Month: March 2018

“365 Days of Quotes for Writers” by Jo Linsdell

S.D. Hegyes2 Comments

So, I have a goal to read twelve non-fiction books this year. I’ve read three (I read two in February), but I’m now working on Jo Linsdell’s newest release.

About the Book

365 DAYS OF QUOTES FOR WRITERS coverAre you looking for daily inspiration for your writing, or to jump-start your creativity? Look no further. This collection of inspirational quotes will help motivate and inspire you. Read one quote every day of the year, or just read the book in one sitting. This quotes collection was compiled with thought, and care, for you to dip into whenever you face a blank page, and need a helping hand.

Whether you’re an aspiring writer, or an experienced author, these inspiring quotes, with practical tips and advice to improve your writing skills, will motivate you to finish writing your book. Just dip into these words of wisdom.

Goodreads | Amazon US | Amazon UK

About the Author

Jo Linsdell FEB 2018 Author picJo Linsdell is the author of numerous books, including; the serial fiction KOSMOS, How To Be Twittertastic, Virtual Book Tours: Effective Online Book Promotion From the Comfort of Your Own Home, Italian for Tourists, A Guide to Weddings in Italy, Out and About at the Zoo, Fairy May and The Box. She is also the illustrator of the A Birthday Clown for Archer series (written by Kathy Mashburn) and the Jasmine Dreams series (written by Maria Rochelle).

She is the founder and CEO of Writers and Authors and Promo Day. Linsdell studied A-levels in Business Studies, History and Art and has won several awards in her career. She was named the Who’s Who in the writing industry in 2009.

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“The Mermaid’s Sister” by Carrie Anne Noble Review

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Disclaimer: I listened to the audiobook version of this book.

The Mermaid's SisterThe Mermaid’s Sister by Carrie Anne Noble
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

What can I say about this book? A lot really. I absolutely loved it. Loved it. Loved it. Loved it!

You know how we always read stories where the main character is the chosen one, the magical one, or the one all the adventures are about? I was interested in this story for the very thing it’s not.

Auntie, the guardian of two young teenagers, tells the story a hundred times – perhaps more – for they love to hear it. She raised two girls from babes. The first arrived in a conch shell. The second was delivered to her doorstep by a stork. When Maren starts becoming a mermaid, it is up to her sister Clara, the stork’s delivery, and their childhood friend, O’Neill, to take her to the ocean where she belongs.

Clara is an ordinary girl in a lot of ways – beyond her odd stork-ish beginnings. She loves her family, loves a boy she realizes loves her sister and hates herself for her jealousy and her love, and she doesn’t believe in herself. She isn’t brave. She isn’t as beautiful as Maren. She fully believes she might become a stork, as her sister is becoming a mermaid. She is full of doubt and modesty, but beyond that, she is a loving and caring soul. She’ll do anything to save her sister. She’ll doubt herself along the way, but she will do everything humanly possible to see her sister returned to the sea.

That’s one of the things I loved about this book. Maren was a mermaid, a fantastical creature. O’Neill and his father, Scarf, were traveling people who sold their wares and told fantastical stories and played a bit of magic or tricks. Auntie was a healer with a bit of fae blood and able to cure anyone of any ailment they had. It was Clara who was the most ordinary of them all, unless you want to count her friendship with their pet wyvern, Ausbert. So many times, the main character is someone who is magical themselves, and it was so refreshing to have someone who wasn’t as fantastical as those around them – and still managed to find a way to use their skills to keep themselves out of trouble.

And trouble did indeed find them as they journeyed from the mountainside in their attempt to return Maren to the sea from which she came. Who wouldn’t expect trouble when one travels with a mermaid? Again, these troubles were – in their own way – magical and odd, and Clara was still the most ordinary among the people surrounding her.

I loved that there was no real love triangle. There was the possibility of such, but Clara’s feelings were always clear, even if she did try to deny the way she felt about one of them as she believed (with all her heart) that he belonged to someone else. She never led either boy on, and it was fantastic because it allowed us to see more of her personality. Her loyalty to her friends and her sister and her own feelings was amazing. No one could sway her in her emotions. She hid them from some, mainly the young man she had feelings for, but when the other young man tried to draw her out, tried to turn her affections toward him, she spurned him, and she spurned him hard. It was amazing.

There was so much faith and love and promises and magic and music and stories in this tale. It was, by all rights, a magical piece of storytelling that I can’t wait to read again.

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“Beastly Bones” by William Ritter Review

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Disclaimer: I listened to the audiobook version of this book.

Beastly Bones (Jackaby, #2)Beastly Bones by William Ritter
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I had forgotten how much I loved this series, but I was once again reminded as I listened to this audio book. I absolutely LOVE this series.

This book takes place shortly after the events of “Jackaby” and Jackaby and Miss Rook have a new case that pulls them into Rook’s preferred profession of paleontology. As someone who wanted to be a paleontologist the first time she watched “Jurassic Park”, I fell in love with the story. There were creatures that mimic their prey and take on the body and shape of the creature they eat. There were missing dinosaur bones (that may or may not) be a dinosaur at all. There were mysterious strangers with odd auras. It was a conglomeration of events that all built upon one another and it was amazing.

Once more, I listened to the audio book (as I did the first), and I loved it in this form. The first reason is that they seem to be written in a way as to be accounts of events after they have already happened. Once more a chapter was left out and noted as well. “The contents of [insert chapter] have been removed from the record…” This isn’t an exact quote, but the gist of what is mentioned, and I smiled when I heard it because I had forgotten that the same was done with the first book until I heard it once more. It’s an odd thing to occur in a book, but it works for this series, and I love that it was once more included (and I hope to see it in future books).

All-in-all, this is a great read. I love the characters. I love the relationship Abigail Rook has with Jackaby, her boss, and how he’s awkward (he doesn’t think he is, but he is a strange man) but there are no romantic feelings between the two. It’s refreshing because in a lot of what I read these days there is a romance between co-workers, and it’s nice to see that there’s NO relationship beyond that of work-related between the two main characters of this series.

That said, there is a bit of a budding romance between Miss Rook and the Charlie, the cop we met in the first book, but it’s slow and (again) awkward, and not the emphasis of the book. The main focus is on the mystery and the case, and I loved that the romance did not take the forefront.

There are a lot of new characters in this book, but I was pleasantly surprised and reminiscent with seeing some of the same characters from the first book appear as well. It was like greeting an old friend, and I loved it.

Can you tell I loved this book?

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“Self-Editing on a Penny” by Ashlyn Forge Review

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Disclaimer: I listened to the audiobook version of this book.

Self-Editing On A Penny: A Comprehensive Guide

Self-Editing On A Penny: A Comprehensive Guide by Ashlyn Forge
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I have mixed feelings about this book, but only because I was listening to the audio book rather than reading a physical or Ebook copy. Note to self: grammar and editing books are not as good in audio book format. I will be re-reading this book at some point to see how each compares.

There were several good tips in this book, like several other editing books I’ve read before, and didn’t offer a lot of new information about the editing process I didn’t already know. However, the way the information was delivered had a bit of comedy, and there were several examples to showcase the author’s viewpoint. It was extremely well-done in that sense.

This is a quick book to read, and great for writer’s who are new to the editing process. Even if you aren’t new to editing, there are some decent tips that are perfect for a refresher course as you go through the editing process (like I’m about to do).

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“I’ll Give You the Sun” by Jandy Nelson Review

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Disclaimer: I read the paperback version of this book.

I'll Give You the SunI’ll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I have mixed feelings about this book. While I liked the story for the most part, it threw me off that each chapter was from a different time period and a different character. It starts from the prospect of Noah at thirteen years of age, but for the next chapter it switches to his twin sister, Jude, three years later, and it does this for the rest of the book. If we’d read all of Noah’s parts first and then Jude’s it would have been a lot easier.

Also, even though I’m strange myself and I couldn’t begin to describe the random thoughts inside my head, being inside Noah’s head was so strange, and not always in a good way. He didn’t think like most young kids. He was often “painting in his mind”, which is not a bad thing, but then he would name whatever scene that was occurring, as if it was a painting, and sometimes it made no sense and disconnected me from the story because it didn’t seem to fit. Because the style continued throughout the book with each appearance of Noah, it did fit, but it didn’t feel like it.

Jude’s parts were much easier to understand (once I got past the fact that her parts took place three years later, and I *STILL* had trouble wrapping my brain around that) as she seemed like every moody teenage girl who hated the world and everyone in it. That being said, her connection with spirits and the conversations she had with her dead grandmother were strange at first because it made me think that this was a supernatural book and the girl had powers, but I knew it was a contemporary, so it was just another thing I had to wrap my head around.

The writing style for Jude’s chapters and Noah’s chapters were so different from one another that it was easy to see who’s perspective was who’s. They definitely didn’t share the same thoughts and feelings about things, but again, the flip-flopping of time periods threw me off a lot.

There are several controversial topics in this book: sex between teenagers, coming out and forcing someone else to come out, as well as cheating and affairs. Overall, it conveys all these topics well and we see each subject in a different perspective between the two characters, and we watch them handle it separately as well as together.

What I think I loved most about this book was that it broke the stereotypical setting I see with twins. Whenever I see twins in literature, they look exactly the same and have the same personalities. It’s easy to see the differences in the Jude and Noah’s personalities, and one of the other characters makes his surprise at their being twins known because he expected Jude (who he met second) to look “like Noah but with boobs” as she so elegantly put it.

I really wanted to enjoy this book more than I did, and I might go back through it and re-read it so that I read all of Noah’s chapters first and then all of Jude’s chapters second to understand it better because that was the main issue I had with it. I can handle the POV change, but it was the timeline change that killed me. It probably works for others, but it just did not work for me.

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