BOOK REVIEW: Sea: The Huntress Trilogy #1

Title: Sea
Author: Sarah Driver
Published by: Egmont
Publication date: 6th April 2017
Format: Kindle
Source: ARC

Do you enjoy dangerous adventures on perilous, icy seas? 


Do you like tales of tribes, beasts, tradition and magic?


Do you like reading about epic quests seeped in folklore and myth?

If you do, then you should definitely read this book!

Reading this was like a welcome flashback to my days of reading Philip Pullman. It definitely has the same feel to it.
Maybe it's all the ice, subtle magic and the fact that our main character, Mouse, sort of has her own 'daemon' in the form of her brave sea hawk Thaw-Wielder?

Maybe it's the fact that Mouse is a totally independent, fierce, loyal and brave character?
(How are 13 years olds always this awesome in books?! I'm pretty sure I was pathetic at that age!) 

Whatever it is, this book is wonderful. 

I felt like I was really there and experiencing everything alongside Mouse. 

I got to sail on The Huntress, dive with merwraiths, cross the seas in the belly of a whale and fight fearsome terrodyls!

As the first book in a trilogy I'm so excited to know that soon I'll be able to travel across the land again with Mouse and her friends. 
I can't wait for more adventures!

Confessions Of A Bookworm

I have a confession.
I am guilty of serial adultery. With books that is.

I just can't help myself. They stand there ruffling their pages seductively, twirling their titles and presenting their covers in a most alluring manner. I find myself picking them up and reading the first few pages before I even know whats happening. Since becoming a Librarian its gotten even worse! I can string along hundreds of books without the worry of spending money or long-term commitment.

I don't find it hard to remember their names or whats going on in their lives, but it is sometimes difficult to decide who to spend time with each night. Do I want the adventurous one? The cheeky one? The old and distinguished one? It can be a tough choice.

Of course, I finish with them all eventually. I either send them on their way to find new lovers or keep them to one side - to be called upon again someday, whenever I feel like it. I can be a demanding reader.

I don't feel guilty about my adultery. On the contrary! I would shout it from the rooftops if I could. I recommend it to everyone. Being able to pick and choose the adventures I take depending on my mood is wonderful. I never feel tied down to one book - slogging my way through it, even when the going is tough - I can simply put it down and pick up another who better suits me at the time. Its freeing, fun and makes reading even more enjoyable.

So get up, go out and pick up as many books as you fancy! Use all your best lines on them and woo them all back to your place for a steamy night of literary adventure! I guarantee you won't regret it!

Happy Adventuring! 

BOOK REVIEW - The Gender Game

Title: The Gender Game
Author: Bella Forrest
Published by: NightLight Press
Publication date: 24th September 2016
Genres: Teens, YA, Dystopia 
Format: Kindle
Source: Advanced reading copy from the publisher.

It isn't that this book is terrible... oh wait, yes it is. 

[watch out, spoilers ahead!]

The Gender Game puts us into a dystopian world where two cities are divided by gender and a toxic river; In Patrus it's the males who rule the city, with females having about as many rights as dogs, whereas in Matrus the females are in charge and weed out any males who they think show "undesirable" traits and send them to work in the mines.
The story focuses on Violet, a juvenile delinquent who ends up in a detention centre in the Matrus city after her brother fails their all-important test and gets taken away.

Right from the start I disliked Violet immensely. We're meant to connect to this extremely angry, aggressive, self-centred and violent teenage girl, and I just couldn't do it. She gets into fight after fight putting herself in danger and her future at stake all because she's so pigheaded and stupid.
We find out that Violet was originally sent to the detention centre after she committed "womanslaughter" and accidentally killed another girl with a fork during a fight. 
What?!

"In many ways, being imprisoned had been the best thing that could have happened to me."

And everyone bloody else by the sounds of it, you psycho!

Violent... ooops, I meant Violet then gets moved to a new detention centre and vowes to finally keep her head down and stay out of trouble. Yet what happens on her very first morning? 
Yup, she only goes and accidentally kills yet another girl (this time with some braces?!). 
Of course she does.
Seriously, I have no sympathy for this character! 

This latest teensy-snafoo lands poor Violet with a death sentence.
But luckily for our heroine the Queen of Matrus has been waiting for the perfect teenage psychopath to send on a very special mission on which their whole future rides! 
She is offered the chance to take on this important task and in exchange all of her previous, horrible acts will be forgotten.

Hooray! 

At no point in the book is it explained why this task was given to an imprisoned orphan with a history of violence rather than a trained professional.
The mind boggles. 

"...a convict who had no experience in matters of robbery or espionage."

Exactly!
Why?!

The story then follows our intrepid traveller as she makes her way over to male-ruled Patrus with the task of stealing back a precious item that they previously stole from Matrus.

We get to follow Violet around as she makes mistakes, does stupid things and continuously puts herself in danger.
At one point she comes extremely close to being either beaten up, killed or raped by a group of Patrus men who think she's a "stray" (a female with no husband). All she would have to do to get out of this situation would be to hold up her hand and show them she was wearing a ring, but noooooo.
Not our Violet!
Because she "never backs down to bully's!"
Oh, come on girl! Stop being a stubborn moron all the time.

Other than precious Violet, the other characters of note were the cliché love interest Viggo - a ruggedly handsome cage fighter with a soft side. *yawn* and the extremely one dimensional Lee, who does, admittedly, get a little more interesting towards the end. 

From about 60% I could bear it no longer and skim-read the rest of this.
Though, to be honest, most of it was just lengthy descriptions of fights (I'm talking pages and pages of it), so I doubt I missed out on much there.

The most interesting part of this book for me was 'The Green'. 
A huge toxic forest, where the air is poisonous and the wildlife is extremely dangerous and strange.
This, however, was the thing least mentioned in The Gender Game. We only got to spend a few pages there and no explanation was given about the place.
Pity.

I guess we might get to learn more about it in the next instalment, but as I definitely won't be carrying on with this series I shall always be left wondering...

Flash Fiction Friday #1

Today is going to be the start of a little weekly post that I'm calling 'Flash Fiction Friday'. 
I'm not sure if I'll manage to remember it each week, but I'm definitely going to give it a good go. I come up with the titles first and then write a story to fit it, so they can sometimes be quite surreal. They will mostly be around 100-200 words, so even if I'm feeling really tired and lazy I should still be able to manage it every Friday. I think that setting myself the goal of writing at least one short story a week should be pretty doable and its something which I've been meaning to do for a while now.

I can't promise that they'll be lovely and happy, and I certainly can't promise that they'll be good, but I hope that you'll bravely put up with them and maybe even enjoy some of them.

*****************************

Blackberry Thorn.

You stand in a small clearing; birds chatter all around you but not a single one can be seen, as if they disappeared long ago and their songs are just an echo of what once was.

Tall, thin trees are rooted into the ground as far as the eye can see. They are as black as coal and wear not a single leaf on their spindly branches. Unlike the birds, the leaves can be seen. They now lay peacefully on the ground, blanketing it in a pattern of white and grey which makes your eye spin.

You spot a single spot of red jumping out at you from the monochrome ground and slowly bend to pick it up. Turning the glossy business card over in your hands you briefly wonder how it ended up here and who it belonged to. Surely birds, even vanishing ones, dont carry business cards.

Squinting at the black text you read one simple sentence:

'You are all that remains.'

A single tear rolls down your cheek as you realise that the birdsong has stopped.