My Best Books of 2014!!

I meant to do this at least a week ago but I was a bit preoccupied by getting my Creative Writing assignment done.

I made a vlog of my Favourite books of 2014 earlier today which I'll embed below with the full list of books & authors mentioned. I also talk through the stats for my reading including the woeful lack of non-fiction books and the domination of YA in my reading (which is by no means a bad thing). The list isn't in any particular order but I rated them all as 5 Stars.



My Top Reads in 2014
The Forever Song by Julie Kagawa (Blood of Eden #3)
The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton
Unmade by Sarah Rees Brennan (Lynburn Legacy #3)
Heir of Fire by Sarah J. Maas (Throne of Glass #3)
Isla & the Happily Ever After by Stephanie Perkins
City of Heavenly Fire by Cassandra Clare (Mortal Instruments #6)
Dreams of Gods and Monsters by Laini Taylor (DoSaB #3)
Half Bad by Sally Green (Half Bad #1)
Ignite Me by Tahereh Mafi (Shatter Me #3)
Taste of Darkness by Maria V. Snyder (Avry of Kazan #3)

Honourable Mentions
Cress by Marissa Meyer (Lunar Chronicles #3)
A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness
Trial by Fire by Josephine Angelini
It's not you it's me by Mhairi McFarlane
Half Wild by Sally Green (Half Bad #2)

The above list is only a fraction of the really amazing books I read in 2014, there are loads of books that I read that I rated 4 & 4.5 stars which I would recommend but these happen to be my 5 Star Reads. The Full list of books that I read in 2014 can be accessed from the bar below the header.

Were any of these in your list of Top Books from 2014? Are you planning on reading some of these in 2015? Should I be looking out for certain books to read soon?

I shall hopefully blog again soon about... something, I don't know what yet. I have a worrying amount of work to do for my Open University modules over the next few months so I shall have to focus myself on those.

Happy Reading until next time!
Ray

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Reading Goals for 2015

I know I haven't yet done a post about my Top whatever-random-number books of 2014 or looked at my detailed reading stats but I'll get to that soonish. Today I wanted to lay down some of the Reading Goals for 2015 with the full expectation that I'll look back at the end of the year and realise I've completed none of them. But hey-ho let's do it anyway.

Reading Goals for 2015

1. Read 120 books - I've downgraded this massively from last year's goal of 150 because with me trying to finish my first draft of my novel I have spent a lot less time reading so having a large total of books to read is just not going to happen. Making it 120 is more manageable and I'll feel less like a failure if I only just reach it.

2. Re-reads need to be only 25% of the Reading Goal - I had 53 of my 2014 reads being re-reads which was about 42% of my overall total so I want to try and get that number down to only a quarter so based on my goal that means only re-reading 30 books in 2015. It'll be a challenge but I have more than enough unread books to go the whole year without re-reading but there are some thing that I just have to read annually :P

3. Read some Non-Fiction - I read literally no non-fiction in 2014, not a single book. So I'd like to read at least 1 book a month in 2015, two if possible since I got a lot of non-fiction books for Christmas and I have a lot in my collection.

4. Clear some old TBR titles - I have a worrisome amount of books that have been in my collection since before I started cataloging my library and recording my reading so I really would like to get to some of those ancient titles this year *coughTheBookThiefcough*.

5. If I have something to say about a book, write a review - Doesn't matter how long or short it is, if I get to the end of a book and want to say something about it I ought to get it written down and post it. Most of my thoughts on my reading in 2014 have been voiced during videos I put up on Youtube which comparatively few people see so I need to try and write some kind of actual review here that people can actually find.

I think those goals will be sufficient for the time being, I don't want to set myself loads of really specific challenges that I may not want to do when it comes round to it. I could say I  want to read more classics or some other new genre but I don't want to force myself to read certain books since it might feel too much like assigned reading.

What are some of your Reading Goals for 2015?

Laters
Ray

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4th Quarter Reading Round-off

Oops, I vanished off the face of the blogging planet again didn't I? Not only did I ignore my writing/studying blog but I also left this one to languish for 2-3 months. Sorry.
So I missed doing my Reading Round-offs for October & November, but I'm gonna chuck them in with my December reading now. It's not that many books when you realise that due to Nanowrimo (which I did attempt and failed again but not with such disastrous side-effects) I only read 5 books in all of November.

Here we go!

October
100. Misty Falls by Joss Stirling (1/10/2014 PM)
101. The Maze Runner by James Dashner (15/10/2014 AM) *RE-READ*
102. Talon by Julie Kagawa (15/10/2014 PM)
103. Unmade by Sarah Rees Brennan (17/10/2014 AM)
104. Famous in Love by Rebecca Serle (19/10/2014 AM)
105. Frozen (Heart of Dread) by Melissa de la Cruz & Michael Johnston (20/10/2014 AM)
106. Ghost of a Chance by Rhiannon Lassiter (21/10/2014 AM) *RE-READ*
107. Something Strange & Deadly by Susan Dennard (24/10/2014 AM)
108. A Darkness Strange & Lovely by Susan Dennard (26/10/2014 AM)
109. Princess of the Silver Woods by Jessica Day George (27/10/2014 AM)
110. The Sleeper & the Spindle by Neil Gaiman (30/10/2014 PM)
111. A Dawn most Wicked by Susan Dennard (30/10/2014 PM)

November
112. Half-Blood by Jennifer L. Armentrout (2/11/2014 PM)
113. 3 Weeks with Lady X by Eloisa James (6/11/2014 AM)
114. It's Not Me It's You by Mhairi McFarlane (9/11/2014 AM)
115. The Copper Promise by Jen Williams (17/11/2014 PM)
116. Winger by Andrew Smith (26/11/2014 PM)

December
117. My True Love Gave to Me by Stephanie Perkins & others (5/12/2014 PM)
118. The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton (15/12/2014 PM)
119. The Falconer by Elizabeth May (17/12/2014 AM)
120. Half Wild by Sally Green (25/12/2014 PM)
121. The Selection by Kiera Cass (26/12/2014 AM)
122. The Elite by Kiera Cass (27/12/2014 AM)
123. The One by Kiera Cass (27/12/2014 PM)
124. The Selection stories by Kiera Cass (27/12/2014 PM)
125. You Had Me at Hello by Mhairi McFarlane (29/12/2014 AM) 

October's Book of the Month

UNMADE!!! Holy crapsticks did this book put me through the wringer. There is a reason I dubbed Sarah "The Soul Destroyer" in my last post. But what a fantastic end to an amazing series even if some bits did utterly break my damn heart *sobs* I look forward to what she's gonna write next although I am fully prepared for it to stampede all over my feels again.
Honourable mention goes to Susan Dennard's Something Strange & Deadly series which I started in October although I still have to get hold of the final book (I have an email that I've been meaning to send for a month about that). It's such an awesome historical paranormal series with a fantastic heroine Eleanor who gets caught up with a ragtag bunch of people who are on the hunt for the Dead, the zombie creatures which are growing in number in Philadelphia. Eleanor is also trying to find out how the Dead are linked to her brother who has gone missing. There's action, society hijinks, Eleanor thwacking zombies with a parasol and well Daniel Sheridan. Need I say more?
Susan is also besties with Sarah J. Maas and they're doing an epic space opera story called Starkillers together on Tumblr which you MUST read!!

November's Book of the Month

Considering how I only read 5 books this month they were a bloody good bunch since 4 of them were rated either 4 or 4.5 stars out of 5. Top banana goes to It's Not Me It's You by Mhairi McFarlane which I was put on to by Twinnie Jess after her gushing review - I don't read a lot of general women's fiction, I am mostly a solid YA girl but this book has made me declare my love for Mhairi and vow to read everything she writes from now on. It's hysterically funny, like you're going to be sat reading on a bus holding back your ugly snorting laughs kind of funny. Her characters are amazing and so vivid that you want to be besties by the end. The romance actually caught me by surprise, it didn't come from where I expected but it was fab and made me stay up waaay too later to finish it.
Also Winger by Andrew Smith was an awesome YA Contemp that dealt with a great range of topics and shocked me to tears at the end but I am so fond of Ryan Dean now that I'm dying for the sequel Stand-off which is coming next September.
Also ALSO The Copper Promise by Jen Williams was the first in a fantasy series that had a bunch of characters that I fell in love with (Grumpy Frith included!) and a world that was so rich and extensive even in this first book so I'm really looking forward to where things will go in the second book The Iron Ghost which is due out next March.

December's Book of the Month

I think if you live in the UK you might just have heard about this one - like from everyone. The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton, it has been the book that has exploded in 2014 and was not only Waterstone's Book of the Year but also the National Book of the Year. I read it after hearing about it from all of my colleagues at Waterstones (where I worked this Christmas season! :D) and my god was everyone right to gush about  it! It's set in 17th century Amsterdam and follows the story of Petronella, an eighteen year old girl who gets married off to the extremely wealthy merchant Johannes Brandt. He buys her an beautiful doll house replica of their house in Amsterdam as a wedding present and Nella finds a Miniaturist to make furnishings for it. But the exquisite works of tiny art which arrive from the Miniaturist are more than what Nella ordered and they start to tell an eerie story of what changes are coming in their lives at the Brandt house. Beautifully lyrical and suspenseful story that will linger in your mind long after you've finished it.
Honourable Mentions to Half Wild by Sally Green which I managed to read by fortuitous chance since an ARC was sent to my branch of Waterstones and I was able to borrow it before I finished there. I'll be doing a review that will hit the interwebs nearer the publication date of March 23rd. Also I finished My True Love Gave to Me and I was surprised that I enjoyed all of the stories, some I adored. I don't usually find that I like all of the stories in an anthology like this but this clearly was a magical collection of authors. Rainbow, Steph & Laini's stories were my ultimate favs which should come as no surprise to anyone who knows me.

So there we are! My Reading Round-off for the last three months and if you would believe it from October to now I've only had 2 re-reads! (that I've recorded because you don't need to know that I binged the entire Shatter Me series again when I was meant to be doing a writing assignment). But seriously guys I'm impressed that I made it only 2 out of 25 books read. It's probably a record.

I will be doing a Favourites of 2014 post soon I promise once I have all my reading statistics configured the way my nerdy brain wants them. I also want to do a 2015 Resolutions and goals post for both Reading and my Writing.

Hope everyone had a Great Christmas and Happy New Year if I don't see you before then!
Ray

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September Reading Round-off

Well hello there folks!! I know it has been quite a while since anything got posted on this here blog but that's because I've been rather busy over on my new writing/study blog Ray May Write fretting and procrastinating my way through September. Which has disappeared alarmingly fast, I'm less than a week away from my 24th birthday and only a few days away from the start of my two OU modules which is a little scary.

But I'm here today to do my September reading wrap-up and tell you what my Book of the Month is, it should be a fairly obvious choice if you follow me on twitter :P

Books Read in September
89. Mastiff by Tamora Pierce (8/9/2014 PM) *RE-READ*
90. Heir of Fire by Sarah J. Maas (11/9/2014 AM)
91. Trial by Fire by Josephine Angelini (12/9/2014 PM)
92. Cross Stitch/Outlander by Diana Gabaldon (15/9/2014 PM) *RE-READ*
93. Trickster's Choice by Tamora Pierce (17/9/2014 PM) *RE-READ*
94. Trickster's Queen by Tamora Pierce (17/9/2014 PM) *RE-READ*
95. Speechless by Hannah Harrington (21/9/2014 PM)
96. Unspoken by Sarah Rees Brennan (23/9/2014 PM) *RE-READ*
97. Untold by Sarah Rees Brennan (25/9/2014 PM) *RE-READ*
98. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn (29/9/2014 PM)
99. Obsidian by Jennifer L. Armentrout (30/9/2014 PM)

Oops again with only 4 new reads out of 11 but who cares?

Book of the Month
This is an easy choice as you'll well know that I've been absolutely *dying* to read the rest of this after I got something like 25 chapters in over the YALC weekend. I had quite a time getting hold of a copy since I hadn't realised that the UK release date was over a week later than the US date so I expended rather a lot of stress and energy getting myself to Waterstones when they didn't have it in yet. *sigh* But when I did finally get my grubby mitts on a copy everything was right with the world. I devoured this book, I fucking loved this book and all its characters and the world and dammit I just love Sarah J. Maas ok? Heir of Fire was amazing and I don't quite know what I'm going to do with myself until the fourth book comes out. Thankfully we do have the epic sounding Court of Thorns and Roses due out in the Spring(?) so I can still get my Sarah fix before I find out what's cracking with Celeana. And I always have my re-read binge before the next release :P

Books I'm looking forward to in October
Now I'm going to keep the rest of this brief because I need to go be useful and help get dinner ready. I have a few things that I'm very excited for in October. One of them I finished this afternoon and have already flailed all over Twitter about - Misty Falls by Joss Stirling is part of a series that I adore and love to re-read over and over so I nearly had a heart attack in the library earlier when this book which technically doesn't even come out until tomorrow was already there on the shelf! Like a good addict I snatched it off the shelf and took it home to speed through. I may even re-read before I have to take it back to the library.

I'm also still trying my damnedest to get hold of a copy of Unmade by Sarah Rees Brennan since I did my series re-read in prep for the release on the 25th and then no bloody bookstores near me have the book! So it will be the mission of early October to get it and see what Sarah the Soul Destroyer (as I shall call her to differentiate from Sarah of the Sexy Fae) has in store for me. From what I've heard so far, heartbreak and sadness but also perfection. So who knows what the fuck is going to happen?

There's also My true Love gave to Me which is the awesome sounding anthology of Christmas stories from a bunch of my fav authors. I am super excited for this and it should be a great book to read either in October or closer to Christmas when it'll really be fitting.

Anyways that's all I gots for you now, see you guys soon maybe.
Ray

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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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Writing Ray - Plot, plot, plot

Now that I've completely destroyed the meaning of the word "plot" for myself I should say that this post is going to have nothing useful to other writers on the subject of plotting a book or anything else like that - for actual advice and helpfulness y'all need to check out Susan Dennard's website and her page of links to awesome blog posts For Writers because seriously she rocks and I've got the page bookmarked to my main toolbar.

This is more just a way for me to journal my writing process over the year so that maybe in another year or two I can look back and rofl myself into a stupor over my naive writer self and her daft assumptions about writing a book for the first time. For funsies and all.

Anywhoooo today I wanted to talk about the fact that I *think* I have the remaining scenes of my first draft plotted out - vaguely. Over the weekend while I was at my parents (and reliving my childhood by visiting Sudbury for like the 7th time) I busted out a crappy A3 pad I bought ages ago and grabbed some marker pens and mapped out about 8 scenes apiece for my two MCs for the middle section between when they meet for the first time and for the second.

It was a bit daft of me to leave the middle until last as by now it's been nearly 9 months since I wrote the First meeting scene and at least 3 since I wrote the second meeting so my thoughts about certain things and characters may have shifted slightly in that time - not counting the fact that I can be a fucking idiot and just forget I wrote some things - so getting everything to match up is going to be a challenge. One that will probably have to be sorted in the second draft.

So I now have two A3 sheets with my middle section planned out; some of the scenes on there have already been drafted so I really only have 12 scenes to write rather than 16/17 which is a bonus I guess. How long all those are going to end up being, I have no clue as yet. My original estimate of the book being 85,000 words is starting to fall short, it's looking like 95-100K will be more like a realistic endpoint for this book.

Setting up all the scene cards in my Scrivener project is delightfully fun and it will be even more enjoyable when I get to change the status of all those cards from "To Do" to first draft or something similar once I've written the actual scenes. Then once I've got all that done I might be able to say I've finished the first draft of my novel! *le gasp*

Now that will be exciting. For now I gotta keep chugging away at it and today's wordcount of 1113 words  has been rather lovely and helpful for getting me to a current overall wordcount of around 71.5K *holy shitballs that's a lotta words* So while the end may be in sight it won't do to give into complacency now.

But that's all for now folks. Carry on!
Ray x

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Some things to check out

Evenin' all this is just going to be a quick post with some links to stuff that has appeared in places not on the blog this past week.

Firstly today I was a guest poster over on my bestie's blog Jess Hearts Books as part of her Armchair Travelling feature. There was a post that went up yesterday as well as today's edition in which I talk about San Francisco! So please go have a look at those posts and all the fabulous places that the bloggers talk about.

And secondly earlier this week I made a rather large leap and posted up both the Prologue and Chapter 1 of my current WIP (the one I'm always tweeting about posting here about) up onto my Wattpad. It was very nerve-wracking after I posted them as Jess very awesomely tweeted about it and quite a lot of people went and read the Prologue... but not so much the first chapter. I resisted the urge to chew my hands off in anxiety. If you've not seen them and are interested, please click the links :D

Pretty please?

So that's all I wanted to say right now. I'll be going. 

*zooms*

Ray x

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