Category Archives: Book Reviews
2018 – The Year I Turn 40!!!!
Yes, I know I look, and act, waaaaay too young to be turning 40 in 2018 but I am! I’m not making New Years resolutions but I will be trying to practice better self care, and I am setting myself two ’40’ challenges.
40 Special Things to do for my 40th Year
Dated Events
1. See Dreamgirls
2. See School of Rock
3. Harry Potter studio tour solo trip
4. See Sunset Boulevard
5. Harry Potter exhibit at Poole Library
6. Pierce Brown tour
7. See Cursed Child again with Cath
8. Be Bridesmaid for my sister and do all the hen do fun
9. Blood Brothers musical theatre workshop
10. See Hamilton
11. See Sarah Millican again
12. Go to YALC again
13. New Forest Fairy Festival
14. See Cursed Child again on my actual 40th birthday!!!!
15. Fab and Forty Cake Smash Photo Shoot with besties
16. Visit Prague
17. Harry Potter Studio Tour Halloween
Undated/Dates to be confirmed
18. Read 150+ books again including but not limited to Obsidio, Nevernight Book 3, LIFELIK3, Iron Gold, Dark Age, State of Sorrow, Vengeful, A Court of Frost and Starlight, TOG 7, Queen of Air and Darkness, The Witch’s Blood and #40YRS40BKS Reading Challenge (see below)
19. Reading weekend with Elizabeth and Rachel (to help with above)
20. Finish first draft of middle grade book
21. Complete a polished copy of a novel
22. Submit above novel to Agents
23. Self Publish some Poetry
24. Make excellent use of My cineworld unlimited card (see at least 40 films)
25. Watch a sunrise
26. Watch a sunset
27. Do a bat thing with Steph
28. Go to Chained Library at Wimborne with Stacey
29. Weekend in Cornwall with the family
30. Cornwall Boscastle Museum of Witchcraft and Magic
31. Bounce Below
32. Actually sit out in garden in summer (i.e. de weed and sort garden) and have birthday BBQ
33. Host Harry Potter Quiz (for Charity)
Crafting
34. Complete bookcase quilt
35. Make Seraphina Picquery Cosplay
36. Make Hogwarts model for front garden
37. Make a thestral model
38. Make Knight Bus model (3D puzzle now)
39. Host a craftivist event
40. Daily Happiness Journal (to have a lasting memory of the year)
#40YRS40BKS Reading Challenge
A number of my booksy besties all turn the big 40 over the next year so we’ve come up with a #readingchallenge between us that we’d love people to join in with. The rules are simple. There are 40 reading prompts – 10 each from 4 of us. During 2018 you just have to make sure what you read adds a tick against all 40 prompts. Personally I’ll be aiming for 40 separate books but you can count one book for multiple prompts if you like. Now go forth, read and help us celebrate. @kirstyes @catrad @svmitche @jkkenobi (Also feel free to substitute bookstagram for any online forum).
My other booksy aim for this year is to be a lot more on top of my reviews.
What’s on your list of things to achieve/experience/live/do this year?
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2017 Booksy Review
I chose to take part in three challenges this year – Goodreads (set at 100), The Better World Challenge and the A-Z Reading Challenge. I completely forgot to plan/keep proper track of what I had to read so that left me scrabbling to read a number of books in the last few days of the year. As I schedule this on the 30th I still have one and a bit to go. I will get there though!
Here are the books I read for each challenge
A-Z of Reading
A All the Good Things
B The Bookshop Girl
C Caraval
D Days of the Bagnold Summer
E Eliza and her Monsters
F The Fandom
G Geekerella
H Heartless
I Ink
J Just One Damned Thing After Another change
K Kindness
L The Last Namsara
M My Best Friend’s Exorcism
N The Night Circus
O Otherworld
P The Power
Q The Midnight Queen
R The Reader
S Storm
T Tower of Dawn
U Unconventional
V The Vile Village
W We Can Me Mended (Divergent 3.5)
X MoXie
Y The Yellow Room
Z Zenith
Better World
A Collection of Short Stories – The Language of Thorns
A Young Adult Novel – Truth or Dare
A Book with a Colour in the title -The Taste of Blue Light
A book that’s more than 100 years old – The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890)
A book you picked based on its cover – Anna Dressed in Blood
A book set in a place you want to visit – Night of Cake and Puppets (Prague)
A book based on a fairytale – Hunted (Beauty and the Beast)
A National Book Award Winner – Holes
A book that takes place in a forest – Spellbook of the Lost and Found
A romance that takes place during travel – The Loneliest Girl in the Universe (travel in space)
A book under 200 pages – I Am Bat
A book over 400 pages – Ink & Bone
A banned book – The Hate U Give
A non-fiction book about nature – Jeremy & Amy
A fantasy novel – Strange The Dreamer
A book by a person of colour – Out of Heart
A book by a female writer – The Witch’s Tears (by two actually )
A book of poetry – hummingbird
A book set in Asia – Flame in the Mist
A book about immigrants – The Bone Sparrow
A book about a historical event – The entire Chronicles of St Mary’s series!!!
A book with a child narrator – Wonder
A book translated from another language – Maresi
A book that’s been adapted into a movie (bonus watch the movie and compare) – Everything, Everything
Goodreads
Will be 209/100 – slightly off last year’s pace, once again boosted by audiobooks. I did write 50,000 words in Nov though (Yes I achieved Nanowrimo for the 3rd time).
Worst Read – The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde (Borian!!!)
Best Reads – lots of 4.5/5 star reads but these new to me reads of 2017 were my ultimate favourites:
Godsgrave, Nevermoor, Strange the Dreamer, Heartless, Forever Geek, Geekerella, Ink, The Night Circus, Spellbook of the Lost and Found, A Court of Wings and Ruin, Moxie, Tower of Dawn, It Only Happens in the Movies, My Best Friend’s Exorcism, Lord of Shadows, Night of Cake and Puppets, The Language of Thorns.
And I was lucky to read these 2018 releases which made the list too.
How Do You Like Me Now? and The Fandom
Other booksy highlights of the year
YALC with my besties, and winning the bookish quiz as part of #TeamBarnard.
Talking at a local school about book blogging and having author of Days of the Bagnold Summer Joff sketch me doing it and draw Harry Potter in my book.
Meeting and getting writing advice from Joe Hill at Gollanczfest.
Sarah J Maas event and continuing my LeakyCon LONDON 2013 friendship with Elizabeth and Rachel – and meeting Brittany.
Meeting and interviewing lots of fab authors at Waterstones Castlepoint and introducing Jacqueline Wilson – loved seeing the excitement of the next generations of readers (Thanks to Louise for the opportunities).
Introducing my sister and mum to Rhysand and making my own ACOMAF Chapter 55 funko pops!!!
Also LeakyCon in Dublin was awesome – “actually” staying in the Leaky Caulron! meeting film actors, getting Chris Villain to sign my Teddy Lupin custom funkopop as he was dressed in the same outfit! Running a Cursed Child (aka Scorpion King fan club) session with Janine and Kathleen. And wonderfully re-meeting a person I had randomly sat next to at my first trip to The Cursed Child. Johanna thanks for having the better memory and saying hi. And seeing all my fellow Potterheads again.
And I was a book fairy and gave out free kids books at the New Forest Fairy Festival.
I also added to my booksy tattoo.
I’ve become a lot more involved in Bookstagram – here are a few of my fave pics and I luckily won a free month’s Fairyloot with the yellow picture.
And I met my cat nephew who has joined my bookstagram making it about cats too. He may even have made me a cat person or a Denny person at least!
I finally finished my Hogwarts painting and pottered up my house a bit more including half of the Christmas tree.
And I got round to replacing my custom Phoenix patronus shoe that I lost of the London tube and had a purple book patronus with Nevernight quote one made to go with it.
It’s been another excellent bookish year for this Hufflepuff. What have your highlights been?
Tomorrow I’ll be sharing my “reading and doing” hopes for 2018 but just a note about my reviews.
I’ve started not adding star ratings to my blog reviews because I’m a qualitative fan. You can see my star ratings on Goodread if you really want to. I give half stars all the time. Sometimes I change my mind. On a re-read ratings can go up and down. I’m much more about writing what a book makes you think and feel and admiring the craft than allocating a number.
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The Midnight Queen by Sylvia Hunter – Book Review
Synopsis
In the hallowed halls of Oxford’s Merlin College, the most talented – and highest born – sons of the kingdom are taught the intricacies of magickal theory. But what dazzles can also destroy, as Gray Marshall is about to discover…
Gray’s Britain is a fragmented kingdom of many tongues, many gods and many magicks. But all that concerns Gray right now is returning to his studies and setting right the nightmare that has seen him disgraced and banished to his tutor’s home – without a trace of his powers. And it is there, toiling away on a summer afternoon, that he meets the professor’s daughter.
Although she has no talent of her own and has been forbidden by her father to pursue it, Sophie Callendar longs for a magickal education. But she started a bookish rebellion in her father’s library long ago, and her sheltered upbringing conceals a mysterious past and what may prove a catastrophic future. Her meeting with Gray sets off a series of events that will lead them to uncover a conspiracy at the heart of the kingdom and into the legend of the Midnight Queen, who vanished without a trace years before.
What I Thought
I was immediately drawn into this British alternate history fantasy world that author Sylvia Hunter has created. Men are the only ones allowed to study magick, even though women can possess it too. The magick system seems to be quite complex and some can be taught and other aspects need to be harnessed. There’s shapeshifting (the front cover might give you a clue into what), scrying, elemental and summoning magicks. There’s an awful lot to learn. Cue a library and books and also practical demonstration.
We are first introduced to Gray who has got himself, through no fault of his own, thrown out of Oxford and – not all that kindly – invited to his tutor’s house for Long Vacation. He meets Sophie and their instant connection is apparent and she is particularly intriguing to both Gray and the reader. She is definitely a feminist who wants to challenge the status quo.
But then she learns that her own status quo isn’t exactly all she thought it was. Thus begins a thrilling journey to find out the truth and foil an assassination with a little burgeoning romance thrown in for good measure.
The other character I adored was Sophie’s younger sister Joanna who is a handful, and a half.
The pace is a pleasantly odd mix of regency travel and society with added crime busting and magick but it kept me reading and comfortably entertained. Near the end is a scene that personally I felt was surplus to requirements – it was a little like Hercule Poirot explaining how a crime had been committed but we and most of the characters already knew most of the information. That being said I still loved this book, the character and the world, and it had a satisfying conclusion. Some elements introduced I would love to see explored more (the worldbuilding is masterful and hints st lots of aspects, religion etc without being an info dump) and the story is left open for more adventures but the main plot is completed and I would say it could be read as a stand alone.
Books 2 and 3 in the series are also out now – Lady of Magick and A Season of Spells – I’ll definitely be checking them out. Fans of Zen Cho, Leigh Bardugo and Jane Austen should enjoy.
Thanks to Allison & Busby for the finished copy for review. It is beautiful inside and out and all opinions above are my own.
kirstyes 