Hello & Happy Fall!

 

Hello Dear Readers!

It has been a very long time since I posted but I have an excellent excuse- we had our 2^nd child in April and, for those of you familiar with babies know, he just doesn’t feel sorry for me so I can get reading time included in our schedule! HAHA! I am slowly getting some reading time in though and hope to start posting reviews and recommendations soon.

In the meantime, my husband has decided that my beloved collection of books (and yes it is prolific) needs to be moved out of the baby’s room. On one hand, I wonder how empty the room will look (guess I’ll have to start a new collection of books for the kids from baby board books to Classics to Young Adult novels) since they are nestled snuggly in built in shelves. On the other hand, my new job is to imagine and design the bookshelves for my books! I’m in love with some of the ideas percolating in my mind and waiting to see what can actually be created in real life. I am enthusiastically hopping onto Pinterest and IKEA for ideas. Morphing those into something that will work with our Master bedroom space as well as other areas of the house for the inevitable books that just won’t quite fit on the shelves. Heaven knows I couldn’t possibly get rid of them! I might want to re-read a particular one or loan one to a friend. Luckily I have been blessed with a handy and creative husband who, so far, is intrigued by my ideas. Let’s cross our fingers! IKEA is a LONG drive from where I live.

Prior to April I was loving the J.R. Ward Bourbon Kings series. It’s a dynasty story that doesn’t focus on one set of characters for each book, but the author continues the story along as a mini series of sorts and you are brought into the folds of this old family and the saga drama of their lives. While I wait for book three to be released I am trying out Maya Banks’ A KGI Novel: Whispers in the Dark.

I wish everyone happy reading, hoping you get more time to unwind with a book than I do, and enjoy this beautiful fall season.

Weis & Astor's Blackwell

Blackwell is a gothic horror novel that lovers of Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, Stephen King, and gothic literature will enjoy. The novel is written by two authors, Alexandrea Weis with Lucas Astor, but you never get a split feel throughout the novel (much like Christina Lauren has been able to achieve). The writing is well done, the language fitting the time period the authors locates us in, and author ploys are placed successfully without dragging the reader down and inundating them with too much side information.

The novel follows the intertwining lives of O’Connor & Blackwell from the day they meet at Harvard on. Blackwell comes from a privileged and aristocratic upbringing. He is morally flawed individual but an intriguing character that the reader wants to follow. Is he going to lead a life with love in it or follow a darker path? The writer seems to really want to show the readers that you can question the soul and try to create “workarounds” to stay pure or virginal as well as how we handle life experiences. There is power in love and ultimately the choices you make will lead you on the path of love and its magic of healing or if you let too much darkness seep into your life down the path of damnation.

There is a large focus on the religion of Voodoo. I really enjoyed these segments of the novel because Voodoo is not often used in literature. It especially helped create a spiritual and karmically bound story line for the second half of the novel. The book cover fits the novel brilliantly and I loved it.

Blackwell is a dark novel that will give some readers satisfaction and leave some saying, “Well written, but the story was horrifying and depressing.”