First Lines Fridays: June 1, 2018

June 1, 2018January 12, 2018LeeLeave a comment

First Lines Fridays is a weekly feature for book lovers hosted by Wandering Words. What if instead of judging a book by its cover, its author or its prestige, we judged it by its opening lines?

Pick a book off your shelf (it could be your current read or on your TBR) and open to the first page
Copy the first few lines, but don’t give anything else about the book away just yet – you need to hook the reader first
Finally… reveal the book!

First Lines:

What she saw first was a moving shadow. In the trees that bordered the meadow, among their dark trunks, something moved.

Interested? Scroll down for the cover and summary!

On Fortunes Wheel by Cynthia Voigt
(Tales of the Kingdom, book 2)

There are some who say that the Lady Fortune has a wheel, and all men are fixed upon it. The wheel turns, and the men rise, or fall, with the turning of the wheel.

Birle has agreed to be wed to the huntsman Muir as an escape from the drudgery of life at her father’s inn — but the moment she looks into the bellflower blue eyes of the man she comes upon stealing one of her father’s boats, Birle knows she cannot marry Muir. Even after she discovers the mysterious stranger is Orien, a Lord and as unreachable to an innkeeper’s daughter as a star, Birle is determined to travel with him as far as he will allow.

Their travels take Birle to a world far from home, a world where Lords may become slaves, where Princes rule by fear, and where Fortune’s Wheel turns more swiftly and dangerously than Birle could have imagined.

Newbery Medalist Cynthia Voigt’s second novel of the Kingdom, set two generations later than Jackaroo, is a memorable combination of thrilling adventure and heart-stopping romance.

January 2018 Reading Wrap-Up

February 6, 2018October 22, 2018LeeLeave a comment

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
Rating: ★★★★☆
Review: No
Reading Dates: January 6
Read Count: 1
Favorite Thing: Sneaky sneaky sneaky!
Least Favorite Thing: Ooooh Nick is such a douche!

I’m so grateful to Kelsie @ BilboBookins for putting Gillian Flynn back on my radar and making me really consider reading her books and Marina @ The Review Marina for her review which put to rest my worries about whether having liked the movie, I could enjoy the book too. If it hadn’t been for these two I probably wouldn’t have picked up this amazing book at all and I’d have really missed out!

My Posts About Gone Girl

Talking as Fast as I Can by Lauren Graham
Rating: ★★☆☆☆
Review: Yes
Reading Dates: January 7 – 10
Read Count: 1
Favorite Thing: The diet secrets “monologue”.
Least Favorite Thing: Boredom.

For something with “Gilmore Girls” all over the cover, it had surprisingly little Gilmore Girls in it. (This is neither a good nor bad thing, just an observation.)

My Posts About Talking as Fast as I Can

All the Crooked Saints by Maggie Stiefvater
Rating: ★★★★☆
Review: No
Reading Dates: December 27 – January 11
Read Count: 1
Favorite Thing: The way Beatriz thinks.
Least Favorite Thing: Waiting for something to Happen in the beginning of the novel.

As I mentioned in my rating post, my complaint about this book was just that it was hard to get into, but I really think it’s worth it.

My Posts About All the Crooked Saints

Jackaroo by Cynthia Voigt
(Tales of the Kingdom, book 1)
Rating: ★★★★★
Review: Yes
Reading Dates: January 11 – 12
Read Count: 4-ish?
Favorite Thing: Burrrrl!
Least Favorite Thing: Cam is so much more annoying than he was when I first read this in middle school lol

This is my favorite series, and this is one of my favorite stories from the series. It makes me so sad that no one seems to know about these books anymore (admittedly they are a bit old, but they are so good)!

My Posts About Jackaroo

On Fortune’s Wheel by Cynthia Voigt
(Tales of the Kingdom, book 2)
Rating: ★★★★★
Review: No
Reading Dates: January 12 -15
Read Count: 4-ish?
Favorite Thing: Birle at the end, with Nan.
Least Favorite Thing: The part at the slave market where that nasty fucker shoves his fingers in Birle’s mouth while he’s deciding if he wants to buy her. I literally had to stop reading and go brush my teeth, the passage evoked that visceral a response from me. (Actually I may need to again now just remembering…)

This one always gives me a little trouble during Part 1, because it moves slowly, but once I get past that, Parts 2 & 3 speed by so fast because this book is amazing.

Note: Also published as The Tale of Birle, which is the copy I actually read this time, since I don’t have access to my own copy right now.

My Posts About On Fortune’s Wheel

Live Through This by Mindi Scott
Rating: ★★★★☆
Review: Yes
Reading Dates: January 17
Read Count: 1
Favorite Thing: That life goes on as normal even with the bad things that are happening.
Least Favorite Thing: I wish we got to know what came next. I mean I get it, but I still wish.

Trigger Warning: Sexual Assault

Despite the harsh subject matter, I really liked this book.

My Posts About Live Through This

Counterfeit Son by Elaine Marie Alphin
Rating: ★★★☆☆
Review: No
Reading Dates: January 20
Read Count: 2
Favorite Thing: The sailing.
Least Favorite Thing: The mom at the end. Spoiler: [start] I just hate that the book ended without her even acknowledging that he was really her son or anything other than standing there… [end]

I’m not sure what made me think of this book all of a sudden, but once I did I suddenly also wanted to reread it.

My Posts About Counterfeit Son

Gallows Hill by Lois Duncan
Rating: ★★★☆☆
Review: Yes
Reading Dates: January 25 – 26
Read Count: 1
Favorite Thing: Piecing together all the little tidbits that didn’t get direct explanations.
Least Favorite Thing: The usage of the g*psy slur & negative stereotyping of Romani people. (It was a part of the characterization of the antagonists, but it was still left a bad taste in my brain.)

I decided to go on a Lois Duncan reading kick, and Gallows Hill was the first one I grabbed.

My Posts About Gallows Hill

The Wings of a Falcon by Cynthia Voigt
(Tales of the Kingdom, book 3)
Rating: ★★★★★
Review: No
Reading Dates: January 21 – 29
Read Count: 4-ish?
Favorite Thing: Oriel & Griff’s friendship.
Least Favorite Thing: Merlis…

Don’t talk to me. Don’t look at me. The Thing literally gets harder every time I reread this even knowing it’s coming!

Note: Also published as The Tale of Oriel, which is the copy I actually read this time, since I don’t have access to my own copy right now.

My Posts About The Wings of a Falcon

The Third Eye by Lois Duncan
Rating: ★★★☆☆
Review: Yes
Reading Dates: January 30
Read Count: 1
Favorite Thing: I liked the mechanics of Karen’s gift. Especially the heightened sense of smell. That was interesting.
Least Favorite Thing: Did we really need such a detailed description of a dead dog?

This was the second book on my Lois Duncan kick. I liked it better than the first one I think.

My Posts About The Third Eye

QuoteJanuary 24, 2018January 15, 2018LeeLeave a comment

She thought it might have been his thought that wakened her, as he crept toward the solitary holding; she thought that the danger in his thoughts had reached out to awaken her as surely as an alarm bell ringing out across the night.

– Cynthia Voigt, On Fortune’s Wheel, page 391 – 392