Blind Reader, Writer, Life
Happy Friday bookish people! I hope you are all doing well today. Seeing as it is spooky season I thought it may be fun to share with you all my top 15 murder mystery books and this is one of my favourite genres to read so this was a difficult choice. Let me know if any of your favourites are on this list or if there are any you would have put on here instead.
Happy Monday bookish people! I hope you are all having a good day today.
Today I am bringing you my book review for Last Girl Breathing by Court Stevens. A big thank you to Harper Collins for sending me an ARC copy of this book.
As usual I will give star ratings to four categories and I will write a little bit about each one. I will do my best to not include any spoilers but there may be parts that come across that way, if you prefer to read a book with no idea before going I would highly recommend reading this review after you have read the book instead.
In Last Girl Breathing by Court Stevens you follow the people of a small town who are still reeling from a tragedy that happened eight years prior to the novel beginning. When a murder is committed Lucy Michaels starts investigating.
my first thought when I started reading this book was “wow, this is darker and more intense than I thought it would be” and usually that type of book doesn’t appeal to me, I prefer the cosier mystery. However, I was surprised by this book. Yes, it is dark and yes it’s got incredible twists and a very fast pace but also it felt real and I felt completely immersed in the story.
It sounds cliche to say I couldn’t put this book down but I honestly couldn’t, I read it on a car trip to wales and when I had to stop reading I couldn’t stop thinking about the book and what was happening in it. I also have to say, I did not guess the identity of the killer.
The main character in this novel is Lucy Michaels, she is a young girl still struggling with the grief of losing her brother during a dam break 8 years ago. She us at the centre of this book, she knows everyone in the town and has deep connections with many of the people connected with both events. Sweat I liked most about her character was the rawness and realness behind her. She wasn’t perfect, and she didn’t pretend to be. Court Stevens wrote her as a believably flawed character and I liked that. There are many other characters in this book but I don’t want to go into discussing them here because it would definitely reveal some spoilers.
As I said before this book fully immersed me in its story and I believe that is a testament to an excellent writer. This is the first Court Stevens book I have read but I enjoyed her balance between tension and mystery combined with building strong community connections and separating their good features from the mystery.
I gave this book four stars overall because I really enjoyed this novel and it surprised me how much I enjoyed it.
Blurb/Synopsis:
When the answers to a present-day murder lie in the past, one teen girl must examine a tragic event to prevent more lives from being lost. No one expected it to rain that much. But the rain kept coming, the dam broke, and lives were lost. One was Lucy Michaels’s little brother. She was there and while she saved the lives of many young boy scouts, despite being a child herself, she couldn’t save him.
Now eight years later, Lucy is preparing to graduate from high school and compete in the air rifle competition at the Olympics when her stepbrother goes missing right before his most important football game. The search is focused on the same plot of land where her younger brother died, and she can’t help but draw parallels.
When the search for a missing person becomes a murder investigation, Lucy knows the secrets she holds about what her stepbrother was up to that day could help find the murderer. The clues quickly connect Lucy’s ex-boyfriend to the murders, but he couldn’t be guilty… could he?
Everyone involved has their own secrets and revealing hers to the wrong person could put her life—and her whole town—at risk. Last Girl Breathing is a page-turning hunt for the truth as Court Stevens once again creates nonstop suspense with characters who will break your heart.
Happy Friday bookish people! I hope you are all doing well. Today I am sharing with you the five new releases I am most looking forward to getting my hands on in October! I hope you all enjoy. Let me know if you are excited for any of these releases too.
Happy Friday bookish people! I hope your September is going well so far.
I found this tag on anaveragelife.org and I thought it would be really fun to think about what my perfect library would look like.
My perfect library would be in a small, cosy cottage at the end of a garden. It would look like a cottage out of any of the old Enid Blyton books or books from a similar age, like a house that has magically appeared for all those who love books.
My perfect library would have four or five large windows, got to have that na
Happy Friday bookish people! I can’t believe how quickly the summer has gone by this year. I had a long list of things I wanted to get done over the holidays and now they are ending I have barely done anything from my list. Is anyone else like that?
One item on my list was read a lot more and well.. that did not happen. I read a bit but I definitely didn’t stick to my TBR. Oops.
Let’s get into the wrap up!
So.. I only read part of one book from my TBR but I did read two books from outside my TBR which were: Winterhouse by Ben Gutterson and Witchcraft: A History in 13 Trials by Marion Gibson.
What did you read in August? and what did you think of it?
Happy Friday bookish people! I thought it would be fun today if I shared the top ten books I want to reread within the next twelve months. I have to say I’m not usually the type of person who rereads books, there are a few that I have loved and read over and over but not many but recently I have been thinking about rereading these ten books:
Happy Friday bookish people! I hope you are all having a good day today.
One May 26th 2023 I went to MCM London Comic con, I went originally because they announced Sebastien de Castell would be there however they didn’t reveal the timetable until really late and it was too late for me to cancel but he was only going to be there 4-5 and I already had to be on the train home by the because Plymouth is far away from London so that was annoying but while I was at the Comic Con I realised that the accessibility was something that definitely needed to be addressed.
First of all, once you get to the site there is a long tunnel way you have to walk through and there are no clear signs telling you where you need to go and which direction so there were people walking every which way which is horrible to navigate for me as a disabled person.
Then once we did finally find the accessible queue to get in it got even worse. The disabled queue was the same queue as press and content creators and the organization was terrible. Once you had your bag checked you had to queue to get your disabled stickers and passes and there were no clear lines for queues or where you had to go, the staff were shouting at people because they didn’t know where they had to go, but worst of all is these queues were barely moving, it took over an hour and a half to get our passes and this is not good for a disabled person who cannot be standing for long. I saw so many people struggling to stand and nobody would help them.
After I got into the venue halls it became clear that in the corridor by the Costa there were no disabled toilets, there were male and female ones which were down sets of stairs but no disabled ones, so I asked a staff member where they were and they directed me towards the stairs. This is ridiculous because I am visually Impaired and I can’t use the stairs. So, I go in the main room of the comic con, there looks to be two disabled toilets along the back wall, good that is where we head first, in the first one there was a toilet luckily but the size was tiny, I didn’t take my guide dog with me but I might have dine and there would not have been room in this toilet for her and it definitely wasn’t big enough to fit a wheelchair in it. so later we decided to try the other toilet and see if it had enough space, only to find that to reach the toilet you had to use the lift or the stairs and the lift wasn’t even working! Another person at the con told me later that none of the lifts were working which is unacceptable.
I can’t discuss any of the ‘priority’ options that are there for disabled because by this point I was already angry and exhausted so we left early and only really looked around some of the stalls. I would not attend this event again because you don’t feel like you get treated as a human, you are treated as an inconveniance.
Have you experienced this or anything else?
Happy Friday bookish people! I hope you are all having a good day today. I am here today doing a book spotlight for The Dreams That Bind Us by Maximillian Lopez as part of @BreakevenBooks book tour.
Synopsis:
This sci-fi thriller explores the possibility that when we dream, we’re merely glimpsing into an alternate reality. Three strangers bound together by a shared dream fight against the current of fate. Can they come to terms with the truth? Are we the only versions of ourselves? Are you the best version of you to exist? They must find each other without losing themselves. Two universes hang in the balance as external forces vie for control of their ability to peer into an alternate reality. Will Corey, Selene, and Joseph find answers to the mystery placed before them? Or will the search for an answer lead them toward a darker fate?
Barnes and Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-dreams-that-bind-us-maximilian-lopez/1140832794?ean=9798201820398
Apple store: https://books.apple.com/us/book/id1602841625
Google Play Store: https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=DCVXEAAAQBAJ
Audible: https://www.audible.com/pd/The-Dreams-That-Bind-Us-Audiobook/B0B8476YN8?asin=B0B8476YN8
Author Bio:
Maximilian Lopez
Max grew up dreaming impossible dreams of an alternate life other than the one he had in a small town outside of San Antonio, Texas. Shortly after high school, he joined the Marine Corps where he traveled to Foreign Lands. Throughout his budding Marine Corps career, he studied military radar technology and decided to leave the Marine Corps after a memorable eight years to work in the civilian Radar Technical Community at Saab Defense Inc. in Syracuse, NY. During the following eight years, he met his beautiful and intelligent wife, Shirley. Eventually, Max and his growing family wanted to move away from the snow so he accepted a position working as a Government civilian for the US Navy specifying in emerging naval radar technology. Currently, Max resides with his wife, two handsome boys, and a small white Lhasa Apso named Tesla in Virginia Beach, Va.
If you would like to see more content from other bookish people about The Dreams That Bind Us check out this timetable:
B.A. Bellec Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGTeYZEBPBWScWXkqBnZrQQ June 18th, 2023
Shawn Blog: https://treatyoshelf.blog/ June 19th, 2023
Elizabeth Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/museumgrack/ June 20th, 2023
Infinity’s Bookshelf Blog: https://infinitysbookshelf.wordpress.com/ June 21st, 2023
The Shaggy Sheppard Blog: https://theshaggyshepherd.wordpress.com/ June 22nd, 2023
The Blind Scribe Blog: https://theblindscribe.com/ June 23rd, 2023
Amanda Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheReadingandWritingLife June 23rd, 2023
Mel Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/crazyforbooksandcoffee/ June 24th, 2023
S.Anny Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the_obstinate_owlbear/ June 24th, 2023
Happy Friday bookish people! I hope you are all doing well today!
Today’s post was brought on because my Sister, who has moved out, and her Daughter came over and wanted to see if there were any books in the loft from her childhood, and my childhood, that would be suitable reading for her daughter. I was not ready for how many memories this brought back, the amount of books up there was crazy! Obviously, I am a big reader even when I was very young so most of the books were mine and I thought it would be fun if I shared some of the books that were the most nostalgic for me.
Lets start off with a good one:
I LOVED these books when I was younger, to be honest I loved anything to do with fairies but these were one of my favourite series’. I have to say I kept a few of these books back for myself and my memories rather than giving them to my sister’s daughter, which I felt bad about and then I realised I had actually drawn all over the books anyway. OOPS!
This was a seven books series which I also really loved. It is about a girl called Lucy who finds out she is a stardust spirit and has magic powers. I learnt a lot about nature and animals from this series and to be honest it is still enjoyable to read even now I am in my 20’s.
I had these books when I was young and I have to say they are very nostalgic because a few months ago, before we even thought about going into the loft, I kept remembering a scene from this book where the horse gets into trouble and she sees another girl in the bushes and I learnt that to keep a horse warm you need to rub its ears.
and finally…
If you have been on any of my other blog posts you probably know I love this book, I talk about it a lot. It was the first book that really showed me that I love historical fiction, especially around the Tudors which is my favourite historical era.
What books are nostalgic for you?
Hello bookish people! I don’t usually post on a Saturday but with getting such good news today I knew I had to.
I found out that I have been nominated for two categories in the Book Blogger Awards 2023.
I was honestly so grateful to be nominated at all and to anyone who nominated me thank you so much.
I was nominated in the Heart of Gold category and the Book Blogger of the Year category and the voting has gone live tonight, until the end of March.
I would be really grateful to anyone who could go on the website, which I will link here, and vote for me on these two categories.
https://www.thebookparty.co.uk/nominations-ubba23
It is so exciting to be nominated amongst such an amazing group of bloggers and I can’t wait to see who makes the shortlists.
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