Friday Face Off : is it a sad cover? #wyrdandwonder
As the month of May is Wyrd and Wonder month I’m going to be trying to use fantasy covers for my Friday Face Offs.
The details of Wyrd & Wonder can be found here.
IMAGE CREDITS: Flaming phoenix by Sujono Sujono | Decorative phoenix by Tanantachai Sirival
Here we are again with the Friday Face Off meme created by Books by Proxy . This is a great opportunity to feature some of your favourite book covers. The rules are fairly simple each week, following a predetermined theme (list below) choose a book (this doesn’t have to be a book that you’ve read), compare a couple of the different covers available for that particular book and choose your favourite. Future week’s themes are listed below – if you have a cover in mind that you’re really wanting to share then feel free to leave a comment about a future suggested theme. I’ve also listed events that take place during the year, that I’m aware of, so you can link up your covers – if you’re aware of any events that you think I should include then give me a shout. This week’s theme:
Sorrow – a cover that makes you feel sad
This was tougher than I expected, primarily because the few books I had in mind I’ve either already used for the Friday Face Off (which isn’t a problem necessarily but I like to try and come up with something different) or they didn’t have alternative covers. Anyway, I scrolled through my GR’s shelf – which unfortunately doesn’t have all my books but it is usually helpful) and came up with A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness. Take a look at the covers:
So, looking at these, I’m not sure if you’d say they were sad, but the first cover in the second row has always felt a little sad to me. It might be because it’s a monster on the cover either approaching or looking on at a house. I think Frankenstein has given me a soft spot for lonely monsters and the monster in this is not quite what he first seems.
My favourite:
Well, I quite like the first with the tree reaching up into a light coloured sky, it feels hopeful. But, I have to go with the cover on the copy I read which is this one:
I know this is dark and sombre but I just love it. And it almost feels like it could be a cover for the book I very nearly picked this week: Shelley’s Frankenstein.
So, which is your favourite?
I’ll be updating the list in order to include forthcoming events that I’m aware of so that you can perhaps link your themes up where possible (if you know of an event you’d like to share then let me know in the comments). As always, if you wish to submit an idea then leave me a comment – or if you’d like to host a week then simply let me know 😀I’ll also be adding themes to take us to the end of the year this forthcoming week.
Next week – Silhouette – an island, a person, anything you like
Future themes: (if you’re struggling with any of these themes then use a ‘freebie’ or one of your favourite covers) (I’ve added some new themes – some of these are slightly different, in order to avoid too much repetition I’m trying to make the themes more of a suggestion that everyone can interpret how they like.
2019
May is the month of Wyrd & Wonder and so I will be trying to focus on fantasy book covers:
29th May – Silhouette – an island, a person, anything you like
5th June – Flight – any type of flight – to flee, to fly
12th June – The bodice ripper – exactly as it seems
19th June – Time – time waits for no one
26th June – Windows – windows to the soul?
Favourite Fantasy books – in a nutshell #wyrdandwonder
IMAGE CREDITS: Flaming phoenix by Sujono Sujono | Decorative phoenix by Tanantachai Sirival
Today I’m posting using a theme I’ve seen around the blogosphere as part of the Wyrd and Wonder event. Check out this and this post who have already tackled this topic in wonderful fashion. Basically, describe five of your favourite fantasy books in five words. Actually, this was tougher than I expected but here goes:
Certain Dark Things by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
– Aztec vampires feuding in Mexico
Red Sister (Book of the Ancestor #1) by Mark Lawrence
– Kickass assassin nuns in training
The Princess Bride by William Goldman
– Pirates? Princesses? True love? Inconceivable
Spoonbenders by Daryl Gregory
– Dysfunctional psychic family meets gangsters
Heartstone by Elle Katharine White
– Pride, Prejudice, Dragons… oh my!
Can’t Wait Wednesday : The Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow #wyrdandwonder
20 May 2020
Filed under Book Reviews
Tags: #WyrdAndWonder, Alex E Harrow, Can't wait Wednesday, The Once and Future Witches, The Ten Thousand Doors of January, Wishful Endings
“Waiting On Wednesday” is a weekly meme that was originally created by Breaking the Spine. Unfortunately Breaking the Spine are no longer hosting so I’m now linking my posts up to Wishful Endings Can’t Wait Wednesday. Don’t forget to stop over, link up and check out what books everyone else is waiting for. If you want to take part, basically, every Wednesday, we highlight a book that we’re really looking forward to. For the month of May I will be joining up this event with Wyrd and Wonder and highlighting fantasy books. This week my book is : The Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow. Oh yes, hell yes. The Ten Thousand Doors of January was one of my top ten reads of 2019. I loved it and so Alix E Harrow shot to my authors that I absolutely must read list. And, if that wasn’t reason enough check out the description below – because WITCHES.
In 1893, there’s no such thing as witches. There used to be, in the wild, dark days before the burnings began, but now witching is nothing but tidy charms and nursery rhymes. If the modern woman wants any measure of power, she must find it at the ballot box.
But when the Eastwood sisters–James Juniper, Agnes Amaranth, and Beatrice Belladonna–join the suffragists of New Salem, they begin to pursue the forgotten words and ways that might turn the women’s movement into the witch’s movement. Stalked by shadows and sickness, hunted by forces who will not suffer a witch to vote-and perhaps not even to live-the sisters will need to delve into the oldest magics, draw new alliances, and heal the bond between them if they want to survive.
There’s no such thing as witches. But there will be.
Due for publication: October 2020
Top Ten Tuesday: Top 10 reasons why you love xxx?
19 May 2020
Filed under Book Reviews
Tags: Reasons I love reading, That Artsy Reader Girl, Top Ten Tuesday
IMAGE CREDITS: Flaming phoenix by Sujono Sujono | Decorative phoenix by Tanantachai Sirival
Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme where every Tuesday we look at a particular topic for discussion and use various (or more to the point ten) bookish examples to demonstrate that particular topic. Top Ten Tuesday (created and hosted by The Broke and Bookish) is now being hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl and future week’s topics can be found here. This week’s topic is :
Reasons Why I Love: Reading
Lots of reasons. First and foremost I guess I take after my dad, he loves to read and had a good collection of books that I could tuck in to, plus I had a teacher in my early years who really encouraged reading and recommended books to us. So, what else do I get from reading:
- Well, it’s a hobby and I think hobbies are important for us all. It gives us something of our own to delve into and become absorbed with.
- Escapism. I don’t suppose this needs too much explanation really. Sometimes when you’re reading it’s like you’ve become completely involved with what’s going on to such an extent that you really have escaped from the everyday world around you – so much so that you miss your train stop, or randomly make strange noises out loud, or become immune to everyone and everything around you.
- Travel – similarly to escapism, reading can take you on wild adventures to all sorts of places, both real and imaginary, certainly places that you won’t see unless in your wildest dreams. I’ve been into deepest space, Middle Earth and even the centre of the earth. I’ve been 20,000 leagues beneath the sea and stranded on a remote island.
- Great characters. Goodies and baddies alike. Great characters are what really makes the book for me. I want to feel an attachment, if there’s a romance I want the chemistry to sizzle, if there’s an evil so and so I need to feel the motivation, not just some crazy machiavellian character twirling his moustache. I want strong friendships and people that I care about who don’t totally step out of character just to make a plot point.
- Reading community.. Obviously this is a fairly recent development for me but being a part of the reading community is something that I love. It’s where I get most of my book recommendations from and it’s the place where I can chat a never ending stream of babble about books and people don’t mind, in fact they positively encourage it.
- Blogging. This is also a fairly new addition to my hobby and it’s a part that definitely helped me to form connections with the reading community at large. I confess that when I first started blogging I never expected anybody to visit my little corner let alone try and connect and it’s become something that I thoroughly enjoy.
- Events. Another obvious one but there’s usually lots of events going on in fact I’d say you can pretty much fill up your entire yearly calendar with events of one type or another. Take for example the Wyrd and Wonder event mentioned above. Vintage Sci Fi which usually takes place in January or any number of readathons that are constantly buzzing around the blogosphere. Choose your own catnip and jump on in.
- Easily transportable. Lets just be honest, reading is a hobby that you can take with you anywhere. You can make use of travel time, fill in a lunch hour and even multi task if you like audio. Is there anything better than a hobby that you can always crack open.
- Shopping. I really don’t enjoy shopping – unless it’s books – and then I can spend hours and hours browsing. I do love my kindle these days and I will warn you that ‘one click’ is practically addictive. And, with my new found love of audio I can also shop on Audible too.
- That’s it for me. I’m sure there are plenty more reasons that will spring to mind as soon as this is posted but for now – did I miss one of your favourite reasons for reading??
Hollow Kingdom by Kira Jane Buxton, #wyrdandwonder
18 May 2020
Filed under Book Reviews
Tags: #WyrdAndWonder, Hollow Kingdom, Kira Jane Buxton
IMAGE CREDITS: Flaming phoenix by Sujono Sujono | Decorative phoenix by Tanantachai Sirival
Hollow Kingdom is quite literally a bird’s eye view of the zombie apocalypse. I cannot lie that I felt slightly skeptical going into this novel, I wasn’t completely convinced about reading a book told from a crow’s perspective but this story completely won me over. It succeeds in being amusing, cynical, a little horror filled in parts (zombie parts more often than not), fascinating and hopeful all in one little nugget of a story. Win. Win.
As the story kicks off we meet ST, a domesticated crow who loves life and humans equally. Big Jim has raised ST to be wise to the world of MoFos and together with his dog Dennis the three make up a great team watching the world go by whilst scoffing cheetos as though they’re about to go out of fashion. Life was perfect, right until Big Jim’s eyeball just happened to fall out one day. The zombie apocalypse has arrived, and before you start to roll your own pair of still perfectly attached eyeballs thinking this is going to be another platform for us to witness humans madly scrambling about in search of brains, think again. This book is totally different because it’s being told from the perspective of the animals (which isn’t to say that some zombie scrambling doesn’t take place, just it isn’t the main focus).
You can’t simply explain what zombies are to your pet dog or cat, even if you had an inkling to do so given that your brain has transformed to mush, and they have no idea why you’ve suddenly stopped lavishing attention and snacks on them and are instead trying to gnaw off their hind leg. So, yes, unusually, this is about survival of the animals and I have to say it’s both original and highly entertaining.
I’m not going to tell you too much about the plot other than ST is on a mission. He and Dennis, like Batman and Robin but without the capes, are about to save the world. Well, they’re about to save the pets of the world, one poodle or labrador at a time.
What I really liked about this is ST’s perspective on things. It’s really cleverly achieved, in fact it seems almost devilishly simple and yet I suspect that a lot of thought had to go into this to make all the characteristics of the various animals feel so very lifelike and critical to the story rather than simply amusingly incidental.
On top of this the idea of ST is very well thought through, he’s in a great position to be able to help the other animals out in the wild because he’s been so clued in to many of our human ways and this makes him not only pivotal to a lot of the action but also boosts him into an almost ‘leader’ status simply by dint of his knowledge.
The pacing here is really good, there’s plenty of momentum and frankly never a dull moment.
In terms of criticisms. Nothing really to speak of although I would use this opportunity to mention that being a book involving zombies there is bloodshed, and there is also sorrow – so be warned.
Just to be clear, this is not a grimdark story even though elements of the tale make for harsh reading. And, yes, I realise that humour can be very subjective and someties difficult to pull off but I think the author really succeeds in making this a hopeful story told with real heart.
I listened to an audio copy of Hollow Kingdom bought through Audible and have no hesitation in recommending that format.
My rating is 4 out of 5 stars.
