Tome Thursday: New Beginning

 

Hello everyone!

 

A little novella for you tonight.

 

I tend to read pretty much anything I can get my hands on, but this one's kind of special.

 

This one returns to the world of Jackson's Bridge!

 

In case you don't remember, that's the fictional community author Angela Day is currently in the process of writing about, and we're headed straight back into it.

 

This is a short story that hasn't officially released yet, but then again it's not exactly connected to the main novels in the way you'd think.

 

It's in the same world, but it isn't about the same characters.

 

We're getting more of the surrounding arcs fleshed out, and I'm here for it!

 

So come along for the ride in New Beginning.

 

Talkie Tuesday: Barbie in the Nutcracker

 

"How could I say no to the King?"

 

Hello everyone! 

 

And welcome to the last movie blog of the year before Christmas hits us.

 

Can you believe it's ACTUALLY just around the corner? Tomorrow night is Christmas Eve!

 

I'm not entirely sure where the time went, because I could have sworn that we were melting from the summer heat just yesterday, and now here we are.

 

I suppose time does fly when you're having fun, right?

 

But without further ado, we're going WAY back in time for tonight's choice of movie.

 

Well, maybe 'way back' is a bit of an exaggeration - but it's definitely 24 years ago, if nothing else. And we're going to be dancing - like, a lot.

 

So make sure to dust off those tutus and break in them ballet shoes, because this story takes flight against the backdrop of Tchaikovsky's music.

 

Nothing says Christmas like Barbie in the Nutcracker.

 

Tome Thursday: Claimed by the Undead

 

Hello everyone!

 

Welcome to the beautiful beginning of a brand new series on this blog.

 

I say this quite confidently, as I'm reasonably sure that the couple whose story we're covering in this particular book WILL return for SEVERAL more books, not just one or two more, which makes me all giddy and excited!

 

C. L. Carhart is an author I've been following since very randomly picking up Gift of Fire over on Booksirens, and I have to say I haven't been disappointed yet.

 

She writes magnificently well, and as I'm currently slowly making my way through His Name Was Augustin series - with gusto and much enjoyment, taking my time - I can definitely say that each new book seems to get better than the last.

 

So without further ado, let's jump right in, shall we?

 

We're headed to the 19th century with a brilliant witch of light and the undead Black Priest who claims her as his consort, which unleashes a whole host of problems ... in Claimed by the Undead.

 

Talkie Tuesday: Beauty and the Beast

 

"Tale as old as time ..."

 

Hello everyone!

 

I honestly can't believe I've never put this one on my blog. I'm not ENTIRELY sure what happened here, but I've pretty much covered about a dozen other topics that are somehow connected to this, and yet never touched the OG.

 

Or, the OG as my generation knows it, at least.

 

This past weekend, I was playing Dreamlight Valley and working my butt off to get the two main characters from tonight's movie choice to my village. After succeeding, I felt so inspired and nostalgic that I had to pull up Disney+ just to watch the movie.

 

... I did then follow it with the live-action from 2017 as well, but who's counting?

 

In any event, make sure you have your tissues ready, that you've locked the doors from any and all silly suitors, and that you're prepared for adventure that you can't find anywhere else but in this story.

 

Because we're headed to an enchanted castle to meet a beast, and free him from his curse. Beauty and the Beast a la 1991, everyone!

 

Tome Thursday: One Night Before Christmas

 

Hello everyone!

 

Merry Christmas and warmest wishes for the holidays for you and yours, and hopefully you've spent these past two days or so with the people you love the most, doing all the things that make life with them special.

 

If nothing else, despite their occasional cheesiness, holidays usually remind us that we should sometimes slow down and stop, to just EXIST for a heartbeat or two.

 

I know I'm definitely guilty of running around like the world is ending tomorrow, so these two days have been a godsend!

 

Now back to the bookish business.

 

As you know by now, Serenity Woods is my go-to contemporary romance writer, and in fact, I've actually been SLACKING because I haven't done my usual holiday reads of hers this year yet.

 

Shame on my family and my cow!

 

I'll be working on that, and in the mean time, I invite you to enjoy her latest holiday release, aptly titled One Night Before Christmas.

 

Tome Thursday: Gilded Rose

 

Hello everyone!

 

I'm finally back.

 

Well, it's a relative term, as I'm still working to get rid of the rather persistent cough that's currently trying to keep my life absolutely miserable, but I at least don't feel like I need to sleep all the time and do nothing else anymore.

 

That said, it's time to get right down to business.

 

And what better way than with a book that stole my heart just before the seasonal cold did?

 

I swear I occasionally trip and fall face-first into a book collection from an author that I ought to have known long before this, but only discovered now, and end up loving them to bits.

 

Emma Hamm is an author like that, and I'm DEFINITELY reading just about anything and everything of hers I can get my grubby little hands on ASAP.

 

For tonight, though, I'm focusing on just the one book, which is a re-telling, conveniently enough.

 

Let's looks at Gilded Rose.

 

Talkie Tuesday: Howl's Moving Castle

 

"The best blaze burns the brightest in adversity."

 

Hello everyone!

 

Welcome to a slightly different choice of movie for tonight. 

 

Different, as in, I haven't watched anything animated and of the Asian variety in literal DECADES. I think the last time was during my college years, and that had been purely because my then-boyfriend and his best friend really enjoyed animes.

 

Recently, however, I've been into browsing Netflix a little bit more, and landed on this thing completely by accident.

 

See, I'd watched another Japanese animated story previously - and loved it, I'll put a review on here eventually! - so then the streamer started suggesting things to me.

 

One of them was tonight's choice.

 

I was hooked by the premise as well as the artwork, and then turns out it was Studio Ghibli that was involved in the making of it. Sign me right up!

 

Which means we all have to fasten our seatbelts, because we're lumbering along in Howl's Moving Castle.

 

Tome Thursday: Whispers of the Deep

 

Hello everyone!

 

I know some of you might be anticipating - or I hope you're anticipating! - my review of the second season House of the Dragon just graced us with, but I ended up deciding to type that one on Saturday, so that I have PLENTY of time to do it right.

 

For tonight, we're diving in deep.

 

And I mean DEEP, deep.

 

Because we're about to enter a story about mermaids, and what's more, it's a mermaid story that I REALLY love, or ended up loving in any event.

 

I wasn't expecting that, because recently the books I've been randomly picking up have been a bit on the eh side, but this one? Chef's kiss.

 

This one's basically restored my faith in the paranormal romance genre, so I'm now just working my way through another ARC before I grab the second in this series.

 

So put on your rebreathers and your flippers - it's time for Whispers of the Deep.

 

Tome Thursday: Gift of Light

 

Hello everyone!

 

And welcome back to the land of Teutonica.

 

Yep, we're back with the witches, appropriate, isn't it, given that we're headed towards the end of October?

 

Although speaking of, WHERE has the time gone??? I really wonder.

 

I swear it was just yesterday when we walked into autumn and now we're already halfway through it, marching straight towards winter.

No clue where the time went. None.

BUT back to the actual point of this blog post, which is that we're taking a look at a prequel novella of sorts for the Elemental Bloodlines series, you know, the one by C. L. Carhart?

The books I've been reviewing on here for a while now?

Well, they're getting an addition tonight, and it's called Gift of Light.

Tome Thursday: Beauty and the Billionaire Boss

 

Hello everyone!

 

As always happens, we return to one of my favourite authors of all time, if not THE favourite, at least in the contemporary romance genre.

 

Because if it isn't broke, why fix it, right?

 

Ha!

 

I tend to truly enjoy reading about good men who have a lot of money but don't turn into assholes about it. When all is said and done, I firmly believe that there's plenty more of those in the world than there are idiots, we just hear about the idiots more often because, well, idioting.

 

And Serenity Woods likes to even the odds for the good guys by keeping on writing so many good books!

 

The Boss in a Billion series has been steadily growing and will continue to do so with a third trilogy set in another, different city of New Zealand, so I'm stoked.

 

Then again, I always am.

 

Without more blathering from me, let's have a quick look at Beauty and the Billionaire Boss, shall we?

 

Tome Thursday: Of Roses and Rituals

 

Hello everyone!

 

We are back in the land of fairy tale retellings.

 

Tonight we have a look at probably my all-time favourite, and it's done very well too on top of everything, which just makes the whole thing better, honestly.

 

BookSirens once again comes in clutch and, yes, at some point I'll probably not review as many ARCs as I do at the moment, but it will not be this day.

 

Yes, I'm quoting Aragorn right now.

 

When all is said and done, BookSirens is an AMAZING online service and I'm honestly so stoked to be a member, it makes things easier for me because I read as much as I do (though to a lesser extent than in previous years, it has to be said).

 

So without further ado, let's jump right into it, shall we?

 

Of Roses and Rituals is calling, and it's a really, really good one!

 

Tome Thursday: Sand and Stars

 

Hello everyone!

 

Time for another book review and, I will admit it, this one started off purely because I liked the look of the cover design.

 

That might sound shallow considering, but honestly? I really don't usually go for this type of thing, so here we are.

 

There's something to be said about winged characters, which have definitely been on the rise since the Court of Thorns and Roses series, but it's been a while since I've personally read about any of them, as I usually stick to different genres nowadays.

 

However, a good fantasy romance, paranormal romance, or anything of the sort hasn't killed anybody yet, so here we are, right?

 

Right!

 

Olivia Hart is an author unknown to me, and I will admit that the founding idea for the story held a lot of potential - the execution though, not so much. Sadly.

 

Let's have a look at Sand and Stars, shall we?

 

Tome Thursday: Morrighan

Hello everyone!

I'm reviewing something different this week, and something that I'm a little late to reading to begin with, based on the publication date. 

And while I'm still sitting on The Sinner from J. R. Ward (I'm getting there, I just ... I have to make myself do it, first), I picked up this novella at random because I'm OCD enough that if there's a book that's said to be happening BEFORE a main series, then I want to read it in chronological, not publication order.

From what I've managed to gather, a lot of people seem to think this novella should be read between some of the main books, but it's so short that I won't really have an issue picking it up again if need arises.

For the time being, I was just happy to be able to dive into a completely new world.

Mary E. Pearson is an author I haven't had the chance to read much of yet, but her Remnant Chronicles have been popping up on reviews from some of the Booktubers I follow, and it felt like sort of a sign.

If everyone else is talking about it, it deserves at least a look-see, right?

So here we go. Listen to the wind, everyone, and let's follow the Morrighan.

Tome Thursday: The Last Wish

Hello everyone!

I'm currently on a Witcher binge, as you may be able to tell, so naturally the book for tonight is going to be covering the world Sapkowski dreamed up, too.

I should at some point actually sit down and start reading Blood of the Elves, but the thing is, I tend to need a bit of a break between my reads when I'm doing a series, and this one is no different. Especially since there are characters within it that I just can't stand.

On the surface of it, however, the books that launched Geralt of Rivia out into the wide world certainly have a way of drawing the audience in; it's later on when you dig deeper that you may find certain personalities you might wish to generally avoid.

Of course it doesn't necessarily mean you'll be agreeing with me - heck, I already know a lot of people who don't!

Without further ado, then, let's stop chatterboxing about things that aren't important.

The Last Wish wants to be introduced.

Tome Thursday: Bellamy and the Brute

Hello everyone!

My first book blog after coming back from vacation, isn't it exciting?

Haha not really, but you know what I mean!

I read quite a few books while I was away and I also started one of Julia Quinn's series a week or so back which I might actually feature here on the blog in its entirety, because I'm getting such a good laugh out of it.

How many Regency novels do you know where you can honestly say the mother is the funniest character you've ever met?

I thought so.

But for today's blog post I'm going for something a little bit easier and one of the books I read prior to my vacation.

As you'll be able to tell, it's a retelling. And it's title is Bellamy and the Brute.

Tome Thursday: Unguarded

Hello everyone!

I confess.

Where's Cersei Lannister? Someone get her, I'm confessing here!

Ahem.

I confess I'm cheating just a little bit this week with the book blog post, because I'm actually reviewing a novella and not a novel, but I got my hands on it yesterday evening and read it in one go (like, I literally almost didn't take a good breath in between) because I loved it so much.

Then again, it's been a while since I've read a new Noelle Adams release and felt super excited about it.

Okay, no, I'm lying, I HAVE read her books in the interim as well, but somehow never got to typing a blog post for it all. Considering she's one of my go-to contemporary romance authors it's a shame, really.

So without further ado, allow me to introduce Unguarded.

Talkie Tuesday: A Christmas Prince

"Failures plant the seed for greater successes down the road."

Hello everyone!

Dang, I haven't been blown away yet! And I'm not talking figuratively here. We've been having some INSANE winds in my country since yesterday, and to tell the truth when I drove do my PT and back this morning the town looked like the Tasmanian Devil rocked through it, dumped his dirty laundry, and hustled out (not to mention our Christmas tree toppled over in the town square). 

The winds are set to abate today, however (they're saying it's some sort of freak African/Mediterranean thing that came out of the south following the coast), but then we're slated to get more snow.

Which basically means that we've had temperatures in the toasty area for the past two days, in the freezing corner before that, and we're going back to deep freeze.

So, you know, if you can't beat the weather, you snuggle down and watch Christmas movies. Especially if you're encouraged to do so by one of your best friends, who then proceeds to be amused by your running commentary throughout the film.

This Tuesday's review pick: A Christmas Prince.

Talkie Tuesday: Downton Abbey (season 1)

"I am a caretaker, not an owner."

Hello everyone!

Alright, so. Once again, this Tuesday blog is going to be a bit different, as it will not, in fact, be about a movie of any kind. And there really is a perfectly simple explanation for that. 

That is, more or less.

See for a time now, one of my best friends has been badgering me (gently, of course) to start watching Downton Abbey. The thing was, with all the regular shows in season, and everything else I generally watch in between, I just never found the time. More accurately, I never made it, really.

Then a few weeks back, I finally decided to bite the bullet, for one thing because I hate not being able to deliver, and for another because I had been told, in no uncertain terms, that Dan Stevens is pretty wonderful in this show.

Dan Stevens? THE Dan Stevens, aka the Beast?

Scuse me while I find the popcorn and get my groove on.

Ahem. So, finally capitulating, I managed to run through the first season of the show since then, and boy, am I thankful for the constant persuasion!

Tome Thursday: Dragon Rose

Hello everyone!

I apologise in advance if there will be typing errors in this post. A little bit earlier I managed to nick a finger and, as you all well know, fingers tend to bleed like you lost at least an inch of them even though it's just a teeny, tiny scratch! So I had to improvise a bit with a bandage as a normal one just didn't cut it, ergo ending with some sort of stump on top of said finger which makes typing ... difficult.

But anyway.

I did in fact finish quite a few books in the last couple of days, and any one of them would have probably been quite a good cut for this week's blog post, but I need to cool off from one of them (I'm looking at you, Warden) so I decided to go for a lighter reading material today.

Turns out, I'm a Beauty and the Beast nut for certain.

Lo and behold, I found yet another retelling of the story, although truth be told the more I look at this, the more it sounds like it might be a combination of a lot of things, not just one particular fairytale or even legend, actually.

In any event, however, I fell in love with the author's writing style and the pretty much non-drama issues in the book, a realistic approach to the main heroine, and so, without further ado, allow me to present Dragon Rose.

Talkie Tuesday: Beauty and the Beast

"Tale as old as time ..."

Hello everyone!

Finally, Tuesday arrived so that I can sit down and properly get this going. And can you notice that I've been excited for this blog post since the moment I sat down in cinema to watch the movie? 

If you haven't figured it out by now, this post will undoubtedly make it all clear to you.

Now.

Beauty and the Beast, the Disney cartoon version, that is (and never did I think I'd have to make sure people knew what I was talking about ...) is my all-time favourite Disney movie. That wasn't made spectacularly clear to me prior to seeing the live-action movie, however, which is a shame. I was unsure about which princess I preferred, what storyline was the most awesome, but then, last Friday, as the first orchestral notes started and all the hair on my arms stood up straight, I just knew.

Obviously, my parents were already well aware of that fact.

Duh, said my father, that was the first ever Disney cartoon we got you and you saw as a kid when you were four or five years old. That kind of thing sticks with you forever.

Parental wisdom ...

But, without further ado, my review of the live-action Beauty and the Beast!