Tag: book review

Posted in author, book review, Book Tour, books, ebook

Book Review: The Blood Of Faeries By Dan Rice

Posted on by Cynthia D. Griffin

I signed up to read books for Black Phoenix Book Tours and this happened to be the first one up. The Blood of Faeries by Dan Rice. This was actually the second book in his series The Allison Lee Chronicles. I went and read his first book Dragons Walk Among Us before reading this second installment.

The Blood of Faeries continues the story of Allison Lee. She’s found out she’s half skaag and her long lost mother (a skaag assassin) is now living with her and her dad. Oh, and the world knows Allison is a shapeshifter who saved the world from other skaags invading Earth, so every time she goes out of her house, she has to fight the media mob.

For a teen who just wants to live a normal life and be left alone to enjoy her hobby of photography, her new found celebrity status is really cramping her style. It’s also not so fun being followed around by a bunch of body guards, especially when she has super strength and can fight of most baddies all on her own.

Allison tries to adjust to her new life, but it’s a struggle. Things go from bad to worse when one of her best friends goes missing. Allison gets her team together to find him, but ends up in far more trouble than she was looking for.

In a prison halfway around the world, Allison comes face to face with some of her darkest fears. She also learns that skaags and dragons aren’t the only alien species that walks the Earth. Allison has to dig deep to save herself and her friends before their captors kill them all.

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Posted in amazon, book review, book series, books, Kindle, Kindle Vella

How To Get Started On Kindle Vella

Posted on by Cynthia D. Griffin

I’ve been curious about Kindle Vella for awhile, but I was so engrossed with my Kindle Unlimited books, I didn’t take the time to check it out. Then something happened to help me out a little with that.

Recently, I was contacted by an author to review his book. Since I was in between books at the time, I told him I could get started right away. Then he responded that his book wouldn’t be out until March, but he did have episodes posted on Kindle Vella.

Well, I certainly couldn’t pass up the opportunity to try out Vella and get a start on another awesome story. Isn’t it great when stuff lines up like that! Anyways, the following is a how to on Kindle Vella and my thoughts on A.R. Witham’s The Legend of Black Jack.

What Is Kindle Vella?

Kindle Vella is a place to read (and publish) serialized fiction. Any device that can download the kindle app can easily access Vella. It’s really geared toward readers who want a quick read on their phones.

A story is broken down into episodes (instead of chapters). These episodes can vary from author to author. I’ve seen some really long and some really short. One thing I like is that authors have an opportunity at the end of each episode to address the audience directly in A Note From Author. Sometimes there’s little stories extras in the note, or information to contact the author directly if desired.

Another cool feature is if you liked the episode, then you can do a thumbs up at the end of it.

How Does Vella Work?

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Posted in book addict, book review, book series, reading, series review

Series Review: The Land By Aleron Kong

Posted on by Cynthia D. Griffin

I honestly never heard of LitRPG books until a friend of my started talking about writing one. I was full of questions. He ended up suggesting a few series to read in LitRPG. I was hesitant at first, because I do love playing RPG video games, but never considered reading a story that was like a video game. So decided to take the plunge. Wow, what a ride!

I started my adventure with Aleron Kong and his LitRPG series called The Land.

I won’t lie, the first book took me several weeks to finish. It took me awhile to adjust to how LitRPG books work.

One of the major differences of a LitRPG compared to a regular novel is there are regular status updates on the character and “game play”. In this particular series, it happened with tabled charts showing the progression of the characters points, level attributes, upgrades, ect.

At first this was very jarring to me, because I felt liked it halted the story big time. On the other hand, I did like knowing all the progression and upgrades as the story progressed. I think for me, it was just getting used to this kind of new reading style. Once I did, I literally could not put these freaking books down. I felt like I was right there with Richter as he stepped into The Land and began a wild journey of adventure and exploration.

aThe story starts out with a group of real life gamers playing a video game. One of the players ends up finding a hard to reach place in the game that he’s been searching for a long time. He’s expecting epic loot, but ends up finding himself catapulted into a new reality.

Once inside The Land, Richter quickly makes new friends and enemies as well as discovers an old place of power, which he claims and plans to erect a village. He quickly becomes a powerhouse as he racks up points and power, determined to find as much loot as possible and rise to the top.

Right now this book has eight books with a ninth on the way soon. The titles are…

Founding, Forging, Alliances, Catacombs, Swarm, Raiders, Predators, Monsters.

This book is set in a fantasy type setting with swords, dwarfs, elves, magic, monsters, and many more fun and imaginative things. There’s a lot of exploration and learning about this new world. There’s also lots of fighting action with sprites, goblins, demons, banished gods, and hordes of monstrous creatures.

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Posted in author, book review, book series, ebook, hooked on books, reading, science fiction

Series Review: Star Scavenger By G J Ogden

Posted on by Cynthia D. Griffin

A few months ago, I decided to take the plunge and get Kindle Unlimited for awhile. Up to this point, I’ve been buying all the books I’ve read to help support authors, but I also realized this was limiting me on how many books I could read, and I wanted to really step up my reading so I could dive into whole series and still stay on a budget. Once I signed up for Kindle Unlimited, I found I had an abundance of stories (and series) at my finger tips. I felt like a kid in a candy shop.

One of the first series I started reading with my new membership was Star Scavenger by G.J. Ogden. This series got my attention because I was looking for something science fiction with space travel. The best part is that it was a completed series (it sucks having to wait on books!) of five books, so I decided to give it a try. I wasn’t disappointed.

The five books in this series are Guardian Outcast, Orion Rises, Goliath Emerges, Union’s End, The Last Revocator (and yes, as of writing this post, all of them are available on Kindle Unlimited).

Guardian Outcast starts the story out with a middle-aged spaceship pilot Hudson Powell whose looking for a purpose to believe in. He thinks that’s signing up with the RGF, a force that polices the mysterious alien ships wrecks that are left abandoned throughout the galaxy, but he quickly realizes he’s just joined the biggest corrupt organization in human civilization. What does he do when he finds himself in a morale and life threatening situation?

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Posted in book review, book series, ebook, hooked on books, Indie Author

Book Review: Obsidian Eyes by A.W. Exley

Posted on by Cynthia D. Griffin

Obsidian Eyes Book One in the Queen’s Blade Series by A.W. Exley is available in kindle and paperback.

Last Friday, I had a desire to find a book the had a strong female character, was sexy, and a little bit weird. So I decided to try one of A.W. Exley’s books. I read her Artifact Hunters series last year, and absolutely loved it, so I wanted to see if another one of her series could deliver again. It did, at least so far with the first book Obsidian Eyes.

Set just before the Victorian Age, Allie Donovan is a seventeen-year-old who is full of secrets as she attends an aristocratic school, a place she really has no business being since she’s a commoner. But her grandfather’s position as the school’s librarian gives her a way into the exclusive St. Mathew’s Academy.

Once there, Allie makes some friends and enemies as well, and also meets a young man that infuriates her as well as captivates her at the same time. But she is cautious of him, because he’s supposed to be the enemy. Allie tries to find a way to walk between her world of a commoner and guild member, and the elite gentry of England and Scotland, but it’s full of potential disasters, including her biggest secret, the man who put Allie in the exclusive school to begin with and why.

This story is full of wit, friendship, estrangement, intense action, subterfuge, political conspiracies, and steampunk brilliance. It also has a hint of the exotic as it explores some of Allie’s ties to an Egyptian harem.

I really enjoyed this book a lot. It was a little slow reading at first. Exley develops a very rich and complex background for her Heroine Allie. So I think it was a little bit of a struggle to put all the pieces together because some of the background information Exley sprinkles into the story seems a contradiction. But as the story progresses, Exley brilliantly weaves the pieces together for a very colorful and interesting past for Allie. After I hit the halfway point, I couldn’t even put the book down, and ended up finishing the book in the early hours of the morning.

So if you are looking for a book full of weird and wonderful steampunk inventions, an intense forbidden romance, and a story you simply can’t put down, try out Obsidian Eye’s.

The Queen’s Blade has two other books in the series Opaque Lies and Oubliette Lost, which I very much look forward to reading next.