Looking Forward is a regular feature on the blog where I let you know which books I’m looking forward to in the month. They are all books I’m looking forward to being released and want to know if you’re excited about them too. This month and next month I’m probably going to be listing a bunch of books I won’t even buy because I am attempting to be smart and restrain myself so my family can buy me books for Christmas and so I can try and conquer my beastly TBR pile I’ve developed. Considering I wanted to reduce it this year it’s probably not the best plan to have it grow bigger than when it started.
Genre: Fiction, Chick-Lit, Romance, Contemporary
Release Date: 3rd November 2016
|  The Four Legendary Kingdoms – Matthew Reilly Genre:Adventure, Mystery, Thriller Release Date: 3rd November 2016 |
Life is in two parts: who you were before you met her, and who you are after.
A documentary crew discover a mysterious young women living alone in the mountains of West Cork. Strikingly beautiful she has an extraordinary talent for mimicry, like the famous Australian Lyrebird. The crew, fascinated, make her the subject of her story, and bestow the nickname upon her. When they leave, they take Lyrebird with them back to the city. But as she leaves behind her peaceful life to learn about a new world, is she also leaving behind a part of herself? For her new friend Solomon the answer isn’t clear. When you find a rare and precious thing, should you share it – or protect it… |
There are sixteen contestants, but only one will survive.
The last thing Jack West Jr remembers is arriving for a meeting at a top-secret military base with his family in tow. Now he awakes to find himself in a hellish scenario. Jack has been selected to take part in the Games, a series of deadly challenges designed to fulfil an ancient ritual. If he chooses not to compete, both he and his daughter will be killed. With the fate of the Earth at stake, Jack will have to traverse diabolical mazes, fight ruthless assassins and face unimaginable horrors that will test him to the limit. In the process, he will discover the mysterious and powerful group of individuals behind it all: the four legendary kingdoms. The thrilling new Jack West adventure from the bestselling author of The Great Zoo of China and The Five Greatest Warriors. |
Why Am I Excited?
I’ve said before I love Ahern’s books so when I saw this one I knew I wanted to get reading it. It sounds different to some of her other books but interesting all the same. I may sneak this book into my basket at some point, just to treat myself.
Also, doesn’t that cover make you want to buy?
| Why Am I Excited?
I discovered Matthew Reilly’s books by accident. My mom got the first book in this series in the post from some kind of book thing she was subscribed to way back when and we both ended up really enjoying it. They are like little mini action films that drag you in and you speed through. This series seemed to be abandoned, the last book came out when I was still at uni! When I saw another book being released I knew I had to read it regardless of anything else.
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Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary, Romance
Release Date: 3rd November 2016
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Genre:Mystery, Thriller
Release Date: 8th November 2016
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Natasha: I’m a girl who believes in science and facts. Not fate. Not destiny. Or dreams that will never come true. I’m definitely not the kind of girl who meets a cute boy on a crowded New York City street and falls in love with him. Not when my family is twelve hours away from being deported to Jamaica. Falling in love with him won’t be my story.
Daniel: I’ve always been the good son, the good student, living up to my parents’ high expectations. Never the poet. Or the dreamer. But when I see her, I forget about all that. Something about Natasha makes me think that fate has something much more extraordinary in store—for both of us. The Universe: Every moment in our lives has brought us to this single moment. A million futures lie before us. Which one will come true? |
In this gripping page-turner, an ex-agent on the run from her former employers must take one more case to clear her name and save her life.
She used to work for the U.S. government, but very few people ever knew that. An expert in her field, she was one of the darkest secrets of an agency so clandestine it doesn't even have a name. And when they decided she was a liability, they came for her without warning.
Now she rarely stays in the same place or uses the same name for long. They've killed the only other person she trusted, but something she knows still poses a threat. They want her dead, and soon.
When her former handler offers her a way out, she realises it's her only chance to erase the giant target on her back. But it means taking one last job for her ex-employers. To her horror, the information she acquires makes her situation even more dangerous.
Resolving to meet the threat head-on, she prepares for the toughest fight of her life but finds herself falling for a man who can only complicate her likelihood of survival. As she sees her choices being rapidly whittled down, she must apply her unique talents in ways she never dreamed of.
In this tautly plotted novel, Stephenie Meyer creates a fierce and fascinating new heroine with a very specialised skill set. And she shows once again why she's one of the world's bestselling authors.
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Why Am I Excited?
I mean, this is one I actually have to read so it feels a bit like cheating. But if I didn’t have a copy I would most definitely be planning to buy it. I really liked Yoon’s debut book so I obviously want to read this one too. It sounds different to the last one but also really good.
| Why Am I Excited?
Look, I am not a fan of Meyer’s and the Twilight series but I did enjoy reading The Host and I am intrigued about this book. The premise is one which I would want to read if it were any other author so I’ve decided I want to give this one a chance, regardless of who wrote it.
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Genre:Chick-Lit, Romance, Contemporary
Release Date: 17th November 2016
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Genre:Young Adult, Fantasy, Retellings
Release Date: 17th November 2016
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In this brand-new novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author Meg Cabot, a scandal brings a young man back home to the small town, crazy family, and first love he left behind.
Reed Stewart thought he’d left all his small town troubles—including a broken heart—behind when he ditched tiny Bloomville, Indiana, ten years ago to become rich and famous on the professional golf circuit. Then one tiny post on the Internet causes all of those troubles to return . . . with a vengeance. Becky Flowers has worked hard to build her successful senior relocation business, but she’s worked even harder to forget Reed Stewart ever existed. She has absolutely no intention of seeing him when he returns—until his family hires her to save his parents. Now Reed and Becky can’t avoid one another—or the memories of that one fateful night. And soon everything they thought they knew about themselves (and each other) has been turned upside down, and they—and the entire town of Bloomville—might never be the same, all because The Boy Is Back. |
Long before she was the terror of Wonderland — the infamous Queen of Hearts — she was just a girl who wanted to fall in love.
Catherine may be one of the most desired girls in Wonderland, and a favorite of the yet-unmarried King of Hearts, but her interests lie elsewhere. A talented baker, all she wants is to open a shop with her best friend and supply the Kingdom of Hearts with delectable pastries and confections. But according to her mother, such a goal is unthinkable for the young woman who could be the next Queen. At a royal ball where Cath is expected to receive the king's marriage proposal, she meets Jest, the handsome and mysterious court joker. For the first time, she feels the pull of true attraction. At the risk of offending the King and infuriating her parents, she and Jest enter into an intense, secret courtship. Cath is determined to define her own destiny and fall in love on her terms. But in a land thriving with magic, madness, and monsters, fate has other plans. |
Why Am I Excited?
I am in love with Meg Cabot and her books. Especially this Boy series. It is amazing. I loved it when I was a teen and so I am thrilled it’s being continued. I cannot wait to get my grubby little hands on it. I love love and this was probably the beginning of my descent into romance.
| Why Am I Excited?
This is one which I am excited about purely for the author. The actual story itself is one that I am not utterly enamoured by. This is especially true of this one after some of the reviews I’ve seen. Either way, I want to read it, but it’s simply because Meyer has proven a fantastic author before.
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There are a whole lot of books to be excited about this month and I may not even get to buy them all! What are you most excited to get reading, I feel like I never find anything new to look forward to?
Another month has passed and I really wish I knew where the time went. There are only two months left in 2016! It’s shocking. I need to get catching up on my ARCs for next year at the rate the year is going. Let’s look back on how this month has gone anyway.
Can’t Stop Listening
Closer ft. Halsey – Chainsmokers
Starving ft. Zedd – Hailee Steinfeld & Grey
October Reads
Favourites: Any Duchess Will Do // Do You Want To Start A Scandal // The Thinking Woman’s Guide To Real Magic // Beautiful Wreck
Chasing Fire // Lord Dashwood Missed Out // Girl In The Mirror // Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets // How To Find Love In A Book Shop // Act Like It
October Posts
October Links
Metaphors and Moonlight | Do You Use Accents In Your Head While Reading?
The Perpetual Page Turner | Do Your Reading Habits Fluctuate By Season?
It Starts At Midnight | Removing Favourites: Blasphemy Or Necessity? // Can A Ship Sink A Book? // Where To (Not) Find Inspiration
Boats Against The Current | Why Do Some Books Take So Long To Read? // How Do You Stay Inspired?
The Book Addicts Guide | Blogging Slumps
Pages Of Starlight | Blogger Obligation: It Shouldn’t Be A Thing
Kissin Blue Karen | Would You Still Blog If No One Ever Saw Your Posts?
One Pleasant Day | On Doing Absolutely Nothing
The Book Voyagers | 30 Books With Latinxs MCs // If You Like This Show ➡ You Should Read This Book // Small Presses Doesn’t Mean Less Great
The Innocent Smiley | The Illusion Of Knowledge (Be Careful Of What You Write)
Bustle | Romance Novels Empower My Feminism, Because The Genre Prioritizes Female Success And Pleasure // My Husband Doesn’t Like Reading – So Here’s How We Learned To Bond Over Books (this sounds like my worst nightmare so it was interesting to read)
And there is my month. How has your October been? Read any fantastic books or posts you loved on the internet? Tell me all below.
Please explain to me how October is almost over? I don’t know where my month has gone. I do know it hasn’t gone into reading like I hoped. Instead, TV and films and social events and having a cold took over a bit this month and I feel a bit bad my plans for blogging have not been as successful as I originally planned. I do think this has been a month which has been long and short, though. As has this week for me so let’s see what I’ve done (very little in case you want the short story).
What have I done this week? Not that much, really. I was recovering from my weekend away Monday, so was catching up with shopping, blogging and all that boring stuff I’d been putting off doing. Then with the rest of my week, I’ve just been keeping busy doing things. I mean, we were in a rush to finish things off at work for the end of the month and we’ve been trying to clear all of our work off of our desks so yeah, I’ve been busy and exhausted from that.
I had a training course to go to on Wednesday for work in Leamington Spa at one of our other offices so I had to get up early for that and catch the train over there. Annoyingly the training course didn’t even last half a day so I then had to grab a lift back to my office on the other side of Birmingham and go back to work for the afternoon. That was a long and exhausting day which ended with me watching GBBO because who wasn’t watching?
My mom has been away this weekend, she’s off visiting one of her sister’s down in Bristol so my stepdad and I have been left to fend for ourselves. We’ve had to sort our food out and do the cleaning. That means I’ve had to so the cleaning as he is off at work today. Honestly, I’ll be glad to spend the rest of today in my pyjamas reading. I deserve it! I need the break.
Also, for Rowena who requested a picture of the new haircut (as mentioned last week) please see below picture. This is me make up free and very tired having a terrible selfie. Enjoy. And yes, that is two towers of books in the background. I really need to get reading again.
What I’ve Been Reading
It’s been another slow reading week for me. I’ve not even finished two of the books on here. I read Holiday With A Twist in a couple of days (which is a really long time for a novella that should take a couple of hours to read, tops). I then found no motivation to read anything until I picked up The Heist on Friday night/Saturday morning. I won’t say my reading mojo is back but that book is definitely hooking me in and getting me to want to read. I’ve also started reading Because Of Miss Bridgerton because Danya proposed a readalong and I will do anything to jump start my reading mojo again.
New To Me
Only two books were bought this week, and one of those was all Danya’s fault so really I only bought one, which is a success in my books. The Disengagement Ring was on sale for 99p for Kindle and I loved Some Girls Do by Clodagh Murphy so I’ve decided I must buy up all of her books for some reason.
I actually forgot to include my review copies last week as I was in a rush to get the post up so I’ve a double dose of some of the ARCs I’ve gotten lately. I received a finish edition of To Love and To Cherish to be read soon. I got a couple of Christmas books, one I’ve read and Christmas Joy is to be read shortly. And then I got The Sun Is Also A Star which I don’t actually remember requesting on NetGalley but I know I wanted to read it so I must have done. I need to improve my memory.
And that is my week. How has everyone been? Is it strange that I’m already getting to read Christmas books and it’s not even December?
I have recently read the most fantastic of fantastic books, The Thinking Woman’s Guide To Real Magic. I will rave about it constantly because it had fantasy, hints of romance, a strong independent woman being forced into a feminine role of a bygone era where women were meant to be meek and the language itself which was spoken made it so that women came across weaker simply by the pronouns in which they spoke to denote they were female. Everything about the book was fantastic, apart from the ending and the long list of unanswered questions I had. Now, the book could be taken as a standalone and it worked in that way. The open ending was written well enough that it would work without a sequel but after doing some googling I know a sequel is definitely in the works with no release date, title or really any facts about when to expect it. I just know it’s coming and that is the most frustrating state of being.
It did get me thinking, though. As avid readers, we are frequently subject to situations such as this. We allow ourselves to be tied in for the long haul with series. We know that there could be years between books (I’m looking at you George RR Martin) which is fine when you know you’re entering into a series situation. But is there anything more frustrating than picking up a book which has been on your TBR list and reaching the ending only to discover that there are lots of unanswered questions to the story. At first yo wonder if this was an intentional ploy by the author to keep you thinking about the book. Then you begin wondering if it’s part of a series and you just weren’t aware of it at the time. You then learn there is a sequel, but it’s not officially announced and there is no publish date in sight or even a title attributed to the book. You’re left in limbo and it makes you want to cry, especially when the book was published a couple of years ago and at the beginning of the year the books first draft is finished. I mean, that means there could be at least a year until the next one and that’s just speculation on my part! How frustrating.
I am a reader who begins a series when the first book is released and then somehow doesn’t go back for the rest of the series until it has all been released because I hate all the unanswered questions and the long wait between releases. I am impatient and cannot take the pressure and how much I begin building up the next release in my mind. As such, I am not the kind of person who enjoys discovering their book is leaving lingering questions or is a part of as yet unnamed series that may or may not even happen as the second book really isn’t officially announced. I am even more upset to discover that there is potential for a third book as well! Now I realise I am invested in a series which will be well over 1000 pages long and will probably have three year gaps between releases. It’s so frustrating. I would never decide not the read the book because I adored every page of it but I would have been able to prepare myself more if I knew I was in for that long wait between releases.
The point of this post is, how do you feel about open ended books and series which have only just started and already appear to have long gaps between releases? Can you willingly begin a book knowing that there is no definite ending in sight? And is it worse to read a book and then reach the end only to discover you’re missing some answers and it doesn’t look like you have another book yet to answer those questions? I managed to wait for the Harry Potter releases, but that was a series that had a known number of books to it, you know?
What are your thoughts on series? Can you handle the wait for books or does it all get too much?
25 October 2016
The Thinking Woman’s Guide To Real Magic // A Fantastic Read Which Is Flawed But I Don’t Care
Published: 31st July 2014
Source: Library
Genre: Fantasy, Romance (although, minor, hardly worth a label)
My Rating:
The Thinking Woman's Guide to Real Magic is a sparkling romantic adventure.
When Nora Fischer stumbles, quite literally, into a magical world where everyone is glamorous and life is one long party, she's immediately captivated.
What she doesn't realise, because everything is such fun, is that there's a darker side to her new friends. In fact, it's only after she agrees to marry the charismatic, masterful Raclin that she discovers she's a prisoner in this new world.
If Nora is to escape, then she has just one hope: the magician Aruendiel. And if she can also persuade him to teach her the art of real magic, then she might just be able to return home.
Is that what she wants, though? Aruendiel has a biting tongue, a shrouded past and no patience, so there's no way Nora could be falling for him... Is there?
A dark fantasy fairy tale ideal for fans of Twilight, The Time Traveller's Wife and Stardust, The Thinking Woman's Guide to Real Magic is the magical adventure of the year.
A graduate of Harvard University, Emily Croy Barker has been a magazine journalist for more than 20 years. She is currently executive editor at The American Lawyer magazine. The Thinking Woman's Real Guide to Magic is her first novel.
This book! I wasn't certain I even wanted to read it at first. I was daunted by the number of pages and I was concerned I didn’t like the characters. It was one of those books where you’re excited by it because you finally have a book which has been sat on your TBR shelf for about three years but you have no idea of what to expect from it as you have seen no reviews for it. It’s always a strange feeling going into a book you’ve not heard about on the blogosphere, or been recommended. It was nice and I wish I read more books without having prior knowledge of it.
Let’s Begin With The Concerns
As I said, I was daunted by the size of the book when I got it from the library. It was over 500 pages long and when I first began reading I was indifferent to Nora and her issues and I was say waiting for the story to fully develop. The story began very slowly and it took a lot of pages to develop. I can imagine that would be off-putting to many. And then the character of Nora takes a while to warm up, she’s a bit pathetic to begin with but I enjoy some good character growth. As for some of the other characters, they take a while to develop fully formed personalities too, but that is more Nora taking a long while to warm up to anyone.
Slow Pacing And Character Growth Is Hardly A Flaw
Look, the slow pacing and character’s beginning less than appealing is hardly a flaw. They are really my largest complaints. Honestly, once this book got going I was hooked. It was annoying that it took at least 100 pages for the story to get interesting and for Nora to become less than annoying but honestly I adored it once it did. Nora became likable and interesting. Her growth from wet blanket to awesome female character in a world which is on par with like Victorian times or something, probably earlier.
The book was well-written and well thought out and even the bad parts were intelligent. They were there to develop the book and it was so intelligent.
In The End It Was Love
The book had some pacing issues and, sure, Nora was annoying as hell at first but this book was fantastic. It was well written and gripping once it got going. My biggest complaint was that it ended. I didn’t realise it was part of a series until it finished with that open ending and unanswered questions so I did some Googling and turns outs a series is planned with no release date or book title in sight. I was willing to commit to that in the end because that is how much I enjoyed the book. I want to thrust it into the hands of everyone I know and yet I still have that hesitant protective feeling you get about books you love.
Isn’t it the worst reading a book and then realising it’s a series when you’ve still got lots of unanswered questions? And what was the last book you went into with no preconceptions and no blogosphere input driving you to read?
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