An Overwhelmed Creative

King's Cage  is the third book in Victoria Aveyard's four-book series The Red Queen . I confess it took me a while to read it. I loved  the first book, I thought it was amazing, a little bit like what would happen if the X-Men ruled the world (no, not like Age of Apocalypse, better). But, then I read the second book and I was disappointed. The main character did something, well, out of character. I don't know. Nothing seemed to make sense. I didn't enjoy it all that much. So, I stopped reading. Until one fateful day, when I was walking by Barnes & Noble at the mall (yes, the mall), and I saw a sign saying that the author, Victoria Aveyard herself, was coming to a release party for her last book of short stories. I just had to go. My twelve-year-old daughter had read The Red Queen, too, and a few days later, there we both were. Ready to meet Victoria Aveyard and have our books signed. Her party was pretty awesome. I've been to other author parties, but...

I used my credits from Audible to continue getting familiar with urban fantasy books, which is the genre I write in. I'm a member of an urban fantasy Facebook group and when I asked for recommendations, this series was recommended by several members. The first book in the Nate Temple series by Shayne Silvers was narrated by Marcio Catalano, and I am not a fan of his after hearing this audiobook. I see I'm not alone since I see narration of the series was taken over by someone different. Mr. Catalano's narration as Nate Temple was strange. He used an inflection that honestly, put me to sleep. If the character is a bit snobbish to start with, he gets annoying with the accent he's narrated with. It was horrible. The story in itself was okay. It had dragons in it. Although, a lot of things that happened didn't really have an explanation that I could understand, and somehow, everything seemed to just work out for the omnipotent Nate Temple. I read that t...

I played the Witcher 3: Wild Hunt videogame this year. A few weeks before I finished it, Netflix announced they were releasing a series based on the Witcher books (where the videogame is based from). I was excited, to say the least. I must say that, after Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is a solid number two for me, debunking all other games I have ever played (including Skyrim and all other Zelda titles. After reading an article about the now released series, I learned the recommended reading order of the Witcher books if you wanted to prepare for the series. This is how I decided to read The Last Wish. I knew my husband had already purchased and read all of the books through the years, so it was easy to simply download it to my Kindle and start reading it. The Last Wish is a bit of a collection of short stories. It feels very much like playing quests from the game. It's interesting because you learn why Geralt ends up training Ciri. It also explains why Ge...

I LOVED THIS BOOK. I think listening to the audiobook helped to how much I enjoyed it. The best thing about it, believe it or not, is Oberon, the dog. Yes, the Iron Druid is pretty cool, but Oberon stole my heart. I don't know if I would have liked him as much if I hadn't heard the narrator's take on him, but he is now one of my favorite characters of all time. The Iron Druid Chronicles by Kevin Hearne start with Hounded . These books are about the last druid, who has survived for two-thousand years somehow. He looks like a twenty-one year old, but he's wise and smart and savvy. His best asset is he knows how to make friends and strike good-natured deals with vampires, werewolves, gods, and the like. Book one sets him on the adventure to face an old enemy who wants him dead (and who wants his sword). The book has action, but it's not filled with it. It still makes a great read and it's just a perfect balance of everything, I think. I liked that th...