About a week ago I unfortunately caught the flu and ended up being stuck in bed for what feels like forever. Haven’t been able to do much for the whole week and all the books on my TBR list are still waiting for me to dig in, but when my eyes couldn’t stay open for more than a few minutes at a time it felt like an impossible task. But finally I’m getting better and I’ve started reading again and in a few days I hope to post a new review here. In the meantime I did sketch out the main character in my newest work in progress, a fantasy novel called Shards of Life (name may change) that I’ve been thinking about and plotting for over ten years. Finally I’ve decided to really make it happen. So I sketched the main character by hand with a pen and paper, and considering I’m a crappy artist I knew I would never be happy with just the hand made drawing. The drawing ended up looking rather funny and the eyes were set too close, the face was too narrow, the nose was too small and yeah, it didn’t look that good….

by Tom Hoefner The Unlikely Adventures of Race & Cookie McCloud: Awkward Introductions is a hilarious fast paced story following the witty young Cookie and her awkward uncle Race. It’s written very well and there’s a lot of action, a lot of funny moment and also a whole bunch of strange part that make you raise your eyebrows, but that’s a good thing. And in between that we have these perfect little inserts where the writer almost pause the story to explaining things to us in such a unique and fun way. There are so many unique characters in this book and each and every one of them is developed in a great way that makes them pop of the page. Their dialog is filled with sarcasm and wit and I found myself smiling on several occasions. What one should be aware of though, is that this is not really a completed story in a way. Awkward Introductions lead straight in to the second book and therefore leaves the reader with a lot of unanswered questions. Had this been a longer book, it would probably have annoyed me a little bit that there wasn’t any closure to the story. But…

by Cassidy Salem Think Murder is a light mystery with a good plot that had some very interesting political turns to it. The case itself felt real and I could easily imagine a thing like this happening in real life, so the true story feeling is definitely a huge plus for me. It was easy to read and the story progressed at an even pace. I did get the feeling this was more like a romance novel than a mystery to me though. Which definitely doesn’t have to be a bad thing at all, and for those who like to read romance with a hint of mystery, this is a very good novel. But personally, I would have wanted some more mystery though, but that is just me. The main character, Adina, is well developed and as a reader I got a good sense of who she was. I think the other characters could have benefited from some more detail, and it was at times hard to picture the other people around Adina. There were also many characters that could have been brought in to the murder investigation as red herrings, but unfortunately they was just there as friends and…

by Scott Bell Yeager’s Law is a pretty fast paced thriller with a lot of action. The two main characters, Abel and Charlie are easy to like and I really enjoyed their parts. They feel like real people and throughout the story the author reveals new things about them, making them increasingly interesting. I also love the fact that the characters in this story have flaws and things they’re dealing with besides all that goes on plot-wise. This makes them feel genuine. The story is well written with just enough detail to give the reader a good sense of the setting and the action. The first chapter is very interesting and hooked me in, but they I found that the story sort of halted a bit for few chapters before finally taking off again. The thing I felt added to the “slowing down part” was all the different POVs that this book had. There were so many bad guys, different gangs and so much stuff going on there that it became too much for me. It was hard to keep focus at times and I kept longing for the parts where Abel and Charlie would return. I would have wanted…

When I’m writing, I always find myself wondering what certain things sound like and how I am going to make my reader hear what I hear. What does it sound like when a glass break against a concrete floor? In order to make it easier for myself in finding the right word, I went on a massive search on the internet and I dug deep into my dictionary to find words that would describe sounds. Then I compiled all of this into one single document and added it to my Scrivener template, so that I now get easy access to my own dictionary of sounds every time I sit down to write. So I figured, that if I have use for this long list of “sound words”, then maybe other do to. So here is my list of 123 words to describe sound. Enjoy. Oh, and before we get started: if anyone have additional words to add to the list, I’d be happy to hear them. Bang: a loud sudden sound, often a metallic explosive sound Bark: short bursts, like that from a dog Beat: a single regular sound or a series of regular sounds, especially of two things hitting…

by Christopher Stookey Where Death is a Hunter contains every single ingredient that makes up for a superb book. The book begins right in the heart of everything when the main character, Hannah, explain what happened the day she lost a patient on the operating table. And Hanna’s way of pulling you into her story is amazing. And bit by bit she reveals new things about herself and how this incident affected her. I was at first surprised a bit by the style of writing, which is more of a backstory type of writing. And rather than showing the story as it unfolds, Hannah retells this story in her own words. It was very different for me, but I ended up really enjoying it.  Somehow it made it all feel so real, like Hannah was a friend of mine that I lost touch with, and this was her letter to me where she told me this story. It just worked so well. Every page was filled with intrigue and there was no way I could bring myself to put the book down, I had to finish it. Ended up reading the whole thing in less than four hours, and I…

by Jacqueline Garlick Lumière had a very interesting premise and a very well planned plot that took place is a most unique steampunk world. The world is described well and the author makes all the tiny gadgets and large contraptions come alive in a beautiful way. I find myself very intrigued by the scenery and the setting. It was sometimes rather confusing at the same time though since some parts of the world are described very well, while others are just a rough outline. I would have wanted more details on all the places. Overall, I got the feeling that this was another world, but still we read about known places on earth, which only added to the confusion. The main character, Eyelet, is a young woman troubled with seizures in a world where this equals death. Stuck in the idea that her father’s invention, the Illuminator, can cure her, she sets out to find the machine. I feel that Eyelet is a rather hard character to understand and in some instances she’s strong and determined, then in the other she’s a whiny brat, especially in the scenes where we follow the male character. It feels like the two sides…

by Sharon M. Johnston I got the chance to read an ARC of this book in exchange for a review, and I am so thankful for this opportunity, for this book was remarkable and so great. It’s probably one of the best reads this year, and I found myself unable to put it down. Divided is a unique and very interesting story about a young woman, Mishca, who struggles with finding who she is after a heart transplant. The story hooks you from the first sentence and never really lets you go. The author writes so well and makes Mishca’s feelings pop off the page, and it lets the reader feel her struggles with accepting that her life meant someone else had to die. It all seems so real and every page you want to reach into the book and give Mishca a comforting hug. The characters and the settings also feel real, and it’s all shown with just the right amount of descriptions. As the story moves on it turn into a very interesting love story, which end up getting extremely exciting as Mishca starts discovering she has extraordinary powers. As if Mishca didn’t already have enough to struggle…

So the madness that has been PitchWars is now over and the 2015 Mentees have been chosen. Congrats to all who made it and good luck in the future. I hope you do well in the agent round later. It wasn’t a surprise to me that I didn’t get picked, and it’s not that big of a deal for me either. I didn’t see Pitch Wars as a competition where only the best ones won, I saw it as an opportunity and a way to get my foot into the writing community. Being so new to this thing and living so far away from other writers it’s sometimes hard to find friends and people to talk to, but Pitch Wars really made this a lot easier for me. During the time we all waited eagerly to find out who the mentors was going to pick, many of them used the #PitchWars twitter hashtag to give us hints and tips. And many of these tips I knew and some were new and great. Unfortunately I don’t have the memory to remember them all and write them down right here though. A few things I already knew, but things that I still…

by Noelle Stevenson The first four chapters of this graphic novel made me want to put the book down and never pick it up again. It felt childish and just too “over the top” and I really struggled with it. So I put it down and thought I’d never again pick it up. But then I decided to push through after hearing a review that it would get better after the initial chapters. And I am happy to say that it did get a lot better and it really developed into a deep and interesting story. It was fast to read, and the characters had a lot of depth despite my initial feeling that they were just completely crazy. The plot was surprising and it was fun to read from the so called villains POV and learning that everything is not always as it seems. Reading this novel also kind of made me want to turn my own novel into a graphic novel, and I might have given it a try had I been able to draw. So I do recommend this as a read for those interested in graphic novels. For those, like me, who are completely new to…