Morgan's Musings
Just my rambling, plus whatever book I've recently read!
Genres: Historical, Fantasy, Literary Fiction Blurb: France, 1714: in a moment of desperation, a young woman makes a Faustian bargain to live forever and is cursed to be forgotten by everyone she meets. Thus begins the extraordinary life of Addie LaRue, and a dazzling adventure that will play out across centuries and continents, across history and art, as a young woman learns how far she will go to leave her mark on the world. But everything changes when, after nearly 300 years, Addie stumbles across a young man in a hidden bookstore and he remembers her name. My Thoughts: This book was recommended to me by a very good friend, so thank you, Julia! Starting off in historical France, we meet Adeline LaRue, or Addie as she prefers to be known. Trapped in the times and the restraints of being a woman, Addie hopes to become an old spinster, or live out in the woods the same as her friend, Estelle, who tells her of the Old Ways. One warning she gives to Addie is to never pray to the Gods after dark, as the ones who answer will not be the ones you want. When she is forced to marry, she makes a desperate plea, not realising the sun has gone down. Her plea is answered but the cost is high. We stay with Addie as she learns to be a corporeal ghost, disappearing from people's memories the minute she is out of sight. The only constants in her life are a leather jacket, a wooden ring, and Luc. She travels through time, unable to write her name, text on a phone, send an email, be on a photograph - you get the idea. She figures out a way to make her mark on the world in different ways. I found this story to be very intriguing and loved the hints of the way the story was going that were dropped throughout. The writing is lyrical and very descriptive, full of emotions. However, in places, the story seemed to drag. And the 'romance' between Addie and Henry was about as exciting as watching paint dry. I don't believe she was in love with him at all, rather being in love with the idea of being with someone who remembered her. Addie herself is a confusing character. I liked parts of her, but not all, so just as in real life, I guess. I imagine wandering through the years as a ghost would turn the most optimistic of people dour, but she was too conniving, too sly, at times. Machinations for no apparent reason apart from just because. A thoroughly enjoyable and intriguing story that I have no hesitation in recommending. You may have to stick with it through the slower parts though. VICTORIA “V. E.” SCHWAB is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of more than twenty books, including the acclaimed Shades of Magic series, the Villains series, the Cassidy Blake series and the international bestseller The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue. Her work has received critical acclaim, translated into over two dozen languages, and optioned for television and film. First Kill – a YA vampire series based on Schwab’s short story of the same name – is currently in the works at Netflix with Emma Roberts’ Belletrist Productions producing. When she's not haunting Paris streets or trudging up English hillsides, she lives in Edinburgh, Scotland, and is usually tucked in the corner of a coffee shop, dreaming up monsters.
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A Robin Hood Origin Story‼️ NOW AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER ‼️
A HERO. HONOURABLE THIEF. LOVABLE ROGUE. SCOUNDREL. BLACKGUARD. Everyone’s heard of Robin Hood and his band of Merry Men, with big, bad Sheriff of Nottingham and evil Prince John trying their best to thwart Robin at every turn. But what if things were different to what you’ve been told? What if Robin wasn’t as altruistic as history portrayed? In the late spring of 1198, the hamlet of Girton is razed to the ground. Newly married eighteen-year-old Will Scathlock and sixteen-year-old Alana move to the larger village of Blidworth to start their lives anew. In his new job as a forester for the Royal Palace of Clipstone, known to the locals as King’s Houses, Will hears tales of a good thief, stealing from the rich and giving to the poor. But in her role as Seamstress for the Manor House, Alana hears a different story. Find out what it was like for the peasant folk Robin was supposed to be helping, before his well-known adventures in Nottingham. Meet Alana Dale and read her story of what it was really like, and how it all began. Available for pre-order - https://books2read.com/CabbagesKings #YoungAdult #ComingofAge #HistoricalFiction #RobinHoodOrigin Genre: #Historical, #Fantasy, #YoungAdult Blurb: Many are called... She alone can save the world and become Death's bride. Cobweb Bride is a history-flavored fantasy novel with romantic elements of the Persephone myth, about Death's ultimatum to the world. What if you killed someone and then fell in love with them? In an alternate Renaissance world, somewhere in an imaginary "pocket" of Europe called the Kingdom of Lethe, Death comes, in the form of a grim Spaniard, to claim his Bride. Until she is found, in a single time-stopping moment all dying stops. There is no relief for the mortally wounded and the terminally ill.... Covered in white cobwebs of a thousand snow spiders she lies in the darkness... Her skin is cold as snow... Her eyes frozen... Her gaze, fiercely alive... While kings and emperors send expeditions to search for a suitable Bride for Death, armies of the undead wage an endless war... A black knight roams the forest at the command of his undead father ... Spies and political treacheries abound at the imperial Silver Court.... Murdered lovers find themselves locked in the realm of the living... Look closer — through the cobweb filaments of her hair and along each strand shine stars... And one small village girl, Percy—an unwanted, ungainly middle daughter—is faced with the responsibility of granting her dying grandmother the desperate release she needs. As a result, Percy joins the crowds of other young women of the land in a desperate quest to Death's own mysterious holding in the deepest forests of the North... And everyone is trying to stop her. My Thoughts: COBWEB BRIDE is the first book in the trilogy of the same name. It is old-school fantasy with a touch of mythology thrown in for good measure. Some parts of it are quite graphic but then, that's what happens when you describe a battle with swords and arrows! One of the things I really enjoyed about it is that Percy, the plain, unordinary, middle child, is the one who comes into her own. She makes no false images, she is what she is and she's okay with that. She is supported by a great cast of characters - some of whom may be just for this part but others, I hope, will be seen in the later two books. There was one thing that jarred me though, and that was halfway through the book, Spain and France were mentioned. Up until that point, I had falsely assumed that this was a completely imaginary fantasy world. I guess next time I really should look at the map provided! I found this to be a great story that has plenty of hooks for the next book. It doesn't go the way you imagine and that is perfectly fine by me. I love fantasy and being surprised raises it to a whole new level for me. Absolutely recommended! Vera Nazarian is a two-time Nebula Award Finalist, award-winning artist, and member of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, a writer with a penchant for moral fables and stories of intense wonder, true love, and intricacy.
She immigrated to the USA from the former USSR as a kid, sold her first story at the age of 17, and since then has published numerous works in anthologies and magazines, and has seen her fiction translated into eight languages. She is the author of critically acclaimed novels Dreams of the Compass Rose and Lords of Rainbow , romantic Renaissance epic fantasy trilogy Cobweb Bride , as well as the outrageous parodies Mansfield Park and Mummies and Northanger Abbey and Angels and Dragons , Pride and Platypus: Mr. Darcy's Dreadful Secret in her humorous and surprisingly romantic Supernatural Jane Austen Series , and most recently the bestselling high-octane science fiction series The Atlantis Grail , now optioned for film. After many years in Los Angeles, Vera lives in a small town in Vermont, and uses her Armenian sense of humor and her Russian sense of suffering to bake conflicted pirozhki and make art. Take the fun quiz to find out Which of the Lords of Rainbow do You Serve? Kiss Me, Curse Me is the first book by Kate Shay I have read, and I think I like the blurb of the book more than I liked the book itself, I'm sad to say.
I found this book quite difficult to get into, as the story seemed to flit from one occasion to the next. There is a multitude of characters involved, some of whom seem to have connections, although it's not very clear. The story itself is convoluted and twisting, with new characters and situations being brought in right the way through. The book didn't end, as much as it just stopped. I would think that it's the first in the series, but nothing has been released since so I don't think the author is continuing with this. I wanted to like this book, but it fell rather flat for me. I think it's probably like a marmite book - you will love it or hate it. As for me, I didn't hate it, I just felt disappointed when I'd finished. |
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