Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Teaser Tuesday~~The Quickening by, Michelle Hoover


Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

Grab your current read
Open to a random page
Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (Make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

The Quickening by, Michelle Hoover This is a long teaser but I wanted to give a better feel than just one line.
Page 8-I had no sisters to speak of. Had only my mother now and three brothers, gone off to have families of their own. Though I'd tried for friendship, their wives never cared much for the youngest sister who worked with the men in the barn. But women had never liked the look of me. Saw something fierce in my size and roughness. Mary seemed no different. That grimace of hers, it was just the start.

Friday, June 25, 2010

Audio Book Week Wrap-Up Recommendations

Jen over at Devourer of Books has done such a wonderful job putting this week together its been fun!
Today she's asking for recommendations which I have kind of done all week but will add a few to the ones I've already mentioned.

Right now I am enjoying the audio's of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy- the first one was read by, Stephen Fry and from there they are read by, Martin Freeman who played Arthur Dent in the movie they are still good but I did enjoy Stephen Fry's narration better.

I also enjoyed-The Help & The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society which are multi-voiced and really drew you in.

If you like Mysteries I enjoy Diana Mott Davidson's Goldy Bear Series Read by, Barbara Rosenblat
Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch read by, Len Cariou
Lisa Scottoline's Rosato & Associates Read by, Kate Burton
Jonathan Kellerman's Alex Delaware series read by, John Rubenstein

One of the funniest I have listened to and was read very well by the author was Belle Weather Mostly Sunny with a Scattered Chance of Hissy Fits by, Celia Rivenbark

The Hunger Games & Catching Fire by, Suzanne Collins Read by, Carolyn McCormick were very good

Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie read by, Jayne Entwistle was another good one

And of Course the Graveyard Book read by, Neil Gaiman & Anansi Boys read by, Lenny Henry

As I have said before my all-time favorite is The Outlander Series read by, Davina Porter

If you've never tried audiobooks give them a try pick from the lists of favorites in this and everyone else's meme's

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Audio Book Week Day #3

Jen over at Devourer of Books made a quick and easy post for the middle of the week, just a short meme.

Audiobook are you currently reading/you read most recently: I just finished “Just Take My heart” now listening to “In The Company of the Courtesan”

Impressions?: Just Take My heart was good well and read and In the Company of the Courtesan has taken some time for me to get into the narration is good and the story is finally picking up.


How long you’ve been listening to audiobooks: I’d guess 3 years

First audiobook you ever listened to: Wow hmm my guess would be something by, Jonathan Kellerman read by, John Rubenstein

Favorite audiobook title: That’s a hard one too my favorites have been
The Outlander Series read by, Davina Porter-
The Help was a great multi-voiced production-
The Shadow of the Wind read by, Jonathan Davis-
And of course The Stephanie Plum Series read by, Lorelei King-
Anything by Jonathan Kellerman read by,John Rubenstein

Favorite narrator: My favorite has to be Davina Porter she really brings the Outlander series to life and even when I read the actual books I hear her voice!

How do you choose what to listen to versus read? Depends on my mood and what I can get my hands on, but I always try to be listening to one genre and reading another so I don’t confuse myself

The Cold Light of Mourning by, Elizabeth J. Duncan~~Review



The Cold Light of Mourning by, Elizabeth J. Duncan

This was a good cozy mystery and a great start to what will hopefully be a series. I liked that Penny & Victoria, our amateur detectives, are not the town busybodies and into everyone’s business they are just everyday ladies that happen to figure things out.

The set-up for this is a bride disappears the day of her wedding has she runaway or has something happened to her. Penny & Victoria seem to be able to figure a few things out and tell the police who are happy to have the help since murders rarely happen in this quaint little Welsh town. Penny is also dealing with the recent death of her best friend and I enjoyed the budding friendship between her and Victoria and this first death really humanized Penny for me.

The cast of characters are well thought out and the actual town busybody Mrs. Lloyd is always a step behind. There is a bit of romance towards the end but it is a nice mature courting going on which I enjoyed.

Overall I enjoyed this book I think it’s a good first novel and look forward to reading more by this author!
4 Stars

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Audiobook Week Discussion #2

How to Write an Audiobook Review – Audiobook Week Discussion #2

I like how Jen at Devourer of Books stated it so check out her site.

As for me I guess I usually just review the book itself the majority of the time not even mentioning that I listened to it on audio. The times I do mention it is usually if the narration was very good or very bad.
As stated over at Devourer of Books and in the comments made on the page a person really should put a little something at the end to talk about the narrator and/or production value. I will have to do that more often. I listen to so many audio books but yet there are only a handful of narrators I know by name. I think it would be worth my time to add more about the audio side of the book in my reviews. Even if it’s just to help me keep track of which narrators I liked and which I didn’t.

Monday, June 21, 2010

Audio Book Week

It’s Audio Book Week
Today’s Topic is Why Audio Books?

I love audio books I listen to them all the time when I’m in the shower, doing dishes, driving, cleaning etc. My favorite audio books are the Outlander Series by, Diana Gabaldon read by, Davina Porter. I enjoy all genre’s of audio as I do in paper book reading my favorite genre’s to listen to on audio are Historical Fiction and anything that is humorous. I like listening to historical fiction because if they are set in other countries you get the accents and pronunciations that you may miss when reading them.

There are people out there that say audiobooks don’t count as “reading” which I personally think is ridicules because the content is exactly the same I am just absorbing it in a different way.

My Favorite Audio are:

In Historical Fiction-
The Shadow of the Wind by, Carlos Ruiz Zafron Narrated by, Jonathan Davis
The Help by, Kathryn Stocket Narrated by Multiple Voices

In Humorous/Chicklit/Fiction:
The Stephanie Plum Series by, Janet Evanovich Narrated by, Lorelei King
The Bad Behavior of Belle Cantrell by, Loraine Despres Narrated by, Zoe Thomas

In Mystery:

Anything by, Michael Connelly Narrated by, Len Cariou
Anything by, Jonathan Kellerman Narrated by, John Rubenstein

I really enjoy when books are in a series that it be the same narrator for all of them.

Tomorrow we will be discussing How to Write an Audiobook Review.

And thanks to Devourer of Books for the great ideas- Check out her website for some great audio giveaways

Friday, June 18, 2010

Blue Bloods by Melissa de la Cruz

This book is a decent mystery novel. The beginning is really slow and takes forever to build up to the "meat" of the plot. I believe I was over half done before I truly understood what was going on. Once the book started to get interesting, it was quite good. Because it was a slow read i give it 3 out of 5 stars.

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Teaser Tuesday~~Just Take My Heart by, Mary Higgins Clark


Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

Grab your current read
Open to a random page
Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (Make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

"I see in her statement that Mrs.Mills talked about Natalie's roomate,Jamie Evans, being murdered in Central Park fifteen years before Natalie died.You asked her if she thought there could be any connection to this?"

~~Just Take My Heart by, Mary Higgins Clark Page 27

Saturday, June 5, 2010

The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag by, Alan Bradley ~~Review



The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag by, Alan Bradley

Synopsis

From Dagger Award–winning and internationally bestselling author Alan Bradley comes this utterly beguiling mystery starring one of fiction’s most remarkable sleuths: Flavia de Luce, a dangerously brilliant eleven-year-old with a passion for chemistry and a genius for solving murders. This time, Flavia finds herself untangling two deaths—separated by time but linked by the unlikeliest of threads.

Flavia thinks that her days of crime-solving in the bucolic English hamlet of Bishop’s Lacy are over—and then Rupert Porson has an unfortunate rendezvous with electricity. The beloved puppeteer has had his own strings sizzled, but who’d do such a thing and why? For Flavia, the questions are intriguing enough to make her put aside her chemistry experiments and schemes of vengeance against her insufferable big sisters. Astride Gladys, her trusty bicycle, Flavia sets out from the de Luces’ crumbling family mansion in search of Bishop’s Lacey’s deadliest secrets.

Does the madwoman who lives in Gibbet Wood know more than she’s letting on? What of the vicar’s odd ministrations to the catatonic woman in the dovecote? Then there’s a German pilot obsessed with the Brontë sisters, a reproachful spinster aunt, and even a box of poisoned chocolates. Most troubling of all is Porson’s assistant, the charming but erratic Nialla. All clues point toward a suspicious death years earlier and a case the local constables can’t solve—without Flavia’s help. But in getting so close to who’s secretly pulling the strings of this dance of death, has our precocious heroine finally gotten in way over her head?



My Review:
Flavia reminds me of an amalgamation of Pippi Longstockings and the best of all teen detectives! I wish these books had been out when I was in high school because Flavia makes chemistry interesting!

Flavia is Precocious, humorous and a Genius a somewhat scary genius at times but one none the less. I saw an interview on Library Thing with Alan Bradley where he was asked how he imagines Flavia as an adult and he said either the world’s greatest Chemist or the World’s Greatest Criminal Poisoner and I have to agree with him there!

Flavia is believable because people tell her things without even realizing they have done so because she is a child they let their guard down.


This was a great story, it kept me guessing and I didn’t figure it out till Flavia did so that’s a great mystery!

I can’t wait for the next installment in this series!
4 ½ Stars