‘Me, a name I call myself,…’
18 October 2016
Filed under Book Reviews
Tags: The Broke and the Bookish, Top Ten Character Names, Top Ten Tuesday

Every Tuesday over at the The Broke and Bookish we all get to look at a particular topic for discussion and use various (or more to the point ten) examples to demonstrate that particular topic. The topic this week is :
Characters Names that I love
There are plenty of great characters in books and some very memorable names. Here are my top ten memorable names.
- Max/Maxim – I love this name- and in fact the novel that I first encountered it in – Daphne DuMaurier’s Rebecca.
- Oberon. What a wonderful name and one we all probably know in terms of him being King of the Fae. Brought to life in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream it’s a name that I also now associate with a rather large, unkempt and sausage loving wolf hound that keeps Atticus company in Kevin Hearne’s Iron Druid Chronicles.
- I really like the use of the months of the year that Seanan McGuire uses for her Toby Daye series. I think to date we’ve got characters called October, January and April – I wonder if we’ll complete the full calendar month? Kind of hoping that December will be used at some point as that’s my birth month! *winks at MsMcGuire*
- The Bastard. This is the name of a feisty horse, belonging to Imriel in Jacqueline Carey’s Kushiel series. It just makes me smile – I’m very easily pleased like that, I know it’s not big and clever but it’s just a name that really seems to fit on this occasion.
- Inigo Montoya – this character is brilliant and you certainly can’t forget his name – he simply won’t let you. The Princess Bride by William Goldman
- Sherlock Holmes – you can’t really ask for a more memorable name. How on earth you come up with a name like that is a mystery to me but it’s brilliant and a name that everyone knows, whether they’ve read the books or not!
- Dolores Umbridge – you really do have to hand it to Rowling – this name is inspired and suits the character to perfection!
- Ebenezer Scrooge – again, a name that everyone knows and more than that uses. Scrooge has become synonymous with tight fisted miserliness. Dickens A Christmas Carol.
- Samwise Gamgee – I don’t need to qualify this one do I! ‘I ain’t been dropping no eaves sir’! Okay, Lord of the Rings by JRRTolkien.
- Dracula – another name that really needs no explanation. I think everybody must know this name. Bram Stoker’s famous vampire creation!
Ode to bloggers..
11 October 2016
Filed under Book Reviews
Tags: 10 book blogger recommendations, Broke and Bookish, Top Ten Tuesday

Every Tuesday over at the The Broke and Bookish we all get to look at a particular topic for discussion and use various (or more to the point ten) examples to demonstrate that particular topic. The topic this week is :
Ten Books I’ve Read Because Of Another Blogger
One of the beauties of blogging is the number of amazing books that I’ve picked up as a result of great recommendations. This list barely scratches the surface of course – not to mention I can’t in fairness always remember who recommended a book. Of course a lot of books I’ve stumbled on purely by good fortune (or dumb luck) but here are a few examples of books that I probably would have overlooked (at least for a while):
- I am Legend by Richard Matheson – this is one of many titles that I came to read courtesy of Jenny at Wondrous Reads.
- The Troupe by Robert J Bennett – recommended to me by Andrea at The Little Red Reviewer – again, one of many titles that I’ve picked up from this excellent blog!
- The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman – I first read about this on Carl’s Stainless Steel Droppings blog – I can also credit Sanderson’s Way of Kings and Butcher’s Dresden files to my early exploration of this blog.
- The Kushiel books by Jacqueline Carey. To be honest I had already read Kushiel’s Dart but hadn’t continued with the series. Thanks to Susan at Dab of Darkness and a number of readalongs involving a host of other bloggers I’m now in the process of reading my sixth book from this series (Kushiel’s Mercy).
- My favourite UF of the moment – the Toby Daye series by Seanan McGuire. Currently reading book six as part of a readalong. I wouldn’t have picked up this series without the readalongs organised by Lisa at Over The Effing Rainbow.
- Danya at Fine Print recommended to me Burn for Me by Ilona Andrews which was a rather sizzling first in series that I really look forward to continuing with!
- Mogsy at the Bibliosanctum first drew my attention to Dreamer’s Pool by Juliet Marillier which I loved.
- Lisa at Tenacious Reader recently wrote a review for Rae Carson’s Walk on Earth a Stranger. Now, I had seen this around the blogosphere a number of times and I like the look of it already but this review I think really pushed me over the edge with this one. I haven’t yet picked it up but it’s on the top of my list now.
- The next two are slightly different. The Classics Club blog is a blog where people come together to talk about classic literature and to set themselves up with a list of books that they would like to way. It’s a way of encouraging us all to pick up some of the older books that we might otherwise not get to. I’ve read some good books so far – my last one was the very dark and spooky House of Usher by Poe.
- Finally, three different sci fi events hosted by Rinn Reads, Stainless Steel Droppings and Little Red Reviewer that have increased my sci reading enormously. For example, I never would have read Flowers for Algernon or Fahrenheit 451 without these events and that would have been a crying shame.
And now, a little buffet of covers:
Wait till they get a load of me…
4 October 2016
Filed under Book Reviews
Tags: The Broke and the Bookish, Top 10 Villains, Top Ten Tuesday

Every Tuesday over at the The Broke and Bookish we all get to look at a particular topic for discussion and use various (or more to the point ten) examples to demonstrate that particular topic. The topic this week is :
‘All About The Villains’
- Voldemort – needs no explanation! But, just in case. Seriously bad wizard with dreams of taking over the world of wizarding! Harry Potter series by J K Rowling.
- Game of Thrones – evil siblings – what on earth could be worse. GRRMartin’s Cersei and Jaime.
- Sauron – this guy only has a disembodied eye – an eye – okay it’s a huge eye, but still! and he’s still making a play for world domination with orcs and the like running amok.
- Seanan McGuire’s October Daye series: Rayseline – fae. In fairness she was kidnapped as a youngster and this has left it’s mark on her but even so – she plots!
- The Seven Forges series by James Moore – Sa’ba Taalor – God touched and basically war machines. They live to fight and seem to feel no fear. A great creation by James Moore.
- Hex by Thomas Olde Heuvelt – Katherine van Wyler – a witch, eyes and mouth sewn shut, she stalks the residents of Black Springs (where she was killed over 300 years earlier). Nobody leaves Black Springs and lives to tell the tale.
- The Kushiel books by Jacqueline Carey: Melisande a scheming woman who always has the long game in mind. A magnificent baddie!
- Mrs Danvers from Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca. You have to love Mrs Danvers – a woman obsessed.
- The White Witch from C S Lewis’s The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe – how can you like a person who froze Mr Tumnus!?! It’s just wrong!
- Wesley Chu’s Tao series: The Genjix – a nation of aliens divided (The Genjix and the Prophus) and at war with each other here on earth – where they have to inhabit the bodies of people!
Autumn reading
27 September 2016
Filed under Book Reviews
Tags: Autumn reads, The Broke and the Bookish, Top Ten Tuesday

Every Tuesday over at the The Broke and Bookish we all get to look at a particular topic for discussion and use various (or more to the point ten) examples to demonstrate that particular topic. The topic this week is :
Books on my autumn reading list
Nice and easy this week: these are my next scheduled books:
- Chasing Embers by James Bennett
- The Family Plot by Cherie Priest
- Summerlong by Peter S Beagle
- A Deadly Affection by Cuyler Overholt
- The Thorn of Emberlain by Scott Lynch
- The Witches of New York by Ami McKay
- A City Dreaming by Daniel Polansky
- The Apothecary’s Curse by Barbara Barnett
- Faithful by Alice Hoffman
- Congress of Secrets by Stephanie Burgis
Speaking for themselves: audio books
20 September 2016
Filed under Book Reviews
Tags: Audio books, The Broke and the Bookish, Top Ten Tuesday

Every Tuesday over at the The Broke and Bookish we all get to look at a particular topic for discussion and use various (or more to the point ten) examples to demonstrate that particular topic. The topic this week is :
Audio Freebie
In which I confess that I’ve never listened to a book. I think if I was to pick 10 books though to give audio a try they would be as follows:
- The 3 Fairytale retellings by Sarah Pinborough: Beauty/Poison/Charm – because these are relatively short books, they’re retellings based on fairytales and they’re quite fascinating and cheeky takes on the original stories – I don’t think my attention would wander.
- The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman – because I understand Neil Gaiman narrates this one on audio and so I would love to listen to it.
- The Road Brothers by Mark Lawrence – this is a series of short stories all connected to The Broken Empire series – I think it would be very easy to listen to these, one at a time, not all in one go but just every now and again.
- Something spooky that would give me the chills – The Haunting of Hill House of Shirley Jackson – I have a notion that listening to something scary would be excellent – providing it was narrated well, I suppose it could go horribly wrong!
- Monstrous Little voices – 5 stories retold, based on some of Shakespeare’s most famous works but given a more modern voice. Each five of the stories connect but I figure listening to these would be great – overall just shy of 350 pages but taken individually they’re lovely little chunks. As a rule I don’t like short stories but when they all connect in this way they’re excellent.
- I think I would like to listen to some of the Sherlock Holmes books on audio – particularly Hound of the Baskervilles.
- I think a book with excellent dialogue throughout – such as The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt
- Bram Stoker’s Dracula – because of the style of narration I just imagine this would be an excellent audio book.
- Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone by J K Rowling – I think the first in the series had a lighter feel and would be a good starting point
- Suggestions – given that I’ve read all of the above – do you have any suggestions that feel similar??




