Hey!
I’m back again with yet another book review. This book took me a while to read, which actually may be all well and good since the sequel doesn’t come out for ANOTHER YEAR! Ugh….Now I will have to wait forever to continue this story.

In case you haven’t figured it out yet, today we are going to be talking about Anna Bright’s The Beholder. This was yet another book that was chosen for a Readathon for the Creating & Co book club that I didn’t get to finish. It’s finished now though….I don’t hate that the group picked it since it was a newer book that most of the members including myself hadn’t read yet, but the fact that it’s part of a duology is the annoying part.

A quick synopsis of the book is that after Selah, daughter to the Sensechal is rejected at her proposal party by a boy she adored. Her stepmother sets her up with a crew and several appointments for courtships throughout Europe. Knowing that her father has become gravely ill in the last few months and not wanting her stepmother to win, Selah agrees to go on these courtships date through Europe. At first, Selah feels as if she is alone in her quest to quickly find a match and return to her father, but she then discovers that she is not alone in her quest and then is let in on the secret mission of the trip that has nothing to do with her courtship appointments.

I found Selah beautifully refreshing compared to other princess type characters that I have read about in the past. She knows exactly what she wants and who she is for the most part. I was annoyed that she kept allowing herself to keep falling for her suitors and her heart to get broken over and over knowing that she just needed to pick one before heading home and not facing the unknown, which she dreads so much. I was amazed at all the twists and turns in the book, which made me want to keep reading although the slow start in the beginning made me almost want to put it down.

I would definitely recommend this book as a read, but I would have rather read this closer to the sequel release so that I wouldn’t have to wait so long in between books and living in the world of Selah and her adventures in Europe. I will definitely be letting you know my thoughts on the Beholder sequel after it releases next year.

Let me know what you have been reading lately and what you would recommend. I would love to hear your thoughts if you have read the book.

Hello!
I’m back with yet another book review, thankfully I’m catching up on my Goodreads and reading challenge goals for the year at the very least. This year in addition to finishing a couple of series and working on the Paper & Glam book club and the Creating & Co book club I also decided to take on Rachel Dawson’s reading challenge. If it gets me reading more diverse and interesting books I’m all for it. This book completed the challenge of reading a book that was published in the year you were born. I probably could double this up since this is also a children’s book, but I have another book in mind for that.

I chose this book because not only was it published in 1983, but also because Roald Dahl is a quintessential children’s author. You may have recognized his name from such works as James & the Giant Peach or Charlie & the Chocolate Factory. I had never heard of this book , but apparently it is another classic and also has a movie adaptation. The version I chose to read had an introduction and notes from James Patterson.

In the book, we meet our young hero who has spend a good portion of his youth growing up in England before his parents are killed in a tragic car accident and then he is sent to live with his Grandmama. His Grandmama would like to raise him in Norway, but his parents’ will dictate that the child be raised in England. While in England, Grandmama teaches the young boy everything she knows about witches, so that he can protect himself. Unfortunately, it is on his second encounter with witches that he is turned into a mouse.

The 218 page book with an introduction by James Patterson and notes from the editor Stephen Roxburgh make for a quick read and also add to the interest of reading Roald Dahl books. If you haven’t read a Roald Dahl book in your life I highly recommend picking one up. If you haven’t read The Witches I would definitely recommend this fanciful tale surely to have you turning pages and wanting to dive more into the world of Roald Dahl.

Let me know if you have read the book or seen the movie adaptation. I hope to see you soon!

Hey!
I’m back with a book review, I’d say more, but honestly I feel as if I have been on repeat lately with last post telling you that original content is coming and it hasn’t shown up yet. Maybe I’ll write about all these thoughts in another post.

Today I’m here to discuss Daughter of the Siren Queen the sequel to Tricia Levenseller’s book Daughter of the Pirate King. If you haven’t read my review on that be sure to check it out here. In this book, we catch up with Alosa just as she has located the last part of the map and is headed back to see her father. We finally get to really meet her crew, a merry band of misfit women that she has gathered along with the few men that she decided to keep from Draxen’s ship the Night Farer. We also see Alosa’s interactions with interactions with her father and begin to really see him as a person. The big twist for the book comes at the beginning finding that Alosa’s mother is alive and that she has been a prisoner to her father all these years.

It is also in this book that we finally get all the steamy non steamy parts of the Alosa- Riden romance that we have been hoping for. During their courtship both Alosa and Riden have to come to terms with the things their parents have done to them.

I loved every minute of this book probably a bit more than the previous book and the only thing the book left me hanging on besides more of the Alosa-Riden romance was to know more details about how the relationship between the Pirate King and the Siren Queen came to be. We know some details, but there is quite a bit left in the dark that left me wondering and wanting a bit more . I highly recommend that you read this book series. and I’m so glad that Paige from Creating & Co and the other members of the Creating & Co book club recommended it for the Journey to Atlantis Readathon. See you soon!