books – Page 49 – Home | The Blind Scribe

The Bifurcation of Dungsten Crease Blitz!

March 15, 2021 theblindscribe

Science Fiction

Date Published: March 15, 2021

In the course of a morning, Dungsten Crease resurrects his neighbor’s dog, is arrested by TSA for carrying a weapon which never existed, and drowns a woman at an airline ticket counter—or could he be hallucinating? In his panic he locks himself in the men’s room of a coffee shop only to find a strange man in cycling togs sharing the space. The lanky intruder claims to be Dungsten’s neurally implanted concierge unit who has two disturbing messages. Dungsten is a Shaper—an obsolete, genetically programmed tool created by a bankrupt galactic corporation to terraform planetary experiences for vacationing clients; and the woman he inadvertently killed at the airport with his Shaper abilities will be the love of his life. Attracting government agents who want to weaponize him and Galactic Business Council assassins who want to terminate him, fear drives the Shaper within to inadvertently bifurcate, a second Dungsten also now running from his pursuers. But bifurcation comes at a price: loss of appetite, swelling of the hands and feet, an erection lasting longer than four hours, loss of bladder control, rectal bleeding, psychosis, convulsions, and sudden death. To pull himself back together and if he’s lucky, survive, he must master his Shaper abilities before he becomes a victim, or worse, accidentally destroys Earth and everyone he loves along with it.

Excerpt

Hiding in the darkness, door locked, he wanted to feel safe, but he couldn’t shake the feeling he wasn’t alone. As if to ward off the demons, he spoke aloud.

“I am not being followed. They don’t even know where I am.”

“Did they get a good look at you?”

A voice, someone else’s voice, had echoed off the bathroom walls.

Dungsten scrambled away in terror, his movement switching the lights back on and revealing the source of the voice. “Aaah! Who the hell are you? How did you get in here?”

His bathroom companion, for lack of a better term, was tall and lean with an Adam’s apple giving his neck the appearance of being double-jointed. He wore a black Rolling Stones “Sticky Fingers” T-shirt, black baggy biking shorts, emerald green leggings covering long, spindly, knobbed-kneed legs, and gold bike shoes. Atop his head sat a red cycling helmet aerodynamically constructed to give the impression of forward motion. The entire ensemble gave him the appearance of a deformed giant leprechaun.

He smiled a big toothy grin. “Calm down.”

Dungsten moved to a corner by the sink, looking to no avail for a weapon.

“Calm down? You pop in here like Captain Picard and I’m supposed to calm down? How did you get in here?”

“You let me in, Dungsten.”

Let him in. No, I didn’t let him in. I’ve been curled up in this bathroom scared shitless. I haven’t moved an inch. “Let you in?”

“Yes.”

“How? And you better do some explaining because, well, my day so far has been off the chart weird. I’ve killed…I think. Yeah, I’ve killed, and I imagine it will be pretty easy to kill again. So, don’t mess with me.”

“Dungsten.” The giant leprechaun balanced against a wall with one hand, grabbing his foot from behind to stretch his quads. “I guess I could say you let me in here with your mind.”

About the Author

Richard Hacker, lives and writes in Seattle, Washington after living many years in Austin, Texas. In addition to the science fiction/fantasy novels, which include The Alchimeía Series, his crime novels ride the thin line between fact and fiction in Texas. Along the way, his writing has been recognized by the Writer’s League of Texas and the Pacific Northwest Writers Association. As a judge in literary contests shuch as PNWA and ChicLit, and as a freelance development editor, he enjoys the opportunity to work with other writers. In addition, he is the Sci-Fi/Fantasy editor for the Del Sol Review. When not writing he’s singing jazz and creating visual art.

Del Sol Press books by Richard Hacker are available at Amazon

The Alchimeía Series

DIEBACK: Book One

VENGEANCE OF GRIMBALD: Book Two

Other books by Richard Hacker:

Nick Sibelius Crime Series

KILL’T DEAD OR WORSE

BUZZARD BAIT

ALL HAT AND NO CATTLE

Contact Links

Website

Facebook

Blog

Instagram: lifejazz0526

Purchase Link

Amazon

a Rafflecopter giveaway
https://widget-prime.rafflecopter.com/launch.js

Book Reviews

Book Review: Victoria Schwab’s Bridge of Souls

March 14, 2021 theblindscribe

Hello again bookish people! Wow, three posts today, I’m being very productive. I’m bringing you a book review for Bridge of Souls by Victoria Schwab. This is the third book in the Cassidy Blake series (City of Ghosts, Tunnel of Bones, Bridge of Souls). I was so excited to finally get this book. I read the first two in the series because I love Victoria Schwab’s other books – A Darker Shade of Magic and the Villians series particularly and I loved them so I could not wait to get my hands on the third book. I was not disappointed, it was just as good as the first two and I was fully immersed in the world of Cassidy and Jacob. In this book review I will give star ratings for four categories and I will write a little about each of these. I will try to keep it spoiler free as possible. I hope you enjoy reading my book review.

Everywhere you step, everywhere you stay, was once home to something – and someone – else.

Plot:

Following on from the first two books this book begins in a new city, this time it was New Orleans, I thought it was well researched and the plot was exciting and engaging. I felt every part of the story fit well together and didn’t feel forced. The plot of the first novel in the series was light hearted and each book after has had a darker tone, higher stakes at play, Bridge of Souls is no different and I felt the tension of the plot along with the characters which I think is one of the best things that an Author can manage to do.

Characters:

Already having been introduced to Cassidy and Jacob, the two main protagonists in the series, in the first two novels I felt like I knew them very well. I enjoy the relationship between the characters in this novel, the friendship between Cassidy and Jacob and the relationship each of those characters have with Cassidy’s parents. They are funny and interesting and I was very invested in the characters which caused me to feel sad for them when I needed to and relieved and worried and happy.

Dialogue and Writing:

The writing style is smooth and carries you along in the story, it is easy and clear to read. The dialogue is one of my favourite things about this series. It gives the characters likeable and interesting personalities and shows the relationship between Cassidy and Jacob. It is also a great tool to lighten the tone by having the conversations between the characters.

Overall:

There’s not much more I can say here. I gave this book four stars overall because I really enjoyed reading this book and being back in the world of Cassidy and Jacob. I thought it was well-written and well researched. I cannot wait for the next book in this series (hopefully there will be more!).

Synopsis/Blurb

Where there are ghosts, Cassidy Blake follows … unless it’s the other way around?

Cass thinks she might have this ghost-hunting thing down. After all, she and her ghost best friend, Jacob, have survived two haunted cities while travelling for her parents’ TV show.

But nothing can prepare Cass for New Orleans, which wears all of its hauntings on its sleeve. In a city of ghost tours and tombs, raucous music and all kinds of magic, Cass could get lost in all the colourful, grisly local legends. And the city’s biggest surprise is a foe Cass never expected to face: a servant of Death itself.

Cass takes on her most dangerous challenge yet…

Book Reviews

Book Review: Maggie Stiefvater’s The Raven Boys

March 14, 2021 theblindscribe

Hello bookish people! Happy Mother’s Day to everyone! Today I’m bringing you a book review for The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater, the first book in The Raven Boys four book series. I thought this book was okay, it was an enjoyable opening book to a series. In this book review I will give star ratings for four categories and I will write a little about each of these. I will try to keep it as spoiler free as possible. I hope you enjoy reading my book review!

This is a well-written, enjoyable opening novel to the series. It introduces the characters and has a contained conflict as well as an overarching conflict for the rest of the series. It has a unique and interesting premise that made me want to pick up this book. It cuts between the POVs of multiple characters including that of Blue, the main protagonist, Gansey and Adam.

Blue has spent the majority of her sixteen years being told that if she kisses her true love, he will die.

Plot:

This novel has an interesting plot. It is a well planned, well-written and intriguing plot that keeps you reading on until the end, and I felt the ending was satisfactory to complete the story for this book while still managing to set up an intriguing story for the second book in the series, particularly because of the final line.
However, I felt there were too many little stories happening at the same time which made them hard to follow, and they didn’t all get solved within this first book. Also, it felt like an opening novel rather than a novel with a very defined plot, it seemed to centre around introducing the characters and their relationships (which I don’t think is a bad thing), that’s why I can only give the plot three stars.

Characters:

I thought that the characters in this novel were brilliantly engaging. One of the high points for me was the dialogue between them, particularly between Blue and Gansey, it is interesting and well-written. It makes me like the characters. I find I am very much a character-based reader, I enjoy their interactions and the things that add to the plot I find are the things that are revealed through dialogue or the lack of it. The main characters in this novel (Noah, Blue, Gansey, Adam and Ronan) are all clear characters, each with their own conflict. I would have liked this novel to explore Noah and Ronan more than it did as I found their characters lacking compared to the others but overall I thought the characters were a highlight in this book.

Dialogue and Writing:

I don’t have much more to say about this, as I’ve mentioned it in the previous two categories but I could only give this category three stars because I felt that the writing in the beginning may have been a little slow to actually delve into the story and because of this the writing in the second half felt too rushed for my preferences.

Overall:

So, overall I’m rating this book three stars. I enjoyed the book and I definitely plan on reading the second book in the series (I’ve heard that’s the best one? so I’m looking forward to it). I am invested in the characters and their relationships but I couldn’t give a higher star rating because I wasn’t all that invested in the plot but I was at the same time – that probably doesn’t make much sense. I enjoyed it, but I probably won’t reread it any time soon.

Synopsis/Blurb:

“There are only two reasons a non-seer would see a spirit on St. Mark’s Eve,” Neeve said. “Either you’re his true love . . . or you killed him.”

It is freezing in the churchyard, even before the dead arrive.

Every year, Blue Sargent stands next to her clairvoyant mother as the soon-to-be dead walk past. Blue herself never sees them—not until this year, when a boy emerges from the dark and speaks directly to her.

His name is Gansey, and Blue soon discovers that he is a rich student at Aglionby, the local private school. Blue has a policy of staying away from Aglionby boys. Known as Raven Boys, they can only mean trouble.

But Blue is drawn to Gansey, in a way she can’t entirely explain. He has it all—family money, good looks, devoted friends—but he’s looking for much more than that. He is on a quest that has encompassed three other Raven Boys: Adam, the scholarship student who resents all the privilege around him; Ronan, the fierce soul who ranges from anger to despair; and Noah, the taciturn watcher of the four, who notices many things but says very little.

For as long as she can remember, Blue has been warned that she will cause her true love to die. She never thought this would be a problem. But now, as her life becomes caught up in the strange and sinister world of the Raven Boys, she’s not so sure anymore.

From Maggie Stiefvater, the bestselling and acclaimed author of the Shiver trilogy and The Scorpio Races, comes a spellbinding new series where the inevitability of death and the nature of love lead us to a place we’ve never been before.

Book Tags

The Last Ten Books Tag

March 12, 2021March 12, 2021 theblindscribe

It is Friday! And that only means one thing – Today I’m doing a Book Tag! (Friday’s won’t always be for Book Tags but I do love doing them). The Book Tag I am doing I found on @LousBookStuff and it is ‘The Last Ten Books Tag’! It was a really fun tag to do because it made me think about my answers – and how many books I’m buying because there’s a lot of them (I’m not sorry!) So.. here it is!

The Last Book I Gave Up On:
Now this would be Lies Like Poison by Chelsea Pitcher. I very rarely give up on books – I have to finish them or I’ll be noticing them on my shelves all the time, they’d be looking at me like YOU! How dare you not finish reading me! And I just can’t handle that. So I read This Lie Will Kill You by Chelsea Pitcher first and I enjoyed it but it scared me so much that I didn’t sleep that night … so I did what any book obsessed person would do – I picked up Lies Like Poison. I put it down after two chapters and the week after I gave it away to my friend who loved it so there’s a happy ending in there somewhere.

2. The Last Book I Reread:
The Lady In The Tower by Marie Louise Jenson. This is one of my favourite books ever. I’ve read it so many times that the book looks a bit, well… battered but I never get tired of this story. And Lord Phillip Stanton, yep, definitely won’t get tired of his character.

3. The Last Book I Bought:
Do Pre-orders count? I’ve just pre-ordered Rule of Wolves by Leigh Bardugo, Gods and Monsters by Shelby Mahurin and Realm Breaker by Victoria Aveyard. If they don’t count (they should) the last book I bought was the Wolf Hall boxset – and they are beautiful!

4. The Last Book That I Said I Read But Actually Didn’t:
I don’t do this… I mean if I’ve said I’ve read a book then I’ve read it and I could easily summarise it for anyone who asks.

5. The Last Book I Wrote Into The Margins Of:
I didn’t write into the actual book but I did write on bright pink sticky notes and put them into the margins… I’m going to say that counts. Oh, and the book was Howdunnit: A Masterclass In Crime Writing.

6. The Last Book I Had Signed:
That would probably be my February Illumicrate book – A Dark And Hollow Star by Ashley Shuttleworth. I cannot wait to read this book! The cover is gorgeous and the story sounds so good!

7. The Last Book I Lost:
I don’t lose books – or at least I haven’t so far in my 21 years of life. I hope I haven’t just jinxed that…

8. The Last Book I Had To Replace:
This would by my copy of The Hunger Games. I lent it to a friend when I was in Secondary School and she left it in her bag and she left her bag outside, it rained, and I was left with a very badly water damaged version of it. So I bought a new copy.

9. The Last Book I Argued over:
I don’t think I’ve ever done this – not that I can remember at least.

10. The Last Book I Couldn’t Find:
Hmm.. I know where all my books are. There is a strict organizational system in place with my books (there kind of needs to be when you’re Visually Impaired).

So that’s it for today! I’ll be putting up a VERY exciting blog post later today so watch out for that and next Friday I’ll be doing something a little different which will hopefully go to plan. I hope you enjoyed my Book Tag. As for tagging other people I’d say anyone who wants to do it consider yourself tagged!

Book Reviews

Book Review: Peter Swanson’s Rules For Perfect Murders

March 8, 2021 theblindscribe

I have recently finished reading Rules for Perfect Murders by Peter Swanson and I really enjoyed it, in this book review I will give star ratings for four categories and write a little about each of these. I will try to keep it as spoiler free as possible. I hope you all enjoy reading my book review!

This is a cleverly plotted, fast paced, whodunnit full of twists and secrets. It focuses on a man called Malcolm Kershaw who works at a bookstore that specializes in selling mystery/thriller books. Then he becomes involved in a murder investigation. This novel contains elements of the great Golden Age era of crime fiction like Agatha Christie yet still manages to make itself unique in both it’s premise and structure. The reader follows the POV of Malcolm, following both the present and the secrets of his past that slowly emerge throughout the novel.

Plot:

This novel is an entertaining plot that kept me guessing from the very beginning. It was well thought out and from the technical point of view every scene led into the next in a brilliant and clever way. The secrets were hinted at and clues were sprinkled throughout leading to a (in my opinion) satisfying ending. I am usually pretty good at managing to guess the ending before it happens but with this novel I had no chance, the story swept me up and so many theories were spinning around my head. That is one of the reasons I gave this novel 4 stars for plot.

Characters:

As for characters there are a lot of them, but the main ones are Malcolm Kershaw, his two bookstore employees, FBI Agent Gwen Mulvoy, his old friend Marty Kingship and married couple Brian and Tess Murray. Although each of the characters had very defined personalities from each other for me it felt like they were lacking in some way. Malcolm, was not a very likeable character I didn’t particularly have strong feelings for or against him but I was still engaged in his story. The two bookstore employees I feel could have been developed further, they are distinct and personally I felt they were likeable – the only two characters who I felt were likeable in this novel – but they weren’t that interesting. I would have liked to have seen more of Agent Gwen Mulvey, she features more in the first half than the second half and I felt her character could have been explored better. The other three characters I didn’t find to be all that likeable either but again they were well thought out and had an impact on the story.

Dialogue and writing:

I became invested in the novel because of the dialogue in the very first scene. It helped to heighten tension when it was needed and it helped lighten the tone when the novel needed balance as well. The dialogue, or lack of from some characters, provided personality and created an image of the characters for me. The writing style was easy to navigate, it flowed well in my opinion and it didn’t feel forced in any way. That was one of the main reasons I enjoyed the novel, usually I am a fan of character driven novels rather than plot driven novels but because of Swanson’s writing style and the engaging dialogue I found myself enjoying the read.

Overall:

So, overall I rated this novel four stars because even though I wasn’t invested in the characters I truly couldn’t put the book down, I had to know how it ended. If you enjoy novels where you aren’t sure who you can trust then I would recommend Rules For Perfect Murders by Peter Swanson. (One note I will make is that if you want to read The Red House Mystery by A A Milne, Malice Aforethought by Anthony Berkeley Cox, The A B C Murders by Agatha Christie, Double Indemnity by James M. Cain, Strangers On A Train by Patricia Highsmith, The Drowner by John D MacDonald, Deathtrap by Ira Levin or The Secret History by Donna Tartt I would recommend reading them first because Malcolm is fond of giving spoilers to these books).

Synopsis/Blurb:
Years ago Malcolm Kershaw wrote a list of his ‘Eight Favourite Murders’ for his Old Devils mystery bookshop blog. Among others it included those from Agatha Christie’s The A.B.C Murders, Patricia Highsmith’s Strangers On A Train and Donna Tartt’s The Secret History.
Now just before Christmas, Malcolm finds himself at the heart of an investigation – as an FBI Agent believes someone may be re-enacting each of the murders on his list.

Uncategorized

The Birthday List Bickers

March 7, 2021 theblindscribe

So.. if you don’t know my birthday is in March (I’m going to be 22! – That feels strange) and, as she does every year, my Mum asked me to write a birthday list. It takes me multiple days to write a list, one – because I have a lot of things to write on the list and two – because I have very few things to go on the list.
Meaning – I end up with a list of about 50 books (not even half the books that I ACTUALLY want) but the only thing on my list is books.
Every year my Mum and I have the same conversation “is that it?” “Mum, there’s like fifty books on it” “but it’s only books” “yes Mum, that’s all I want”.

This year I’ve branched out a bit, now don’t get too excited – I haven’t had a personality switch and asked for clothes or films or a garden patch (although I did very unrealistically ask for a greenhouse every Christmas between the ages of five and fifteen). I asked for a book cart. A green one, obviously because green is the best colour and the thing that is going to hold my most precious items (books – in case you hadn’t guessed) needs to be the best colour, in other words not one I’m going to get bored of anytime soon. There was a beautiful yellow one but my family acted like if I got that one they’d have to permanently wear sunglasses to enter the room it was in. It wasn’t that bright. I am looking forward to getting it, it’s sea green and it reminds me of the colour of the Little Mermaid’s tail. It is going to go next to where I sit in the living room and then all I have to do is just reach out my hand and grab a book! Easy Peasy! Much easier than having to climb up my bed (yes, I have to climb a ladder to get into my bed I usually imagine I’m scaling a castle wall don’t judge me.)
Fair warning, once I get my book cart it’s going to feature in pretty much all of my Instagram photos for the foreseeable future because I’m already in love with it and it hasn’t even arrived yet…

Has anyone else got a book cart? Also, I’d take a guess that the book cart is going to be as tall as me, maybe even taller… I’m a very short person and they look pretty big. That will be an interesting experience trying to push that around – like a tea trolley lady except you can’t see them behind the cart so it’s just like a voice without a body.

That’s it for today’s post I hope you all liked it! Comment and let me know if you like it, or if you didn’t, or if you just want to talk about books (or anything really) I’m always happy to talk and make friends!
My next post is going to be tomorrow, Monday, and it is going to be my first book review on the blog, come back tomorrow and check it out if you are interested.

Book Tags

20 Questions Book Tag

March 5, 2021 theblindscribe

Hello bookish people!
It is finally Friday, and Friday’s are for doing fun bookish things. So today I am doing the 20 Questions Book Tag that I saw on @Paper Fury’s blog. It looked like it could be fun so I decided to have a go at doing it as well. I hope you all enjoy it!

How Many Books Are Too Many For A Series?
Hmm… if I am enjoying a series then there’s never too many books because you know I’m going to keep coming back and buying them all BUT if I’m not completely obsessed with a series then I’d say I lose interest after about the 4th book. My perfect amount is probably a trilogy.

2. How Do You Feel About Cliffhangers?
Ah cliffhangers, the the stomach-dropping feeling when you don’t know how long it will be until you can get your hands on the next book in the series and complete the story. Inside I’m throwing the book against the wall and screaming because it hurts my soul to leave a story unfinished.

3. Hardcover or Paperback?
Hardcover. I’d definitely choose a hardback book over a paperback one, I know they’re more expensive but thinking about paperbacks and their cracked spines.. I just can’t do it. Also, on the practical side – hardcovers usually have slightly larger print and well, you know, every little helps.

4. Favourite Book?
That is an extremely difficult question to ask someone who loves books! But I’ll give it a go.. hmm, probably The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern. It’s whimsical and magical and it has BOOKS in it and a masquerade party and great characters and.. I could go on and on all day about this book but I won’t I’ll just say that if you haven’t read it I would recommend it.

5. Least Favourite Book?
I don’t have a least favourite book. There have been a few books I didn’t enjoy but I won’t name any here, if you want to know what books I did and didn’t enjoy I will be putting up weekly book reviews starting on Monday so check them out, I will always be honest within my reviews!

6. Love Triangles, Yes or No?
No. No. Nope. No. NO! I do not like love triangles. Do I still enjoy books that happen to have love triangles in? Yes, I do. But will it lessen my enjoyment of it? Also, usually yes. (I’m just going to pretend that the ACOTAR series doesn’t include a love triangle because that series is amazing.)

7. The Most Recent Book You Couldn’t Finish?
Well.. the answer for this one is Charmcaster by Sebastien De Castell, the third book in the Spellslinger series. Now, it wasn’t that I didn’t finish the book because I wasn’t enjoying it or I wasn’t feeling it at the time because I was loving it – the problem was that I was reading it at like 4 AM because I’d woken up desperate to read something (does anyone else ever get like that?) and it was the first book I saw but I was actually still really tired so I had to go back to sleep.

8. A Book You’re Currently Reading?
That would be Bridge Of Souls by Victoria Schwab because my pre-order of it arrived yesterday and I couldn’t wait to dive into it. It’s not on my March TBR but shhhh, that doesn’t matter.

9. The Last Book You Recommended To Someone?
The Cruel Prince by Holly Black. My friend and I have pretty much the same reading tastes and she also loves books about Fae, and they don’t get much better than Cardan.. anyway, I lent the book to her and then we went into another national lockdown. So.. she still has my book. I asked her if she’d send me photos of it each week so I knew it was safe but she said no.

10. Oldest Book You’ve Read By Publication Date?
My answer to this is the same as PaperFury’s – Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe. I had to read it for my University classes.

11. Newest Book You’ve Read By Publication Date?
Definitely the Bridge of Souls by Victoria Schwab that I’m currently reading as it’s publication date was the 4th March 2021.

12. Favourite Author?
I know I can’t pick just one for this! Here’s a short list: Philippa Gregory, Terry Pratchett, V E Schwab, Kerri Maniscalco, Stephanie Garber….

13. Buying Books or Borrowing Books?
Buying. I like owning my books so that I can just grab them and read them whenever I want to.

14. A Book That You Dislike That Everyone Seems To Like?
Hmm.. I’m going to go for the Guest List by Lucy Foley, I didn’t exactly dislike this book but I picked it up because I saw a lot of people on BookTube loving it and it didn’t quite live up to my expectations.

15. Bookmarks Or Dog Ears?
Dog ears would ruin my books so there is no way I will be doing that! I always have a bookmark handy for when I start reading.

16. A Book You Can Always Reread?
Anything by Stephanie Garber or Kerri Maniscalco, the Villains series by V E Schwab, the Vampire Academy series by Richelle Mead… the list goes on

17. Can You Read While Listening To Music?
Nope. I like there to be quiet when I am reading and music makes me daydream so it would be difficult to read at the same time.

18. One POV Or Multiple?
That depends on the book. Usually I prefer one POV because it’s easier to follow the story that way, in my opinion, but I can get on board with multiple POVs if the characters are good (cough*Six Of Crows*cough).

19. Do You Read A Book In One Sitting Or Over Multiple Days?
Physically, I can do either. Mentally, if I can’t read the book in one sitting and I have to put it down for more than a few hours it is much harder for me to pick it up again.

20. Who Do You Tag?
Everyone! Anyone who wants to do this tag! It was pretty fun to do, if you have different opinions or want to talk to me about anything bookish let me know in the comments!