Kelley Armstrong - Author Interview.

Any one who knows anything about my blog or me personally will know I am a huge fan of Kelley Armstrong. Discovering her adult fantasy series Women of the Otherworld really pushed me towards having to share good books, and thus start blogging, and I would not hesitate to recommend her books to anyone!


So you can imagine my excitement after a cheeky email to Kelley Armstrong via her assistant came back with a fantastic little interview. So without further ado, I present to you an interview with THE Kelley Armstrong about the Women of the Otherworld series, its final book '13' and what comes next....

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It is well known that Bitten was written as a stand alone novel, and then expanded into a series. But I was wondering what was you inspiration for the first book and how did you come to expand it for the rest of the series?

When I wrote Bitten, my goal was to create the kind of werewolves I wanted to read about.  The idea was sparked by seeing an X-Files episode on werewolves.  As much as I liked the show, I didn’t care for their version of werewolves, which were the typical man-killing monsters. I’d always been fascinated by the idea of combining humans and wolves, and that show gave me an excuse to write a story about that kind of werewolf.

When the question of turning Bitten into a series came up, I gave it a lot of thought. As much as I loved the stories and characters, I couldn't imagine writing a long series about just werewolves.  I decided to instead create a linked series with changing narrators/protagonists.  In the second book, Stolen, I introduced other supernatural characters, and spun off to one of them--a witch--for the next novel.

You have mentioned on your website that you and the character of Elena share the same year of birth. Would you say the character is based on yourself? Or is that where the similarity ends?

All my characters have a trait or two in common with me.  That just makes them easier to write.  With Elena, she's my age, from my geographic area, with my education level, etc, which made it easy for me to get into her head as my first narrator.  Paige and I share a common interest in computers (I was a programmer) so I could easily write that part of her life and personality.  Eve and I both have daughters around the same age, so that part of her character came naturally. Even my teen characters share something in common with me. But it’s only a trait or two. Ninety-five percent of their character is very different from me!

Are any of the other characters based on people you know?

None of them are based on anyone I know. I pull bits and pieces from everywhere--friends, family, acquaintances--and mix it together.

What can we expect from the final book in the series, Thirteen?

I’m going to answer that with a quote from the book that one of my publishers used. 

“Anything you thought you knew about our world? Forget it. Someone has tossed out the rulebook. Ghosts can cross the divide. Hell-hounds can manifest. Demi-demons can possess living children. And it’s not going to get any better until it’s over.” 

As you might guess from that, 13 is my Otherworld upheaval book, when everyone comes together to fight the biggest threat they’ve faced.

Is this really the end of the Women of the Otherworld series? I am so sad to see it end!

I do hope to write more stories—and maybe even a future novel or two—but I’m ending the book-a-year schedule and launching a new adult series.

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I think you will agree these are some fantastic answers. I did get very excited when I first saw them in my email inbox. With just over a month until the release of Thirteen (July 24th) I had to share them with you. And with the announcement she is writing a new adult series I am over the moon!

If you want to know more about Kelley Armstrong you can check out her website, Goodreads profile or read the other blog posts I have written about both her, the Women of the Otherworld series, Darkest Powers or Darkness Rising series. 

Thank you for reading,

Love Rie x

Bookish Wonders #3

Post #3 in my bookish wonders series is all about book shelves. Ever since I have been on Pinterest I have fallen in love with some truly amazing ways to display books! Here is just some of the ones I have found.

Staircase book shelf... or a books shelf staircase?

Door book case, the classic hidden door re-invented!

Or why not a whole wall book case?

Another book case staircase, super cute!

You would have to make a matching stool to reach these books!

Somewhere to rest your cuppa whilst reading. 

A fab little reading chair.

Tree bookcase, great for children's bedrooms.

For when the books just no longer fit in doors!

Or when the outside has to come in!

If all else fails just make them float on the walls!

In the comments I would love to see any book shelves you have seen that you love, or even better how you creatively store your books!

Thanks for reading,

Love Rie x

The Calling by Kelley Armstrong - Book Review

Non stop, action packed and  fantastic addition to the YA series by Kelly Armstrong.

Summary courtesy of KelleyArmstrong.com: Maya Delaney’s paw-print birthmark is the sign of what she truly is—a skin-walker. She can run faster, climb higher, and see better than nearly anyone else. Experiencing intense connections with the animals that roam the woods outside her home, Maya knows it’s only a matter of time before she’s able to Shift and become one of them. And she believes there may be others in her small town with surprising talents.

This second book in the YA series, Darkness Rising, doesn't need to start with a bang. The bang has already happened at the end of the first book in the series, The Gathering , and this starts if it was only a turn of a page rather than a new book. As a companion series to her other YA series Darkest Powers, they compliment each other perfectly, throwing in inter-textual references left, right and centre from both Darkest Powers and her adult fantasy series Women of the Otherworld, this is a real treat for Armstrong fans.

Maya Delaney is soon becoming one of my favourite YA protagonists. Strong willed, talented and a skin-walker. What more do you need to look up to? Superbly written the love triangle in the book is just on the right side of teenage awkward without being overly predictable. Rafe is troubled, invincible and most of all hot for a 15 year old! But with a minor revelation at the end of this book I feel that the relationship may develop in a way I have never imagined before.

As this group of teens struggle to find out who, or what, they really are they are forced to flee for their lives with no one to trust. There is something about this narrative that I really fell in love with, and I can't wait to see where the next instalment will take us next.

Not read any of Kelley Armstrongs YA fiction before? What are you waiting for! My recommendation would be to start with the Darkest Powers series, and work your way to this companion series. Although I don't doubt you will enjoy it as a stand alone novel, its well worth the wait to understand all the complexities and inter-textual references.

Overall I have got really fan girl over this book. In my mind YA fiction doesn't get much better than this!

10/10!

Let me know in the comments below what you think of this book? Think you have a better YA series I will like, let me know!

Thanks for reading,

Love Rie x

Snow White and The Huntsman - Film Review

This epic twist on the classic fairy tale pulls in some big name actors and used a colossal budget to bring a dark fantasy to life in the world around Snow White.

In a twist to the fairy tale, the Huntsman ordered to take Snow White into the woods to be killed winds up becoming her protector and mentor in a quest to vanquish the Evil Queen.

There is very little left of the original Snow White in this movie but it works to its advantage. Sleeping princesses are so last year and Kristien Stewart plucks the young girl from the fairy tale and turns her into a grown women. Although what is left is done really well. The evil queen, played by Charlize Theron, steals the show with some fantastic acting and special effects that took my breath away! The seven Dwarves were also present but in a different capacity and I was reminded of The Hobbit in their battle style journey.

The additions to the original tale were welcome. I am particularly fond on the Huntsman, played by Chris Hemsworth who was both devilishly attractive and a fantastic addition to the cast.The fantasy world director Rupert Sanders created, from the castle, to the black forest and the land of the fairies was magical, and without the aids of 3D it was a perfect mix of special effects and narrative. In particular I fell in love with the fairies, whose small white furry bodies were comparable to Avatars on a much smaller scale, and are creepy yet adorable. There are a number of creatures such as moss covered tortoises and a beautiful white stag in this scene that make it not the most eventful, but one of my most memorable.

Yet the two hour long movie, that I must add flew by, seemed rushed in places. There were a number of characters that I felt were under developed namely the Dwarves and the character of the Huntsman. The characters of William and Finn on the other hand superfluous. The romance I felt rushed and pretty non-existent, with true loves first kiss nothing more than an average monologue. 

Overall if asked to recommend a movie to watch in the cinema tonight I would say Snow White and the Huntsman. It is a dark fantasy masterpiece of fairy tale origins that is worth the watch. 

7/10

Want to know more you can visit the micro site and or take a look at the trailer: 

In the comments below let me know what you thought of Snow White and the Huntsman!

Thanks for reading,

Love Rie x

Metro 2033 by Dmitry Glukhovsky - Book Review

Today I have a guest book review for your from my good friend Ross Phillips. He has done a number of reviews for my blog now, and has slightly different tastes in books so can give you another perspective from me gushing about hot vampires! I do intended to get round to reading all these little gems and give my perspective too, so look out for my comments at a later date!


Without further ado I will hand you over to Ross:

Metro 2033 by Dmity Glukhovsky

"The year is 2033. The world has been reduced to rubble. Humanity is nearly extinct. The half-destroyed cities have become uninhabitable through radiation. Beyond their boundaries, they say, lie endless burned-out deserts and the remains of splintered forests. Survivors still remember the past greatness of humankind. But the last remains of civilisation have already become a distant memory, the stuff of myth and legend. More than 20 years have passed since the last plane took off from the earth. Rusted railways lead into emptiness. The ether is void and the airwaves echo to a soulless howling where previously the frequencies were full of news from Tokyo, New York, Buenos Aires. Man has handed over stewardship of the earth to new life-forms. Mutated by radiation, they are better adapted to the new world. Man's time is over. A few score thousand survivors live on, not knowing whether they are the only ones left on earth. They live in the Moscow Metro - the biggest air-raid shelter ever built. It is humanity's last refuge. Stations have become mini-statelets, their people uniting around ideas, religions, water-filters - or the simple need to repulse an enemy incursion. It is a world without a tomorrow, with no room for dreams, plans, hopes. Feelings have given way to instinct - the most important of which is survival. Survival at any price. VDNKh is the northernmost inhabited station on its line. It was one of the Metro's best stations and still remains secure. But now a new and terrible threat has appeared. Artyom, a young man living in VDNKh, is given the task of penetrating to the heart of the Metro, to the legendary Polis, to alert everyone to the awful danger and to get help. He holds the future of his native station in his hands, the whole Metro - and maybe the whole of humanity. "

This book is a bit of a departure for me as I usually stay away from the whole post-apocalyptic genre as in my experience books in such a setting tend to be either gritty depressing trudges through a ruined version of whatever part of the world the author happens to know best, or wholey unrealistic frag-fests which are all action and take no account of pratical difficulty or plot.

So when a friend bought me Metro 2033 as a present purely on the fact it was set in Russia (and I'm a well know Russophile) I was skeptical, having put it off for months on end I finally decided to get on with it and to my utter shock I actually quite enjoyed it.

The world Dmitry has created within the Moscow subway system (of which there is a VERY handy map inside the cover) is completly engaging, with threats of all variety around every corner from zealot political cults to mutants to the downright paranormal let alone the radiation and chemical threats.

There is a very real sense of the well characterised Artyom being a very small, delicate cog in a very big, broken machine. Action is well paced and the tension in some scenes is almost palpable. Supporting characters are very human indeed with almost the whole book highlighting just how fragile humans are both physically and mentally and that the survival of humanity is by no means a safe bet.

If I've got any real issues with this book it comes mostly from that fact its Russian. Cyrillic languages are notoriously hard to translate effectively and while on the whole its perfectly readable there are odd phrases and sentences that seem a bit 'odd' (for want of a better word), a bit like when you run something through Google translater, what might be a comon enough phrase in Russian doesn't come out right when directly translated to English.

Another small niggle is that while the districs and subway stations of Moscow may be familiar to the people who have been/lived there it has the tendancy to get slightly confusing for those of us with no knowledge of Moscow.

So all things considered I think you could sum this book up by saying that it's a good book thats tad spoiled by its localisation.

7.8/10 (shall we call it an 8!)

Irriatingly there is a sequal (Metro 2034) but so far i cant find any copies in English. German, Spanish and French yes but apparantly a real niche Language like English doesn't get a translation . . . . understandable, its not like English is the 3rd most Spoken langauge in the world or anything . . .


Thanks for reading,


Love Ross & Rie x

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green - Book Review

An emotional roller coaster that has changed my perspective on life.

Summary Courtesy of Amazon : 

Despite the tumor-shrinking medical miracle that has bought her a few years, Hazel has never been anything but terminal, her final chapter inscribed upon diagnosis. But when a gorgeous plot twist named Augustus Waters suddenly appears at Cancer Kid Support Group, Hazel's story is about to be completely rewritten.

I asked to borrow this book of my brother's other half (and friend :)) Louise when I saw her talking about it on Facebook. Just days later I was presented with a signed hardback copy of this book with a smile. I didn't know anything about it, I am not even sure I read the back of the book fully before I started it but this book gripped me and made me think about life in a way I never have before.

Yes I knew the books protagonist, Hazel, had terminal cancer but this book is more than cancer, more than an illness but something I can really relate to - a book. The Imperial Affliction. The book that finished halfway through a

I knew that a book on this topic would include a lot of emotions, but it wasn't the ones I expected. I fell in love with Hazel and Gus and their travels to find out answers about this book. I laughed, and I cried... a lot! But when it finished, in a twist I didn't even think of, I was not sad. It made me stop and think. I was happy that the characters could now be happy.

It is one of those books that I cannot talk about fully in a review, because I want you all to beg, borrow and purchase this book yourselves and experience it. John Green, I am now convinced, is a fantastic writer and you don't read his words off a page, you experience them.

I finished this book in record time, even though at one point as I sobbed in my puzzled boyfriend's arms that it was too sad to finish. But I am so glad I read this book. As I have seen in other reviews even writing about this book is sad, I am tearing up thinking about different sections. But I still urge you to read this book to find out why.

Ironically just a day after I finished this book I travelled to Amsterdam, and lets just say I couldn't travel to Anne Frank's house for fear of bursting into tears on the top floor!

This is not normally a book I would read, I like fantasy, demons, vampires and werewolves. But I enjoyed it just as much because the style was so effortless and the narrative to emotion packed. Because of this I will score it among some of my favourite books as being:

9/10 (lost 1 mark because I am still crying!)

I want to know, in the comments below what you thought of this book. Please tell me other people cried! What should be my next read from John Green?

Thank you all for reading,

Love Rie x

Reading in the Sun!

As some of you will already know I finished my three year degree this week. Capped off with an a pretty good exam I feel great, and not too sad, that I am leaving this chapter off my life now! The last few days I have just been laying in the sun in my local park reading which has been fantastic! We have been having a little mini heat wave here and it has made perfect sun bathing whilst reading conditions.

So I think I Would give you a short low down what I have been reading and what will be coming next. Think of   it as a What are you reading Wednesday, but on Saturday!

Dragonquest by Anne McCaffrey

This is the #2 book in the dragon riders of Pern series. I have done a mini review of this over on Facebook but basically I love it. I gave it an 8/10 because it has an amazing narrative, some quick arse characters and a fantastic fantasy world. Its big down fall is being quite complicated with about double the amount of characters that I feel I can take in to start with. But once I got my head round all the different name I loved it, and I can't wait to get started on the next ones (and I have three of them to read by next Monday if I am to keep Mr Phillips happy!).

No Good Deed by Bill Blais

I was sent this as part of an up and coming blog tour but I couldn't help but sneak in what I thought of sooner. I have done an interview with Bill earlier this month and I was really excited with the promise "My goal is to give readers something they haven't had from the genre to date" (Blais. 2012). He was not wrong, this fantasy is a little bit more grown up, and little bit more complex and a little bit more awesome. Full review to come in July!

The Calling by Kelley Armstrong

This book was part of my Teaser Tuesday this week, when I had only just started it. I am reading a couple of books at the moment, which is the only reason I haven't had time to finish it. Reading a Armstrong book is like coming home, this one is from her YA series Darkness Rising but the style is so easy to read and so familiar that it would be fantastic if she was writing about bin bags. Yet the narrative is also awesome and action packed! The first chapter leads straight on from The Gathering at a staggering pace and the first quarter of the book is so action packed I was left catching my breath! 

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

This book was lent to me Miss Dombey more than a few weeks about and I hadn't found time to read it. But as it was such a glorious day yesterday I thought that I would leave the Kindle at home for a day and read this instead. My gosh it is such a fast read. I have power through 3/4 of it in less than 24 hours and I am sure I will be done by the end of today. I can tell its going to get emotional but I fear there will be a twist before I reach the end!


What's coming next:

Dragonsong by Anne McCaffrey

Dragonsinger by Anne McCaffrey

Let me know in the comments below what you will be reading this weekend and what is coming up next!

Thanks, as always, for reading,

Love Rie x