Shine Light: The Night Creatures Trilogy

Shine Light is the conclusion to the Night Creatures trilogy by Marianne de Pierres. This is a book I highly anticipated after enjoying the first two immensely. I just HAD to know how it all came to an end. The story follows Naif as she tries her darnedest to free her friends from the prison that is Ixion.

What was awesome?
As usual Marianne has written incredibly fast-paced. That’s always a win for me because as someone with not a huge amount of spare time, it was easy to read (yes I realise it is a YA novel but the point still stands). I was satisfied with how the characters came to their final developments and (without spoiling too much) fought together.

What wasn’t awesome?
I guess the only downside for me is the fact that I really did hope that there was more to the ending. Whilst the story concluded I was still left wondering what became of a few of the characters. In saying that, I believe this could mean a potential future story involving the same or a similar set of characters and locations.

Final ramblings…
Whilst I did find at least one negative to the novel it was still a great read and as usual Marianne writes a gripping tale that allows you to connect emotionally with at least one (if not more) of her characters. I’d love to see some more YA from Marianne in the future. Kudos on a great trilogy!
m00yah.

Trilogy Review: The Black Magician Trilogy

As of the beginning of 2013 I vowed a few things. One of these things was to get through the many books I had bought but not yet indulged in reading. Recently I completed The Black Magician trilogy by Trudi Canavan.

The basic plot (without giving too much away) follows a young girl Sonea who displays latent magical abilities and draws the attention of the Magician’s Guild that she has grown to hate throughout her youth life. The guild wants her but first they must gain her trust. The trilogy works through her journey and challenges as she fights moral decisions one after the other.

What was awesome (some potential minor spoilers here):

I read in a few other reviews online that it was difficult to be happy with Sonea’s love life because it was all over the place. I feel the opposite. I loved the realism of it because being quite a young lady of course she would have several interests in her life and confused by her own feelings. I was actually pretty stoked with the end result in this regard.

The next major positive for me was the simplicity of the magical battles. There was’t too much detail. They were simply explained via types of attacks and defenses that were being ‘thrown around’ so to speak.

World building wasn’t a major part of the trilogy besides the general descriptors. I’m putting this as a positive because with all that’s going on it wasn’t necessary however there was enough detail to create a mental image.

What wasn’t awesome?

I guess the only thing that stuck out for me on the negative side was the first novel. It moved much slower than the second two and I found myself trying to speed read some parts which I found to be minor details and the like. Whilst I understand the reasoning behind chasing Sonea for so long it was kind of frustrating to wade through.
The second two novels made up for this though.

Final ramblings…

Overall I quite enjoyed this trilogy and as always I’m impressed with the quality literature Aussie authors provide. If I had to rate the trilogy as a whole I’d give it four of five stars and a highly recommended read

SUPPORT AUSSIE AUTHORS.

You can find Trudi on twitter and she also has a website

Audiobooks?

Hi there!

I know it’s been ages but I don’t want to give up on this baby just yet! I was thinking the other day how fun it would be to record my own versions of some of my favourite novels.

Has anyone got any advice on how to go about doing this without breaching some copyright things? Do any authors out there want me to give it a go?

I’d have ZERO intention of sharing the entire book in fact I’d only plan to share one chapter. I simply think a) it’d be awesome fun and b) would be an excellent way to promote amazing authors from a fan point of view.

So… Thoughts??

Misc. Ramblings

Well guys here goes…
I’ve decide that my blog need not be all reviews and event telling and interviews. I am full of things to say in life and there are things happening in my life at times which I feel would be cool to share. One of these things will be my journey to a ‘new’ me. I’ll still be the same person (well, hopefully) but I’m looking to change my lifestyle and health for the better. Permanently. If I blog about such things then chances are I will feel better about it because hopefully someone out there will have struggled like me and taken on the challenge as well.

So there you go, a taste of what’s to come… MORE! If you don’t like it, well, feel free to let me know though I don’t plan to be too boring or irrelevant

I won’t be straying off the path of reviews and I still rate every book I read on goodreads which is connected to my twitter. Shorter posts here and there will be present as well.

Cheers all!
m00yah.

Review: ZARKORA

So back in November I had the pleasure of attending Supanova Pop Culture Expo. During these I usually keep my eye on authors I’ve not heard of as well as cool local ones (ie Brisbane). I stumbled upon a cool looking (presumably) YA book I did not hesitate to pick up for only 10 bucks at the time. The book is called ‘Zarkora’ and is book 1 in ‘The Fyrelit Tragedy’, an adventure where two brothers go in search of their kidnapped sister who was taken by an evil, evil man (surprise surprise haha).

N&A Lochel are the two authors. They are siblings which I think is fantastic. It isn’t too often I find family authors (let alone siblings)! Well here goes, enjoy my review

This was a cool read. I’m still not 100% sure if it’s YA or possibly younger however some of the violence suggests probably YA. It had all the creatures you could imagine and the different kinds of lands portrayed were a great setting for fantasy.

I guess my main ‘criticism’ (and this is me nit picking here) is that there seems to be less detail because it is aimed at younger audiences. I feel as if it could very easily be turned in to a full adult fantasy novel (and that is by no means a bad thing, you guys could do heaps with this world)!

All that aside it was fast-paced, had short chapters (good for young readers) and likable characters. I enjoyed reading this while on my break to Sydney. It was nice and easy for me as an adult reader which is nice every now and then.
Well done and thumbs up to these lovely Brisbane authors who I got to meet at an expo and good luck to them in the future! I know I definitely look forward to seeing the adventure continue!

Darkness Unbound Review

I recently finished the book ‘Darkness Unbound’ by Aussie author Keri Arthur and did a short review on goodreads. Here it is!

So this book I found reasonably interesting to read but for some reason I couldn’t get entrenched in it like I do with some other Aussie authors… Are their other books prior to this series that explains a bit? I’m a tad confused as it seems there was a bit of missing backstory.

I assume the author was reaching out to American authors by using the spelling ‘mom’ and not ‘mum’ however the book is set in Melbourne, Australia so that kind of got to me a bit.

I enjoyed the relationships between the characters though at times the sexual tension was frustrating. I guess that’s what you get with werewolf characters huh?

Other positives included that there were descriptions of people and places that were sufficient to make the book fast enough to want to keep reading.

Overall it wasn’t a bad book by any stretch of the mind, it simply hasn’t been my favourite of spec fic novels but cudos to the author for some great writing within

‘Night’s Engines’ Launch

I recently (July 19) had the pleasure of attending yet another book launch for Trent Jamieson. This guy has released 5 books in the last 18-24 months or so, which is no small feat!

This launch was for his latest novel ‘Night’s Engines’, the stunning conclusion to ‘The Nightbound Land’ duology. I’ll start with the fun part, it was a THEME launch party! That theme just so happened to be ‘dress like Trent Jamieson’ which well, let’s just say I went to new levels for this one. I rocked up quite early but hiding my outfit and it wasn’t quite finished yet. I hung around for a bit then decide to go upstairs to prepare my ‘Trent’ getup. Yep, you guessed it, I cross dressed and went the extra mile to make sure I looked as ‘Trenty’ as possible. Here’s how I turned out:

I even spent most of my afternoon making sure that shirt looked perfect (yes, that’s pieo there).

Now to the actual launch side of things. Everyone took their places and while it was a smaller crowd nobody seemed to care (mind you, it did clash with the dark knight rises release date, oh well). Trent got us started with a few words

I then apparently nominated myself to do a small reading as a Trent lookalike which I hope I did at least a small amount of justice. That was fun although I was later told how creepy I kind of looked up there (sorry folks). I didn’t manage to nab a pic of my reading unfortunately (so if anyone has one that’d be great) but it was really fun. Trent finished the reading in a more appropriate ‘author-type’ style which I’m sure everyone was relieved by.
The official business was finished off with a bit of a mini Q&A where Trent spoke about his writing mainly including themes about losing the ones you love. That’s quite a powerful message for me and one I definitely respect so I enjoyed hearing about that.
I couldn’t help myself, I had to ask a question. According to me, Trent isn’t exactly one for the ‘fuzzy bunny stories’, so his response to this was “didn’t you hear? That’s the title of my next novel!” so Trent, I expect several fuzzy bunnies in due course (haha).

All in all I had the most amazing evening and it was so much fun dressing up as a Trent
So, for those of you playing at home, DO check out Trent Jamieson’s books, they’re well worth it!

Last but not least, here’s a picture of me with the man himself:

You can check out Trent’s website and whatnot here
m00yah

2012 Thus Far

Wow, what a crazy first half of 2012 for me. I’ve been so busy that I haven’t read nearly as many books as I would have liked. Instead, I set a realistic goal of 15 books in the year for the goodreads 2012 reading challenge. So far I’m apparently 1 book ahead of my goal (woohoo) which is great. Fingers crossed I can change that goal if things go well!

I’ve read the king rolen’s kin trilogy by Rowena Cory Daniells all 6 of Kylie Chan’s books (The Dark Heavens and Journey to Wudang trilogies respectively) and on top of that, ‘Nights Engines’ by Trent Jamieson and my current venture is ‘Besieged’ (Rowena Cory Daniels’ latest). Yes all three of those authors are based in my home town Brisbane (QLD, Australia) and YES I am damn proud of that fact, as they are all amazing in their own rights.

Those who know me as a reader know that I am in full support of local authors where possible. I think this is definitely to do with spreading awareness of the fact that there ARE indeed great authors from our own country and even our own cities.
I’ve promised each of the above authors for reviews and you know what? I’m going to do that. No, not all at once and in this post and not straight away however I will get around to it. I think it’s so important that reviews get around (especially if they’re good ones) so the authors get at least some credit for their amazingly hard work and talent.

So, without further ado, I present this blog post to tip my hat to all the hard-working authors out there trying to be heard. Whilst I mention only 3 authors in this post, there will be many to come I’m sure as I will always be on the lookout for names I’ve not heard of before.

My advice: before you go and pick up the latest epic fantasy or vampire novel or whatever by author x who’s been around for years (not to say that you shouldn’t), why not give another author a go? You never know, you may find your new favourite author, I know I did!

Ah, it feels good to write again!
m00yah.

My Comeback (well, sort of)

Oh blog, how I’ve missed you! I’m sorry but life has been a tad crazy what with graduating at the end of 2011, not getting a job relating to my degree then getting 2 completely unrelated to my degree type jobs and then a part time job relating to my qualifications…
It’s been one HELL of a busy 6 months for me. I promise anyone who ever bothered to read stuff from here that “I’ll be back” (in my lamest Arnie voice ever)

Watch this space!
Seriously though, I will return in due course but I want to post quality not quantity and that may take time.

Regards,
m00yah.

Recommendations from 2011

Greetings viewers!

I haven’t exactly been frequenting my blog recently but hopefully that will change in the new year.  I trust that you all had an excellent Christmas and/or seasonal holiday and have had the chance to eat, drink and have fun!

I thought I’d make a list of my favourite books and authors from 2011. Some of these you may have heard of prior to 2011 (maybe not) however I’m new to the bandwagon. In no particular order:

Trent Jamieson
1) The Death Works (3 book trilogy, also available as an omnibus)
2) Roil (the first of a steampunk duology)

Rowena Cory Daniells
1) The T’En Trilogy (also recently reviewed by me)
2) King Rolen’s Kin Trilogy (on my top priority to-finish list for 2012)

Marianne de Pierres
1) Night Creatures Trilogy (first two books Burn Bright and Angel Arias out now!)

Kylie Chan
1) The White Tiger

Kim Falconer
1) Quantum Enchantment Trilogy

A.A. Bell
1) Diamond Eyes (also on my priority list for 2012)

R.J. Anderson
1) Knife

Joe Hill
1) Heart-Shaped Box

Note: 5 of the above are from Queensland *proud*

Check out my goodreads page to keep up to date with what I’m reading and what I’ve read. I also have a number of authors on my to-read list already!
http://www.goodreads.com/m00yah

I am sure that 2012 will see me add many more fantastic authors to this list and I hope you will take my recommendations on board.

I welcome all comments and if you’d like, post your own recommendations so I know who to look out for in the new year

Seasons Greetings!

m00yah.