Blog Archives
Legendary Ladies: 50 Goddesses to Empower and Inspire You by Ann Shen – Blog Tour
Summary:
Throughout History comes this lushly illustrated book of goddesses from around the world. Aphrodite, the Greek goddess whose love overcame mortality. Mazu, the Chinese deity who safely guides travelershome. Lakshmi, the Hindu provider of fortune and prosperity. These powerful deities and many more are celebrated in gorgeous artwork and enlightening essays that explore the feminine divine and encourage readers to empower themselves. Ann Shen’s signature watercolorsmake Legendary Ladies a unique, gift-worthy homage to the mighty women within.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35959977-legendary-ladies
Welcome to the final day of the blog tour. There are two posts today. Mine reviewing the last of the 13 selected goddesses and one over at The Pewter Wolf – http://thepewterwolf.blogspot.co.uk/?m=1 – giving an overview of the whole book.
As a Buffy fan I originally asked to represent Hecate because she was the goddess I was most familiar with. I was allocated Oshun.
I said the other day that I’m not religious but sometimes there are little things that happen that do make you wonder what else is out there. When I read about my chosen Goddess she reflects a decision I have made recently. Serendipity perhaps. And it’s always good to step away from your comfort zone and learn about something new. My blog tour date also falls on the day my legendary lady friends and I are heading out to celebrate one of our 40th birthdays.
The first thing I have to say is that the illustrations in this book by Ann Shen are stunning. Look at the vibrancy and colour in this image of Oshun. I love the 🌻 and 🐝 and get a warm summer vibe that can’t help but bring out a smile.
Similar to Goodnight Stories for Rebel Girls alongside the images you get a page of text introducing the goddess. This is enough to whet your appetite and then you can go and search for more information on the ones you are drawn to.
Oshun is a goddess in the Yoruba religion, is named for a rover in West Africa and inspires love, beauty and creation and who wouldn’t like a bit more of all of those in their lives.
About the Author and Illustrator
Ann Shen is an illustrator and graphic designer and is the author of Bad Girls Throughout History. She lives in Los Angeles.
Website: http://www.ann-shen.com/books/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/anndanger
Tumblr: http://anndanger.tumblr.com/
Instagram: http://instagram.com/anndanger
Thanks to Faye and Abrams & Chronicle for my copy for the purposes of this review. It’ll take pride of place alongside all my other inspirational women books, of which I’m building up quite a collection.
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More Than We Can Tell by Bridget Kemmerer – Blog Tour Book Review
So on Saturday I reviewed Letters to the Lost and whilst these two are companion novels you can definitely read More Than We Can Tell without having read the former. I loved them both so highly recommend picking the pair up to devour, and you will have the benefit of already knowing a bit about Rev’s past if you read LttL first.
When I started reading I initially thought that it was going to be very similar to the first book where much of the communication takes place via letter and then e-mail. And although texts and online forum communication features here too it is not between the main characters who actually meet face to face.
The first book dealt with loss. This book tackles some even heavier issues, such as child abuse, fostering and adoption, online bullying and misogynist gamer culture, and another topic I can’t mention without it being a spoiler.
Although Juliet and Declan from the first book feature, the former is very much only briefly mentioned and Declan is relegated to best friend status but is still his awesome self. I love the brotherly relationship between him and Rev.
But this book is time to really focus on Rev’s back story, the reason behind his uniform of a hoodie which leads to his nickname as the Grim Reaper. In the book he turns 18 and that means someone he’d never quite been able to forget sneaks back into his life.
Emma meanwhile has an online stalker slide into her DMs and hack into the popular game she herself developed. The only problem is she knows that gaming culture is like that for girls and her parents are too busy with their own thing, including her mum disapproving with how much time she spends on the computer so she doesn’t feel able to share.
It’s all too common for parents in YA fiction to be absent, and whilst our main characters do have some absent parents it’s nice to see the relationships with the parents they do have explored from all angles. Something that was started in the first book too. It’s particularly good to see such a positive relationship with adoptive parents whilst also showing the challenges that foster/adoptive parents face and the abuses that can sometimes occur with caregivers too.
The end of the book turns into a bit of a thriller and there is some violence that readers expecting a romance may not be expecting.
It’s really good to explore the concept of harassment happening in the context of ‘but that’s just how it is’ and to see teens challenging that and looking out for each other.
One topic that doesn’t get that much mention in books in religion and I thought Rev’s religious views were sensitively handled. Personally I don’t follow subscribe to organised religion, identifying more as a humanist agnostic. I thought the author did a really good job in presenting a balanced view whilst respecting the beliefs of her character.
I loved Letters to the Lost and I think I loved this powerful read a tiny bit more. Actually no I can’t decide. They are both ones I’ll read again.
About the author
Brigid Kemmerer is the author of Letters to the Lost and the YALSA nominated Elementals series and the paranormal mystery Thicker ThanWater. She was born in Omaha, Nebraska, though her parents quickly moved her all over the United States, from the desert in Albuquerque, New Mexico, to the lakeside in Cleveland, Ohio, with several stops in between. Brigid is now settled near Annapolis, Maryland, with her husband and children.
Website: http://brigidkemmerer.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/BrigidKemmerer
Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/BrigidKemmererWrites
Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/BrigidKemmerer
Huge thanks to Faye and Bloomsbury for my copy for review. I will treasure it and the opinions above are entirely my own.
Do check out the other two Bloomsbury Spring Titles – Truly, Wildly, Deeply by Jenny McLachlan and The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things by Carolyn Mackler.
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BEYOND THE FINAL PROBLEM – CONTINUING THE TRADITION OF SHERLOCK HOLMES #ArtieOnTour – guest post by author Robert J Harris
The most famous crime in all of the Sherlock Holmes stories takes place in The Final Problem when Arthur Conan Doyle attempts to kill off his fictional detective, sending him over the Reichenbach Falls in the clutches of his arch-enemy Professor Moriarty. Doyle felt that Holmes had become a distraction from his more serious works. However, it only turned out to be a case of attempted murder. Such was Holmes’ popularity that Doyle was finally forced to resurrect him and bring him back to Baker Street for yet more adventures.
Such is the irresistible appeal of those gas lit tales, many other people have taken up the task of telling Holmes’ further adventures in books, films, radio and television. Some have been worthwhile, others not so much.
My own tribute to the Great Detective has not been to place him in a story of my invention but to find another way to recreate the atmosphere and excitement of Doyle’s masterpieces. I imagined that while he was still a schoolboy in Edinburgh, the young Conan Doyle (‘Artie’) had a series of adventures which would provide him with the inspiration for the stories he would write some years later. This would also give the reader some insight into the man behind the detective.
From letters he wrote in his boyhood we gain a picture of young Artie as an active, sporty young boy, who occasionally gets into fights and scrapes and loves reading adventure stories. Adding to this the details of his family life and the world of Victorian Edinburgh created the background for these new adventures.
And then came the first story itself: The Gravediggers’ Club.
The most notorious criminals in the history of Edinburgh are surely Burke and Hare, the body-stealers. This suggested the central mystery of the novel: why is someone digging up dead bodies from graveyards all over Edinburgh? By adding plenty of fog and borrowing a gigantic hound from The Hound of the Baskervilles (by far the most famous Holmes novel) I had all the elements of a classic thriller.
It was important to me, however, that my Artie should be true to life and not simply a miniature version of Sherlock Holmes, spotting clues the police are too dim to notice and making brilliant deductions at every turn. What he does have is courage and determination and a powerful sense of what is right.
Detective stories as such were not a recognised genre at this time – it was Conan Doyle who really established them as such. So Artie couldn’t possibly be attempting to imitate some fictional detective he’d read about. Only gradually does he develop those skills, a process that will continue throughout the series.
In The Gravediggers’ Club Artie has his own reason for pursuing the mystery. In The Vanishing Dragon he is actually hired to investigate a series of suspicious accidents that have befallen a magic show. These are his first steps on the road to becoming the man who will create Sherlock Holmes. I hope everyone enjoys joining him on that journey.
Do come back tomorrow to see what I thought of the first two adventures in the series and make sure to check out the other stops on the tour.
kirstyes 