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Do book reviews really matter? Yes! Both to readers and to writers, book reviews help spread the word and share the love of reading. In this episode, I share my experiences (and rules) as a book reviewer and share about the video that gained me over 100,000 views in just a few years!
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My First Impressions Steampunk. Dragons. Shifters. Airships. Mystery. True love. I don't often read steampunk, but when I do, I'm intrigued by the creativity. Lawless does not disappoint. This first installment of the Ironfire Legacy was delightful just in the fact that it combines so many elements in a world rich with its own culture and politics. (Some inclusions make this story definitely an adult book, as we'll see.)
 Welcome to my stop in D G Lamb's blog tour for his Driven to the Hilt series in anticipation of the release of the third book! You can find all the blog tour action here on Storystorming.wordpress.com, which will culminate in a Facebook party for all you speculative fiction fans.
I am reviewing the first book today. This should be a good introduction to your enjoyment of this action-packed science fiction series! (Gotta say too, I love that cover! Suspenseful and intriguing!)  Having survived the destruction of their home, Miss Peregrine's children from 1940 seek an ymbryne who can change their beloved headmistress back into her human form. Every day that slips away, she loses more of her human self into her peregrine self, and her power to protect the children remains crippled.
Each step of the way, the children find themselves more deeply endangered by the Hollowgast who hunt them, and the blank-eyed wights who aid the Hollows. Jacob is the only one who can see the Hollows--but his peculiarity is far more powerful than he realizes.  Thomas Covenant is a leper. Outcast. Unclean. Embittered by his social isolation and the abandonment of his wife, he has only one goal: to survive. So when an accident in his world hurls him into a new and confusing world with different rules, he faces a dilemma. If he believes that the world is real, that his leprosy is gone, he will lose the survival skills that have enabled him to live with leprosy. He might be yanked back into his own world and his own carelessness will kill him. Yet if he disbelieves that the world is real, he is careless with the lives of others, and his carelessness may kill them. The Lords of the Land believe that Covenant is the reincarnation of an ancient hero, who will free the Land from the diseasing influence of Lord Foul. But Covenant resists. It is all a dream. It must be a dream... Isn't it?
 When Jacob is a child, his grandfather tells him wonderful stories of Miss Peregrine's island home where he had spent his childhood during the 1940s, with the levitating girl and the boy with bees in his stomach and the girl who could lift anything. It was a place safe from the monsters that his grandfather later fought and vanquished.
Jacob grows up and the stories become just that--stories--until Jacob's grandfather is violently murdered by a frightening creature that only Jacob can see. Jacob's search for real answers draws him to the island where Miss Peregrine's home lies in ruins. But peculiar things await Jacob on the island, things that force him to realize that he and his grandfather are more alike than he realized--and that the monsters of his nightmares are real.  Currently free on Kindle! When Susan is driven by some strange unease to find quiet in the attic her husband Mark created as her refuge for her, she accidentally--or not so accidentally?--is transported to a world where her soccer-mom existence quickly disappears.
There she observes a lethal sword-match between two enemies--concerning a crime she does not yet understand--and finds herself at the mercy of warriors who distrust her as much as she distrusts them. The People of the Verses rely on their archaic weapons and the truth of the Verses to defend them against danger that crowds upon them from neighboring kingdoms. But their enemies possess long-distance killing rays and war machines.  Warning: If you haven’t read the previous stories of the Queen’s Thief series, this review may contain some spoilers for you. Read at your own peril. ;-)
Sophos does not expect to be kidnapped. Then again, he is the next in line for the throne, after his uncle, the king of Sounis. As Sophos struggles to escape, aware that the slightest misstep might mean his death, he realizes that the nation is on the brink of war, undermined from within by enemies of Sounis. Saving the nation may mean making alliances with those who seem to be enemies, and making enemies of those who seem to be friends. And, most of all, it may mean becoming a man that Sophos never expected to be—the king of Sounis. As of this writing, the Kindle book of Daughter of Light is free on Amazon. Click here to get your copy.  Ever since Rowen had a terible illness, she has had the mark—a white mark on the skin of her right hand. And when she touches others with her marked hand, she sees things that she never meant or wanted to see. Forced to flee her village, Rowen becomes the varor of Lady Astrea. But as war with the neighboring nation of Temanin embroils the White City in a bitter struggle for survival, a long-forgotten evil resumes its own war—the war against the followers of the Word and the ancient guardians who once kept the Lands safe.
 Summary
Cyrus’s dreams come true when he becomes an apprentice Hero to Reginald, aka “The Crimson Slash.” As Cyrus learns the rules of True Heroism (e.g. “Always fight Climactic Duels in Ridiculous Locations”), his path crosses with that of Voshtyr Demonkin, a Villain more devious, dastardly, and dangerous than the world has seen since the Twenty-Minute War. Or perhaps, since ever. Cyrus’ life soon becomes very tangled, involving a sharp-tongued cat-featured Katheni girl; a horrific P.L.O.T. device; confusing magic controlled by Arbitrary Numbers and Capital Letters; and a struggle to understand the mysteries and meaning of the Universe. Can Cyrus defeat Voshtyr—or will Voshtyr defeat him? |