Book Review: Extraordinary Means by Robyn Schneider

First, this book is a bit of an odd sort. It’s realistic fiction with a slight science fiction twist, or maybe a hint of a dystopian future, but mostly it’s about the characters.

This book revolves around two teens, Lane and Sadie, who have been diagnosed with Totally Drug Resistant Tuberculosis, which isn’t a thing – yet. At first, I wasn’t sure what to think of this “possible future scenario”, but I was so pulled in by the characters that I put that aside and kept reading anyway.

I have to say, that I more or less expected the ending right from the get go, so there were no big shockers for me. But it was well written, and the characters were true and compelling, which kept me flipping pages all the way through, but I did slow down a little at the end. And, well, maybe I didn’t really feel a need to read the last couple of chapters.

The book did get me interested in doing some research on TB, and where that stands, and how possible this near future setting could be. If that’s your cup of tea, and you like strong characters who may or not fall in love, then this book is for you.

4/5 Stars.

See more of my recent book reviews by clicking the following links:
Emmy and Oliver
Finding Audrey
The Girl at Midnight

What is your main characters favourite time of day? Write a scene with your character at this time.

Well, I’ve decided to switch focus this NaNo. I’ve been working hard on Dark Shores, the third book in the Black Depths Series, which began with Tales of a Redheaded Sea-Witch. Broken Tide, the sequel to Sea-Witch, will be release two weeks from today, on November 30th, so get your e-readers ready!

If you haven’t read Tales of a Redheaded Sea-Witch, it will be going on sale November 30th, to only 99 cents, to celebrate the launch of Broken Tide, which will be priced at $2.99. I hope to finish up the draft of Dark Shores (Book 3) in Decemeber, and release it in late February or early March.  To that end, I have designed a placeholder cover for Dark Shores, to motivate me for the rest of NaNo. Here it is! (Not the final art)

Book Review: The Girl at Midnight – by Melissa Grey

I picked up this book because I loved the cover. I love that it doesn’t have a person on it. It’s so mysterious. Kind of mythical looking. And it’s purple, my second favourite colour.

I browsed the first chapter in the book store, and loved it (the prologue I wasn’t so sure about). I loved how this story began, with a wild run through an asian market, the heroine stuffing a BBQ Pork bun in her mouth. I instantly wanted to eat a BBQ pork bun.

Well, the rest of the book, it was good, but not as good as the cover and the first chapter. Which means I feel a little let down with the rest of it. A lot of people seemed to be comparing this book to Cassandra Clare’s The Mortal Instruments Series. Well, I’m not a big fan of that series, and thankfully, I didn’t find the two to be all that similar, with the exception that the series are both fantasy based, have a strong female lead (Echo is a much strong MC than Clary, IMO).

Overall, The Girl At Midnight was a good book, but after the first chapter, the pace seemed to slow down, it become a lot more lovey-dovey when I was cheering for a good girls adventure. So it just turned out that it wasn’t what I had expected. Now, I hope the following books to come will change that, regain some adventure and originality, which was lacking by the end of the book. Still, Echo was compelling, I’d love to know more about her past.

I will read the following books, because, as mentioned, it was still a good adventure, just not great, not mind-blowing. But then again, when was the last time I read a book even close to that….

4/5 Stars.

Book Review: The Scorch Trials – by James Dashner

I’m going to be honest. It took me four tries to get through this book. Now, that might have been because I was borrowing it from my e-library, which has a very annoying two-week limit. Often, I finish books within a week. The Scorch Trials took me closer to eight. It definitely wasn’t as good as the Maze runner, I thought, and I think that was because this book focused less on Character and more on plot. The mystery is coming out pretty slowly at this point, but there is a lot of action. So if you love action, this is probably for you.

I will read the rest of this series, but that kind of because they are making the movies and I’m the kind of person that has to read the books before watching the show. Now I’m free to finally go and watch The Scorch Trials movie. Dashner also has a very appealing writing style, in that he writes books that are paced well and easy to follow, making them a low-stress read, which I sometimes crave in my busy life.

Thomas is a compelling character, but I would love to see and learn more of some of the others. Maybe this will happen in the later books.

4/5 Stars.

This blog topic may just be an excuse to buy myself nice things, and talk even more than I already do. But I thought I might as well have some fun.

When I was out shopping the other day, I saw these EOS lip balms. I’ve since seen this holiday pack everywhere, taking up whole shelves at Walmart and drugstores. I’d seen many people use the EOS lip balm in the past, and I’d always thought, how weird is that: round lip balm. There was just something so wrong about it.

But then I saw this holiday pack, containing three different lip balms: Vanilla, Sweet Mint, and some kind of berry, and the whole thing radiated a faint minty smell and came with these cool silver “gem” stickers to that you could decorate the lip balm and make it your own. And I thought, I have to get that. So I did. And I decorated my balms and I love them and then I thought, You know, this is what every Reader, Writer, NaNoWriMo-er needs: lip balm. Because when you’re using your ereader, spending hours reading a regular book, or trying to write something good, your lips get really dry. My lips get really dry.

Well, not any more! Because I have these. And bonus points: they’re paraben free and mostly natural!

If your main character was in Alice’s shoes, would they choose to be bigger or smaller with one bite? What other attributes about themselves would they change?

I finished a temporary cover for my NaNoWriMo 2015 Novel, Light Fair Dark. I know I can make this more awesome. But even for a temporary cover, I find this nice and inspirational. What do you think?

A Reflection on Character

Pick a character you’re working with this NaNo. How would they answer the following three questions:

1) if I had to kill someone, it would be with a:
     a) knife
     b) poison
     c) gun
     d) I would never be able to do that

2) In order to show my ultimate love for someone, I would ___________.

3) If I could give one person everything they need, to absolutely no benefit to myself, it would be _______.

The day is finally here. I’ve posted Black Depths, a short story set in the Neptunian universe, up on WattPad.

This story introduces a new character who will play a fairly major roll in Broken Tide, the sequel to Tales of a Redheaded Sea-Witch. Broken Tide will be release November 30th, so be sure to read Black Depths before then.

And, of course, if people like Black Depths, I may write more about Barry.

You can find Black Depths by clicking on the picture below.