My Bookish Weekly Wrap Up – December 29th 2018

Hello!  Hope you are well! I’ve got a stinking cold so am not a very happy bunny today! Currently sneezing, sniffing and coughing my way through the day and leaving a trail of tissues in my wake!  

Christmas is already seeming like a distant memory, and it did affect my reading time for a couple of days as it was all just too much! BUT  I still managed to finish 4 books this week so keeping the pace up so happy with that!  Book hauls weren’t my fault this week – I’m blaming Santa and those who bought me gift vouchers and I’ve already posted the results of those up – so I’m claiming this week as a ‘no book’ haul week!

Here’s a quick look back at how my week shaped up book wise!

BOOKS FINISHED

Tin Man by Sarah Winman  – 5 stars

The Blue Salt Road by Joanne M.Harris  – 5 stars

Moonlight on the Thames by Lauren Westwood – 4 stars

Odette by Jessica Duchen  – 3 stars

CURRENTLY READING

The Winter of the Witch by Katherine Arden (Winternight Trilogy #3)

I love this series so really don’t want it to end!

One girl can make a difference…

Moscow has burned nearly to the ground, leaving its people searching for answers – and someone to hold accountable. Vasya finds herself on her own, amid a rabid mob that calls for her death, blaming her witchery for their misfortune.

Then a vengeful demon returns, renewed and stronger than ever, determined to spread chaos in his wake and never be chained again. Enlisting the hateful priest Konstantin as his servant, turmoil plagues the Muscovites and the magical creatures alike, and all find their fates resting on the shoulders of Vasya.

With an uncertain destiny ahead of her, Vasya learns surprising truths of her past as she desperately tries to save Russia, Morozko, and the magical world she treasures. But she may not be able to save them all… 

The Beat of the Pendulum by Catherine Chidgey

Published by Eye Books – 1st January 2019

Every day for a year, Catherine Chidgey recorded the words and language she came across during her day-to-day life – phone calls, television commercials, emails, radio shows, conversations with her family, street signs and satnav instructions. From these seemingly random snippets, she creates a fascinating portrait of modern life, focusing on the things that most people filter out.

Chidgey listens in as her daughter, born through surrogacy, begins to speak and develop a personality, and her mother slips into dementia. With her husband, she debates the pros and cons of moving to a new town. With her publisher, she discusses the novel she is writing. While, all around, the world is bombarding her with information.

In The Beat of the Pendulum, Chidgey approaches the idea of the novel from an experimental new direction. It is bold, exciting, funny, moving and utterly compelling.

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Wonder how long I can keep the no haul weeks going…. it definitely needs to be a thing in 2019 as the books are taking over my home again!  Hope your bookish week has been good too!

Wishing you all a Happy New Year – may there be yet more wonderful books for us all to explore and enjoy!!

HAPPY READING!

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#BlogTour The Girl in the Tower by Katherine Arden #BookReview #RandomThingsTours

A real pleasure for me to be able to share my love for this book on the latest stop of the fabulous Blog Tour – my thanks to the author, publisher and Anne of Random Things Tours for letting me be part of it all!

About the book

The magical adventure begun in The Bear and the Nightingalecontinues as brave Vasya, now a young woman, is forced to choose between marriage or life in a convent and instead flees her home—but soon finds herself called upon to help defend the city of Moscow when it comes under siege.

Orphaned and cast out as a witch by her village, Vasya’s options are few: resign herself to life in a convent, or allow her older sister to make her a match with a Moscovite prince. Both doom her to life in a tower, cut off from the vast world she longs to explore. So instead she chooses adventure, disguising herself as a boy and riding her horse into the woods. When a battle with some bandits who have been terrorizing the countryside earns her the admiration of the Grand Prince of Moscow, she must carefully guard the secret of her gender to remain in his good graces—even as she realizes his kingdom is under threat from mysterious forces only she will be able to stop.

Published by Ebury Publishing

Purchase Links

Amazon UK

Hive.co.uk

Book Depository

About the Author

Author Website

Born in Texas, Katherine studied French and Russian at Middlebury College. She has lived abroad in France and in Moscow, among other places. She has also lived in Hawaii, where she wrote much of The Bear and the Nightingale. She currently lives in Vermont.

MY REVIEW

Where to begin with my love for this Winternight series?! I adored The Bear and the Nightingale so have been itching to pick up this book and follow the further adventures of Vasya and this is just a perfectly magical tale, full of bravery, heart, folklore and emotion.

After The Bear and the Nightingale, Vasya is seeking revenge, answers and a new life. All that is expected of a young girl of the time is marriage, but that isn’t on her mind so as she is exiled from her village she sets off dressed as a boy as safety to right the wrongs of the magical world she is part of. Along the way she finds villages burned down where bandits have come along and stolen the young girls of the village and killed everyone else, and she is determined to seek those causing such devastation.

She is introduced to the Grand Prince of Moscow on her travels and he is in awe of this ‘young man’ but she is recognised by her brother Sasha who left the village years ago to become a monk. He feels annoyed at his sisters’ behaviour and is torn by his family loyalty and fears the consequences if she is found out.

As with book one, the setting is just truly magical. There is beauty in the forests but it’s also a very brutal place and that double edge sword is explored throughout this book. Vasya as a character is much more mature in this book but she doesn’t lose that spark that made her so special when we first go to meet her. Being reunited with family members also brings out another side to her and is touching to see.

I loved spending more time with Vasya – a feisty heroine ahead of her time who is never afraid of daring to achieve the impossible, no matter the obstacles put in her way. Highly recommended!

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