Bookish Wonders #5

Today's Bookish Wonders post is all about edible book related fun :)

I have always known that for those of us that are self confessed Book Worms, we have no shame in investing our lives in it.Us unfortunatly we cannot live off books along, we need to invest our passion in everything we do. Hence you will see my previous posts on how to store your books, so you can look at them even when you are not reading them, and even book jewellry so everyone can know your a book worm :)

Now I have been introduced to the world of Book related food. It was this picture that popped up on Facbook of some delicious looking Cake Toppers that stormed my world and since book related food can be found where ever I look!!

Book Toppers by Victoria's Kitchen

Harry Potter sparked of a revolution in more than just getting children to read. She introduced a wealth of possible mechanising opportunities. Now the films have drawn to a close... you can now reminisce by eating the sweets we have heard about in both the book and the movie.

Edible books.... via Pinterest.

Green Eggs and Ham Party Food... via Pinterest.

This one is slightly more creative... In the Hunger Games book, whilst in the arena Katnis and Peeta eat bread spread with goats cheese topped with apple slices as an offering from the crowds. The goats cheese was significant to Katniss as it reminded her of Prim's goat. However this is a cake!! Slices of cake topped with goats cheese frosting and apple slices! How cool.. well I thought so. You can see some other super creative Hunger games food over on Confessions of  a Cookbook Queen.

And to finish the slightly more predictable, but still awesome, book shaped cake... via Pinterest.

Seen, or made any of your own book themed food? Please send me the link or a photo and I will add it on here to share with the world :) 

Thanks for reading,

Love Rie x

Secrets by Dawn Kirby - Book Reivew

A gem for fans of the supernatural fantasy genre, whilst bringing something new to the table. Secrets has everything you could want and more besides!

Secrets by Dawn Kirby - 1st book in the Serenity series.
Summary: It is said that the truth will set you free, but for Leah it kills.

Leah always knew she was different. From her extreme light sensitivity, to her ability to read people by their auric scent, she kept these differences secret.

Not even Mia, Leah's mother, knew the fullness of her daughter's differences, but she held even greater secrets to Leah's past - the truth about her father and Leah's conception. 

With the escape of an old foe, Mia is too late to reveal to her daughter 

the truth before Judith can exact her revenge in a wash of blood and death.

Thrown into a world unheard of, Leah discovers that she is not alone in keeping her secrets. That there are people from her parent's past who would die to protect her.If she only knew why.

Raine, placed as her protector, hides deadly secrets of his own. Drawn to each other, Leah and Raine must uncover the truth before one of both are killed.

This new offering on the teen/adult supernatural fantasy genre will be a read treat for fans of the genre. I can seen teenage readers of series such as Twilight, True Blood and the House of the Night who have now grown up loving Secrets for its similar themes of romance mixed with secrets, danger and adventure - just like me.

Leah is the extraordinary protagonist who has supernatural powers coming out of her ears. Super hearing, being able to view people auroras, smell their personality (yes I do mean smell) and withstanding, and enjoying extreme heat at times seem like a little too much. But her weaknesses balance her out to be a character I grew to love through-out the book. Fans of supernatural and fantasy fiction will recognise the signs of different fictional races common within the genre, which I really enjoyed. Yet Leah's predicament in my reading experience still presenting something unique. 

Discovering Leah's secrets as the book progresses became an really enjoyable read for me. With my habit of reading more than one book at a time, it was great to have to read only two sentences to be absorbed back into narrative. With dramatic and shocking scenes holding a serious tone, the personalities and relationships growing between characters provided light release, delivering the romantic domestic scenes I really enjoy.

I did feel like more than a few of the events throughout the book were rather rushed, in particular the romantic developments between characters. Alongside this, the constant addition of characters, often with similar names, sometimes required some hard concentration to keep up with (yes I am speaking to you David, Donovan and Declan). The enemies were often just as numerous and their intertwining motivations becoming clear eventually.

Despite my mixed feelings about the character developments and rushed narrative, I truly enjoyed going to bed every night to just read a bit more before I went to sleep. The writing style is effortless to read providing much needed escapism into another world where vampires, werewolves and everything else in-between exists. 

Overall I give Secrets:

7/10

Secrets is not cheap, priced at just over £6 for the Kindle version on Amazon in the UK (and nearly $10 in the US) and more the the printed version - but I think it is one to put on your wishlist. I will defiantly be picking up the next book in the series regardless.

Thanks for reading,

Love Rie x

I was gifted this book to read and review as part of the Secrets blog tour organised by Illuminated Tours. 

13 by Kelley Armstrong - Book Review

This final book in the Women of the Otherworld series is all that fans could have wanted... and more! Action packed, fantastically written and some fab character development make this a 10/10!

13 by Kelley Armstrong - Final book in the Women of the Otherworld Series.
Summary courtesy of Amazon: War is coming to the Otherworld. A sinister cult known as The Supernatural Liberation Movement is hell-bent on exposing the truth about supernaturals to the rest of the world. Their violent, ruthless plan has put everyone at risk: from werewolves to vampires, from witches to half-demons.

This has easily been my most anticipated book release of all time. Over time I have done a number of posts on this series including reviews, reading challenges and even an interview with Kelley Armstrong herself (the highlight of my blogging life :D). This book as the final instalment in the Women of the Otherworld had a lot to live up to. Which it did - and more!

Released on Wednesday, my busy schedule meant I didn't get my hands on my copy (which was waiting for my at the post office) until the Sunday. I sat down with best friend and fellow Armstrong super fan, Sam Crossley, and devoured this book in pretty much one day. 

At 419 pages this is not a short book, but the hard back with a reasonable size font is easy to read. Having read everything published around the series we were also able to skip the first few chapters which were a re-publish of the opening chapter of Bitten, the first book in the series and a preview published in The Hunter and the Hunted. If you haven't read anything by Armstrong before, this wouldn't be a bad place to pick it up.

Each characters from all the previous books makes an appearance and readers are treated to some great character development.This action packed book pulls at the emotions with worry, loss and anger, but more importantly returning to the lust, romance and love amongst the characters that the latter books in the series have lacked.

The narrative moves so fast, but even so at just over the half way point I was baffled at how Armstrong was going to tie up all the loose ends.Yet the ending works fantastically. Not falling into the trap of trying to deliver too many happy endings the extra little short story From Russia with Love, in my opinion, was the perfect finish.

I am so sad that the series is over, but having been promised a new adult series, Omens & Shadows, with the first book Cainsville being released next year, there is so much to look forward too!

10/10

I would love to know your thoughts on this book if you have read it, please let me know in the comments below.

Thanks for reading,

Love Rie x