Sibylla always wanted adventure, but she didn’t know it would come in the form of a giant, magical bull. Is he a man or a monster? And who knew a prophecy could be so literal?
Based on the classic Scottish fairy tale, this is the first title in a new series co-created by sibling writer/artist team CAT SEATON and KIT SEATON, begins the adventure of a lifetime.
This one has been on my radar ever since I heard it was based on a Scottish fairy tale. I love things that are based on mythology or fairy tales, so I definitely wanted to check this out. I was not disappointed by the story in any way, thought I’m still a tad confused as to what is happening.
I do like the way the story slowly pieces together, each character adding another layer to the overall story and mythos, but there are moments where I definitely wished I had more information. The art style was beautiful with just enough whimsy to know that it’s a fairy tale. I especially loved the facial expressions and what they conveyed.
All in all I can’t wait for the next volume to see what happens to the characters and how they will resolve their issues.
Tis the season for holiday books that are sure to warm the heart! I’m so glad I got the participate in this special holiday blog tour as I was able to read a couple of great books, the first of which was Christmas From the Heart by Sheila Roberts.
USA TODAY bestselling author Sheila Roberts takes readers to a small, snowbound town, where a young woman fights to save her family’s charity that brings Christmas to families in need, and a stranded millionaire loses his heart and finds the true meaning of Christmas.
Sometimes you need to look beyond the big picture to see what really matters. Olivia Berg’s charity, Christmas from the Heart, has helped generations of families in need in Pine River, Washington, but this year might be the end of the road. Hightower Enterprises, one of their biggest donors since way back when Olivia’s grandmother ran the charity, has been taken over by Ebenezer Scrooge the Second, aka CFO Guy Hightower, and he’s declared there will be no more money coming to Christmas from the Heart.
Guy is simply being practical. Hightower Enterprises needs to tighten its belt, and when you don’t have money to spare, you don’t have money to share. You’d think even the pushy Olivia Berg could understand that.
With charitable donations dwindling, Olivia’s Christmas budget depends on Hightower’s contribution. She’s focused her whole life on helping this small town, even putting her love life on hold to support her mission.
When Guy’s Maserati breaks down at the edge of the Cascade foothills, he’s relieved to be rescued by a pretty young woman who drives him to the nearby town of Pine River. Until he realizes his rescuer is none other than Olivia Berg. What’s a Scrooge to do? Plug his nose and eat fruitcake and hope she doesn’t learn his true identity before he can get out of town. What could go wrong?
This book is built on a trope that I will admit I am a bit of a sucker for, in that a rich Scrooge like character meets his nemesis and doesn’t admit who he really is while realizing his perception of her was completely wrong and perhaps falling for her in the process. As soon as I heard the premise I was hooked and had to pick it up.
This book does a great job of telling a heartwarming Christmas story including changing hearts and perceptions, acts of kindness, family and togetherness and more, but it also goes much deeper than that. There are a lot of discussions throughout the book about how people cope with different things, such as the loss of loved ones, grief, and how people move on. We also see a lot of discussion regarding different economic situations and how some people may not realize the struggles that others face.
Even with these deep subject this still managed to be a fun story with a lot of humor and banter. It also features a large cast of characters that are for the most part amazingly supportive of each other and of Olivia’s non profit. No character is perfect, not even Olivia, which is refreshing. There were some things that happened in the last portion of the book that I didn’t love, but they didn’t hugely affect my enjoyment of the book.
Sheila Roberts lives on a lake in the Pacific Northwest. Her novels have been published in several languages. Her book, Angel Lane, was an Amazon Top Ten Romance pick for 2009. Her holiday perennial, On Strike for Christmas, was made into a movie for the Lifetime Movie Network and her novel, The Nine Lives of Christmas, was made into a movie for Hallmark . You can visit Sheila on Twitter and Facebook or at her website (http://www.sheilasplace.com).
In the near future, if Vegas games are ingeniously scam-proof, then the heists have to be too, in this imaginative and whip-smart story by the New York Times bestselling author of The Martian.
An IT whiz at the Babylon Casino is enlisted to upgrade security for the game of keno and its random-number generator. The new quantum computer system is foolproof. But someone on the inside is no fool. For once the odds may not favor the house—unless human ingenuity isn’t entirely a thing of the past.
I had very high hopes for this story, mostly because I’ve heard great things about Andy Weir’s other works, but it just didn’t really hit the mark. I felt like it was a scene more than an actual story and just didn’t fully see the point of it.
The writing itself was good, I have no complaints regarding the writing, but it’s telling when the most interesting character was one of the minor characters (the IT guy). I felt like the story started off with a bang with him, but then swiftly faded. Perhaps it was meant to be a closer look at human greed and what motivates people, but it just wasn’t enough.
Through a series of events, she discovers that other players in the game have created a secret magical girl fight club that adds a whole new world of thrills and challenges to her mundane world. Now that she’s gotten her wish of finding peers like her and something exciting in her life, she also discovers a dark side to magical girls, and finds herself having to prove her worth in a series of tournaments where if she loses she can never come back.
What drew me to this graphic novel was the cover, then I read the premise and immediately wanted to pick it up. A virtual reality game where a glitch leads to a cutthroat arena? Yes, please. Stella could definitely use some more fleshing out as a character but she was by far the most individual of everyone. I really hope this becomes a series as there are a few characters I would love to find out more about, and I’m very interested in the events that were alluded to at the end.
I loved the art style of this graphic novel, so many poppy bright colors and saturated tones. The illustrations themselves were very dynamic and moved the story along wonderfully. It’s a fun adventure that I’m excited to see more from if more comes out.
Ivy in Bloom captures the weariness of a young girl tired of a long winter. “I stare out the window,” she says on the first spread of brown and gray, “looking for birds or flowers / or even warm showers / but I don’t see any such thing.” But then Spring comes when “March is out of breath snow melting to flowery waters and watery flowers spring rose from its wintry rest.” And Ivy’s “heart dances with daffodils.” As these words also dance across each spread, Ivy’s world erupts into a riot of color.
Ivy in Bloom is an adorable children’s book that melds the author’s own words with poetry from famous poets. All of the poems are woven together to tell a story about a girl lamenting for spring and the time it takes to arrive.
I loved the way the poems were mixed together and another great feature is that all of the poems used and their authors are explained in a section at the end of the book, making this not only a great children’s book, but a way for the reader to seek out and find classic poets and their work.
Why bother getting out of bed when you could stay bundled up with that special someone and a book of cozy, cute comics. From the author of the bestselling Little Moments of Love comes Snug, a collection of comics that perfectly captures the honest, playful, and relatable snapshots of romantic life.
Chetwynd’s second book has the same charming and inviting style as her first and includes 50 percent new, never-before-shared comics. Snug is a celebration of the quirks and peculiarities of every one of us—and the magic that happens when we find our matching puzzle piece.
I’ve followed Catana Comics for a long time on Instagram so I was very excited when I saw that there’s a book coming out. I love her art style and the little vignettes into her relationship which funnily enough is a lot like the relationship I’m in. It’s a perfect representation of being in a loving relationship with someone who is not only your partner but your best friend who you are (for the most part) on the same level with.
This collection is a fun read that would make almost anyone feel warm fuzzies and put a smile on their face. If you’re looking for something that will be uplifting and cute, pick this one up.
A balmy summer night in 1994. Four teenagers out for an evening of fun on the boardwalk take a ride on the “Wild Wheel” – an antique carousel with a shadowy past – and learn too late that decisions made in an instant can have deadly consequences. What begins as a night of innocent end-of-summer revelry, young love, and (a few too many) beers among friends soon descends into chaos, as the ancient carousel’s parade of beasts comes chillingly to life to deliver the ultimate judgment for their misdeeds.
After reading this I may never look at a carousel the same way. This was my first foray into Hill’s writing and I was not disappointed. It was the right mix of descriptive language, dark subject matter and a good dose of lingering fear for the narrator.
Since this is a short story I don’t want to say too much as almost anything beyond the blurb would be a spoiler, but it’s an interesting look at what a cursed carousel and its animals may do to those it feels has wronged it.
If you’re looking for a dark story that is a quick read, pick this one up.
Doctor Victoria Ward has been killing men for over thirty years. Her victims all have one thing in common: they’re abusive. Righteousness is a close companion—it helps her sleep at night—and she holds the virtue closely as she defends the innocent, upholding the law when it won’t rise to protect those who need it most. When she meets a young girl named Kelly, and follows her down a twisted path of deception, Doc Ward finds herself face-to-face with a ghost from her past. Never before has she wavered in her resolve—but can she defend another against someone she loves?
This book was definitely a wild ride and not what I expected. It was far more gritty and dark than I expected, so keep in mind that this includes murder, torture, abuse and assault of all kinds. I enjoyed the switching back and forth between the past and present as it really explained Victoria’s psyche and motivation for her actions.
Though the content is darker and there are a lot of heavy subjects, it could be an important discussion regarding domestic abuse in some ways, but the actions portrayed probably shouldn’t be used as the model of behavior. I did feel that the ending was very abrupt and wished it had been drawn out just a little bit more, a deeper look into the motivations of others besides Victoria.
If you’re a fan of Dexter or serial killer stories this would probably be right up your alley. Happy reading!
Let poetry help you examine the depths of your wounds. Let it remind you that no matter how deep it goes, you will be able to heal it because you have been able to heal every single wound inflicted on your heart and soul before. Let these words show you that you will be able to find the light at the end of the wound because you have always found your way before.
By now I’ve discovered that I’m just going to love everything Nikita Gill writes. I’m pretty sure this is the last of her collections that I hadn’t read it and again, I loved it.
The way she weaves topics such as assault, abuse, depression and more into things like mythology and stories is just beautiful. Her writing is both powerful and lyrical, with emphasis in the best places. For someone who doesn’t always love modern poetry, hers is the stuff I love.
She truly takes on hard hitting subjects head on, whether from personal experience or not, and makes each poem relateable to people who have gone through similar experiences. I can’t say enough good things about her poems, just make sure to go into them knowing that they will tug at the heart and sometimes physically hurt after reading.
In Croswald, the only thing more powerful than dark magic is one secret…
For sixteen years Ivy Lovely has been hidden behind an enchanted boundary that separates the mundane from the magical. When Ivy crosses the border, her powers awaken. Curiosity leads her crashing through a series of adventures at the Halls of Ivy, a school where students learn to master their magical blood and the power of Croswald’s mysterious gems. When Ivy’s magic—and her life—is threatened by the Dark Queen, she scrambles to unearth her history and save Croswald before the truth is swept away forever.
This book was such a fun adventure! I hesitate to compare any books to Harry Potter, because I know that such a suggestion can bring certain preconceived notions to mind, but if you’re looking for something about a magical world including a school setting then this will definitely fit the bill.
I love that a good chunk of this book is world building and that special attention was paid to fleshing out different aspects of the magic system. I’m super excited about the future books and getting to learn even more about the history of this world and its magic and creatures.
Ivy as a character is very impulsive, but driven by an inner purpose. Her moments of vulnerability are understandable and fitting for her situation. While she didn’t always full think through her decisions, she knew that there was a reason for the things she had to do and let herself be led by her instincts, which was both bad and good. While only a couple other characters were truly fleshed out, most of those who had a voice were distinct and individual.
All in all this was a great adventure full of twists and turns and I can’t wait to read more from this series!
Thank you again to Stories Untold and D.E. Night for sending me a copy of this book. D.E. Night’s books can be found on Amazon, or purchased through her website at DENight.com.
The Wandering Wordsmith 