Category Archives: Reviews
Zenith by Sasha Alsberg and Lindsay Cummings – Blog Tour Book Review
Synopsis
WHEN THE UNIVERSE NEEDS SAVING
THERE’S ONLY ONE GIRL FOR THE JOB
Most know Androma as a powerful mercenary whose reign of terror stretches across the Mirabel Galaxy. To those aboard her glass starship, Maurauder, however, she’s just Andi, their friend and fearless leader.
But when a routine mission goes awry, the Maurauder’s all-girl crew is tested as they find themselves in a treacherous situation- and at the mercy of a sadistic bounty hunter from Andi’s past.
As the Maurauder hurtles towards the unknown, and Mirabel hangs in the balance, the only certainty is that in a galaxy run on lies and illusion, no one can be trusted.
What I thought?
Zenith is book one of The Androma Saga and it has definitely whet my appetite to keep reading.
I am not familiar with either author’s other work in terms of either writing or YouTube so it was nice to come to this fresh with no real preconceptions.
What I did find was a book that seemed to be influenced by a lot of other YA and pop culture I’ve loved. The prison break aspect of Six of Crows, a pinch of Divergent, a Ship of Firefly roguishness, even a Handmaid’s tale feel, and a Potter reminiscent team nickname.
The book starts with a Prologue and then continues with chapters each headed up from a different character’s point of view. The characters we hear from are the main series protagonist Androma (Andi aka The Bloody Baroness), Klaren (a historical character), Dex (the Bounty Hunter from the synopsis and Andi’s ex), Lira (Andi’s crewmate and best friend), Nor (The Queen of a planet that holds a tentative peace with the rest of the galaxy) and Valen (the mission!).
Here comes my first issue with the book. I was fine with the amount of POV characters given the scale of the story and would have even liked to hear from the other two crew mates. However the book breaks its own rules. It sets up each chapter clearly with whose point of view it’s meant to be from and for some reason in a couple of Dex’s chapters we get a switch to Andi’s point of view that is entirely unnecessary and does momentarily take you out of the story.
The other issues I had were that there was frequent repetition of concepts and thoughts such as Valen’s thirst for vengeance and Andi’s guilt over an event that occurred in the past. Whilst it is true that the more we returned to these thoughts the more the ideas and action behind them became clearer, and it is true that people do become fixated on issues, I think a few incidences could have been edited out. And there was definitely no need to keep stating the colour of Andi’s hair so frequently. White blond with purple – which to be fair does sounds like a pretty cool look. There was also a few clunky phrases such as ‘downing half a bottle in one sip’.
But, equally there was some great use of phrasing including the particularly disgusting reference to ‘palm juice’ which made me feel quite queasy but that really worked in context.
Above all I loved the Maurauders. The relationship between the all-girl crew of Andi, Lira, Gilly and Breck was what I enjoyed most about the book. Gilly is such a firecracker and so young that I was drawn to her story in particular and would love to hear from her point of view in future books. I also thought the blend of femininity and violence within them worked well and that, although the girls were total badasses, they could also get very excited about pretty dresses. The relationships between all of the characters was what drove the plot and what made the issues I had with the book easy to overcome.
I’ve seen reviews saying that the worldbuilding was sloppy but personally I thought this was another strength and I loved the inclusion of the historical perspective from the distant past as well as Andi’s more recent past and the idea that all the characters are running away from things we know they are going to need to face. The whole world history and individual character experience also pull together in a dramatic conclusion. The Zenith of the title takes a while to materialise but when it does you feel its impact.
This book is a great mash up story – a space opera – with such scope for character development. I had a few issues with the editing but the plot is clever, the characters complex and it’s really a lot of fun. I’d love to see it filmed, it’s very cinematic and would make a great tv series. Now can someone tell me when book two is due out?
Thanks to HQ for the finished copy for the purposes of this review. Opinions are as ever my own.
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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.
kirstyes 