Tome Thursday: Forbidden Gift

 

Hello everyone!

 

Welcome back to the blog and all our bookish adventures.

 

Tonight's reading material of choice belongs to an author I found completely by accident while browsing BookSirens, and liked the initial premise of her series.

 

Turns out, she's written ANOTHER one (that I'm currently slowly chomping my way through) and is working on expanding her ongoing adventures in the mythical land of Teutonic witches.

 

Aka, there may or may not be people among us who can and do wield elemental magic, hopefully staying on the right path and not worshiping a demon lord in their spare time ...

 

I digress.

 

Tonight, we take a look at the second in her series, and just be aware that these aren't full-length books a la Outlander, they've got WAY fewer pages.

 

But they're page-turners just the same.

 

So let's hop right into Forbidden Gift.

 

Tome Thursday: Mystic Passage

 

Hello everyone!

 

Once again, welcome back to the land of Teutonica.

 

I swear I need to get better at this, because I'd read this one towards the tail end of LAST year, and yet here we are, nearing the end of February, but I'd never put the review up on my blog until now.

 

Sigh.

 

There's so much going on all the time though that it's almost impossible to really make a full schedule and stick to it, at least at the moment, because I keep getting ARCs that twist through it all and make me reschedule EVERYTHING.

 

But anyway, we're going back into the magical world C L Carhart invented tonight, and boy oh BOY am I excited to do it.

 

Because, and I kid you not, we finally get to meet our main character. Well, main MALE character in any event, which funnily enough does NOT happen in book one of this series.

 

So strap on your witchy hats and make sure your intentions are good, because I can assure you, even they might not be able to help. Not in Mystic Passage.

 

Tome Thursday: Magical Gift

 

Hello everyone!

 

And, once again, welcome back to the land of Teutonica!

 

Listen, okay, you cannot be telling me that, if you pick up ANY of C. L. Carhart's books, you won't be hooked. Sure you might occasionally wonder whether a passage might have been written a little bit less rigidly, but those are RARE.

 

Overall, these books are fun to read, they flow nicely, and the characters they introduce usually always slip right into your imagination with no problem at all.

 

Then, to top it all off, they ALL get their happy endings!

 

If that isn't an added blessing then I don't know what is, to be honest.

 

So come along with me as we hop right into another series by the author, set in the same world with the same magical rules, but with different characters testing out slightly different waters.

 

While we're at it, we'll be tying back to the original one and having a whole lot of fun along the way!

 

Ready? Awesome, then let's get right into Magical Gift.

 

Tome Thursday: Veiled Magic

 

Hello everyone!

 

And welcome back to the world of Teutonica.

 

I'm slowly chipping away at this series and making it through the books one by one - but that's the best way to do it, in my opinion.

 

If you rush anything, then the job's going to be botched no matter how much you want it not to be!

 

So here I am, with the continuation of His Name Was Augustin.

 

This one's a shorter story compared to the big books, and is actually a bonus to them all since it involves neither time travel nor Swanie, actually.

 

This one's about Vreni, Swanie's best friend in the whole world, and I have to say that I LOVE ME SOME VRENI. She's adorable, she has a heart of gold even though she could have been a total rich classicist, and she's got a really great story to boot.

 

Which means we'll stop wasting time and read it in Veiled Magic.

 

Tome Thursday: Arcane Gateway

 

Hello everyone!

 

And oh boy, I'm sure you're thinking to yourself 'welcome back' as well.

 

Because it really hasn't been THAT long since I last picked up a book from this author, but to me it does feel like it's been a bit. Why?

 

Well, unfortunately, I had to finish some other ARCs before I could dig deep into this one, and I'm so happy I waited to be able to take my time with it.

 

It would have been such a shame to rush!

 

Especially since I really enjoyed the Elemental Bloodlines series, and I mentioned at the end of it that I would be backpedaling to the original which started it all.

 

As you can see, this is the start ... of everything.

 

C. L. Carhart really knows her stuff. So you best be prepared for some really witchy business, age gaps, demonic laughter and time travel as we head into Arcane Gateway!

 

Tome Thursday: Gift of Snow

 

Hello everyone!

 

And welcome to what I conveniently call the mix-up.

 

See, I was SUPPOSED to work on this particular review last week, because that's just how the schedule was set up, and somehow managed to switch it with Serenity Woods' story instead.

 

Never fear, however.

 

I always make sure to review EVERYTHING I read (or, basically everything).

 

So here we are to finish off a series that I started reading ... oh gosh, when was it? A while ago at this point, but that doesn't much matter because the important thing is we made it. This is the end! The final book to show us exactly who, what, and where, and give us a little bit of insight into some of the characters we see during the main storyline in the big five books.

 

Ah, another thing to explain. I'll be brief, but let's just jump in, shall we?

 

Gift of Snow is calling.

 

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: Gift of Stone

 

Hello everyone!

 

I return to the land of Teutonica, if I remember the correct name, or more importantly, to the land of witches in Germany, Austria, potentially Czech Republic and roundabout there in the Central European area.

C.L. Carhart is an author I didn't know before I picked up Gift of Fire a couple of weeks ago, but I'm happy to say that I'm intrigued enough now to wish to continue.

Particularly as I'd still really like to understand some of the rules of this magical world!

More importantly, however, I think that the author just writes really, really well.

I'll talk more about that down at the bottom, the way I would normally do it of course, but the thing is that when you read as much as I do, there's just no chance of NOT running into bad writing every once in a while. That just makes actual good writing something to really hold on to.

But enough of this blabbering nonsense from me.

It's time to check our magic gauges again, in the next book of the series: Gift of Stone.

Tome Thursday: Gift of Fire

 

Hello everyone!

 

Welcome to yet another magical review, and I do mean magical.

 

Because we're going to be talking about witches and wizards in this one.

 

BookSirens just keeps on coming through with the ARCs that you can get off the site, and tonight's book of choice is also one of them, followed by a sequel that I'll equally be reviewing at a later point.

 

However, you have to start at the beginning, am I right?

 

Although technically there's a novella before the main books start, but I didn't know that until I was already well into the two novels, so I'll circle back to it eventually at some point.

 

For right now, suffice to say that we're headed to Germany, there will be talk about the elements, and there will be magic.

 

Among other things.

 

Gift of Fire opens this world up for us and, boy, does it do a good job overall!

 

The Red Knight of Germany (Booktober)

"You will be home before the leaves fall from the trees."

If you've ever picked up any history book ... you'll know that World War I wiped out practically an entire generation. You'll also remember that last year was the 100th anniversary of the peace treaty. In that vein, there've been many books published on the topic, or re-published, and I chose to focus on one that is absolutely stunning - and heartbreaking. The Red Knight of Germany tells the story of the best pilot the world had ever seen at the time. It tells the story of the men who lived and died in their planes, and the era when chivalry died.

Because they were indeed knights. Knights in the sky, the last of their kind.

1927. The story of Baron von Richthofen, Germany's great war bird. Manfred von Richthofen was known as the Red Knight or, more commonly, the Red Baron due to the color of his plane. As a German aviator in World War I, he was attributed with eighty kills, or enemy planes shot down, and ended up being killed in action in 1918.

(from Goodreads)

xx

*image not mine

The Kommandant's Girl (Booktober)

Nemesis (Booktober)

Outlander series (Booktober)

The Conqueror Series (Booktober)

The Lost Symbol (Booktober)

The Host (Booktober)

The Bridgertons (Booktober)

The Hound of the Baskervilles (Booktober)

The Infernal Devices (Booktober)

Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter (Booktober)

Daughter of Smoke & Bone (Booktober)
Broken Sky (Booktober)

The Shadow of the Wind (Booktober)

Dracula (Booktober)

Life and Death (Booktober)

ACOTAR series (Booktober)

Assassin's Creed: Odyssey (Booktober)

Sepulchre (Booktober)

Pride and Prejudice (Booktober)

Tempting Autumn (Booktober)

Harry Potter (Booktober)

The Hobbit (Booktober)

The Kommandant's Girl (Booktober)

"I had become a foreigner in the place I had always called home."

 

What do you do when your home country is invaded? When your way of life is threatened? When your very existence is about to be erased from the face of the Earth? Those are exactly the kind of questions that Pam Jenoff asks in The Kommandant's Girl, a book that tells the story of how a Jewish girl joined the resistance, pretended to be someone else so that she could get close to a high-ranking Nazi official ... and ended up having feelings for the man other than the hatred she was supposed to feel.

Because in the end, emotions aren't all black and white.

September 1939. Overnight, Jewish nineteen-year-old Emma Bau's world is turned upside down when Germany invades Poland. And after only six weeks of marriage, her husband Jacob, a member of the Resistance, is forced to flee. Escaping the ghetto, Emma assumes a new, Christian identity and finds work at Nazi headquarters. As secretary to the charismatic Kommandant Richwalder, Emma vows to use her unique position to gather intelligence for the Resistance - by any means necessary ...

(from book jacket)

xx

*image not mine

Nemesis (Booktober)

Outlander series (Booktober)

The Conqueror Series (Booktober)

The Lost Symbol (Booktober)

The Host (Booktober)

The Bridgertons (Booktober)

The Hound of the Baskervilles (Booktober)

The Infernal Devices (Booktober)

Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter (Booktober)

Daughter of Smoke & Bone (Booktober)
Broken Sky (Booktober)

The Shadow of the Wind (Booktober)

Dracula (Booktober)

Life and Death (Booktober)

ACOTAR series (Booktober)

Assassin's Creed: Odyssey (Booktober)

Sepulchre (Booktober)

Pride and Prejudice (Booktober)

Tempting Autumn (Booktober)

Harry Potter (Booktober)

The Hobbit (Booktober)

Tome Thursday: The Red Knight of Germany

Hello everyone!

Okay, so.

I'm back with another book based off World War One, and this one is slightly different than the exploration I did about the topic of what started the war.

This one is about aviation.

Also, it's about the man probably hailed as one of the greatest pilots of all time, especially because he was flying when planes certainly weren't as well-equipped as they are today.

I'm talking about a time when the aviators themselves were the ones discovering new tricks and weapons and practiced flying at high altitudes and high speeds, when soldiers in the trenches would look up above them and see the "birds" flying back and forth as they sought out their prey.

I'm also talking about a time when your first flight could pretty much also be your last, and for a large number of pilots it was exactly what happened.

The book we'll be talking about tonight is The Red Knight of Germany.

Tome Thursday: The Kommandant's Girl

Hello everyone!

I come bearing the gift of another blog post! And I swear, I won't even cry.

Or, I'll try not to.

See, a while ago I noted down the name 'Pam Jenoff' and the title 'The Kommandant's Girl', but never got the chance to do anything with that note until about ten days ago. At which point I got a copy of said book, and sat down to read it.

Of course I knew what I was getting myself into.

See, the thing with me is that I do my homework, and I research most of the books that I want to read, specifically if they're going to be about a period in recent history. In this case, it meant World War II and the occupation situation in Poland, which included but wasn't just limited to martial law and curfew.

So yes, I knew that whatever I was about to read would probably lead me down a dark road and I'd end up with streaming eyes and a runny nose.

I persevered, however, and although a lot of people do criticise it - which I can understand - I think It's a very good book.