blog tours – Home | The Blind Scribe

Happy Monday bookish people! I hope everyone has had a great weekend. I’m so excited that today is my spot on the book tour for Instructions For Dancing by Nicola Yoon! This was a great read and I’m very happy to share my thoughts about it. Thank you to TheWriteReads tours for having me as a part of this.

In this book review I will give star ratings to four categories and I will write a little bit about each one. I will try to keep it as spoiler free as possible. I hope you enjoy my book review.

Instructions For Dancing Plot:

I surprised myself by enjoying this book. Contemporary Romance novels are way out of my comfort zone and I haven’t read very many of them. I really enjoyed that this plot didn’t feel like the typical contemporary plot line, I mean it was because it has the love story in it, but there were some unusual elements that made the story something else. I think that’s the main reason I enjoyed it more than I expected. I saw quite a few reviews before I read this book which said the story is heartbreaking and that a few of them have cried at this book. I have to say I agree, there are heartbreaking moments throughout this book and although didn’t cry myself I was very close. After I finished the book I was left feeling very calm and content, I enjoyed this book a lot.

Instructions For Dancing Characters:

There wasn’t one character in this book that I didn’t like. The friendship group were great to read about and the love interest was funny and intriguing. But my favourite character was Evie, the protagonist, I loved her personality and how she developed throughout the story.

Instructions For Dancing Writing and Dialogue:

I found the writing style difficult to get into at first but once I got used to it I began to enjoy the way Nicola Yoon writes. The dialogue is one of the best parts of this novel, there’s a lot of witty remarks and ‘banter’ between the characters in this novel and I thought this was a brilliant feature.

Instructions For dancing Overall:

I gave this book four stars overall because I enjoyed it more than I expected to and it has made me think that I should try books out of my comfort zone more often.

Blurb/Synopsis:

Evie Thomas doesn’t believe in love anymore. Especially after the strangest thing occurs one otherwise ordinary afternoon: She witnesses a couple kiss and is overcome with a vision of how their romance began . . . and how it will end. After all, even the greatest love stories end with a broken heart, eventually.

As Evie tries to understand why this is happening, she finds herself at La Brea Dance studio, learning to waltz, fox-trot, and tango with a boy named X. X is everything that Evie is not: adventurous, passionate, daring. His philosophy is to say yes to everything–including entering a ballroom dance competition with a girl he’s only just met.

Falling for X is definitely not what Evie had in mind. If her visions of heartbreak have taught her anything, it’s that no one escapes love unscathed. But as she and X dance around and toward each other, Evie is forced to question all she thought she knew about life and love. In the end, is love worth the risk?

That’s it for this book review, I hope you all enjoyed it!

blog tours, Book Reviews

Book Review: The Maidens by Alex Michaelides

June 17, 2021 theblindscribe

Happy Thursday bookish people! I’m very excited that today is my spot on the book tour for The Maidens by Alex Michaelides. Thank you to Anne Cater and Weidenfeld and Nicolson for sending me a copy of this book to read and review for this tour.

In this book review I will give star ratings to four categories and I will write a little about each one. I will try to keep it as spoiler free as possible. I hope you enjoy my book review.

The Maidens Plot:

I’ll start by saying that I almost had to put this book down because of how easily drawn into the world I became. I could feel the dark atmosphere, the fear and the rising tension. The plot was beautifully intricate in a way that had me constantly guessing about what was going to happen next. I am very glad that I didn’t stop reading because the ending – and the final reveal – was very satisfying for me as a reader. I did have a suspicion of the who and the why but the author of this book cleverly interwove the plot with red herrings. I always enjoy a book that has me guessing, it gives me a lot of anticipation for how a story will end.

The Maidens Characters:

Alex Michaelides has managed to create a variety of well explored characters who all have an element of mystery surrounding them. I found that I was suspicious of almost every character at some point and although this was great for the suspense and the psychological parts of the novel, however, because of this I didn’t feel connected to any of the characters in the way I like to be when reading.

The Maidens Writing and Dialogue:

I really enjoyed the writing style of this book. It flowed well and I felt that every part of the story worked better because of Alex Michaelides’ writing style.

The Maidens Overall:

I gave this book four stars because I think it is an excellent psychological novel that I enjoyed reading. I found it a bit too dark for my personal taste but I enjoyed branching out into a slightly different genre than I usually read.

Blurb/Synopsis:

From the author of the global #1 bestselling debut The Silent Patient comes a spellbinding literary thriller which weaves together Greek mythology, psychology, and murder…

St Christopher’s College, Cambridge, is a closed world to most.

For Mariana Andros – a group therapist struggling through her private grief – it’s where she met her late husband. For her niece, Zoe, it’s the tragic scene of her best friend’s murder.

As memory and mystery entangle Mariana, she finds a society full of secrets, which has been shocked to its core by the murder of one of its own.

Because behind its idyllic beauty is a web of jealousy and rage which emanates from an exclusive set of students known only as The Maidens. A group under the sinister influence of the enigmatic professor Edward Fosca.

A man who seems to know more than anyone about the murders – and the victims. And the man who will become the prime suspect in Mariana’s investigation – an obsession which will unravel everything…

The Maidens is a story of love, and of grief – of what makes us who we are, and what makes us kill.

That’s it for this book review, I hope you all enjoyed it!

Book Reviews

Book Review: Love is What You Bake It by Effie Kammenou

May 14, 2021 theblindscribe

Happy Friday bookish people! Today is my stop on the blog tour for the book Love Is What You Bake It by Effie Kammenou. Thank you to Love Book Tours for sending me a copy of this book to read and review.

In this book review I will give star ratings to four categories and I will write a little about each one. I will try to keep it as spoiler free as possible. I hope you enjoy my book review.

Love is What You Bake It Plot:

I don’t read many books that can be classed as part of the romance genre so I can’t say how this book sits amongst them, however, I surprised myself because I actually enjoyed my reading of this book. I thought the plot was simple enough for me to understand everything that was happening while still complicated and filled with layers of back story that gave the story the ‘will they, won’t they’ that it needed.

I enjoyed the themes of family and friendship that were one of the main features of this book, it gave it more of a story in my opinion. I also liked that there were actual recipes sprinkled throughout the book – I definitely want to make some of these!

For me the romance element felt a little rushed, it is a short book to begin with, but I like my romance (even though it’s usually only a tiny sub-plot) to be a slow burn, and when I say slow I mean a snails pace – I like it to be very dragged out.

Love Is What You Bake It Characters:

The main characters Kally and Max were interesting and complex. The way their back stories were slowly shown to the reader was good at playing with your perceptions of the characters. My favourite character in the book has to be Athena, I don’t think it’s a spoiler by saying she is Max’s daughter – if it is sorry! – and she is great. I like children generally, in life and in fiction, but she was very well written and acted her age.

The only part I didn’t enjoy about the characters was there was one, who I won’t name because that would be a spoiler, who in my opinion was coming across a bit dangerous and a bit too controlling and then at the end they almost had a redemption arc which was for a specific reason to further the plot but I did feel that wasn’t the best way to present that character at the end.

Love Is What You Bake It Writing and Dialogue:

I don’t have a lot to say about this section. I thought the writing flowed easily and kept my interest in the story well. The dialogue, although at times too much information was given at once, was well written and matched the characters and their personalities.

Love Is What You Bake It Overall:

I have given this book four stars because I was surprised how much I actually ended up enjoying the story. It was light-hearted and fun and influenced by Greek culture which was very interesting to learn about.

Blurb/synopsis:

The only love Kally Andarakis is baking is in the form of the sweet treats she whips up in her café, The Coffee Klatch.

Kally never believed herself to be a person worthy of love, but when an intoxicating man she considered out of her league pursues her, she risks everything to be with him. Later, when tragedy strikes, truths are revealed that leave Kally brokenhearted and untrusting.

Eight years later, Kally is a successful pastry chef running the café she’d always dreamed of owning. With a home of her own, a profession she’s passionate about, and the support and love of friends and family, Kally is content with the life she has carved out for herself.

Until the day Max Vardaxis walks into her café…

With arguing parents, meddling relatives, an overly energetic grandmother, a man-crazy best friend, and the long ago, mysterious disappearance of a grandfather, this new man in town is just one more complication in Kally’s life, if not the main one.

Kally must now decide whether to keep her heart safe or to once again take a ‘whisk on love.’

That’s it for this book review, I hope you enjoyed it!

Tag: blog tours

Book Review: Instructions For Dancing by Nicola Yoon