Book Review: The Siren by Kiera Cass

From Kiera Cass, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Selection series, comes a captivating stand-alone fantasy romance.

Kahlen is a Siren, bound to serve the Ocean by luring humans to watery graves with her voice, which is deadly to any human who hears it. Akinli is human—a kind, handsome boy who’s everything Kahlen ever dreamed of. Falling in love puts them both in danger . . . but Kahlen can’t bear to stay away. Will she risk everything to follow her heart?

The Siren was previously self-published; this brand-new edition has been completely rewritten and redesigned.

Hello, November!

So, somehow, it’s freaking November already! I have absolutely no idea where this year has gone, it seems to have whizzed by in a blink.

Now, as I prepare myself to mutter my apologies, which are becoming painstakingly familiar, I think we can all just admit I can be crowned Shittest Blogger of 2016 and be done with it. I accept my fate, as no matter how good my intentions have been, for the life of me I have struggled to actually get shit done.

So what has me crawling back out of my cave today, you may ask? Well, it’s November first, which, as many of my fellow bloggers and writers know, means one very important thing to us: it’s Nanowrimo time.

Despite a severe lack of planning (AKA, I haven’t even entirely settled on a story yet), I am determined to use this to pull me out of my reading/writing slump this year! 30 days, 50,000 words, 1 novel.

Am I delusional to be diving in with so little preparation? Quite possibly. Then again, last year I think I decided on a story on about November 6th, and still managed to finish on November 30th (at around 11.57pm, but that’s besides the point!), so I know it can be done.

Admittedly, my efforts of beginning thus far this evening have mainly consisted of testing about 7 variations of how to hand letter the ‘Nanowrimo’ header for my Bullet Journal (my new obsession, and what I’m hoping will assist me in pulling my finger out my arse and keeping my chaotic life rather more organised!), but I will get there despite my procrastination! (The more observant may note this post in itself to be a procrastination, but shhhh!)

So anyway, that’s me all revved up and ready to get back on the horse this November! Best of luck to everyone else taking part too! Xxx

And in other news…

As it’s been a horrendously long period of time since I last blogged, here’s a little catch up one what’s new in the world of Paris…

I’m being a princess!

Well, obviously I’m a princess everyday, but sometimes it’s nice to have it recognised on a more public scale 😉 so it’s pretty cool that I landed the role of principal girl, AKA Princess Jill in this year’s pantomime, Jack and the Beanstalk, on at the Jersey Opera House. We’ve only started rehearsing recently, but it’s a great laugh and a really fab cast.

A little slice of heaven

At the end of September, I enjoyed a fabulous holiday to the incredible island of Mauritius. I can’t put into words how beautiful it was, as it wouldn’t do it justice (or maybe I’m just a shit writer?!) but it was heaven, and the whole trip was just pure bliss.

 

Anyway, better dash, I’ve got a book to write this month!

Blog Tour Book Review: A Summer of Secrets, by Alice Ross

One long hot summer. Secrets never stay buried for long…

Portia is determined to restore Buttersley Manor, her family’s crumbling ancestral home, to its former glory. Yet she has a feeling that there are a few forgotten skeletons in the dust-covered cupboards.

Jenny has put her life on hold for far too long. It’s time to finally start living and to dig up those hopes and dreams she’s kept hidden all these years – but is she brave enough?

Rich is happily married with a beautiful wife and lovely daughter. In fact, his world is perfect until a very unexpected consequence of his past walks through the door…

Joe would like nothing more than to travel back in time to when he and Gina were happy. But is it too late to rescue what they once had?

One thing’s for sure, nothing’s ever quite what it seems when it comes to life in the country!

Blog Tour Book Review: Summer at Rose Island, by Holly Martin

Fall in love with the gorgeous seaside town of White Cliff Bay this summer and enjoy long sunny days, beautiful beaches and… a little romance.

Darcy Davenport is ready for a fresh start. Determined to leave a string of disastrous jobs and relationships behind her, she can’t wait to explore White Cliff Bay and meet the locals.

When Darcy swims in the crystal clear waters of the bay, she discovers the charming Rose Island Lighthouse. But it’s not just the beautiful building that she finds so intriguing…

Riley Eddison doesn’t want change. Desperate to escape the memories of his past, he lives a life of solitude in the lighthouse. Yet he can’t help but notice the gorgeous woman who swims out to his island one day.

Darcy is drawn to the mysterious and sexy Riley, but when it seems the town is trying to demolish his home, she soon finds herself having to pick sides.

She’s fallen in love with White Cliff Bay. But is that all Darcy’s fallen for?

Pull up a deck chair, sink back with a bowl of strawberry ice cream and pick up the summer read you won’t be able to put down.

Legally Blonde: the Musical 💖

So despite the very best of intentions when I put up my last post promising to be better, I was rather foolish about my timings, as the production I was in was just about to go full pelt on rehearsals and then hit the stage.

So, what’s consumed my life the last few months instead of reading? Being in Jersey Green Room Club’s production of Legally Blonde: The Musical. If you haven’t seen this show, I absolutely insist you hunt it down. I’ve been a huge Legally Blonde fan since it first came out, and ohmigod, the musical does not disappoint!

As some of you may know, performing arts has always been the other big love of my life, alongside reading, but I gave it up about 5 or 6 years ago after spending years battling with stage fright to the point of severe panic attacks when I had to perform, until I had to put my own health first and make the decision to give it up. It broke my heart, and every time I have been to the theatre in recent years, no matter how much I’ve loved it, there is always a little piece of my heart that cracks with longing, envy and regret.

As a lot of you may also know, I’ve been on a hell of a personal journey in the last year or so, and am finally in a place where I feel more comfortable and more confident in myself. So, in October, I decided to go along to the auditions on a whim, hoping to get a place in the chorus. Not only did I get a part, but a principal role of Margot, Elle’s quirky best friend and one 3rd of her Greek Chorus, who happens to be my favourite character (with Elle, of course!).

Rehearsals have been pretty crazy over the last few months but my GOD, have I loved every second. Right from the word ‘go’ I had no qualms about singing or dancing in front of the other cast in rehearsals, which would normally have been a big issue for me, and I have been incredibly lucky that the other 2 thirds of the Greek Chorus have been amazing and we have become such close friends, supporting each other through it all.

When the curtain went up on our first night at the Jersey Opera House earlier this month, I had butterflies in my tummy but, for the first time ever, in a good way – I was excited! Come the final performance after an intense couple of weeks on stage, I was in tears by the time the curtain came down, overwhelmed by how much I had loved every second of being part of such an incredible show, part of such a wonderful cast, and mostly for overcoming my fears and allowing myself to finally love performing the way I’ve always wanted to; whole-heartedly and fearlessly.

The show finished last weekend, and this week has been a strange crash back down to reality! But there’s not a doubt in my mind that I’ll be back on that stage as soon as possible. As for my gorgeous new friends, we’ve started our own Lunch Club so we can still see each other every week, with a few random dinners and nights out thrown in for good measure every now and then 😉

On the plus side, this does mean I will finally have more time to catch up on my reading and reviewing! I’m away a lot over the next few weeks, but will be doing what I can, so just bear with me for now!

Missed y’all!

*Snaps* xxx

  

Hi, It’s Me, I’m Not Dead!

After realising it’s been a whole three months since my last post, I figured it was about time I finally crawled out from under my rock and put pen to paper (or fingers to keys) and made myself get something down. I’d normally be writing my monthly wrap-up post about now, so I guess I’ll try to do a bit of a quarterly one instead!

I’ve sat here several times attempting to put together a post, but somehow come up short. I guess for starters, I’m not even entirely sure why I haven’t been writing in the first place. I have been busy, incredibly so, but it’s something a bit more that.

I seemed to somehow rediscover my writing spark around October, and bashed out a new first draft surprisingly easily in November, but some point after that I seemed to lose my mojo a bit again. I guess the feeling encompassed most aspects of my life really; work, friendships, love, health.

Some old, familiar problems started to rear their ugly head again, which had me at a worrying precipice for a while, but I’ve spent the last month to six weeks regaining some control and getting things back in order again, focussing on the healthy, positive person I want to be, and I’m pleased to say I’m in a much better place for it.

So for now, I’m using my days to focus on making the best of me. Taking care of my health, spending time with friends and family, and working towards the goals I somewhat neglected last year.

As for the bookish side of things, I’ve done some reading and some writing, though not nearly enough of either! But my heads in a better place, and – despite a sincere lack of free time – I’m ready to try and nail down on this again. I’d wanted to have a finish draft of my first book by now, and instead I’ve put off editing and am sat in the same place I was a year a go, but now with two barely revisited first drafts instead of one! So, I have rescheduled my deadline till the end of this year, and now need to work my little butt off to make sure I actually get it done – wish me luck!

Now… how the hell have you all been??

Monthly Wrap Up: November 2015

Freaking December, you guys! The final stretch of the year. I can’t quite believe it. In some ways this year has seriously zoomed by, but when I look back SO MUCH has happened. It’s been a hell of a roller coaster for sure, but on the whole it’s been a pretty awesome year with a particularly awesome journey for me personally. And now we are solidly in winter. While my shivering body weeps at the cold temperatures that I am unable to deal with (I was not meant to be British, I swear, I belong somewhere warmer!), there’s still a big chunk of my heart that loves the cosiness of winter. Hot chocolates, chai lattes, blankets, jumpers, thick socks and, most importantly…

It’s Chriiiiiistmaaaassss!!!

I’M SO FREAKING EXCITED YOU GUYS!!!! Yes, I am a massive 5-year-old at heart, no, I don’t care. I bloody well love it. My heart’s been in Christmas-mode since my birthday passed on November 20th, and now that it’s December I am pretty much full on freaking out. At first I worried about living alone this Christmas, but I’m away with family for Christmas itself, and my ex actually didn’t like Christmas (weirdo), so this year I am just going to go all out, 1000% Christmas crazy. There will be tinsel freaking everywhere, and I don’t even like tinsel, but the point is BECAUSE I CAN. I will have my very own grotto – god knows I already have the penguins!! (And the bloody temperatures for it – my flat is arctic!!) – and that in itself is another reason this month and Christmas are so awesome: Penguins. Everywhere. ALL OF THE PENGUINS.

Christmas is especially exciting this year being my gorgeous little beastie’s first Christmas, and my oh my, do I plan on spoiling him rotten! I really need to stop getting him stuff, but it’s so hard! Everything is sooo cute! And he’s so perfect he deserves it all. So, apologies in advance to all my other friends and family who are unlikely to get anything because I’ve bankrupted myself spoiling Sonnie; I have no regrets. I can’t wait to spend Christmas day with him.

Honestly, just thinking about Christmas I’m getting over excited. I’ve come to realised it brings out quite an aggressive excitement in me, where I literally feel the need to jump and shout and generally behave in a way which is (unfortunately) not accepted in every day situations. Personally, I think the world is a poorer place for it. At least at Casa de Paris, this whole month will be one amazing festive party, even if it only has an attendance of one. I will bring enough festive spirit (in both a figurative and literal AKA alcoholic sense) to make up for a hundred.

Nanowrimo

If anyone did notice my absence throughout the month of November, it was – for once! – with very good reason. Being me, I did my typical leave-it-to-the-last-minute game where I decided I wasn’t going to participate, then changed my mind around the 5th of November. No plan, no idea, no outline, nothing. So I didn’t actually start for the first week or so, and with a hectically busy month of Birthday plans etc, this resulted a mad writing frenzy yesterday, the 30th, where I type like a loon for 6 hours until I finally updated my word count at over 50,000 with one minute to spare at 23:59, and typed those two precious words, ‘THE END.’

Now I can finally breathe easy again and tuck it away until I bring it back out in the New Year with the big ole red pen to start working through it.

Birthday Shenanigans

A couple of weeks a go saw me turn the milestone corner of a quarter of a century, and I have to say it’s freaked me out a bit. I can no longer say I’m in my early twenties. FUCK. What have I done with myself? What have I achieved? To be totally honest, not bloody much. BUT, I am on a much better path right now to head towards the things I do want to achieve, so I just have to focus on that (while sobbing into my wine glass alone at night). I’m an optimist, I swear.

However, the one thing I did do was made sure my early twenties went out with a bang, and had a whole week of celebrations. It was a really lovely week spent with my closest friends and family, filled with love, laughter, dancing and theatre, which was pretty darn perfect.

November in Books

Lack of reading this month is actually guilt-free for once, as I have been in my writing cave, so have hardly dared look at a book the last couple of weeks for fear of distraction (naturally, I found a hundred other ways to procrastinate, but that’s not the point!).

   

Books I Plan to Read in December.

I am going to be massively catching up on my christmas reads throughout December. I actually had some annual leave left to take, so I finish on December 16th and am off to the New Year, which will leave me plenty of time to read all of the Christmas books 🙂

What are you looking forward to this month? Are you as much of a Christmas fanatic as I am?

Blog Tour Book Review: At the Corner of Magnetic and Main, by Meg Welch Dendler

It’s hard to get on with your life when you’re already dead.

Penny had been stuck in the same diner for decades—ever since she died in 1952. Her diner 
was comfortable and safe. Serving ice cream to those who dropped in on their way to the 
next level of existence, she helped to ease their transition into The Light, the one place she can’t go. Her afterlife was perfect.

But when the ridiculously handsome, bad boy biker Jake Thatcher shows up and becomes stuck 
as well, Penny rediscovers feelings that she thought had been buried with her body.

Life is still life, and love is still love. But was her existence really perfect, or was it something else entirely?

Blog Tour Book Review: Snowflakes on Silver Cove, by Holly Martin

Welcome to the charming seaside town of White Cliff Bay, where Christmas is magical and love is in the air…

Libby Joseph is famous for her romantic Christmas stories. Every December, readers devour her books of falling in love against the magical backdrop of the Christmas season. If only Libby believed in the magic herself…

Struggling to finish her current novel, Libby turns to her best friend and neighbour George Donaldson to cheer her up. But George also needs a bit of support himself. Nervous about getting back into the dating saddle after splitting from his wife, he and Libby strike a deal. She will teach George how to win over the ladies, and Libby will in turn be inspired to inject her novel with a good dose of romance.

As Libby and George explore the beautiful White Cliff Bay on a series of romantic Christmas-themed dates, Libby finds herself having more fun than she’s had in ages and…discovers feelings that she never knew she had for George.

But is it too late? Will George win someone else’s heart or can Libby act like the heroine in one of her stories and reach for her own love under the mistletoe this Christmas?

Snuggle up with a piece of Christmas cake and mulled wine, and spend the festive season at White Cliff Bay. You won’t want to leave! Christmas at Lilac Cottage also out now

Book Review: Lost Girls, by Angela Marsons

Two girls go missing. Only one will return.

The couple that offers the highest amount will see their daughter again. The losing couple will not. Make no mistake. One child will die.

When nine-year-old best friends Charlie and Amy disappear, two families are plunged into a living nightmare. A text message confirms the unthinkable; that the girls are the victims of a terrifying kidnapping.

And when a second text message pits the two families against each other for the life of their children, the clock starts ticking for D.I. Kim Stone and the squad.

Seemingly outwitted at every turn, as they uncover a trail of bodies, Stone realises that these ruthless killers might be the most deadly she has ever faced. And that their chances of bringing the girls home alive, are getting smaller by the hour…

Untangling a dark web of secrets from the families’ past might hold the key to solving this case. But can Kim stay alive long enough to do so? Or will someone’s child pay the ultimate price?

The latest utterly addictive thriller from the No.1 bestseller Angela Marsons.