Friday Firsts: The Black Wolves of Boston by Wen Spencer
27 January 2017
Filed under Book Reviews
Tags: Friday Firsts, tenacious reader, The Black Wolves of Boston, Wen Spencer
Friday Firsts is a new meme that runs every Friday over on Tenacious Reader. The idea is to feature the first few sentences/paragraph of your current book and try and outline your first impressions as a result. This is a quick and easy way to share a snippet of information about your current read and to perhaps tempt others. Stop on by and link up with Tenacious Reader. This week I’m reading The Black Wolves of Boston by Wen Spencer.
Joshua really thought it would be easier to catch a rabbit; he was a werewolf, after all. The stupid things, though could turn on a dime and kept zigging when his body kept zagging.
And then there were the trees.
He hit, yet another oak tree, this one only about four inches wide, but enough to knock him down and nearly knock him out when he hit it. Acorns rained down on him. It felt like the oak tree was laughing at him.
“Stupid tree.” He kicked it while still lying flat on his back.
There was a loud crack and it toppled slowly away from him.
Joshua groaned and slapped his hands over his eyes. He was doing this at night so no one would see him or know what he’d done. People might not notice if half the trees in the Back Bay Fens Park had face impressions but they weren’t going to miss a downed tree.
My First Impressions
Well, I think those first few sentences clearly give the impression that Joshua is a new wolf and isn’t coping well at coming to grips with everything. I think it also manages to inject some levity into the book and give the impression that though this could be serious in parts it will also be tempered with humour. I’m really enjoying this so far to be honest. There’s plenty going on and the urban fantasy elements are really good.
What you reading this Friday??
*The above excerpt was taken from an advanced reader copy and it is possible that the final version may have further changes.
Friday Firsts: Department Zero by Paul Crilley
20 January 2017
Filed under Book Reviews
Tags: Department Zero, Friday Firsts, Paul Crilley, tenacious reader
Friday Firsts is a new meme that runs every Friday over on Tenacious Reader. The idea is to feature the first few sentences/paragraph of your current book and try and outline your first impressions as a result. This is a quick and easy way to share a snippet of information about your current read and to perhaps tempt others. Stop on by and link up with Tenacious Reader. This week I’m reading Department Zero by Paul Crilley
‘The polite term for what I do for a living is “biohazard remediation.”
That’s what I say in anyone asks me at a dinner party. Not that I’m ever invited to dinner parties. (Megan got custody of all the friends in the divorce.) But it’s what I’d say if I was invited, and if someone was actually polite enough to approach through the chemical smell of industrial-strength cleaning products that clings to my body.
Another term for what I do is Crime and Trauma Scene Decontamination. Or CTSDecon, if you want to sound cool.
Which, basically, means that I clean up stiffs for a living.
All the stiffs. No prejudice in my line of work.
Murder? Check.
Suicide? Check
Murder-suicide? Check.
Industrial accidents? Check.
Decomposition after unattended death? Check.
Spontaneous human combustion? Check. (Not that I’ve ever had one of those, but I live in hope.)’
My First Impressions
Well, no messing around there then! What a great opening, I think I’m going to enjoy this one.
What you reading this Friday??
*The above excerpt was taken from an advanced reader copy and it is possible that the final version may have further changes.
Friday Firsts: Heartstone by Elle Katharine White
13 January 2017
Filed under Book Reviews
Tags: Elle Katharine White, Friday Firsts, Heartstone, The Tenacious Reader
Friday Firsts is a new meme that runs every Friday over on Tenacious Reader. The idea is to feature the first few sentences/paragraph of your current book and try and outline your first impressions as a result. This is a quick and easy way to share a snippet of information about your current read and to perhaps tempt others. Stop on by and link up with Tenacious Reader. This week I’m reading Heartstone by Elle Katharine White.
I’d never seen an angry hobgoblin before.
If this one wasn’t my friend, it might’ve been funny. Tobble was red in the face before I noticed him in the grass by the garden wall, and since hobgoblins have green skin, that in itself was quite a feat.
“Tobble, what’s wrong?” I asked in Low Gnomic, or what could’ve passed as Gnomic if I hadn’t butchered it with my Arlean accent. The earthy words used by hobgoblins and other garden creatures sounded heavy and awkward on my human tongue, and Tobble had often despaired of my pronunciation. Today, however, he was too distraught to notice.
“Lord Merybourne has hired Riders, Aliza, Five of them! Do you know what that means?” he said. His head, which was round and homely as a potato, came halfway up my shin, and he clutched handfuls of his mossy hair as I knelt next to him. “We’re doomed! Doomed, I say!”
My First Impressions
To be fair I have read a little further on and I’m really enjoying this so far which makes it a little difficult to remember what my first impression truly was. That being said – this has a light, airy feel to it doesn’t it. It gives the impression that it will be fun and entertaining. Plus, who are these riders??
What you reading this Friday??
*The above excerpt was taken from an advanced reader copy and it is possible that the final version may have further changes.
Friday Firsts: Defender (The Voices #1) by G.X. Todd
6 January 2017
Filed under Book Reviews
Tags: Defender, Friday Firsts, GX Todd, The Tenacious Reader
Friday Firsts is a new meme that runs every Friday over on Tenacious Reader. The idea is to feature the first few sentences/paragraph of your current book and try and outline your first impressions as a result. This is a quick and easy way to share a snippet of information about your current read and to perhaps tempt others. Stop on by and link up with Tenacious Reader. This week I’m reading Defender (The Voices #1) by G.X. Todd (and loving it too I might add!)
At the beginning, Pilgrim missed a great many things, things that were by their very nature impossible not to miss once they were gone. Imagining a hunk of cooked cow, for example, could torture a person. It was easy to visualise a medium-rare steak, feel it melting as soon as it hit the tongue, molars sinking through the meaty plumpness and an explosion of juice gushing out. It was enough to make his stomach cramp up like a fist and sit there just under his ribs in a solid, unignorable ball of want.
Then the next week he would miss something else. Mashed potatoes, perhaps or fried okra. There was a period of a month or more, near the beginning, when he would have travelled non-stop for a thousand miles if only at the end of the journey waited a thick, cold, strawberry milkshake. The inanity of a craving couldn’t prevent it from rubbing on him like clothes on an open sore.
Quite often there was an absence of such culinary cravings, but those times were worse, for the ghosts of loved ones and more deep seated longings would creep around him instead. Those he’d kept tightly bottled up for fear that if opened they would froth and volcano forth never to be contained again.
My First Impressions
Well, that opening (which is after a short introduction/prologue) is intriguing to say the least. Who is Pilgrim? Why is he longing for food and more to the point ‘loved ones’?? I’ve made good progress with this one and so far I’m loving it so you’ll just have to wait for the review.
What you reading this Friday??
*The above excerpt was taken from an advanced reader copy and it is possible that the final version may have further changes.
Friday Firsts: The Burning Page by Genevieve Cogman
2 December 2016
Filed under Book Reviews
Tags: Friday Firsts, Genevieve Cogman, The Burning Page, The Tenacious Reader
Friday Firsts is a new meme that runs every Friday over on Tenacious Reader. The idea is to feature the first few sentences/paragraph of your current book and try and outline your first impressions as a result. This is a quick and easy way to share a snippet of information about your current read and to perhaps tempt others. Stop on by and link up with Tenacious Reader. This week I’m reading The Burning Page by Genevieve Cogman. I’m loving this series – librarians with a multitude of possible universes to explore.
‘The morning light glittered on the glass windows and on the blades of the guillotines in the central square. Pigeons squabbled noisily in the general deadly silence. Only the creaking of cartwheels and the soft padding of footsteps disturbed the stillness.
Irene could feel an even greater zone of terrified hush surrounding herself and Kai. Passers-by avoided their gaze, desperate not to attract their attention. It was because of their “borrowed” uniforms, of course: everyone was afraid that someday the National Guard might come for them, to drag them away for counter-revolutionary activities. And then would come prisons, and trials, and then the guillotine…
It made their outfits the perfect disguise for getting around unnoticed. Nobody was going to look twice at the National Guard. In case the National Guard looked back at them.’
My First Impressions
It’s a great opening isn’t it. It really pulls you in and makes you want to read more (which I confess I’ve already done). I love the way the author opens up these stories – with the ending of a previous mission – kind of like how the Bond movies always start. Of course this couldn’t be further from Bond – so far a lovely period feel and writing and yet again a gripping plot.
What you reading this Friday??
Books and travelling with Lynn 