Tag Archives: Reading

Just chillin’ n readin’

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I’m stuck at home on a Saturday night. Typical. It’s actually not a bad thing. I have a new book review coming out on Monday, for Daelynn Quinn’s book, Crimson Return, the second book of the Fall of Venus trilogy. I’m three-quarters of the way through with the book, and I plan to finish it before I go to bed tonight.

Work on my own book is progressing slowly. I’m not having any luck writing at home, so yesterday I left the nest and drove to Amarillo, set myself up at a coffee shop, and wrote for a couple of hours. It’s not nearly enough, but it’s a start.

Seriously, writing can be a chore sometimes, but all the worthwhile activities usually are. It’s those who acknowledge that fact, and persevere in spite of the grind that achieve their goals. I want to be one of those people, someone who can say I accomplished my goal.

Tonight, I will finish reading my book so that I can post my review as promised. I’m enjoying the book and I can’t wait to share my thoughts on it. If you haven’t already, check out my review to Fall of Venus, and come back on Monday!

Turning away from the past

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Joe Hinojosa

All my old posts have been successfully mothballed. I created a private blog and moved them so I would still have easy access to them, but no one else would, unless I give them access. I don’t see a reason why I would, but you never know.

Before I continue, Happy New Year! I know it’s a day late, but I worked all day yesterday, and coupled with only four hours of sleep, it made me a very tired and grumpy person. I’m better today, although I didn’t get much sleep. But I’m off today so I’ll get plenty of rest. Probably.

Now to the reason I’m writing today. I was asked on my Facebook page why I made all my old posts private. I didn’t have an answer then, but I do now. I want to take some time to address it one last time. I created this blog as a way to deal with a very painful chapter in my life. My marriage fell apart, I got a divorce, got into a new relationship, and then that relationship fell apart. Emotionally, I was a falling apart.

Psychologically, I feel that I wasn’t well. I was depressed, angry, and hating myself and life in general. I left a horrible job but ended up unemployed for a year. In a matter of about two years, I lost everything I had in my life, everything I had worked so hard to gain. Through it all, this blog helped keep me sane. So from 2011 through today, almost three years I’ve recorded my life on this site, my pain accessible to anyone who cared to visit it, not that I had many visitors.

For the past few months, a thought has been growing in my mind that I needed to prune the bad from the good, and that maybe the time had come to focus this blog solely on my writing. I came to the conclusion that the new year would be the time to do so.

This year, I’m moving forward with my life by leaving all my baggage behind. My intention was to leave everything I had ever published accessible forever, but now I decided otherwise. Moving on has come to mean leaving the pain behind. I’m not repressing it, I’m not burying it, but I am wrapping up that part of my life. I don’t want to look back on it any more. I want to focus my attention on what’s ahead.

As such, I’m dedicating this blog to reading and writing. I’ll continue to do my book reviews as long as people are willing to let me do them. I still plan to post on a regular basis, I haven’t decided what that schedule will be. The only decision I’ve made regarding that is I will no longer publish three times a week. At least for the foreseeable future.

We look at the new year as a time of renewal, a time of new beginnings, so I’m taking advantage of this belief. I’m saying goodbye to the painful memories and embracing the possibilities that await me in the future. I’ve carried 2011 with me for far too long. I’m ready to live in the present and I’m determined to make 2014 the best year of my life to date.

 

Book Review: Firstborn

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Christmas is almost upon us, and we only have two weeks until the big day! – or if you work in retail like I do, the misery is almost over. Whether you celebrate the holidays or not, the weather is becoming colder, and it’s a great time to curl up with a good book. Luckily I have one for you.

I am reviewing Ryan Attard’s debut novel, Firstborn, the opening novel of The Legacy Series. It goes on sale Friday, December 13. You may follow Ryan on Facebook.

Firstborn © 2013 Ryan Attard AEC Stellar Publishing, Inc.

Firstborn © 2013 Ryan Attard AEC Stellar Publishing, Inc.

Hidden away from the view of men, a war has been waging between heaven and hell, between angels and demons. Life on Earth depends on striking a balance between the two forces, and for ages it has done so. But now a new terror is emerging, tipping the delicate balance and threatening mankind.

In Ryan Attard’s debut novel, Firstborn, we are introduced to Erik Ashenborn, a hero for hire who specializes in supernatural phenomena. He is a wizard from a magical family, one whose familial bonds have been strained, and one that is pushed to its breaking point when an unknown threat emerges.

We begin as Erik is hired to protect an innocent college student, a young woman who has caught the attention of demons. As he tries to protect her, he finds himself pitted against his twin sister Gil, a warlock who has aligned herself with angelic beings. Confused by the strange partnership, he nonetheless attempts to protect his charge, only to discover that she has a secret, one that she doesn’t even know, one which puts her in mortal peril.

As the danger mounts against him and humanity, it becomes compounded by mysteries that need to be explained, yet he fights against all odds. All the while, he grapples with discovering the truth about himself, and his family, and the curse that both binds them together and that tore them asunder.

Erik will need to choose between pride and doing what is best, for the sake of the innocent he has been hired to protect, and the safety of the earthly plane, Can he make peace with his sister, his past, and his destiny, or will the threat consume him and the world?

Let me first say that I was skeptical when I began to read this book. My chief problem was that the book is a story about wizards and the supernatural. Mix in a few demons and angels, and it easily could have become a joke. The risk in dealing with magic is that it’s all too easy to turn to the magical arts as a method to solve a problematic scene.

Happily, my worries were quickly put to rest. He not only created a universe, populating it with a rich assortment of characters, but he wrote in constraints to the use of magic, rules which helped him create a believable world. I had no trouble in envisioning it.

The push and pull between Erik and his sister is familiar, as is the need for Erik to prove himself to her, his family, and himself. The story was tense and the dialogue was crisp. The jokes could be a little corny at times, but Erik as the narrator seemed to acknowledge it with a wink. Sometimes it became a little to self-referential for my taste.

Other than that minor issue, I only have great things to say. Firstborn truly was an enjoyable read. This book is one of my favorites that I have reviewed so far. Since this is the first of a series, we can look forward to the next installment, one that I hope will not be delayed for too long.

List of Book Reviews
Next Review – The Birth of Vengeance
Previous Review –  Rogue Hunter: Dark Space

Book Review: My Not-So-Ordinary Life

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Christine Rice

Christine Rice

Happy October everyone! Hope you are enjoying the cooler weather. I know I am. Today I’m excited to introduce you to Christine Rice. She has several books published, and I’m featuring her memoir, My Not-So-Ordinary Life. Check out her website, and follow her on Facebook and Twitter.

My Not-So-Oridinary Life Ebook

My Not-So-Oridinary Life © 2012 Christine Rice

My Not-So-Ordinary Life chronicles the author’s life from her preschool years to present day. There are neither big reveals nor dark confessions, just a tale of a life lived. While she labels her life to be unordinary, there seems to be a pervasive familiarity to it as well. We all have known people who have traveled down similar paths.

So, what is this memoir really about? It’s about her life experiences. We all have our stories to tell, Christine chose to let us in to hers. We see her as she witnesses the dissolution of her parent’s marriage, growing up between two households, and reaching a point where she rebels against the authority represented by her parents.

Believing herself to be sufficiently grown up, she moves out of her father’s home, and into an apartment with her then boyfriend. Soon she ends up dropping out of school, beginning a series of (mis)adventures, and the meat of her story.

To what end?

This is what has been puzzling me. What is the motive behind the her book? Is this a tell-all book? No. Is it a learn-from-my-mistake narrative? Not quiet? There is no sense of remorse, no shame, no moment of “What have a done?!”

And maybe that’s the point. It’s a glimpse of “how I got here,” and not “I made a boo-boo.” She’s not whining, nor is she asking for sympathy. It’s a matter-of-fact take on her travel through her not quite thirty years of life. Any lessons to be gleamed from the manuscript is solely at the readers discretion and not the motive of the author.

What her memoir is about is the fact that we all have our own life to live, and we all have to learn our own lessons. Some lessons come easily, and others are more difficult to acquire.Here are a things I picked, in no particular order:

  1. Life is hard, and sometimes we make it harder, but we can also make it better.
  2. We are all ultimately responsible for our own successes and failures.
  3. A wrong choice is no reason to quit. It’s a learning exercise.

Again, this is my take. You may interpret it differently, and that’s okay.

I will admit that I had no idea how to critique this book, that is until I realized that I had been looking at this the wrong way. This is less of a novelization than an essay. While it may use storytelling techniques, it’s point is not to tell a story but to describe a journey of hardships and what I hope to be self-growth.

Is there more to the story? Probably, but I believe she chose these key events to highlight the impetuousness of youth and the consequences therein. At no point do you have a sense that she’s given up, even when she seems to be wandering aimlessly. A new goal quickly emerges.

A few times, I wished I could reached back through time and space and shake her furiously and ask her “What the hell are you thinking?” I had to temper my own judgmental tendencies and look into myself and my own life’s choices. Sometimes I fared better than she, but I made my own choices, and some were not all that great. You can check out the rest of my blog if you don’t believe me.

How would I rate this book? I have to say that it is well-written, upbeat, and has a positive overall tone. If you’re like me, you may want to ask her why she did what she did, but at the end I hope you will be mollified that she is heading in the right direction.

While she may not be a celebrity with a tell-all book, or a politician with a soul-cleansing mea culpa attempt, this is still worth reading. Maybe it’s not an attempt at a public confession, but she does open herself up to criticism. Whether it’s merited or not, who am I to say, but she’s not a quitter. For that, she has my admiration and my respect.

You can find her book at Amazon, Smashwords, and Barnes and Noble.

List of Book Reviews
November’s Review – Golf Made Easy
September’s Review – Fall of Venus

They’re here…. I’m talking about my book order

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The Hunger Games

The Hunger Games (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

What a day! I went in to work for a few hours – I work in the paint department at a home improvement retailer – before leaving for class. Business is brisk at the moment so when I’m working I’m usually busting my butt trying to take care of everyone, but it feels good. I’m not a manager nor am I a supervisor, I’m just a worker and it feels nice not being in charge. It’s temporary but at least it gets me out into the workforce again.

So I worked four hours today before leaving for class. I was worn out from all the action so I was a bit zombified in class. Nothing to report there except for a dead brain. It’s coming back online as I type this.

Now I’m home. I spent a bit of time wondering what I was going to write about. My exhaustion? Okay, but that can be done in one sentence. I’m tired. See? A short sentence, a subject and an intransitive verb. Damn! Maybe I picked up something in class after all. Cool beans.

Still it’s nothing to write about, but then I got home and I saw that my books were in. I ordered a few books a few weeks ago, the Hunger Game Trilogy by Suzanne Collins, Council by Greg Tobin, and The Bridge by Allan Krummenacker. I received The Bridge last week and I’m half-way through it. The other two were waiting for me when I got home from work and school. Huzzah!

I’ve already read The Hunger Games, but I want a copy for myself so I can read it again. Council is a sequel to his novel Conclave, which I read years ago. All in all, I have a good deal of reading waiting for me. I love reading. It relaxes me, especially when I have to time actually read and relax. Preferably in a hot bath.

The next few weeks will be a bit on the hectic side, but it’ll be okay. I have a lot to do, but on the other side of this semester I will have a prize waiting for me. Come to think of it, I may not have enough books. Perhaps I should order a few more. I still have J. K. Rowling’s novel, The Casual Vacancy to read. While I’m at it, I may as well reread The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. I enjoyed her book tremendously.

This is the good life.