August Reading Round-off

Good morning chaps! I know it has been a while since I posted on this blog but I have to own up to be being busy with a new blog that I've been setting up to talk about my writing and studying for the next year. So you won't see any more Writing Ray posts on this blog, instead they will be over on my new wordpress blog Ray May Write where I will also be posting about my experience studying two Open University modules at the same time.
While I know it won't appeal to everyone, I hope that some folk who may be interested in some of the things that crop up from studying a Creative Writing or French course might consider heading over there and following the blog. I am going to try and make my posts both interesting and informative :P

Right now that bit's over let's turn to this month's reading. It was a decent month compared to previous this year. 12 Books were read although there were 5 re-reads. BUT I will defend myself by pointing out that two *had* to be read before Isla came out! And another needed to be re-read before I read the second book since it had been a few years.

Books read in August
77. The Masterful Mr Montague by Stephanie Laurens (1/8/2014 AM)
78. A Rake's Vow by Stephanie Laurens (1/8/2014 AM) *RE-READ*
79. The Library of Unrequited Love by Sophie Divry (7/8/2014 PM)
80. Anna & the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins (7/8/2014 PM) *RE-READ*
81. Lola & the Boy Next Door by Stephanie Perkins (8/8/2014 AM) *RE-READ*
82. Blood Red Road by Moira Young (8/8/2014 PM) *RE-READ*
83. Rebel Heart by Moira Young (13/8/2014 PM)
84. Isla & the Happily Ever After by Stephanie Perkins (14/8/2014 PM)
85. Roomies by Sara Zarr & Tara Altebrando (16/8/2014 AM)
86. Tribute by Ellen Renner (24/8/2014 AM)
87. Ruin & Rising by Leigh Bardugo (26/8/2014 AM)
88. Ultraviolet by R.J. Anderson (28/8/2014 PM) *RE-READ*

Book of the Month

This is going to be an easy decision because it's the book everyone has been waiting for since they read the first page of Anna & the French Kiss. After a wait that was a bit longer than we expected we finally got our mitts on Isla and the Happily Ever After on August 14th. Except it didn't go quite to plan since the UK pre-orders didn't get dispatched from Amazon so I had a very angry rant on Twitter before buying the e-book and devouring that instead. 

Stephanie is a sorceress I'm telling you - her words are pure magic and her characters make you laugh, cry, lust and generally FEEL ALL THE THINGS! Isla and Josh pulled me through a wringer of emotions, the ups had me grinning like a fool in love while the downs had me almost clutching my heart in the shared agony. It was a sublime ending to this trilogy of connected awesomeness and I am desperately awaiting whatever Stephanie writes next (Although I know she's got a short story coming out as part of the My True Love Gave to Me book which looks to be AMAZEBALLS).

Honourable Mention for Leigh Bardugo's Ruin & Rising (Grisha #3) the final book in her epic YA fantasy trilogy. It also had me running the gamut of feels and finished in a way that I hadn't really expected but really loved all the same. 

I had the really amazing opportunity to meet Leigh along with Moira Young (Author of Blood Red Road) when they did a Writing Q&A event at Birmingham Waterstones earlier this month. It was a fantastic day and I heard some excellent writing advice, even plucked up the courage to ask my own question and also got to chat books and writing with awesome folk. Jess did a great write-up of the event over here.

The week before that event Jess and I were in Birmingham for the David Levithan event. He did some readings from his new(ish) book Two Boys Kissing as well as answering questions from Steve Camden (Author of Tape) and the audience. It was at this signing that David told us that if we coming to see Leigh next week that we should ask her about her High school mascot. Me and Lily  of Whispering of the Pages actually asked Leigh about it as she was signing our books - her reaction went something like the pic below, followed by a vow to punch David in the face next time she saw time :P I also think that David had told fans at his Liverpool event to ask Leigh about it as well since she was tweeting after her event there about needing dirt on him stat. *hehehehe*

So it was a pretty awesome month since as well as going to these two events with Jess, I also went to see Brandon Sanderson (Author of the Mistborn trilogy and more recently the Stormlight Archives) in Nottingham with Le Boyf. He did some readings from a new book that is coming out soon as well as one from the third Stormlight book. I don't know what happened in that one since I had to go stand outside with the other naughty kids who hadn't read Words of Radiance yet since it would be spoilerific *hangs head*. Afterwards he signed books and I schlepped up with eight of the nine books that I own (fucking forgot the first half of the Way of Kings like an idiot) and got them signed, some personalised to me and some to Le Boyf since we've both read almost all of his books.

September is going to be a quieter month I think in terms of bookish things, I'll be gearing up towards starting my OU modules and there are no more author events for the time being so I gotta get to work.

Hope everyone had a good August, summer is nearly over!

Ray x

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Book Review - The Final Empire

I've got a little bit behind on reviews (mostly because I've read like 5 books in a week so it's my own fault really) so the next week will have several reviews going up. Starting with this one.

Title: The Final Empire (Mistborn #1)
Author: Brandon Sanderson
Date: 10/1/2011 PM
Source: Gift
Description: For a thousand years the ash fell and no flowers bloomed. For a thousand years the Skaa slaved in misery and lived in fear. For a thousand years the Lord Ruler, the Sliver of Infinity, reigned with absolute power and ultimate terror, divinely invincible. Then, when hope was so long lost that not even its memory remained, a terribly scarred, heart-broken half-Skaa rediscovered it in the depths of the Lord Rulers most hellish prison. Kelsier snapped and found in himself the powers of a Mistborn. A brilliant thief and natural leader, he turned his talents to the ultimate caper, with the Lord Ruler himself as the mark. Kel's plan looks like the ultimate long shot, until luck brings a ragged girl named Vin into his life. Like him, she's a half-Skaa orphan, but she's lived a much harsher life. Vin has learned to expect betrayal from everyone she meets, and gotten it. She will have to learn to trust, if Kel is to help her master powers of which she never dreamed. (Description taken from Goodreads)


My Review
I'd been hearing about this trilogy for a while when I asked for it for Christmas, I'd heard only good things and as far as Epic Fantasy series go - this is one of the great ones. 600+ pages has never seemed so short. I almost read this in one sitting - only the fact that I was utterly shattered and my eyes were sore as hell stopped me from reading it straight through the night.


The premise of the series is a complete 180 on the usual Epic Fantasy story - in the Mistborn trilogy the Hero who was Foretold *didn't* succeed and the Dark Lord actually won and took control of a vast continent, ruling for 1000 years and slowly suppressing the Skaa (peasant) population until all rebellion, all thought of freedom, hope and individuality had been crushed out of them. The Lord Ruler has moulded what was once a vast collection of separate nations each with their own unique religion and culture into one unified and Final Empire.


Along with a fantastic idea comes an even more brilliant magic system. Sanderson has created a system called Allomancy where the Mistborn (those gifted with these powers) swallow and "burn" certain metals each producing a different power that can affect either the internal or external world. There are 8 basic metals and 2 Higher metals and only the Mistborns (whom are very rare) can burn all the metals. There are Mistings who can burn just one metal although those are still fairly uncommon. I loved how complex and well-though out the Allomancy was and what's even greater is that we don't fully know about all aspects of the magic by the end of this book and we have no idea how or when it appeared so I'm really looking forward to learning more in the later books.


Now to actually talk about the characters! I will say that apart from the 2 main characters and 2 or 3 of the secondary characters most of the characterisation was limited although on the whole that didn't really affect the story's quality. Kelsier is the first character we meet and he is glaringly different to the impression of the Skaa that we get within the first chapter or two. He's bold, intelligent and bizarrely cheerful for a man who really should be dead. Throughout the book he keeps surprising us with his mad schemes and more vulnerable sides so we almost can never predict what he is planning to do next. 


Vin is the young Skaa girl who trusts no one, expects betrayal at every turn and is completely taken aback when Kelsier strides into her life and tells her that she is a Mistborn. I really understood her wariness to entrust her safety to a group of thieves when her whole life has been blighted by the people who should love her the most, betraying her trust. As she starts to learn to control her Mistborn skills she becomes pretty bad-ass - I mean it is damn cool to be able to jump from building to building without ever touching down whilst wearing an uber-floaty ribbony cloak. It's a really great, vivid image like a wraith drifting silently through the mists.


I found the story fascinating and I loved finding out little titbits about what the world used to be like before the Ascension of the Lord Ruler. Although we don't find out in this first book what happened to cause the Ashmounts (that's volcanoes in common parlance :P) to erupt and cover the continent in ash for centuries, I'm hopeful that more about the history of the world will be revealed when I read the next book. The Mistborn battles were amazing, you really got a impression of all the metal flying about the combatants- if anyone was brave enough to make this trilogy into a series of films then those scenes would the most epic to watch.


Overall I have very little, if anything to complain about. I loved the premise, the magic system, the characters were fab, the main plotline for this book was resolved nicely although I'm still anxious to know more about the world and I have a feeling that something big is coming in the second book Well of Ascension. If big Epic Fantasy novels are your bag then this is a must-read, even if they're not I say it's still worth picking this up because you might be pleasantly surprised at how fast those pages fly by!


My Rating: 4.5 Stars out of 5


Eek that rambled on a bit - apologies I shall try and cut down the waffle on my next review which hopefully will be up tomorrow so keep and eye out for that!


Anyways ta-ra for now!
LadyV  

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