Going Beyond the Blurb

  Blurb: Ten years ago, Calamity came. It was a burst in the sky that gave ordinary men and women extraordinary powers. The awed public started calling them Epics. But Epics are no friend of man. With incredible gifts came the desire to rule. And to rule man you must crush his will.  Nobody fights the Epics...Nobody but the Reckoners. A shadowy group of ordinary humans, they spend their lives studying Epics, finding their weaknesses, and then assassinating them.   And David wants in. He wants Steelheart - the Epic who is said to be invincible. The Epic who killed David's father. For years, like the Reckoners, David's been studying, and planning - and he has something they need. Not an object, but an experience.  He's seen Steelheart bleed. And he wants Revenge.  After my last book review I was eager to get back into reading Fantasy books again so I looked up all the Fantasy author's I could think of and realised that I have never read a Brandon Sanders...

  Title: A Darker Shade of Magic Author: V.E. Schwab Month: November  Blurb:  Kell is one of the last travellers - magicians with a rare ability to travel between parallel universes connected by one magical city. There's Grey London, without magic and ruled by the mad King George III. Red London - where magic is revered, and where Kell was raised alongside the heir to the empire. White London - where people fight to control the remaining magic and magic fights back. And once there was Black London... This is the first time, in a long while, that I have felt quite emotional about finishing a book. Not crying emotional (that, i've been plenty of times this year) but the bitter sweet emotional of clinging on to the last pages of a book, trying to read each sentence, each word as slowly and carefully as possible to delay the inevitable conclusion of finishing the book. I stumbled coincidently upon a saying for this feeling on instagram today which is probably well known but o...

      In my last post I mentioned how on my first experience of NaNoWriMo I was super unprepared and only reached about a third of my total word target. The biggest problem was I hadn't made much of a plan in advance, but I've since realised that it's not just about the pre-planning, it's also about keeping yourself motivated throughout the month! 50,000 words is a lot to write in 30 days, especially if you've also got a full time job to go to and other commitments to juggle. So this year I've put together a NoNoWriMo survival kit/checklist which is something I've seen a lot of people doing and will hopefully keep me going throughout the month!  NaNoWriMo Survival Checklist 2020: 1. Weekly Word Target This is something I do with my writing goals when I have deadlines to meet. Although breaking the target down into daily word counts may seem more manageable (and for some it might be) I am one of those people who find that no matter how much I plan out each da...

  With Halloween creeping up on us tomorrow, it means there are only two more sleeps until NaNoWriMo returns! With everything going on this year and the dreaded pandemic disrupting most annual holidays and well, the majority of 2020, it's nice to know there's one annual tradition that COVID can't cancel or ruin: National Novel Writing Month!  I was hoping to have a whole social media build up to Nov 1st but as always life and other writing goals got in the way. But that's ironically the one thing I love about taking part in NaNoWriMo is that for 30 consecutive days I have an excuse to put all other goals and commitments on hold and just focus entirely on my novel (which is well overdue!)  This is my third year of joining in with NaNoWriMo and each year so far has been a different experience. The first year I don't think I really grasped the concept well enough to commit and only reach about a quarter of the way towards the target word count. Last year, I spent more ...

  Title: Beneath a Scarlett Sky  Author: Mark Sullivan  Blurb: Pino Lella wants nothing to do with the war or the Nazi's. He's a normal Italian teenager - obsessed with music, food and girls - but his days of innocence are numbered. When his family home in Milan is destroyed by Allied bombs, Pino joins and underground railroad helping Jews escape over the Alps, and falls for Anna, a beautiful widow six years his senior.  In an attempt to protect him, Pino's parents force him to enlist as a German soldier - a move they think will keep him out of combat. But after Pino is injured, he is recruited at the tender age of eighteen to become the personal driver for Adolf Hitler's left hand in Italy, General Hans Leyers, one of the Third Reich's most mysterious and powerful commanders.  Now, with the opportunity to spy for the Allies inside the German High Command, Pino endures the horrors of the war and the Nazi occupation by fighting in secret, his courage bolster...

    After 9 months of living in my new apartment I finally got my curtains put up 😍 You're probably wondering if I'm about to write a blog post about curtains...well yeah, sort of. But these curtains are more than just long pieces of material that help keep the daylight out. My apartment is pretty small and cosy and from day one of moving in, it felt homely. When we went into lockdown earlier this year I was only a couple months into living here and the idea of having the foreseeable future to just chill out in my new home sounded great! Being a bit of an introvert anyway, I assumed I would love having an excuse just to hide away from the outside world, like most writers I had this big, shiny idea that when I wasn't working I could spend my hours writing and maybe get my novel finished by the time "all this" blew over.  But the truth of it is that lockdown had the complete opposite effect on me. I found myself getting anxious and on edge all the time. My windows ...

Title: Neil Patrick Harris, Choose Your Own Autobiography Author: Neil patrick Harris (Or yourself...)  September: True Story/Autobiography Blurb: Seeking an exciting read that puts the "u" back in "aUtobiography"? Look no further than Neil Patrick Harris: Choose Your Own Autobiography! In this entertaining and innovative memoir, Neil Patrick Harris shares intimate and hilarious stories about everything from his early days in LA, life on the How I Met Your Mother set, secrets from backstage at award shows, and family life with David, Harper and Gideon. In a fresh spin on the typical celebrity narrative, he lets you, the reader, choose which path you want him to follow. All this, plus magic tricks, cocktail recipes, embarrassing pictures from his time as a child actor, and even a closing song!  My September genre for my 2020 Goodreads challenge was "true story/Autobiography and this has been the toughest genre to pick for. Should I go with a classic that I'...