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Showing posts from 2016

Happy Holidays Everyone

Hello everyone, I hope you are safe and warm this holiday season. There won't be a review today because I'm spending the day with my family. I hope you all got everything you asked for and will be starting off the new year right. Happy Holidays and happy reading! - K

Heroes or Thieves by J. J. Sherwood

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Hey everyone, sorry I missed you last week. Even this week I have very little energy. Between exams and the incredibly cold weather we're getting I've been taking long naps during the day when I should be getting work done. Christmas is coming and I am 100% looking forward to spending some time with my family. Book wise I have been trying to get caught up on the books that lovely authors have been nice enough to send me. You might remember that a few months ago I did a review for the first book in this series Kings or Pawns. Around that time the author sent me the second book, which I have been trying to find time to read ever since. Somehow I managed to finish this before the new year. And to be honest I'm truly glad I have. With books like this it's important to read it while I still have the characters and story fresh in my mind. Thankfully the author was nice to leave a reminder of what happened in the previous book at the beginning. So let me tell you a bit a

Quick Update

Hey everyone, super quick update. I'm in the middle of exams so I missed the review yesterday. Honestly until someone told me today that it was Tuesday I had no idea what day it was. So for the next week I'm not going to post the review and next Monday I'll try to get a review out. Have a great day everyone and happy reading! - K

Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith

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Hey everyone, I hope you're having a happy Monday. We're now into December and the cold weather is slowly starting to effect us Canadians. Thankfully for the last couple of weeks the temperature has been hanging around -4, which is pretty warm for this time of year. The windchill is another thing altogether. A couple weeks ago I told my friend that I was having trouble finding new and interesting books to read. She leant me a couple of books that she enjoyed to get me through to the new year. This was one of those books. Her description of the book was that it was about a murder in the heart of Stalin's communist Russia. With not much more to go on I sat down to give it a read. It took me about three days to finish. Let me tell you a bit about it: Leo is a high ranking officer of the MGB, Russia's military police under Stalin's rule. His job is to investigate any implication of traitors to the revolution. Once he finds someone he turns them in, they are inte

Fishbowl by Bradley Somer

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Hey everyone I hope you're having a great Monday. The weather around here is continuing to decline into the winter, which isn't always great when you live in the Great White North. But I have a nice fireplace so there's never anything to worry about. A few weeks ago I let a friend of mine borrow a couple books from my bookshelf since I have so many. She brought a few books from home for me to read. This was one of them. She described it to me as a book about a fish falling from the top of a building. I thought it sounded like a weird concept but I decided to read it any way. In many ways I'm glad I did. And in a few ways I wish I hadn't. Let me tell you a bit about it: In a small apartment complex there are a series of lives that are all intertwined in some way. All of them centre around a small goldfish who takes a leap into the unknown one windy summer day. A woman decides to stop by her boyfriends house to see how he truly feels about her. At his apartm

Followers

Hey everyone. Normally I wouldn't do a post like this but today I felt I should do a bit of an update. Blogger has changed the layout a bit and now has added a 'followers' button. It may have had one before but I never noticed it. If you like my blog and want to have weekly updates or get messages when I post feel free to follow. It would be good to know if I do have any people who actually come back week after week. Right now I can't really tell if anyone comes regularly or just random people keep stumbling across my posts. So if you do follow, thanks! If not, then thanks for stopping by and I hope to see you around again. Have a great weekend everyone and I'll see you on Monday for another review! - K

Sadie Walker is Stranded by Madeleine Roux

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Hey everyone. I hope you are having a good Monday. Since we are now getting a butt load of snow it makes for the perfect time to do a lot of reading. Even with all the school work I have to do I'm managing to get in a few books here and there. For the longest time I haven't been reading second books in series because I don't have time to read them. But now that I am stranded on campus for long hours without my laptop I've been taking the time to catch up on all the books I haven't had time for in the last little while. This is technically the second book in the series, the first of which is called Allison Hewitt is trapped. I did a review for this book probably over a year ago. At the time I knew this book was from a different point of view with a different story. But because of the first couple chapters I read I decided I didn't want to read it at the time. Now that I have read it I remembered how much I enjoyed reading the first book. Let me tell you a

Isaac's Storm by Erik Larson

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Hey everyone I hope you had a great weekend. For the longest time I’ve had this book sitting on my shelf waiting to read it. When I moved it got lost in the mass of boxes until a couple weeks ago when I found it again (along with the rest of the books I haven’t read) and was able to put it back in the pile. The first thing I’ll say about this book is that it’s by the author who wrote one of my favourite non-fiction books “Dead Wake”. After reading that book I ordered all the books by the author that looked interesting and this was one of them. The theme of the book interested me because it involved a large storm that actually occurred and promised to show great stories from different people caught in the storm. I was really excited to get into it. Let me tell you a bit about it: In the year 1900 Isaac and his family are living in a coastal town in the South. He works for the weather institute helping to predict when storms are going to happen. He is joined in this by his broth

UFO Hunters by William K. Birnes

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Hey everyone I hope you had a great weekend. With Halloween over we are getting into the colder weather. Cold weather means it is time to get out your reading socks, turn up the heat, grab a warm drink, and read a great book in bed. Here is Canada that weather comes on pretty quickly. A couple weeks ago I finished a book at school and still had a few hours to kill before classes. So I went to the bookstore on campus, a place I spend a lot of time in, and bought this book for $2 to kill some time. When I started reading it I found that it was a lot different than I had expected it to be, considering what the topic is. The first thing I should note is this is a non-fiction book. The second thing is that this book goes along with the TV show "UFO Files" as a description of the things they found in the episodes. Often times the chapters, laid out in a way that goes from episode to episode, ending with a blog by the author, describes things that you don't see in an episo

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween everyone! I hope you all have a spooky day. Tonight is one of those nights to put your spooky books down and hand out some candy to the kids in your area. Maybe watch a good freaky show on TV and have some orange hot chocolate. I do want to warn people going out tonight to be safe and to watch out while driving around, since kids will be running into the streets. Make sure if you are going out to check your candy before eating it. Lastly, no matter how old you are, don't be afraid to go out trick-or-treating. I'm 20 and there is a good chance I'll be going out this year. If you're dressed up people normally give you candy. And those who aren't going out, make sure to give the older kids some treats if they're dressed up. Have a creepy day everyone and happy reading! - K

The Infection by Craig DiLouie

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Hey everyone I hope you had a great weekend. It's Halloween today and the perfect day for a spooky, scary book. So when the Tick-or-treaters finally call it a night you can finish off the evening with the perfect eerie book. I had been searching around the net for a book that would be good to read leading up to Halloween when I came across this one. It was highly recommended by a few different sight. The description seemed to have an original spin on things so i thought I'd give it a shot. From the very first chapter I noticed that this was a new take on a zombie novel. The longer I read the more things began to change. I had many more questions than the beginning that seemed like there would be no answer to. Let me tell you a bit about it: Over a week after a horrible virus spread through the globe five survivors huddle together in a Bradley Fighting Vehicle traveling across the country. Before all of this they were ordinary people without any fighting experience. The

Take the Body and Run by Jada Ryker

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Hey everyone I hope you had a great weekend! The book I read for this weeks review was sent to me by the lovely author. It took me awhile to get to it because my list of books to read has been very long since I found my other pile I lost while moving. If I had read the description for this book I had long since forgotten it before I got around to reading the book. That doesn’t mean anything to me in most cases because it is easier for me to go into the book blind. So first impressions of the book didn’t really happen. Let me tell you a bit about it: Macey has just started a new job at a University. Her first day doesn’t go so well when a woman barges into her office brandishing a knife at her. Thankfully she is saved but that doesn’t mean she gets out of having to deal with her snotty staff members. With everyone seemingly out to get her Macey has a lot on her hands. But Macey has a lot more on her plate than a few workplace disputes. She is hiding a secret that no o

Rot and Ruin by Jonathan Maberry

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Hey everyone I hope you had a great weekend. As you may have noticed Halloween is quickly approaching. I’m so excited to read all of the spooky stories that are posted this time of year. If you have any requests for horror, thriller, or paranormal books you’d like me to read drop me a line through my contact form along the right hand side of the page. This week I finally broke down and bought a book that I’ve been seeing in stores for years. The only reason I did was because it was on sale at my bookstore on campus for $2. Even then it sat in my bag until I literally had nothing else to read. The first thing I noticed when I started looking at the book was it was written by an author I had read before. This wasn’t overly reassuring for me since I didn’t have the best review for his first book I read. Despite this I tried to have an open mind. Right from the start I enjoyed the story. I expected more drama and bullsh!t based on the description but for both sides of the argument th

Ashes by Lisa J. Bick

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Hey everyone I hope you had a good Thanksgiving (for those of you in Canada). I was lucky enough that my boyfriend had the day off to make me and my roommate a nice dinner, since I was unable to make it home to be with my family due to work. But despite being so busy I still managed to get a book read for today. For the last couple weeks I have been looking for good Apocalypse books with little luck. I saw this book but the description didn't really fit what I was looking for. When I couldn't find anything else to read I said "screw it" and read it anyway. The first thing I found when reading the book is that it was WAY better than the description lead on. There was a whole other theme to the story that wasn't even mentioned in the description. The moment I started I couldn't put it down and within 24 hours I had read the second book and was working on the third book. So let me tell you a bit about it: Alex ran away from her Aunts place to fulfill her

Hollowland by Amanda Hocking

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Hey everyone, I hope you had a great weekend. This week I started reading a book called UFO Files that I found at the bookstore for $2. But one thing I find about this book, which I haven't finished reading yet, is that it really makes me want to read other books. It's not that the book isn't good (it's alright) but there is something about the themes it talks about that makes me want to read a book with that theme. So because of that I ended up finding this book. Amanda Hocking has a long history of writing books for the teen audience. I first ran into her books when I read her Switched at Birth trilogy, which I don't think I did a review for on this blog. Since I recognized her I thought I would give this book a shot. The description of the book was very basic. It has the classic "girl in a zombie apocalypse trying to find someone she loves" feel. And there is something about a book set in the 'after apocalypse' centred around the apocalypse

Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits by David Wong

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Hey everyone, I hope you're having a good Monday. For the longest time I have had this book sitting on my shelf, too intimidated to read it. Many of you may know how much I love David Wong and his book series John Dies at the End, which I wrote 5 star reviews for every book. This isn't from that series but has the same sort of humour. I finally picked the book up again to read in between classes. What started out as just reading a few pages while waiting for the prof to finally show up turned into secretly reading under my desk instead of paying attention to lectures. I finished the book in two days but it took about 12 hours total to read. Where I can normally skim read a book in a couple of hours I couldn't skim a page without missing something incredibly funny. But all the time spent reading was well worth it. Let me tell you a bit about it: Zoey Ashe lives in a trailer park with her mother and cat Stench Machine. She isn't your typical hero of the future. In

What If? By Randall Munroe

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Hey everyone, hope you are having a good Monday. This week I went back to school and on the first day decided to hit up the bookstore to see what kind of books they had on sale. They didn't have anything in their cheap books yet but they did have a sale on hardcovers. On top of that, the football team won a game so there was a bonus 20% off everything in store. So with that knowledge I took another look at the books. This one was the last one on the shelf and needless to say I was very taken by the cover. I bought it and started reading it before one of my classes. This was a mistake because I instantly fell in love with it. A few Mediation lessons later I was rushing home so I could read more of this amazing book. So now that I've set up my love for this book, let me tell you a bit about it: Based off the website started by the author What If? explores the stupid questions asked by every day people, answered by a scientist who worked for NASA. But don't let his prof

Melody's Key by Dallas Coryell

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Hey everyone. Coming at you later again. Sorry about that, my mom is in town today so I haven't had a lot of time to write the review. But I am taking the time now to try to get as much writing in as I can before I go to bed. It's harder to read and do reviews when I have school all the time. Anyway, here I go. The author was kind enough to send me a copy of this to read. My first impressions were that this was another play on a very popular story. Basically girl meets super popular guy and they fall in love even though she doesn't know much about him. Very Classic. But I always like the give a book a shot because who knows where it will end up. Let me tell you a bit about it: Melody is a girl with a troubled past. She and her family live in a manor where seasonal tourists come to find love. The rest of the year is a struggle to find work to pay back the massive debt they have on the house. One of Melody's favourite things to do is write music, which no one is a

The Hunt for Red October by Tom Clancy

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The Hunt for Red October is the 4th book in a series but was the first to be released. It is recommended that it is the first book that should be read to fully understand the series. It is also the book that made Tom Clancy famous. It was later adapted into a movie that is still seen as a popular title years later. Going into this book I didn't know what to expect. I didn't really want to get it at first but because it was so highly rated and recommended I thought I might as well give it a shot. I can tell right away from reading it that it is much older than a lot of the books I am reading at the moment. The style of writing has a weak authors voice that I am used to when reading older books. Let me tell you a bit about it: Set during the cold war the Red October is a Soviet Nuclear Submarine tasked with making a secret voyage to Cuba. Their mission is to test out their stealth by making it to their destination without being detected by the United States. But the people

No Rest for the Wicked by Dane Cobain

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Hey everyone and happy Monday. This week I was lucky and got a nice short book to read, which means I had time to start reading next weeks book early. The author was kind enough to send me a copy to read. Like I mentioned before I could tell by looking at the page count that it would be a quick and easy read. Depending on the quality of writing in the book this could be a good or a bad thing. Luckily for me the writing was done well so the book flew by in the blink of an eye. Let me tell you a bit about the story: In this world there are many sinners and many who don't believe in the Lord. For these people there is no greater threat than when the Angels come to Earth, unleashed by a group of scientists looking to prove that God doesn't exist. But the Angels will never be satisfied until they had wiped out every soul who has ever sinned, whether they be good people or bad. It seems there is no one who can stand up to this force who come during the night and leave nothing

Jaws by Peter Benchley

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Happy Monday everyone. This week I read Jaws. Most of you have probably seen the movie depiction of this book that came out a long time ago. I didn't know that it was based on a book until I got a recommendation to read it online. And even though I am not a big fan of watching movies like that I do love reading thrillers. So after searching for it online I finally found it on Kobo and decided to give it a read. Before reading it I figured it would just be exactly the same as the movie. It wasn't until I did some research that I found that the book actually came out before the movie and it was based on it. Once I found that out I wasn't sure whether the book would be as good as the movie depiction of it. For those of you who haven't seen the movie let me give you an idea what the book it about: In the small town of Amity the people thrive on the summer months when the tourists come from all over America to play on their magnificent beaches. Without these tourists

City of the Lost by Kelly Armstrong

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Hey everyone. This is coming at you a little late (because I started watching a new show and lost track of the time). This week I read City of the Lost, which I had seen at the school bookstore a few months ago. At the time it was too expensive to read but I came across it on sale online and thought to get it. I was excited to start reading because Kelly Armstrong is an author that I had loved reading long before this blog ever came into being. She has a strong voice in all of her books and it is well developed story wise. But let me tell you a bit about it: Casey Duncan is in a bit of trouble. Even as a Detective she is unable to keep the people in her life safe from those around them. In fact, she just seems to be making it worse. Her best friends ex-husband is back, beating his way back into her life one punch at a time. Her boyfriend is being hunted by the ghosts from her past. All she needs to do is get away for a little while to sort things out. Rocton is the perfect plac

Yes, I Named My Daughter Gaylord Focker by Joseph Joel

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Hey everyone and happy Monday! This week I read a really short book. The cover isn't all that promising since it kind of looks like it was made in Paint in like, five minutes. But we are taught not to judge a book by its cover so I read it anyway. This book isn't your typical book, as the name suggests. Instead this is a book simply listing names that are strange or unusual. I won't be doing a description of the story since there isn't one. Instead I will just give an overview of the book itself. Basically it is a list from A to Z of names throughout history that are weird or unusual. A few of the names have a comment beside them or a short history of the person if they are famous in history. Some of the histories are kind of interesting but most of the comments on the names are a little too forced. The only other problem I have is the separation of the chapters since it doesn't have a certain way of doing it. Sometimes it gets halfway through the letter C (fo

Twitter!

Hey there, all you young folks! So it was recommended to me that I get a twitter account to go with this blog. I am not so young and savvy as one would think me to be but I took it upon myself to learn for the mythical Twitter works. So I made a Twitter account! If you are interested in following me I will be posting the links to all of my posts there every Monday (or Tuesday depending on when the post comes out). I know that those of you who don't have a Google account may have trouble following the blog (those of you who care). Maybe this will make it easier for you. Maybe you don't care. I'll never know either way. Anyway, if you are interested in following me on Twitter click  here  to go to the page. Hopefully I will figure out how to work everything soon. Have a great day everyone and happy reading! - K

Kings or Pawns By J. J. Sherwood

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Hey everyone I hope you are all having a good Monday. This week I was lucky enough to be sent a copy of this book to read. It's about the size of an average book, just about 400 pages online but it is by no means a quick read. Like Game of Thrones or Lord of the Rings there is a lot of the lore and different species to learn about. Along with that there is also the add on of other worlds with even more people. My first impressions of the book were that it was a little hard to get into. The cover of the book reminds me of Dungeons and Dragons, which I am a big fan. But as a player I know that there can be a lot to do before getting into the good parts of the story so I sort of felt that the book would be a little like that. I wouldn't say that feeling was far off. But before I get into that let me tell you a bit about the book: In the world there are only two real players: King and Pawns. If you are not a King... well, you know what you are. Even if you are a highly respe

Inevitable Ascension by V. K. McAllister

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Hey everyone, as promised here is the review that I didn't get a chance to finish last week. The author was kind enough to send me a copy that I spent the last couple weeks reading. Going into this book I wasn't sure what to make of it. My thoughts were that it would be a classic science fiction book with time travel but I wasn't sure what the story really was going to be about. It took me a couple chapters to get into it and to really understand what is going on. Let me tell you a bit about it: Violina and her friend Lux are not your ordinary hunters. For years they have hunted creatures to earn themselves enough Platinum to get by. But when they are betrayed by their employers they decide to strike back. Since both are skilled fighters it isn't hard for them to take what they want; the last younglings of an extinct predator. Once they get away with them they are tasked with trying to find someone to buy them. If they can make a couple thousand Platinum they wi

One Week Break

Hey everyone. This week I will be taking a little break from my reviews for a number of reasons. The biggest reason is that I am currently in the process of moving and I only just realized that, even though I am moving in less than a week, I haven't started packing yet. Oops. The second reason is that since I have been busy with work and now packing I haven't had a chance to finish the book I am working on. I don't like posting a review without finishing the book. Technically I am moving on Sunday, meaning it would make more sense not to do a review next Monday the day after. But unpacking is much easier than packing and by taking a break today it will give me an extra couple days to get the book done, finish the review, and start on the next book. So hopefully I will have the review finished before next Monday and will be able to get onto the internet to post it. If not I will do it the moment I get online again. Have a great day everyone and happy reading! - K

Black Water Tales: The Unwanted by Jean Nicole Rivers

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Hey everyone. I hope you are having a good Monday. This week I read another thriller/horror novel, which was generously send to me by the author. As many of you know I am a big fan of thriller books because they require talented writers to make them work. So when the author contacted me about reading it I was thrilled to get the chance. My first impressions of the book was that is was a little boring to start off with. But as I continued reading I found that I got used to the writing style and it wasn't so boring. This is one of the books that takes a bit of dedication to enjoy. Let me tell you a bit about it: Blaire is a volunteer teacher working with United Care to bring aid to children in other countries. She boards a train with another volunteer, Travis, who is a nurse to go to a small town to work at an orphanage for a year. When they arrive they find that things are worse than they seemed. The town is small with very few people in and even less friendly people in it.

Raven's Peak by Lincoln Cole

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Hey everyone. I hope you are having a great Monday! With Canada over and the 4th of July past it is time to get back to work. I am lucky to have a whole week off to do my reading so I am using it to catch up on my books. This week I finished Raven's Peak, a book that was sent to me by the very generous author to do a review for before it is published. By the way, the publishing date is TOMORROW! The first impression I got from this book was that it was very well written. The dialogue was smooth, the descriptions were short and to the point, and the characters were introduced with enough mystery to grab your attention. I had the idea that the story would be dark and scary throughout from the cover but instead there was a perfect amount of mystery, action, and thriller rather than horror. Let me tell you a bit about it: In our world humans go about their lives unaware that demons walk in the skin of our friends. One Order moves to manage these demons and stop the cults that al

Lost Amid the Cosmic Storm by Mike Phillips

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Good evening everyone. This review is coming a little late since I had to work a double shift today. In the past I have reviewed another book by Mike Phillips, which you can also find in my blog. I liked the last book he wrote but this one blew me out of the water. Now, let me make this clear, this book isn't out just yet. This is an ARC that I received. I will send out another post announcing when the book actually comes out with a link to the page where you can buy the book if you are interested. If you are looking for a book that explores the lengths humans will go to follow their beliefs, through an unknown landscape with endless amounts of danger, this is the book for you. Basically, if you love adventure fantasy books this is a great read. Mr. Phillips has a strong voice in a way that I don't feel the author in the story at all. It flows so smoothly that it doesn't feel like you are reading it at all. After a few chapters I really got into the story and I read t

By The Hands of Men Book Two: Into the Flames by Roy M. Griffis

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Hey everyone I hope you are having a great Monday. This week, as promised, I have found the time to finish a book and do a review. A while back you may remember that I did a review for book one in this series. Normally I don't do a review past the first book in the series but in this case I am making an exception. I love history and historical fiction. The first book dealt with the First World War and this one deals with the battles that went on after. I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to read this book and I will be reading the third book as well. But let me tell you about this book: Warning, if you haven't read the first book this will spoil the ending. The Great War has ended but for Charlotte the battle still rages. Her loving soldier, who had asked her hand in marriage, had forgotten all about her after nearly dying of influenza. Having nothing to hold her in Europe anymore she takes her broken heart and heads home to Russia. On her way there she is taken h