Tag: ebooks

Mid-Year Freak Out Book Tag!

Published on by gotmeghan1 Comment

Oh yes, it is that time.

If you’ve been a long-time reader of my blog, you know by the time June comes around I will do another “Mid-Year Freak Out Book Tag” installment. I never thought it would turn into a trend for me, but honestly, I love doing this every year. I usually don’t have a full on freak out, but still it makes you remember you’re halfway through the year and your TBR (to be read) list is screaming at you…

So, let us get to know each other’s reading favorites and habits in 2023.

Best Book You’ve Read So Far

This was difficult, despite the fact that I’ve read 24 books, it was still hard to choose the “best” one.

For those of you, who love the Little House on the Prairie books, you should check out one of my absolute favorite books of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s books, it is called Farmer Boy, and what I found so interesting the most was it is the fictional tale of Laura’s real husband Almazo’s young life.

After that, I didn’t think I would find another book that would bring out those same emotions, and then I found this one.

What I loved most about My Antonia by Willa Cather was, I found this story to be amazing in its own way; instead of seeing a pioneer life from a girl’s point of view, we see our main character discussing his early life in Nebraska with a bohemian family living “next” door. It’s such a great story, and full of ethnics wanting to make it in the new frontier, and the fact that a child is narrowing the story with a native but realistic outlook of the life that’s in front of them.

Best Sequel You’ve Read So Far

I actually haven’t read a lot of sequels this year.

My favorite was, Melanie Karsak’s Gambit of Swords. It was the end of Ervie’s story, but it was the final book on the characters mentioned in her previous Viking series, “The Road to Valhalla”. Despite all of this, it was a good book. It was full of emotion, and I cried through most of it. These books in general were really amazing, and the characters were everything for me in the past year and a half, so if you enjoy reading about Vikings, I highly suggest checking out these nine books..

New Release You Haven’t Read, But Would Like To

Ooooh, I haven’t been keeping up with new releases (again!) but every time a new month begins and Kindle Unlimited updates their “recently added” section, it’s like my mind statics and I immediately want like three books but doesn’t end up reading any of them. I’m awful about doing this! What is even weirder is that, I don’t try to get out of this habit either…

Most Anticipated Release For The Second Half Of The Year

Melanie Karsak will be releasing her next Celtic-based series, called The Blackthorn Queen. It is about Princess Cartimandua, who was the first Queen crowned in England. I’ve never heard her before and thought Empress Matilda/Maude was the first… I’ll put the blurb here so you can see whether or not it’s up your alley.

349604571_6087592937955384_5708156249309953684_nBritain, AD 38, Princess Cartimandua—Carti—of the Brigantes tribe faces an uncertain future when her father’s sudden death ignites turmoil. Suspicion falls on the Crow People of the Votadini tribe, straining the fragile peace between the factions.

But they’re not the only ones bearing a grudge.

A tangled web of political games soon unfolds. When enigmatic Prince Cormag of the Votadini shows the princess unwanted attention, the Brigantes’ alliance with the Carvetti is shaken. Cartimandua’s dream of marrying gallant Prince Venutiux of the Carvetti is put at risk. Soon, Carti finds herself at the center of a whirlwind of divided loyalties.

Yet amidst the misty forests and the blackthorn trees, the Cailleach, the ancient dark goddess of the Brigantes people, whispers that all is not as it seems. With the fate of her tribe at stake, Carti must learn to navigate the treacherous waters of politics, duty, magic, and love.

Biggest Disappointment

Last year, I read Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca and I loved it. I was in the mood for something slightly creepy around late September or early October, and I had already reread The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and found this as an audiobook on YouTube afterwards and thoroughly enjoyed myself.

However, for the second book by du Maurier was My Cousin Rachel and it was one of the most annoying books I’ve ever read, and I’ve read my fair share of bad books in the past…

I remember it was once an answer on Jeopardy! and it had said something like, what phrase was repeated over 120+ times. This should have been my warning! The kicker was, the story itself was pretty interesting but I could have done without listening to “my cousin Rachel” in almost every paragraph!

Biggest Surprise

A couple of years ago, I started looking into fairy-tales or childhood films I didn’t know they were originally a book, like James and the Giant Peach and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl, and I’ve really enjoyed them now as an adult. I’ve been trying to listen to them as audiobooks, and it’s been an interesting journey lately.

At the beginning of the year, I listened to Cinderella by Wilhelm Grimm, and I knew this wasn’t the right version of the story as in the credits of Disney’s Cinderella says it was based off of the story written by Charles Perrault instead. However, I had this on my screen, and it was one of the strangest stories – I still consider Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland to be the frontrunner of the pack, but this takes the #2 spot…

Anyways, I recently found Perrault’s take, which is originally tilted, The Little Glass Slipper and I thought this was really cute. After having a great experience with that story, I found the audiobook for Sleeping Beauty (in the Woods), and again, it was adorable! I’d like to get both of these stories for my niece someday. By the time this post goes out, I’ve probably made it through Puss In Boots by Charles Perrault (absolutely hated it!).

Besides the fairy-tales, there was another book I was thoroughly surprised about, as I’ve never read the Bible, My mom tried to read some stories to my sister and I when we were younger, but for the most part we could never last past the story of Adam and Eve.

At the end of spring, I found a book called The Red Tent by Anita Diamant. I knew it was about a woman mentioned in the Bible, and it was turned into a miniseries on Lifetime a few years ago, but that was it.

I am still unsure why I grabbed it, but I certainly don’t regret it. It was very intriguing to me, as I had watched the film, “The King of Dreams” as a child, so I knew a bit about the abuse of his older brothers Simon and Levi, but that was it. However, for this book, instead of focusing on the sons of Jacob, it is put in his daughter Dinah’s point of view, as she looks back at the women of the tribe. The Red Tent is a place of honoring a woman’s cycles, everytime they have their period, they go into the red tent to pause their lives and take a moment to appreciate their bodies and the sisterhood,

Found this on Pinterest, but it’s @aileen_reads book shelf template.

Favorite New Author (Debut or New For You)

I find it odd that I would answer with two classics for this. I have seriously enjoyed Charles Dickens and Daphne du Maurier, although I’ve only read two books from both authors, I consider them a favorite new author to me. I want to continue checking out their other works in the year. I’d like to read them as audiobooks, because I seem to understand them better that way, but I haven’t found a lot of Daphne’s books on YouTube as I have with Dickens’s The Old Curiosity Shop and A Tale of Two Cities.

Newest Fictional Crush

I haven’t been reading my romance books, but my love for the character Hofund in “The Road of Valhalla” and “The Shadows of Valhalla” series is still so strong. He was the main reason why I cried the majority of the time while reading Gambit of Swords this past winter!

Book That Made You Cry

The most recent was The Second Mrs. Astor by Shana Abe. I will be publishing my review for that book on Friday, so I’ll try to be brief here.

This is about Miss Madeleine Force, a young debutante in New York’s early 1910s, and it’s about how she meets and marries John Jacob Astor IV. If these names sound familiar, they were featured in James Cameron’s Titanic as they were on the actual ship that fateful night, April 15th, 1912. Despite the fact the book is focused more on the Titanic, you do see a beautiful and deep relationship start to form between these two characters, and since I know what happened to them, I did not expect to bawl my eyes out that much.

Book That Made You Happy

Last year, I read three and a half “Little House” books by Laura Ingalls Wilder and thoroughly enjoyed them, and even though I haven’t actually ran out of her stories, but I didn’t think I’d find more stories like them written by other authors, that is, until I found My Antonia by Willa Cather. I found Jim and Antonia’s friendship so sweet; they each had a different view of being part of the prairie and what it’s like to be an immigrant going over to basically start over again.

Most Beautiful Book You’ve Bought This Year

Ooooh!

Honestly, I haven’t found that book I would consider to be “beautiful” both physically and story. If you know me well enough, you know I’m all about the cover of the book. We can say you can’t judge a book by its cover, but I do. I’m horrible about it, but in my defense, I haven’t had many duds; for the most part the look of the book has to speak to me as I scroll down the endless rows of books. An interesting cover will stop everything in that moment and drag me towards it.

As for story, My Antonia is fairly close to that spot, but I’m not convinced enough. I have six months left (technically, it’s four but we won’t get into that right now.) to find that ideal book. I have hopes to accomplish it.

What Books Do You Still Need To Read By The End Of The Year?

I am very much a mood reader, I don’t like being forced into a genre, but I would like to kind of branch out of this historical fiction spree I’ve been in for a year now. Don’t get me wrong, I love and appreciate the ones I have found on KU, but I have nights (yup, I went there!) where I want to read my trustee Kennedy Fox and Vanessa Vale books again. I need some hot cowboys in my life and for some odd reason I haven’t found my way out of the trend.

I would like to get back into books I’ve stopped earlier in the year–they were White Oleander by Janet Finch and Outlander by Diana Gabaldon. I’d really like to finish a couple others as well, but we’ll have to see what I will be in the mood for in the next half of the year.

I found this really cute bookshelf template on Pinterest a couple of months ago, and I decided to put some of the books I have read after I published my review of, I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jeanette McCurdy in April. I also try to have an overview template on my Instagram and Facebook at the end of each month. I’ve included the person who created the bookshelf in the caption, so you can do something similar with Aileen’s designs.

If you decide to do this tag on your blog or YouTube channel after checking out my post, leave me your link below in the comments. I’d love to see what you’ve been into so far this year.

Are you into doing book tags? Which one was your favorite? For those who are not into it, why do you dislike about them?

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Book Review: “Shield-Maiden: Under the Dark Moon” by Melanie Karsak

Published on by gotmeghan1 Comment

Hello!

This July saw me end two books and their respected series, the first was Melanie Karsak’s “The Road to Valhalla” set and it wasn’t an easy thing to accomplish because I really enjoyed the familiarity of the characters and the Norse mythology as a whole, but once I hit 75% I knew I would try to finish the book in one go–it didn’t quite happen that way of course!–as I royally screwed up my sleep schedule for it, but I will explain more about this at the end of the post.

Since this is the end of the series, I have decided to share my Spotify playlist dedicated to these characters and the overall aesthetic. Click here to begin listening to it. Funnily enough, this wasn’t the only thing I created in the midst of reading all five books, I even made its own Pinterest board! So, if you would like to visit that one as well, you should click here for that one!

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For Odin’s chosen, all roads lead to Valhalla.

With Gudmund dead, Hervor and Hofund are crowned queen and king of Grund. The pair soon discover that ruling a Viking land is not without difficulty. Enemies from without and within threaten the new rulers. While her dreams are the same, Hervor’s future becomes unclear. The gods have grown silent. Only Skadi whispers to Hervor now, and all her words are warnings. A dark moon is rising. Hervor must learn to rely on her inner strength to protect her family and face the tumultuous path the Norns have woven for her.

Dive into the thrilling final chapter of the Road to Valhalla series! Fans of Vikings and The Last Kingdom will love the Shield-Maiden: Under the Dark Moon by New York Times bestseller Melanie Karsak.

taken from Goodreads.

Since I started reading the final Harry Potter book at the same time as this one, I quickly realized there was one similar element to each story, you knew from the beginning they were to end. The characters themselves were evolving as you continued on through each chapter and as a reader, you knew very quickly, every emotion was going to hit you hard. This was definitely true with “Under the Dark Moon” as we moved on through time as Hervor grew into a strong individual – not saying she wasn’t in the other four books!

She is wife, mother, shield-maiden, and queen now.

As we left “Under the Blood Moon”, we entered the tender years as the princes (and princess!) of Grund went from babies to young men in their own right. Previously, we witnessed the birth of the younger son, Prince Angantyr born on Grund, and we were allowed to watch the sons of Hervor and Hofund reach their destinies and for Angantyr, it was an easy arrangement, whereas Heidrek was a totally different story. This was another thing you noticed once we jumped further in time a few years and you saw the boys in different personalities, while one was gentle and patient, the other was cunning and full of rage.

On the other side of that, you saw other beloved characters like Svafa find love again. Jarl Lief and Lady Eydis and their brood change with the times. Thorolf and Thyri expand their family, and Princess Blomma become more than just a foster-daughter and older sister to her family and friends. And of course, we see even more of Lady Revna too. Oh, how the Norns weave this woman and her web of victims. Lastly, there was one final character whose own chapter slowly ending too. the much-adored wolf of Bolmsö, Rök. I swear I cried mostly for him! His death was as difficult for Hervor as it was on me too. Honestly, that whole scene about killed me!

Despite the fact this book didn’t have that many battle scenes, there was one new character that was interesting on both sides, and it was Aquippa. He was a capture thrall (or slave) sent to be auctioned off at the marketplace in Grund, until Hervor used her role of Queen to her advantage as warriors would raid throughout the world, they brought back more than gold and silver, they also made it rich to sell people to work. This was common to when the Europeans stole the Africans from their native homeland and customs.

For Hervor to do this though was huge! It wasn’t that big of a surprise to us as she’d be vocal about keeping thralls fairly early in the other books. I mean, Eydis was also thrall in Dalr and sent to work with Jarl Bjarmter’s family. She was a comfort to the lost Svafa, abused Hervor and secret lover to Leif. Eydis and Hervor had a strong connection to each other, and it was because of this that Hervor wished to see the end of this trait washed out to sea for good.

“All your life, your road has led to Valhalla.

Back to Aquippa though, he was a person of many different things for the royal family. He helped Hofund on his inventions and tutored Blomma, but I thought the most important thing about him was the fact he trusted Hervor so quickly, and told stories of how in other lands, there were people who believed in other gods. While this is going on, she starts to see Hervor almost question her own Gods, especially Loki towards, but it was apparent once she and Hofund freed the thralls that she wondered if this was truly a practice in the All-Father’s hall. I was very conflicted by this as she was very much relied on the guidance of Odin and Skadi, and once her communication with Odin disappeared, she was a different person in my eyes, and I still wonder if Melanie had written it that way for a reason.

On the very early morning of July 22nd, I was nearing the end of the story and I was very committed to finishing that night, but I couldn’t get everything that happened in that hour for me to calm myself fully, so I sat back up at 3:30am to complete the rest of the book. A part of me still thinks I should have waited because I was exhausted while writing this review! Anyways, the ending was tough, but I will say, this was my first proper ending compared to the first series I read by Melanie last year. Highland Queen never had an end to the characters and their situations, and I am still furious about it, but this made up for it completely, because I did the whole ugly cry in the darkness of my room! I keep telling myself this was better to get everything out at that moment then waiting until later that day and my parents seeing me with puffy, red eyes and tears streaming down my face. I was such a mess, but it was also needed as I wanted to grieve for these characters, and I was happy I was able to do that this time around.

Have you read “Shield-Maiden: Under the Dark Moon” by Melanie Karsak yet? For those who have, what were favorite parts of the final book? Did you break down as much as I did for that ending? Let me know in the comments section below!

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Book Review: “This Is War” by Kennedy Fox

Published on by gotmeghan3 Comments

Hello!

May has been a really successful reading month for me! I don’t know how I did it but I managed to finish three books and a novella that I don’t want to talk about, because I didn’t really enjoy it that much. However, thanks to awful read, I have completed 10 books for 2021! I am really hoping they are all awesome and I thoroughly enjoy them!

This book is still technically a mystery to me, but before this, I had never read a book by Kennedy Fox (who, I, quickly found out is two women masking as one person!) all I remember was looking up ‘free e-books’ on Instagram and coming across this cover and the one for their other book called “Baby Mine” and I decided to go for it at the last minute and I am forever grateful because I really loved this story, even though it was a bit of a cliché.

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She hates him.
He loves getting under her skin.

Travis King is the worst kind of asshole.
He taunts me for being a good girl and mocks my high standards.
He’s cruel, crass, and has enough confidence to last two lifetimes.
And I hate him.

It wouldn’t matter so much if he were avoidable.
But considering he’s my older brother’s best friend and roommate, I see him more than I’d ever want to. His sculpted abs and gorgeous eyes are wasted on such an arrogant man, which makes me hate him even more.

Even though I’ve had a crush on him since I was ten, the feelings weren’t mutual and he’s made that very clear. He’s always loved getting under my skin and one night against my better judgment, I let him in my bed. I’ve succumbed to his man whore ways, but that doesn’t change a thing.

Because the King is about to get played at his own game—and lose.

Checkmate, King.

taken from Goodreads.

I am the type of reader that judges a book by its cover, and when the main genre is romance, I am usually really picky because I don’t like to be misled and this cover was so tempting that I didn’t even wait five minutes after it finished downloading to my Kindle before I dug into it to see what all the fuss was about, and I definitely do not regret it either! For my first Kennedy Fox book, this was very promising and that truly is a good thing because I have two others by them as well that I plan on reading this summer!

A part of me was crushed that the plot was sort of a cliché.

Travis and Viola have a history, that started out cool and friendly, and then all hell broke loose for these two people. Travis King thinks of himself as sort of a sex god, and Viola is the nerd with old wounds and self-esteem issues and younger sister to Travis’s best friend Drew. My favorite part of these two characters were the snappy comebacks they would throw at each other. I couldn’t stop laughing at them! I always enjoy the little banters that go on in romance books, and what made it even better is that they’ve done it so much to each other over a 10 year span so whenever they start to have sex, they continue with their jokes and it is literally perfect!

Hello player, meet the game.

If it wasn’t for the wonderfully written sex scenes, I would have had a difficult time finishing the actual book. Honestly, there is a scene that occurs before they get it on and it comes up again later on, but we don’t get to really know what goes on and I thought it was such a viable part of the story between these two that I was kind of mad about it. As hot as the Challenger scene is, I would have loved to skip it and been on what takes place there, you know? This would be the only thing I would have changed about the entire storyline but I can live with it though.

Now we have to discuss the ending. I am usually not a huge fan of cliffhangers with these types of books, but this one really worked and has me thinking about what the hell happened in the last 12 hours before it happens. I will say I am hoping Travis didn’t do anything that stupid, but I don’t know exactly how to get him out of getting in trouble with the most important people in his life either. I am going to take a break from this series for a little bit and get back into it in the peak of summer because this was a definitely summertime type of book for me.

Sidenote: While I was attempting to finish this book last Saturday, I had my dad coming into my room to check on me every fucking five minutes and I have to say, I thought he was such a buzzkill, but it wasn’t until I was like four pages to finish that Nolan came over for a visit. I had to take an hour timeout because I did not want to think about Travis fucking King while my almost three year old nephew was showing me his new sandbox toys! I thought you might enjoy or get a laugh at the crazy interruptions.

Have you read “This Is War” by Kennedy Fox before? If you have, what were some of your thoughts on it? Without giving away what happens in the second book, could you give some insight about what happens after the cliffhanger?

Get Ahead Of Myself

Published on by gotmeghan2 Comments

So I’m doing something new today, I’m up and in my chair and using my sister’s playlist account to listen to music we don’t have yet on iTunes. I hope she won’t mind as long as I don’t add anything on her playlist. I’m getting ahead of myself today. Actually I’m getting good at doin things ahead instead of a day before like I did in school, but hey whenever I did that in school I got it done and usually got a good grade on it.

Since I got a Kindle yesterday for my birthday I thought I’d look at some prices on Amazon, and I even moved the other chair with the smaller wheels on it and scooted it over by me and lucky me there is a notebook on this messy desk. Finding a pen was easy since there’s like a thousand of them up here. I wrote down nine books I really wanted and got on my blog to check titles and author names. Then I went on Amazon to find some books, and found eight of the nine, and they’re all cheap until you go to total them up.

My total was $56.28 and I don’t have enough money for them all. So I think tonight I am going to look them all up and see which ones I really want. I know two that I really want. Dancing Lessons: How I Found Passion and Potential on the Dance Floor of Life by Cheryl Burke. My Secret Garden by Nancy Friday. I think I should get those and start those and go from there because I really don’t want to spend all of my birthday on books. I have a different state of mind since yesterday. So we’ll see how it all goes this weekend. Wish me luck!