Daughter of the Pirate King was Okay

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Daughter of the Pirate King coverI recently read Daughter of the Pirate King (on audiobook).  I was looking for something to listen to as I take my daughter to school three days a week.  There are a LOT of books my local library doesn’t have on audiobook!  I found this one was available, and I decided to check it out.  Unfortunately, I thought it was just okay.

Alosa is the daughter of the Pirate King.  Her father sends her on a mission to retrieve a map from another vessel.  In order to achieve this, she purposefully allows herself to be kidnapped.  After being kidnapped, she begins to search for the map, using various techniques to fool her captors.  Eventually, she finds her way back to her ship, but not after we discover a secret about her.

That’s the story in a nutshell, but it doesn’t really tell why I thought the story was just okay, and why I won’t rush out to read the next book in the series.  I wouldn’t refuse to read the next book, it’s just way down there on my TBR… and with all of the other books out there clamoring for my attention, it’s not likely to happen.

Anyway, as a character, Alosa was way overconfident.  She felt that she could kill any number of men that she came across.  Even after finding out her secret, her claims were still probably a little unrealistic.  I just didn’t really connect with her all that much.

I didn’t really feel her love relationship with Riden all that much.  Perhaps it’s because Alosa herself kept denying that she had feelings for him.  It was evident that she cared for him, but I didn’t get the impression that Alosa cared deeply for much of anything other than herself.

That being said, the audiobook quality to this book was outstanding!  The voice acting was amazing.  If you’re going to experience this book in any way, I suggest the audiobook format.

While I don’t dislike Daughter of the Pirate King, there just wasn’t enough there to interest me.  I didn’t grow attached to the characters.  I wasn’t looking forward to getting into the car to find out what happens next.  While I know that there are people that just love this book, it wasn’t really the book for me.

Winter 2018/19 TBR

By Brookelorren on 35 Comments

Welcome to today’s edition of Top Ten Tuesday!  This week we’re going to talk about the books on our Winter TBR.  Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl.

First, we’re going to talk about how well we did on our Fall 2018 TBR.  How many of those did I read?

  • Wildcard – Marie Lu: Read
  • Addicted to Outrage – Glenn Beck: Read
  • The Mortal Instruments – Cassandra Clare: Read.  Not only did I read that book, but I also read all of The Infernal Devices and The Dark Artifices.  So I was wildly successful on this particular TBR item.
  • Legendary – Stephanie Garber: Read
  • Muse of Nightmares – Laini Taylor: Read
  • Fawkes – Nadine Brandes: Read
  • A Thousand Perfect Notes – C.G. Drews: Unread.
  • Children of Blood and Bone – Tomi Adeyemi: Read
  • Empire of Storms and Tower of Dawn – Sarah J. Maas: Unread.  See above where I read the rest of Cassandra Clare’s Mortal Instruments, plus TID and TDA.  And Queen of Air and Darkness was 880 pages.  I think fall had its share of monster-sized books as it was.
  • My True Love Gave to Me: Read

8/10 books read from my Fall 2018 TBR is pretty good.

Empire of Storms coverSince I didn’t get the chance to read Empire of Storms or Tower of Dawn last season, I still plan on reading it this winter. Now I need to read Kingdom of Ash too. All ginormous books.

A Thousand Perfect Notes coverI also didn’t read A Thousand Perfect notes either.  Just because I didn’t get the chance to read this book yet, doesn’t mean that I don’t want to.  I hope to read this one soon.

Twisted Roots coverShelly Goodman Wright is a friend of mine, and has been teaching my son’s writing class for a couple of years now.  I’ll be taking a writing for publication class with her in February, and she’s going to help me improve my book, The Brightness of Shadow.  She gave me a copy of her book, Twisted Roots, a couple of years ago, and I think maybe I should read it?  So it’s on my TBR, and I plan to read it before February.

The Girl King coverI got permission to read an ARC of The Girl King by Mimi Yu, so of course this book is on my winter TBR.  I was approved for this book about a month ago, and haven’t read it yet because of NaNoWriMo, and also because publishers don’t like you to write your reviews too early.  Since I’m in the time frame where I can post reviews, I’ll probably read this one soon.

The Gilded Wolves coverAnother ARC I was approved for is The Gilded Wolves by Roshani Chokshi.  I haven’t read it yet for the same reasons I haven’t read The Girl King yet.  This one has a later publication date, so I’ll probably read the other one first, but I plan on reading it this winter.

The Invisible War coverThe Invisible War is a graphic novel that I got from Netgalley.  It looked interesting, so I requested it.  I’m pretty good about reading my ARCs, so this is one of the books I’ll be reading soon.

Shadow and Bone coverOn many of the Top Ten Tuesday posts about cozy and wintry reads, The Grisha Verse trilogy showed up multiple times.  I’ve wanted to read it for a while, but haven’t gotten around to it yet.  I want to read it before I get to Six of Crows too.  So onto the TBR it goes.

Court of Thorns and Roses coverSince I plan on finishing the Throne of Glass series this winter, I thought I’d follow it up by reading A Court of Thorns and Roses, and the books after that.  This was another series that found its way onto the Cozy/Wintry reads edition of Top Ten Tuesday.  Perhaps I should make an attempt to read it before the winter is over.

The Bear and the Nightingale coverI got so many books on Black Friday this year it’s shameful.  Okay, maybe not shameful, but I did get a lot of books.  One of the books that I bought was The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden.  It definitely has a wintry feel to it — I mean, look at the cover.  This isn’t exactly a book that I want to read in the middle of July.

Sky in the Deep cover

Sky in the Deep was another Black Friday purchase.  It’s been one of those books that I’ve been looking at for months, but never got around to reading.  Now that I have a copy on my Kindle, I don’t have an excuse for not reading it.  Besides, this story is about Vikings… can we get anything more wintry than Vikings?  It’s cold up in the North!  I should probably get to this book before the weather gets warmer again.

So there’s my Top Ten Tuesday list for this week. What are you planning on reading this winter? Did you knock out a big portion of your fall 2018 TBR, or did you end up throwing that thing out the window and just read whatever sounded good at the time?

Next week is Christmas Day! I’ll be talking about books I hope to find under my Christmas tree. If I don’t… well, there’s always Amazon gift cards!

Goodreads Your Year in Books Meme

By Brookelorren on 8 Comments

There’s less than 2 weeks left in the year!  I found the Goodreads Your Year in books meme, hosted by Bite into Books, and I thought it would be fun.

I’ve said before this year, I only recently discovered how amazing Goodreads was.  I read so many more books this year than last year, and seeing my statistics was fun!  If you want to find out your Goodreads year in Books, follow the previous link and it’ll give you a link to your own book year.

My statistics: I read 32,320 pages across 83 books!  It adds up over time.

Yumi Cover

The shortest book I read was Yumi, at 8 pages…

Queen of Air and Darkness cover

…And the longest book that I read this year was Queen of Air and Darkness, at 912 pages.

The average length of the books I read overall was 389 pages.

City of Bones Cover
George Whitefield cover

The most popular book I read this year was City of Bones, which was read by 1,497,274 other people.  The least popular book that I read was George Whitefield: Evangelist for God and Empire, which was read by 6 other people.

My average rating was 4.4 (I’ve read some amazing books this year!)

The highest rated book that I’ve rated was Friction, which averaged 4.6 from Goodreads readers.

This has been a great book year, and I can’t wait to read even more books in 2019!  And well, there’s probably enough time to squeeze another four books into the rest of 2018 as well.

How did your book year go?  I’m not going to tag anybody, but if you decide to do this meme, please leave a comment here so I can see what your book year looked like.

Participating in this meme is simple:

  1. Write your own year in books post.
  2. Link to the post on Bite into Books.
  3. Add your post to the linky at Bite into Books.  Leave a comment here if you’d like too.
  4. Tag your friends (if you like).
  5. Check the page at Bite into Books to see what other people’s years were like

I’m a Fangirl

By Brookelorren on 10 Comments

Fangirl coverI recently finished reading Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell.  I had been seeing it on a lot of Top Ten Tuesday lists and decided it sounded good.  When it became available on audiobook, I had to read it, because it seemed like a story I could identify with.

Cath is starting her first year of college.  She has an identical twin sister that wants to live on her own this year.  As a result, Cath feels… lost.

She also has a difficult time talking to people, and she writes fanfiction.  Wow, you could say the same thing about me!  Only Cath is way more successful at writing fanfiction than I am, and she really has a difficult time talking to people.  She has such a difficult time talking to people that she’d rather hang out in her room eating protein bars than ask someone how to get to the dining hall.

Throughout the story, Cath finds love (who I’m saying I won’t say), deals with being a fanfic writer when her professor thinks it’s unprofessional, and deals with family difficulties.  Most of the excitement happens towards the end of the story, and that’s when I really didn’t want to put down the book.  I was just okay with the story at the beginning, but when it picks up, it really picks up.  I loved it.

The characters were great.  I could identify with Cath, but there were so many other great characters.  Her sister Ren is a typical college student who gets a little too into partying.  Her roommate, Reagan is the brooding, moody type with a good heart.  Levi is one of those really friendly but not so smart types.  Nick from Cath’s fiction writing class makes a good writing partner.  Cath and Ren’s dad is a little wacky.  They all make this a great story.

If you’ve ever been to college, thought about going to college, or have written fanfiction, you should probably read Fangirl.  It’s an excellent story.

Since I read Fangirl on audiobook, I have some comments about that.  I was NOT a fan of the audiobook quality.  The voices were outstanding, don’t get me wrong.  My problem with the audiobook was the editing.  It was horrible.  Half the time, when a new section of the book took place, the first few words of the sentence were cut off.  Not acceptable.  I took music recording classes in college, and I seriously could have done a better job editing this audiobook as a college senior.  There’s no excuse for cutting off words in an audiobook.

My True Love Gave to Me Adds Holiday Cheer

By Brookelorren on 6 Comments
My True Love Gave to Me cover

Tis the season to be jolly!  And to read a holiday book or two!  This year, I read My True Love Gave to Me, a YA anthology featuring several authors whose books I’ve read this year (and some that are new to me).  If you’re looking into reading some short stories to get you into the holiday mood, you might want to read this one.

This is a companion book to Summer Days and Summer Nights, a book I reviewed over the summer.  If you’re living in the Southern Hemisphere, you might want to look into that one as well.

As with most anthologies, My True Love Gave to Me contains some stories that you will enjoy more than others.  My favorite story from the book was “Midnights” by Rainbow Rowell.  It is a sweet story of a couple of friends who realize how they feel about each other over time.  I really liked almost all of the stories though.

One of the nice things about reading anthologies like this one is that you get to try new authors that you haven’t read before, and sometimes you get to read authors writing in genres that they don’t normally write in.  For example, I’ve read Holly Black’s The Cruel Prince, but she has a story here called “Krampuslauf” which is more contemporary than fantasy, and although I’ve never read To all The Boys I’ve Loved Before by Jenny Han, I doubt that those stories involve elves like “Polaris is Where You’ll Find Me” does.

My True Love Gave to Me is definitely a holiday anthology worth checking out, especially if one of your favorite authors has written a story here, or if you don’t want to invest a lot of time reading an entire holiday novel.  The stories are sweet and they might just get you into the holiday spirit this year.

Books I Read that Need More Love

By Brookelorren on 34 Comments

Hello!  It’s time for another Top Ten Tuesday!  Today is a freebie topic, and I was thinking I’d do a post on books that need a little more love.  I guess it’s a similar topic to Hidden Gems, which we did in September, but I’m first focusing on books that I read as ARCs.  Did you know that the average traditionally published book only sells 3,000 copies in its lifetime?  More than likely, a lot of the books we talk about on Top Ten Tuesday sell more than that, but there are books that get mentioned on occasion that probably don’t.  So today I’d like to talk about some books that probably need more love.

Frequency CoverFrequency by Christopher Krovatin is one of those books that I think about when I think about books that need more love.  I thought it was fantastic, and I loved all the musical influence in the book.  I don’t really hear much about this book, and figure it probably needs some more love.

Into the Hollow coverInto the Hollow by Lynn Vroman was another book that I really loved.  It had a unique setting, I loved the characters, and the story, about a girl who had a messed up family who falls in love with another kid with a messed up family, was really good.  I was sad to see this not get more attention than it did.

The Wren Hunt coverThe Wren Hunt by Mary Watson was a beautiful book.  I loved the unique setting, the magic was different than what I’ve seen before, and it had something of a Romeo and Juliet kinda vibe with the feuding families and all.  I’d love to see this gaining more people’s interest.

Crow Flight CoverI’m not sure what it is about books named after birds not getting enough love, but I loved Crow Flight by Susan Cunningham.  I mentioned in my review that this book had me at computers, but I loved the mystery surrounding this, as well as the characters.  Too bad this book didn’t have much marketing behind it, because I thought it was great.

Echoes coverThe next three books ended up on my Hidden Gems list, but I think Echoes by Alice Reeds deserved a little bit more love than it got.  I absolutely couldn’t put this book down, and read it in a day.  I really wish that it could have a sequel (there is a little bit of a cliffhanger at the end) but it probably won’t.  I saw Ms. Reeds pitching another book idea during #PitMad, so it looks like she’s doing something else.  I’d love to read more of her books, because I loved this one.

My Real Name is Hanna coverMy Real Name is Hanna, by Tara Lynn Masih, also got a mention during Hidden Gems week, but this is another book that deserves more love than it did.  Maybe the whole Holocaust setting was a little too dreary for some people.  I thought the book was great though.

Never Stop Walking CoverI didn’t read Never Stop Walking, by Christina Rickardsson, as an ARC, but this is another book that I thought should have gotten more attention than it did.  We read about hellish fictional places all the time… this book is about an actual hellish place that still exists today — slums in Brazil.  It also talks about her adoption and going to live in a wildly different culture.  Maybe it’s too real for people to actually want to face.

Ever the Hunted CoverI can’t tell you how much love Ever the Hunted and Ever the Brave got, but I haven’t heard a great deal about Once a King, the last book in the Clash of Kingdoms series.  Ever the Hunted is number 55 on the Goodreads YA Novels of 2016 list (Ever the Brave is number 123), so I’m guessing that these books could have used a little more love at the time as well.

When Elephants Fly coverWhen Elephants Fly by Nancy Richardson Fischer could have gotten a little more attention than it did as well.  Lately there has been a lot of emphasis placed on mental health, and books that talk about it, and the main character of this book is worried about her own mental health.  I let my daughter read it, as she’s been struggling with depression.  I guess that publishers can only promote so many books…

Fawkes coverFawkes by Nadine Brandes might have gotten a little more attention than some of these other books, but there were quite a few huge releases over the summer, and this book seemed to get drowned out by a lot of the bigger names.  Nevertheless, it was a pretty good book, and probably could have used a little bit more attention than it did.

So there’s my list this week of books that I read (mostly as ARCs) that could have used a little more love than they did.  I’m looking forward to see what ideas everybody else came up with this week for Top Ten Tuesday!  Next week I’m going to talk about my Winter 2018/2019 TBR!  And we’ll see how I did on my Fall TBR as well!  See you then!

The Twelve Days of Christmas Book Tag

By Brookelorren on 9 Comments

Christmas is just around the corner and now that I’ve finished my Shadowhunter book marathon, it’s time to get Christmasy!  I was tagged by Laurie’s Bookshelf to do the 12 Days of Christmas book tag!  It was started by Nicola over at The Fantastic Book Dragon.  I’ve read so many amazing books, especially this year, that I hope I can do this without being too repetitive.

On the first day of Christmas, my true love sent to me: a partridge in a pear tree.
The partridge stood alone in the pear tree. What is your favorite stand alone?

I might put something different on another day, but today, I’m putting down Fangirl.  It didn’t get a slot anywhere else on this list, so that’s an advantage to putting it here.

On the second day of Christmas, my true love sent to me: two turtle doves.
Love is in the air! Who is your one true pairing?

In order to keep from being repetitive, I’m going to say Four and Tris.  There’s another OTP I could put here, but I want to give these two some love too.  I still love FourTris fanfiction.

On the third day of Christmas, my true love sent to me: Three French Hens.
In the spirit of threes, what is the best trilogy you have read?

I know I haven’t actually read the entire trilogy yet (the third book isn’t even written at the moment) but I’m going to put The Cruel Prince down here.  It was an amazing book, it’s part of a trilogy, and it didn’t go anywhere else yet.  If we want a completed trilogy, I’ll say Divergent, but I’ve used them elsewhere in this tag…

On the fourth day of Christmas, my true love sent to me: four calling birds.
Since series usually consist of four or more books, what is your favourite series?

Legend.  This was originally going to go under the trilogy category, until I realized that Legend 4 is going to come out next fall, so technically it’s no longer a trilogy.  Plus, there’s Life Before Legend, Life After Legend, Life After Legend 2…

On the fifth day of Christmas, my true love sent to me: five golden rings.
One ring to rule them all! Who is your Favorite Villain/Antagonist?

Adelina Amouteru.  Marie Lu makes her so… human.  You can’t help but like her.  Maybe you can, but I wanted the best for her, at least.

On the sixth day of Christmas, my true love sent to me: six geese a laying.
Creation is a beautiful thing. What is your favourite world/world-building?

If I would have answered this a month ago, I might have said a different book, but I think the worldbuilding in the Shadowhunters books by Cassandra Clare is amazing.  I really didn’t see it until I started reading The Infernal Devices, but I love the way the world has a history, alternate universes, it’s great.  I love how she links the series’ too.  Gives me worldbuilding goals for my own writing.

On the seventh day of Christmas, my true love sent to me: seven swans a swimming.
Who needs seven swans when all it takes is one good animal sidekick? Who’s your favourite animal sidekick?

I actually can’t think of that many animal sidekicks at all.  I don’t know if this counts as a sidekick, but Church from the Shadowhunter’s novels is pretty cool.  And if you get the chance to take a look at the inside of the dust jacket to Queen of Air and Darkness… wow.  Church looks AMAZING in it.  The whole picture is awesome.

On the eighth day of Christmas, my true love sent to me: eight maids a milking.
Milk is so 18th century. Which book or series takes beverages/food to a whole new level?

Heartless has some amazing cake descriptions.  I’ve heard there’s some foodage going on in A Thousand Perfect Notes, but I haven’t gotten to reading that one yet.

On the ninth day of Christmas my true love sent to me: nine ladies dancing.
Dancing is just one skill of a Lady! Who is your favourite kickass female lead?

Aelin Galathynius, AKA Celaena Sardothien.  She kicks a lot of butt.

On the tenth day of Christmas my true love sent to me: ten lords a leaping.
How about your favourite leading lad?

Hmmm… I would say maybe Day or Jace.  Either way, they’ve been listed elsewhere here, but I really love both of their books.

On the eleventh day of Christmas my true love sent to me: eleven pipes piping.
What is your favourite book or bookish thing with musical influence? (It can be about music, reference music a lot etc.)

When I think of musical books, I think of Frequency.  It should have been a better-known book, IMO.

On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love sent to me: 12 drummers drumming.
Drum roll please…what is your favourite read of this year?

It’s not out yet… but here’s a sneak peak for my list on January 1st… Enchantée.  When I was 1/2 hour from the end, according to my Kindle, I thought about going into work late just to finish it.  There’s still 22 days left in the year, so this could change… but I doubt it.

So there’s the Twelve Days of Christmas book tag.  Do you want to do this one too?  Consider yourself tagged!  Also, I tag Sam, A.J. Sterkel, Greg.  If anybody does this tag, let me know!

Wintry Reads

By Brookelorren on 31 Comments

Brrrr!  It’s really cold outside!  It’s also Tuesday!  You know what that means, another edition of Top Ten Tuesday, hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl!  This week we’re going to talk about cozy, wintry reads.  I’m not sure if all of these will be all that wintry, but I’ll do my best!

Immortal Nicholas coverThe Immortal Nicholas – Glenn Beck.  Ever wonder if Santa ever had anything to do with Jesus?  What about that Krampus dude?  This is a beautiful story that incorporates both.  The first time I read this book, I was in tears for the last 50, 100 pages or so.  It was just so sad.  And the ending is beautiful too.

My True Love Gave to Me coverMy True Love Gave to Me – various.  This was on my fall TBR from earlier this year.  I still haven’t finished reading all of the stories (I’m on this insane mission to read Clockwork Angel, Lady Midnight, Lord of Shadows, and Queen of Air and Darkness back to back) but so far these are pretty good, and Christmassy too.  Out of the three stories I’ve read so far, I think I like “Midnights” by Rainbow Rowell the best.

The Long Winter CoverThe Long Winter – Laura Ingalls Wilder.  There’s something about the Little House on the Prairie books that make me think of the winter.  Some of the books are very summery, but there are several books that are not.  The Long Winter and Little House in the Big Woods are books from this series that have a lot of wintry appeal.

Carve the Mark coverCarve the Mark – Veronica Roth.  For the last couple of years, I’ve always thought it was a shame, because Carve the Mark and it’s sequel, The Fates Divide, came out in the beginning of the year, when I’m less likely to think of them by the time I start thinking of my Top Ten Books I Read for the First Time in 20xx List.  Nevertheless, this book belongs on the wintry list because of the cold climate that a lot of the book is set in.

Game of Thrones coverGame of Thrones – George R.R. Martin.  I read this in the spring and summer, but this is definitely a wintry read.  Most of the story happens either in a cold climate or when “winter is coming.”  This series takes forever to read, so you just might finish this one up by the time spring is here.

Frostblood coverFrostblood – Elly Blake.  The title literally says “Frost” in it.  Perhaps that should give you a clue that this is not a warm, summery book.

Midnight Star coverThe Midnight Star – Marie Lu.  This is the third book in The Young Elites series, so I wouldn’t start here, but most of this book takes place in the cold (see the cold mountains on the cover).  I bought the Spanish edition of this book in the summer but haven’t gotten around to reading it yet… maybe now, when it’s nice and cold, would be a good time to do it.

5th Wave CoverThe 5th Wave – Rick Yancey.  Don’t feel bad if you don’t want to read the remaining books in this series, but the first book in The 5th Wave series was really good.  Not all of this series takes place in the winter, but part of it does, and perhaps I associate this book with winter because I read it in the winter.  It will suck you in and make you forget that the wind is howling outside your house.

Legend coverLegend – Marie Lu.  This is another book that I associate with winter.  I guess this series mostly does occur in the winter (the book starts on November 28th, 2031), but it takes place in Los Angeles, so it doesn’t really feel all that cold.  Maybe one of the reasons why I associate this book with winter is that I read the Spanish edition at the very end of December one year, with the snow flying and all that.

Caraval coverCaraval – Stephanie Garber.  Why does Caraval remind me of winter?  I have no clue?  I don’t know why, but for some reason it does.  Perhaps it’s because Christmas is a magical time, and this book is full of magic.  Even though this might not be specifically a wintry book, this is a book that you can certainly snuggle up under a blanket with a cup of hot tea and read.

I hope you liked this edition of Top Ten Tuesday.  Now that NaNoWriMo is over, I need to start writing these farther ahead of time than 12 hours before it’s due!  That being said, next week is a freebie edition of the series, and I’m planning on writing about books that I read as ARCs that need a little more love!  A lot of books don’t get the marketing that they should, but they’re still really good!  I’ll be writing about some of those.

November Monthly Wrap-Up

By Brookelorren on 6 Comments

November is but a memory, which means that it’s time to take a few minutes to talk about what happened.

Books Read:

I only read eight books this month, but I was really busy winning NaNoWriMo.

  • Here and Now and Then – Mike Chen
  • The Cruel Prince – Holly Black
  • Crow Flight – Susan Cunningham
  • Clockwork Angel – Cassandra Clare
  • The Young Adult Writer’s Journey – Janet Schraeder-Post and Elizabeth Fortin-Hinds
  • Clockwork Prince – Cassandra Clare
  • Children of Blood and Bone – Tomi Adeyemi
  • Clockwork Princess – Cassandra Clare

That’s still an average of two books per week while writing over 50k words.  Not too bad.  Right now I’m trying to finish Lady Midnight and Lord of Shadows before Queen of Air and Darkness comes out on Tuesday.  A little insane, but I might actually do it.

Blog Stats:

  • I’m at 1,764 followers on Twitter.  NaNoWriMo has been really good to me there.
  • Unfortunately, on the actual blog I haven’t had time to visit other people’s sites as much as I’d like to.  Hopefully there will be more time in December.  I don’t even have next week’s Top Ten Tuesday post written yet.

Writing:

I wrote 53,675 words on The Brightness of Shadow this month, which means I won NaNoWriMo.  Yay!  I still have 13 chapters left, however.  I hope to finish them this month, because then I’ll need to spend January editing, because I have work with my critique partner to do at the beginning of February.  I already know a few things that I’m going to change to make this better in the second draft.

Life:

So, no car accidents this month.  We got our new car to replace the one I totalled.  The last two Saturdays have been really treacherous on the roads though.

My daughter spent another week in the hospital, but she’s out now.

So that’s what happened this month.  Lots of writing.  Next month hopefully I’ll get more reading done and I’ll finish the first draft of my book.

City of Heavenly Fire was Heavenly!

By Brookelorren on 2 Comments

City of Heavenly Fire coverThis summer, I started reading Cassandra Clare’s The Mortal Instruments series.  I recently finished the amazing conclusion, City of Heavenly Fire.  Having read all the books, I can tell you that this is a series that you will want to read.

Because this is the sixth book in the series, there may be some spoilers to previous books.

At the beginning of City of Heavenly Fire, Sebastian is on the loose, and he’s beginning to cause trouble again.  Around the world, Institutes are being attacked.  None of the shadowhunters are safe; they all decide to retreat (temporarily) to Idris.  This leaves the downworlders vulnerable.

Sebastian and his Endarkened forces attack the fortress of the Iron Sisters.  It’s almost a massacre for the shadowhunters that show up to fight, but Jace turns out to be an extraordinary weapon.  The Endarkened are vulnerable to his heavenly fire, as is Sebastian.  Unfortunately, the heavenly fire makes it difficult for him to get close to Clary.

As our adventure continues, the teens from the New York Institute make a journey to end Sebastian once and for all… and may have to give up a little more than they would like.  You’ll just have to read this amazing book to find out what happens.

I love how this book expands on setting elements that we saw in previous books.  In City of Lost Souls, we first hear about The Wild Hunt.  In this book, we hear more about it.  We are also introduced to places in other dimensions.  The book is full of imagery from Biblical and classical sources, which adds a little bit of color to this series.

I continue to grow more in love with these characters and their relationships.  Jace and Clary, Simon and Isabelle, and Alec and Magnus continue to have their relationships develop in different ways.  We are also introduced to some new characters, some of whom we will see in both The Infernal Devices and The Dark Artifices books.  I plan on reading both.

Part of me was sad to see this amazing series end, but I’m glad that there are other shadowhunter books to read.  I already have the first two books from The Infernal Devices on hold at the library.  I have to take a short break from this series while they become available, but I’m sure it will be worth it.  At the time I write this, there was a great sale on Lady Midnight, so I’m all ready to read that when the time comes.