much it really did affect the rest of the team when something happened to him. The Lockwood/Lucy romance that so many readers were hoping for was hinted at (rather heavily at the end) but never actually detailed. I am torn between thanking the gods for a YA series with no romance and wanting to have seen them get together, or at least admit to some mutual feelings, on the page.
This is the second series by Jonathan Stroud that I have followed and he has been one of my favourite authors ever since I read the Bartimaeus series. I am looking forward to seeing what he comes up with next!
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 Everless by Sara Holland and while it was still a little bit tropey, it did subvert other tropes and completely sucked me in! I’ll be looking forward to the next book.
I also read Mr Stink by David Walliams. This is a children’s book very much in the style of Roald Dahl (complete with illustrations by Quentin Blake). I liked it but I wasn’t quite sure what it was trying to say. I’ll have a review up on Friday.
Two reviews this week! My review of Everless went up here and I also reviewed False Awakening, an urban fantasy by Cassandra Page, here.
What are you currently reading?
I haven’t had a lot of time for reading this past week as I’ve been on holidays with a couple of friends, but I have been reading The Empty Grave (Lockwood & Co. #5) by Jonathan Stroud. Feeling a bit bittersweet as I have been following this series since it began and this is the last book. Also, last time I finished a series by Jonathan Stroud, I threw my Kindle across the room (the ending wasn’t bad at all, just gave me a lot of feelings), so I’m a little apprehensive.
I am still going with The Hospital by the River by Catherine Hamlin. I haven’t had much time for audio books but I’ll be getting back to my longer walks tomorrow so I will be able to make some more progress with this one.
What do you think you’ll read next?
So I requested some ARCs from NetGalley that I thought were not going to be published until June and October, only to discover after I was accepted that they were actually published last June and October (and are still available to request?!). And also there was that time on Sunday when I went to the library and accidentally came away with six books. Which is all to say, I really don’t know, but I have plenty to choose from!
Title: The Creeping Shadow (Lockwood & Co. #4) Author: Jonathan Stroud
Genre: YA/urban fantasy Date Read: 16/01/2017 – 23/01/2017 Rating: ★★☆
Review:
I normally love Jonathan Stroud’s books, but I have to admit, this is definitely the weakest of the Lockwood & Co. books. Having said that, it’s the seventh book I’ve read by this author and the first one that’s disappointed me, so I guess that’s not too bad a run.
This book had its moments, but overall it wasn’t as spooky as previous installments, nor did the tension seem as high. While Lockwood and Co. have their usual high-profile run-ins with ghosts and uncover some huge ghost-related conspiracies with huge implications for the United Kingdom, I found myself just not really caring.
There were of course some good aspects. The banter between Lockwood & Co. was as good as always, and I appreciated that Lucy had got over her petty jealousies of Holly. The team really gelled in this book and after the arguments and stupid tensions in the previous book, that was really welcome. There were also some Lockwood/Lucy moments that were sweet without being saccharine. But while these types of moments redeemed the parts I disliked in the last book, they didn’t really lift my overall care factor for this one.
My final issue with this book, and one which I think probably compounded all the others, was that it was too long. It was 528 pages, and I think could have been cut down quite a bit. I did figure out one of the major plot points quite early on, so the characters’ detective work to discover it was no shock to me. As there is only one more book in this series, I will certainly see it through, but it was always disappointing when a favourite author doesn’t quite live up to expectations.
Teaser Tuesday is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of A Daily Rhythm. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:
Grab your current read
Open to a random page
Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
Share the title & author, too
The new Lockwood & Co. book came out today! That link goes to the series page on GoodReads, and you can read my reviews of the first two books here and here. I had the new one pre-ordered on Amazon, so I was able to start it on my break today. Here’s the teaser:
Remember I said there was that moment of sweet precision, when we jelled perfectly as a team? Yeah, well, this wasn’t it.
At the moment that this remark is made, Lockwood is dangling out a window with his coat on fire, George is dangling from a ladder and Lucy (the narrator) has lost her sword down a trap door and is trying to avoid ghost-tentacles. And it’s only chapter three! Things often go awry like this for Lockwood & Co but they always manage to get the job done anyhow.
Please feel free to join in on Teaser Tuesday by visiting A Daily Rhythm and leaving a comment there. I’ll see you tomorrow for WIPpet and WWW Wednesday!
Title:The Whispering Skull (Lockwood & Co. #2) Author: Jonathan Stroud Genre: YA/Urban fantasy/Supernatural Date Read: 28/8/14 – 30/8/14 Rating: ★★★★★
Review:
Last fortnight, I posted my review of The Screaming Staircase, the first book in the Lockwood & Co. series. I gave it four stars, and I expected this one to be at much the same level; to my surprise, this one was even better!
After what should have been a routine mission in a haunted cemetery goes wrong, Lockwood and Co. are trying to track down a very powerful and very dangerous psychic magic mirror which is connected to one of the most terrifying ghosts any of them have encountered. George is especially affected, but Lockwood and Lucy don’t really notice his new obsession with the magical mirror, as he’s always getting obsessed about something. Meanwhile, the skull that spoke to Lucy at the end of the previous book has finally started talking again. It seems to want to help them, but only to a point. And to make matters worse, not only is solving this case a race against time to protect the world from the mirror’s power, it’s also a matter of pride, as Lockwood has turned it into a contest between them and rival agents, Quill Kipps and his group.
In this book, Stroud expands on the alternate version of the UK that he established in The Screaming Staircase. We learn about relic-men, who scour graveyards and other possible Source locations for psychic items to sell to collectors on the black market. One of these, Flo, is a friend(sort of) of Lockwood’s, and helps him out from time to time, including on this case. I loved Flo’s unapologetic abrasive attitude, and that she was willing to be paid in liquorice. We also get to see inside the Fittes Agency and meet Penelope Fittes, granddaughter of the great Marissa Fittes, who founded the agency and wrote many of the books all agents rely on, whether they work for Fittes or not. It seems Penelope is involved with some suspect figures, but the exact nature of that we have yet to learn. While Lockwood remains almost frustratingly mysterious, we do get to learn more about both Lucy and George.
The action is fast-paced and, given the nature and target audience of the book, just the right amount of scary. I sadly didn’t have the same opportunity to stay up all night reading as I had with the first book, but I did find myself itching to go back whenever I had to put it down (like, you know, at work and stuff) because no matter where I left it, there was always something exciting going on. I read the Kindle version, which came out at the end of August. The print version only came out on September 16, so I know I’m going to be sitting about for a while with this problem:
Title: The Screaming Staircase (Lockwood & Co. #1) Author: Jonathan Stroud Genre: YA/Urban fantasy/Supernatural Date Read: 07/08/2014 – 08/08/2014 Rating: ★★★★
Review:
It’s been a long time since I read a 400+ page book in a day. Well, nearly just one day, but it was only the last 40 pages on the second. Boyfriend needed to be up early for work the following day, and a) every room except the bedroom was cold so I didn’t want to move and b) the book was creepy enough for me to prefer to remain in his company and not read, then keep reading alone.
Anyway. Last year I read Jonathon Stroud’s Bartimaeus Trilogy and adored it. This book also came out last year, and I’ve been aware of it, but trying to clear out my bookshelves rather than get things from the library, so it’s taken me this long to get to it. Given how quickly I read it though, I probably needn’t have waited so long.
Like the Bartimaeus trilogy, Lockwood is set in an alternate version of London, though in this one, Londoner (and all of England, I think) are inhibited by the Problem, that is, an infestation of ghosts. The Problem has existed for fifty or sixty years now, but no one knows what caused it. All they know is that young children have a heightened sensitivity to psychic activity and therefore need to be on the front line of defence. We follow Lucy Carlyle, who has recently joined the Agency Lockwood & Co. in London after a disaster in her hometown left her alive but the rest of her team of child operatives dead. When Lucy steals an artefact during a case, it leads to them identifying a murder victim, and beginning an investigation into her death fifty years prior. Not only that, but they receive an offer they can’t refuse from one of England’s most powerful business men, which requires them to spend the night in one of the most haunted houses in England…
While the titular Screaming Staircase job doesn’t actually come into play until about 250 pages in, the novel is fast-paced from the beginning. The first chapter throws the reader into the action as Lockwood and Lucy investigate a vengeful spirit and accidentally burn down a house. After that, we learn a bit more about The Problem, about Lucy’s past, and the Lockwood company (the third and last member of which is George Crubbins, who is kind of gross and really annoying, but he is an important member of the team). From there, they deal with a ghost somehow getting into their home, an armed robbery, a debt of £60000 with only a month to pay, and finally the most dangerous case of their lives.
The quote from Rick Riordan on the front cover says, “You’ll want to sleep with the lights on!” and there were definitely moments where this was the case for me. Stroud’s world-building is great (there’s even a glossary at the back of all the different types of ghosts); he knows how to really build up the tension, and he creates characters that you really want to see escape alive, though sometimes you’re not sure if that’s going to happen.
The characters are all individual: Lucy with her troubled past, Lockwood has boundless energy but is also secretive and mysterious (he won’t talk about his parents and the house they live in belongs to him, but don’t ask about that third door on the landing; he won’t tell you what’s behind it), and George as… well. That kind of annoying one that you wish didn’t have to be there, but you know you’d be useless without him (where Lockwood loves to dive into a case without asking any questions, George can be found down at the National Archives doing as much research as he can before he sets foot in a haunted area). There are definitely hints of a romance between Lockwood and Lucy, but I’m hoping that won’t get too overpowering in subsequent books.
Basically, I loved this book. The only reason I didn’t give it five stars is because it is aimed at a younger readership and some of the actual writing itself did feel a bit young for me, and a few other little niggling things like Lucy not seeming hugely affected by the deaths of her teammates. The story itself definitely made up for that, though, and you will be able to read a review of the second book in the series, the Whispering Skull, in two Fridays’ time. At time of writing, it hasn’t come out yet, but I imagine it will be another read-in-one-night book. 😀
P.S. In case you don’t want to take my word for it, here is the book trailer. I haven’t actually been able to bring myself to watch it because it’s bloody creepy!
shed The Empty Grave (Lockwood & Co. #5) by Jonathan Stroud and it was a very satisfying conclusion to the series. Sometimes when I had read the previous installments, I didn’t really get why the characters were doing things or going to certain places, but everything drew together very nicely at the end. I’m really looking forward to seeing what Stroud comes up with next. I posted my review on Monday.
I have started reading Every Breath by Ellie Marney. Ellie Marney was one of the instigators of the #LoveOzYA movement, so I’ve been keen to check out this series for a while. I am only in chapter 2 at time of writing so it’s very early days, but based on the couple of chapters and the blurbs for all three books (I picked up all three from the library at the same time), it might be one of those YA series that could either go very, very right or very, very wrong.
I am still going with The Hospital by the River by Catherine Hamlin on audio but I have made some good progress and I think I’m at about the 80% mark now.
A Keyboard and an Open Mind 