July reading wrap up

I had a pretty great reading month, I didn’t 100% stick to my tbr, I guess my mood reader ways can’t be tamed, but for the most part I read some great books. I haven’t picked up a book in the last week. I’m not sure why. Emotionally it has been a big couple of months and I think I’m burnt out.

I watched a Jolt, on Amazon. Kate Beckinsale is such a badass babe. It wasn’t the best movie but I didn’t have to think or feel for 90 minutes so that was nice. I also watched a few episodes of New Girl. I love it but only watch 2-3 episodes every few months, so it’s going to take me forever to get through. (I’m still on season 1). I also started The Good Doctor. It will also become a show I only watch every now and then, so I’ll never get through it. And last night I decided to introduce the 16yr old to Underworld as she hadn’t seen it yet and as expected she bloody loved it and is planning on watching the rest of them as soon as possible.

Australian authors I have loved.

I originally posted this in 2018 and I wanted to update it a little to add some other Australian authors that I have since discovered and thoroughly enjoyed. It’s going to make it a chonky post so I hope you make it all the way through.

John Marsden – born in Victoria in 1950, he had an interest in writing from a young age. He was a teacher and has written many books, he is successful internationally as well as at home.

The Tomorrow when the War Began series was my favourite series as a young teen. A group of kids go camping for a weekend and when they get back they discover that their area/country has been invaded. Their loved ones are held captive, so they do the only thing they can do – Guerrilla warfare. Ellie and her friends are a diverse bunch with many skills, they use these country kid skills to cause mayhem for the invading forces. I absolutely loved the idea of kids kicking arse and taking it to the bad guys. The relationships between the kids were complex and well written. John Marsden didn’t skim over the details, he handled the mental challenges the kids faced really well, the fallout for them. It’s not all sunshine and lollipops, these kids go through hell and their mental health reflects this. I still reread this series every couple of years. I cannot wait for my daughter to read this series. There are seven books in the series and I just discovered a follow-up series called the Ellie Chronicles that I have yet to read.

(2021 update – My daughter was not a fan of this and didn’t even make it through the first book… Does this mean I failed as a mum? lol)

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Goodreads  –  Amazon

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Stacking The Shelves

A weekly post where I can brag about my new books? Yes please. Granted I definitely won’t have something to post every week, I’ll just do it as required. I will be including everything from my purchases, to NetGalley, gifts and books from authors. For more information head over to Tynga’s reviews.

I finished The Night Prince series. And if you have read any of my stacking the shelves updates you would know I was on a buying ban and couldn’t buy any new physical books until I had finished the series. I was so excited, I knew which book or five I wanted. There have been some amazing new releases out already this year, I wanted them all. I wanted all the pretty new books for my shelves. So you can imagine my utter despair when I discovered that I couldn’t get any of the books I wanted in paperback. I’m a tight ass, I don’t pay hardback price. DEVASTATED. First world problems I know. I decided to get a different book (great decision) and get the kindle version (I’ll get it in paperback later), and that led me to the other horror book I found.

Ebooks:

The Gulp by Alan Baxter – I may have a slight obsession with Alan Baxter’s books. This one was an absolute winner and my review can be found HERE.

We Are Wolves: A Horror Anthology by some incredibly talented authors and edited by Gemma Amor, Laurel Hightower and Cynthia Paleyo – This is one that I wasn’t searching for, it found me and boy am I glad. Feminist dark fantasy and horror. From the forward to the very last page, I was completely enamoured.

Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse – I’ve had my eye on this since it was first released. I don’t know what the deal is at the moment, but I couldn’t get this in paperback either.

From blood and Ash by Jennifer L Armentrout – There is so much hype around this one. I’m hoping for dark and sexy fantasy.

That’s it from me this week. Have you read any of these? Do you have a favourite?

WWW Wednesday

Today I have a super simple post to let the world know what I’m reading. Hosted by Taking on a World of Words, you answer 3 questions and hey presto, you are all done.

What are you currently reading?

What did you recently finish reading?

What do you think you’ll read next?

Currently reading –

We Are Wolves: A Horror Anthology – Including authors like Gemma Amor, Jessica Guess, Sadie Hartmann and many more, this book isn’t for the faint of heart. It’s powerful, emotional, empowering and dark.

The Gulp by Alan Baxter

“Welcome to The Gulp, where nothing is as it seems.”

Moody – Dark – Gorey – engaging – Supernatural

Synopsis – Strange things happen in The Gulp. The residents have grown used to it. The isolated Australian harbour town of Gulpepper is not like other places. Some maps don’t even show it. And only outsiders use the full name. Everyone who lives there calls it The Gulp. The place has a habit of swallowing people.
A truck driver thinks the stories about The Gulp are made up to scare him. Until he gets there. Teenage siblings try to cover up the death of their mother, but their plans go drastically awry. A rock band invite four backpackers to a party at their house, where things get dangerously out of hand. A young man loses a drug shipment and his boss gives him 48 hours to make good on his mistake. Under the blinking eye of the old lighthouse, a rock fisher makes the strangest catch of his life.

Five novellas. Five descents into darkness. 

Favourites of 2020

Well it’s a week or so later than I originally planned, but finally it’s here. My wrap up of 2020. Life wise all has been well here, where I live we have managed to avoid, for now, Covid affecting our lives too much. The kids had a couple of weeks off school and a lot of business was closed for a while. I was off work for six months, but a lot of other people were affected way more than us. My daughter and I have started volunteering at a wildlife hospital, my son has taken up a new sport and I’m looking forward to trying new things in 2021 (Well maybe saying that I’m looking forward to new things is a bit strong lol). I also fell in love with reading middle grade books and they kept me reading while I was teetering on the verge of a massive slump.

Girl on Fire by Gemma Amor

I first came across Girl on Fire when someone was talking about the author on Twitter. I can’t remember who, but if it was you, thank you. The cover stole my attention and the synopsis made sure I pre-ordered it. 

What an absolute ride. It starts as it intends to finish; brutal, powerful and jarring. Girl on Fire gripped me tight and pulled me along. I had no choice, I had to keep turning the pages. It is intense and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

“Ruby stood, fire flowing from her like water, her face set and stony, her head cocked to one side. I realised that she was not new to killing, she had done it before, and would do it again. I knew what I was looking at: anger, fresh and unfettered, and I knew there was an endless well of it inside of her, I just knew.”

Ruby is an intense character. She is pure rage and considering her experiences you can see why. Raped by her Daddy, believed by no one, what is left for her to do but escape. Only she crashes her car and is burnt up in the inferno. When the flames die down she is reborn, ready to take out the trash.

I can’t emphasize enough just how perfect the writing style is for this book. The sentences bring Ruby, her pain and her anger, to life. They pack a punch, they have purpose and deliver the story in style.

I’m actually not sure how to review this one, it’s such a powerful, emotional read. I want to do it justice, do Ruby justice. Ruby isn’t a character you will love, she is a broken monster, but I empathise with her and how she got to the point where her only option is to set fire to the world. And that’s exactly what she does, she harnesses her anger, her rage, her hate and she lets loose on the world that failed her.

Gemma Amor is an author that isn’t afraid to take the story where it needs to go, and I will be hunting down her books and diving into the stories within.

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Goodreads  –  Amazon

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A Season of Whispers by Jackson Kuhl

Welcome to my stop on the A Season of Whispers blog tour, brought to the world by the team at Storytellers On Tour. The creepy factor was high in this one, so it was perfect to read over Halloween.

Synopsis – In the summer of 1844, Tom Lyman flees to Bonaventure, a transcendentalist farming cooperative tucked away in eastern Connecticut, to hide from his past. There Lyman must adjust to a new life among idealists, under the fatherly eye of the group’s founder, David Grosvenor. When he isn’t ducking work or the questions of the eccentric residents, Lyman occupies himself by courting Grosvenor’s daughter Minerva.

But Bonaventure isn’t as utopian as it seems. One by one, Lyman’s secrets begin to catch up with him, and Bonaventure has a few secrets of its own. Why did the farm have an ominous reputation long before Grosvenor bought it? What caused the previous tenants to vanish? And who is playing the violin in the basement? Time is running out, and Lyman must discover the truth before he’s driven mad by the whispering through the walls.

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A Season of Whispers is a supernatural gothic horror novella coming in at 130 pages. On each page Kuhl paints a vivid description, pulling us into the story, setting the scene and ramping up the overwhelming feeling of impending horror. From the lush setting, to the exquisite characters, every part of A Season of Whispers is exactly how it should be. I loved the way the characters spoke and interacted, I could see them like I was watching a movie.

The story and time lines are weaved together in such a way that you have to keep your wits about you while reading. The writing is clever and I often felt like I wasn’t the exact reader needed for the book. Not because I didn’t enjoy it, but because I think there is a lot more to get out of the book then I was able to get. It flowed well, with each character fully fleshed out with their own voice.  It was a great read, which I think many are going to love.

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Released: 8th October 2020  –  Publisher: Aurelio Leo  –  Amazon

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Author Bio – Jackson Kuhl is the author of the Gothic novel A SEASON OF WHISPERS and the Revolutionary War biography SAMUEL SMEDLEY, CONNECTICUT PRIVATEER. Kuhl has written for Atlas Obscura, Connecticut Magazine, the Hartford Courant, National Geographic News, Reason, and other publications. He lives in coastal Connecticut.  You can find Jackson on Twitter  –  Website  – Instagram

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About the publisher – Established in 2016, AURELIA LEO is an independent publisher and bookseller. Located in Louisville, Kentucky, we specialize in diverse speculative fiction, namely: horror, science fiction, and fantasy. Our flagship titles are Helios Quarterly Magazine, Selene Quarterly Magazine, and Invictus: Quarterly Comics and Illustrations.

Grave Reflection by A. Lawrence

To celebrate Halloween eve (is that a thing?) I’m participating in a blog tour brought to you by the team at Storytellers On Tour.

Grave Reflection is a fun, creepy, inclusive read. Lots of ghosts, beautiful friendships and a town on the brink of mayhem.

Synopsis- Another Friday night, another trip through a potentially haunted house. Shay’s not a believer, but she’s willing to help her best friend, Max, with their amateur ghost hunting show. Little does she know she is about to be thrown into a world of witches and dangerous spirits.
With newly discovered abilities, Shay finds that she can both see and touch spirits. The downside is, the ghosts can touch her back, and it seems that they’ll do anything to get a hold of her.
She was never much of a ghost hunter. How will she do when she is the one being hunted?

A Ritual of Bone by Lee C. Conley

It’s time for my stop on the latest blog tour from the team at Storytellers On Tour. Make sure you check in with the rest of the tour as there are some amazing posts so far, including a guest post by Lee.  

A Ritual of Bone is the first book in The Dead Sagas, and let me tell you it was a rip roaring first entry. Long since forgotten magic, warlords, plague and the undead, this story has it all. Plus book 2, A Ritual of Flesh, has just been released as well, so no waiting to find out what happens next.

Synopsis – Arnar is a land of warriors, its people as stalwart as the stones themselves. In a land of dark forests and ancient hill forts, a forgotten evil is awoken by curious minds.

The Great Histories and the Sagas say nothing of this evil, long passed from the memory of even the studious scholars of the College. For centuries, the scholars of Arnar have kept these records and preserved the knowledge and great deeds of a proud people. The story of these peoples forever chronicled in the Sagas of the Great Histories.

But now the evil spreads and the dead walk in its wake, terrible creatures roam the night and even the spirits are restless. The Dead Sagas could perhaps be the final chapters of these great records.

Many threads entwine to tell this Saga, interweaving the tales of those who played their part in the search for answers and ultimately their fight for survival. Amid plague, invasion and terror, the inexorable rise of the dead sends a kingdom scrabbling to its knees.

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A Ritual of bone is told from multiple pov, each in a different part of Arnar, each experiencing a different sort of horror and as the story progresses you can see how the characters are going to intertwine. I think Lee has done an awesome job of building the world through these characters. He is able to build the atmosphere and the lay of the land, all the while giving you an in depth look into who these people are as a society. He builds the story and world up, layer upon layer until you feel like you can see the story play out in your head. (That’s rare for me.)

Lee manages to create this overwhelming feeling of impending doom. The atmosphere is oppressive and at times claustrophobic. Every time you think it couldn’t get worse for the characters, it does. There are so many different types of horrors occurring throughout that you never get a break. I loved that he took my zombie expectations and turned it on it’s head. He doesn’t shy away from going full horror. Gore, chaos, psychological mayhem, this story has it all.

“She had murdered them. She watched as they fell lifeless to the floor. Her instincts torn asunder, her children, who looked to her for protection, for love, betrayed. Killed by her own hands. She had eaten them. Trapped watching, screaming in her mind, trapped in a living nightmare, watching it all unfold. Her love, replaced with a terrible rage as her spiralling descent into madness consumed all that she was.” 

Because we are following so many characters, we get to watch the onset of each catastrophe. We watch through the eyes of the Apprentice as obscene rituals are performed in the name of learning. We follow the soldiers as the undead make their way through the land. We see the plague set foot in Arnar for the first time, with people bleeding from every orifice and dying in the streets. While I did initially have an issue with the amount of pov’s, once I found my reading rhythm I was able to follow along easily. Not every pov is given the same amount of page time and I found a couple of those not introduced until later becoming my favourites, so I will definitely be picking up book 2 to see how everything is going to play out. This book has such a build up that you just know that the carnage in A Ritual of Flesh is going to be crazy. 

The book seems to have heavy Norse influences, especially with the way the communities away from the cities live and the fighting styles and weapons. The battles were very well written. I liked the way the soldiers interacted with each other. The way the soldiers were developed was great. 

I went into A Ritual of Bone expecting a zombie story, I got so much more.

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Goodreads  –  Amazon

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Author bio – Lee is a musician and writer in Lincolnshire, UK. He lives with his wife Laura and daughters Luna and Anya in the historic cathedral city of Lincoln. Alongside a lifetime of playing guitar and immersing himself in the study of music and history, Lee is also a practitioner and instructor of historic martial arts and swordsmanship. After writing his advanced guitar theory textbook The Guitar Teachers Grimoire, Lee turns his hand to writing fiction. Lee is one of the founders of Bard of the Isles literary magazine and is now also studying a degree in creative writing while working on his debut fantasy series The Dead Sagas, which includes the novels A Ritual of Bone and A Ritual of Flesh, as well as also generally writing speculative fiction and horror.

Official Website: https://www.leeconleyauthor.com/

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Don’t forget A Ritual of Flesh is out now  – Amazon

I’m posting the synopsis for it below, so if you want to avoid possible spoilers for A Ritual of Bone, stop now…

As evil ravages the north and the dead walk, all eyes fall to Arn… The apprentice journeys south, home to the College, unaware of the dark events that transpired in the High Passes after his departure. His leg in ruins, and haunted by watching shadows, the College council in Arn awaits him, but he does not travel south alone.
Arnulf and his warriors must travel to Arn also, with tidings for the king of the risen dead and the terrible curse which has destroyed all that he knew. Arnulf seeks vengeance upon the College, but must choose wisely if he is to save his son.
Meanwhile in the west, Bjorn and his strange Wildman companion report back to High Lord Archeon at Oldstones with grim news of cannibal Stonemen encroaching from the Barrens, but is embroiled in news of war and invasion as Archeon requests his service once more.
In the capital sickness awaits them all, Nym has fled to the city and must now continue her struggle for survival on the plague ridden streets of Arn, keeping all who she cares for safe from the halls of Old Night.

The many threads of this Saga converge on the city of Arn, but amid plague, invasion and terror, a greater darkness is looming. Dark forces are seeking to unleash evil upon Arnar, honour and renown is all, and sword, axe and shield is all that stands between the living and the grasping hands of the dead.