Feyre’s survival rests upon her ability to hunt and kill – the forest where she lives is cold and bleak in the long winter months. So when she spots a deer in the forest being pursued by a wolf, she cannot resist fighting it for the flesh. But to do so, she must kill the predator, and killing something so precious comes at a price …
Dragged to a magical kingdom for the murder of a faerie, Feyre discovers that her captor, his face obscured by a jeweled mask, is hiding far more than his piercing green eyes would suggest. Feyre’s presence at the court is closely guarded, and as she learns why her feelings for him turn from hostility to passion, the faerie lands become even more dangerous. Feyre must fight to break an ancient curse, or she will lose him forever.
Book Review
ACOTAR has a surprisingly slow start. I judge this by how quickly I sink into a story when reading. It took me a few tries to get into Feyre’s world. When I did, she was in trouble and discovering Tamlin’s world. I loved Lucian more and learned more about him than Tamlin, which worried me. Tamlin and Feyre are end game in ACOTAR. I found that I’m not quite in love with this pairing. Lucian and Rhysand really stand out for me. Their characters are so well-developed that it was hard not to enjoy reading their moments and experiences. I hope the next book will have a stronger story for Tamlin.
ACOTAR is so popular that I wanted to jump into this world and discover what it’s about. So, I did. I suppose it can all be summed up as surviving day-to-day, then being pulled into a new world where it is all roses and thorns, and then fighting for what matters. I enjoyed the fight part. Feyre’s determination shines here, and she is admirable.
Maybe because I know this is a series, the entertainment Rhys serves up so late in the book doesn’t annoy me so much as it would if this were not a series. I’m on to book two, and I hope Rhys features more.
The Year started with An American Marriage. Celestial Davenport is as real as ever in this book.
Blurb: Newlyweds Celestial and Roy are the embodiment of both the American Dream and the New South. He is a young executive, and she is an artist on the brink of an exciting career. But as they settle into the routine of their life together, they are ripped apart by circumstances neither could have imagined. Roy is arrested and sentenced to twelve years for a crime Celestial knows he didn’t commit.
Though fiercely independent, Celestial finds herself bereft and unmoored, taking comfort in Andre, her childhood friend, and best man at their wedding. As Roy’s time in prison passes, she is unable to hold on to the love that has been her center. After five years, Roy’s conviction is suddenly overturned, and he returns to Atlanta ready to resume their life together.
Then came The Fifth Season. This is not an easy book to get into, but once you do give it the time, it does deliver a riveting story, with remarkable characters.
Blurb: This is the way the world ends. Again.
Three terrible things happen in a single day. Essun, a woman living an ordinary life in a small town, comes home to find that her husband has brutally murdered their son and kidnapped their daughter. Meanwhile, mighty Sanze — the world-spanning empire whose innovations have been civilization’s bedrock for a thousand years — collapses as most of its citizens are murdered to serve a madman’s vengeance. And worst of all, across the heart of the vast continent known as the Stillness, a great red rift has been torn into the heart of the earth, spewing ash enough to darken the sky for years. Or centuries.
Now Essun must pursue the wreckage of her family through a deadly, dying land. Without sunlight, clean water, or arable land, and with limited stockpiles of supplies, there will be war all across the Stillness: a battle royale of nations not for power or territory, but simply for the basic resources necessary to get through the long dark night. Essun does not care if the world falls apart around her. She’ll break it herself, if she must, to save her daughter.
These two books came I picked up at Text Book Center. I loved, loved them, great story and Jane McKeene remains a favorite. I will say that it is a Zombie series so a bit of gore and serious fighting and injury is expected. But mostly Ms. Ireland focuses on Jane McKeene’s bravery and tenaciousness. Discover more about these books here: Dread Nation & Deathless Divide.
I loved this one too. I read it fast, barely slept getting to the end, hehe. There is a deep divide in opinion about this book’s worthiness. I suppose it depends on taste, but I found Nora Seed’s odd journey interesting and thought-provoking.
Blurb: In The Midnight Library, Matt Haig’s enchanting new novel, Nora Seed finds herself faced with a decision. Faced with the possibility of changing her life for a new one, following a different career, undoing old breakups, realizing her dreams of becoming a glaciologist; she must search within herself as she travels through the Midnight Library to decide what is truly fulfilling in life, and what makes it worth living in the first place.
From December 2021, Notes Under the Door & Other stories. An anthology of short stories about African women dealing with experiences that leave them making some hard choices. These stories are eye-opening and speak on important issues in our African society.
Blurb: Dead fathers. Critical mothers. Abusive marriages. Body insecurities. Young love. And always, expectations. Notes Under the Door is an anthology of seven African literary short stories that explores what it can mean to be a girl, a young woman, in a world that demands too much of women, and gives back too little. Set in urban Kenya, each story follows a girl or a woman grappling with the experience of being who they are – young, female, African, layered, complex, whole.
Reading Next for February 2022 – The #ACOTAR Series
Feb is here and I’m excited to jump into the world of Sarah J. Maas. I have wanted to read A Court of Thorns and Roses for a time. I’m finally getting in and I can’t wait.
The Fiction part of this blog is moving to a hosted site. If you enjoy reading fiction online, check out Zev’s Afrotheria at the following links. ^_^
My grandmother told us (her grandchildren) folktales in her kitchen, while we waited for her to finish cooking. She told us tales when we finished eating and waited to go to bed. I remember the sound of her voice, her laugh, the scent of the sweet potatoes she roasted in the hot ash under the firewood coals. Most of all, I remember the warmth of her kitchen, as she spun wild tales about an ogre in the forest who ate naughty children. Her stories could be quite frightening at times.
She’s long gone now. All we have are the memories of her tales. Most of which are not as clear as we wish they would be. We were young, the years have gone by and us, her grandchildren, are often sad because her stories while entertaining are lost to memory. I wish someone had written them down. I wish I knew them well enough to write them down and print them.
I tell you this memory because you must also have stories you enjoyed, you experienced and hold close to your personal history. They are yours, told in your language, your way. To never forget them is a gift, to share them is your privilege. Write them down and get them read by others. Share your experiences in our beautiful East Africa with the generations to come.
Somewhere out beyond the edge of the universe there is a library that contains an infinite number of books, each one the story of another reality. One tells the story of your life as it is, along with another book for the other life you could have lived if you had made a different choice at any point in your life. While we all wonder how our lives might have been, what if you had the chance to go to the library and see for yourself? Would any of these other lives truly be better?
In The Midnight Library, Matt Haig’s enchanting new novel, Nora Seed finds herself faced with this decision. Faced with the possibility of changing her life for a new one, following a different career, undoing old breakups, realizing her dreams of becoming a glaciologist; she must search within herself as she travels through the Midnight Library to decide what is truly fulfilling in life, and what makes it worth living in the first place.
Book Review
This book is about a woman who feels she has nothing left to give to the world. She lives in a world that feels utterly isolated and there’s no one she sees who needs her. She is suicidal and ends up in The Midnight Library. Where she meets a guide who allows her to explore an infinite library of lives she could have lived, and a chance to discover the weight of her regrets.
Nora Seed embarks on a unique adventure. She explores various lives and possibilities. She is greatly disappointed and intensely impressed with her accomplishments in some parts. In others, she faces crippling grief at the loss of people she cares about, and in the end makes the decision to continue living.
The concept of landing in a The Midnight Library saves Nora from an otherwise devastating choice. She is a character who is depressed and in a low moment in her life. The Midnight Library does serve toward bringing her out of this low moment. She rediscovers what she felt passionate about, who matters in her life, and even finds the existence she thought useless matters to a young man she gave piano lessons. I love this book for adding an extraordinary magic into the mundane events in life. Nora discovers that the best she can do with her life is simple, just to live it to the best of her ability.
“If you aim to be something you are not, you will always fail. Aim to be you. Aim to look and act and think like you. Aim to be the truest version of you. Embrace that you-ness. Endorse it. Love it. Work hard at it….don’t give a second thought when people mock it or ridicule it.”
Today, I’m very proud of our one plant vine growing like a champ.
We got grapevine cuttings from a friend I have spent the last two months babying these two last cuttings into growing into strong plants. One has agreed to bring out leaves, but the other cutting remains dormant. I thought nothing was happening with the dormant one but when I checked it a few days ago, it has roots. So, we’re in the waiting period with that one.
Meanwhile, we might end up with a one plant vineyard, and it’s oddly exciting. I can’t wait to see what happens next. Yes, the little leaves on the one plant have me imagining grapes growing on a vine, maybe making wine out of them. hahaha. Here’s to hope!
Jane McKeene was born two days before the dead began to walk the battlefields of Gettysburg and Chancellorsville—derailing the War Between the States and changing America forever. In this new nation, safety for all depends on the work of a few, and laws like the Native and Negro Reeducation Act require certain children attend combat schools to learn to put down the dead. But there are also opportunities—and Jane is studying to become an Attendant, trained in both weaponry and etiquette to protect the well-to-do. It’s a chance for a better life for Negro girls like Jane. After all, not even being the daughter of a wealthy white Southern woman could save her from society’s expectations.
But that’s not a life Jane wants. Almost finished with her education at Miss Preston’s School of Combat in Baltimore, Jane is set on returning to her Kentucky home and doesn’t pay much mind to the politics of the eastern cities, with their talk of returning America to the glory of its days before the dead rose. But when families around Baltimore County begin to go missing, Jane is caught in the middle of a conspiracy, one that finds her in a desperate fight for her life against some powerful enemies. And the restless dead, it would seem, are the least of her problems
The sequel to Dread Nation is a journey of revenge and salvation across a divided America.
After the fall of Summerland, Jane McKeene hoped her life would get simpler: Get out of town, stay alive, and head west to California to find her mother.
But nothing is easy when you’re a girl trained in putting down the restless dead, and a devastating loss on the road to a protected village called Nicodermus has Jane questioning everything she thought she knew about surviving in 1880’s America.
What’s more, this safe haven is not what it appears – as Jane discovers when she sees familiar faces from Summerland amid this new society. Caught between mysteries and lies, the undead, and her own inner demons, Jane soon finds herself on a dark path of blood and violence that threatens to consume her.
But she won’t be in it alone.
Katherine Deveraux never expected to be allied with Jane McKeene. But after the hell she has endured, she knows friends are hard to come by – and that Jane needs her, too, whether Jane wants to admit it or not.
Watching Jane’s back, however, is more than she bargained for, and when they both reach a breaking point, it’s up to Katherine to keep hope alive – even as she begins to fear that there is no happily-ever-after for girls like her.
Deathless Divide, Goodreads.com
Book Review
Dread Nation came first and it is super amazing. I enjoyed discovering Jane McKeene because she is feisty, strong-willed and kicks ass. She is a fierce black girl lead. Nothing can keep her down. She lives her life how she wants it, despite her circumstances. Book One (Dread Nation) is badass.
It made me want to read Deathless Divide, and continue with Jane. Book Two is absolutely darker than the first book. Which is a strange perspective considering the background of zombies and settlements where Jane is faced with segregation and fighting for equal rights for resources found in book one. The zombies continue in book two, and the settlement where Jane ends up with her friends is a bit more civilized, to a point.
However, in Book Two Jane deals with grief and the part she plays in the death of a man she cared about. She loses people close to her, and the ensuing grief plunges her into a very dark period of her life. The added bonus is that Book Two includes Katherine Deveraux’s POV. Katherine is Jane’s best friend, and the one person capable of pulling Jane back from the dark side. We get to meet a host of new characters as they all fight to survive the world-ending zombie pandemic. Katherine helps pull Jane back when she is all but lost in a quest that could threaten her life.
In all, Dread Nation and Deathless Divide represent strong-willed black women willing to fight for their friends and family in order to survive a harsh and brutal world.
Three terrible things happen in a single day. Essun, a woman living an ordinary life in a small town, comes home to find that her husband has brutally murdered their son and kidnapped their daughter. Meanwhile, mighty Sanze — the world-spanning empire whose innovations have been civilization’s bedrock for a thousand years — collapses as most of its citizens are murdered to serve a madman’s vengeance. And worst of all, across the heart of the vast continent known as the Stillness, a great red rift has been torn into the heart of the earth, spewing ash enough to darken the sky for years. Or centuries.
Now Essun must pursue the wreckage of her family through a deadly, dying land. Without sunlight, clean water, or arable land, and with limited stockpiles of supplies, there will be war all across the Stillness: a battle royale of nations not for power or territory, but simply for the basic resources necessary to get through the long dark night. Essun does not care if the world falls apart around her. She’ll break it herself, if she must, to save her daughter.
Book Review
This is not a fast read. It took me a bit of time to get through the first three chapters. They are full of world building, which is necessary, but felt very tedious. I found myself stopping and coming back again hoping to reach an easier part. Once I was over this, it was easy to sink in to the world of the Stillness.
The characters are extraordinary. The development of each one is thorough and compelling. From Essun’s devastating loss which she carries through the book, and at each point defines her actions. To Syen and Alabaster who are part of an organization working to tame their very nature. These characters face incredible horrifying scenes. They survive in a world in which they are oppressed for being different and extraordinary.
The Fifth Season is not a one day read. It needs time because there is so much to unpack. Once I give it the time it needs, I loved the resilience weaved into among the characters.
A fresh new start for the year 2022. I’m excited for new projects, and a new creative cycle. Here is what is on the writing desk this year:
Zev’s Afrotheria – This is a story I’ve worked on off and on for the last few months. I’ll post it more often on this blog , look out for the chapters.
Zev Mablevi’s younger sister goes missing after a vicious attack on their home by ghost wraiths. To find her, he needs the power of the Guardian Guild. Zev gives up on his dreams to join the prestigious Tech Class and enters the Guardian Guild. He works hard to join the most elite force in the guild on a quest to gain enough power to investigate his sister’s disappearance. He soon meets Dahlia, a progressive scientist who believes she has found a way to win against the wraiths for good. She needs a guardian who can take her to the top of the mountain where the ghost wraiths come from. She promises Zev to help him find his sister if he gets her to the mountain and back.
Kipepeo – I started this during the 2019 nanowrimo cycle. I always feel it needs more work, so I’ll polish it up and share it soon.
Henson lives in a two-room house in with his mother and four siblings. He wins a swimming competition in the local community center and wins a scholarship to Bayside College. An elite school in the Lavington Hillsides. There he meets Livia, the daughter of an affluent businessman. They fall in love, but when her parents discover their relationship, they threaten to withdraw his scholarship. Livia breaks Henson’s heart to protect him.
Ten years later, Henson works in a reputable accounting firm in Nairobi. He meets Livia, who is now managing her father’s business. She needs help to save her family’s business from creditors. Will Henson help her?
Jelani’s Empire – This is a tentative name for this story. In the books it is simply Ram & Amber. Hoping by the end of the year, it will be more than a shell.
Ram fights to recover his mother’s place in his family’s empire. This is a work in progress with no real blurb. I’m lost in development world with it.
So much to do and write, and January is already underway. ^_^ This is my list of work in progress. I hope yours is going well too.
Newlyweds Celestial and Roy are the embodiment of both the American Dream and the New South. He is a young executive, and she is an artist on the brink of an exciting career. But as they settle into the routine of their life together, they are ripped apart by circumstances neither could have imagined. Roy is arrested and sentenced to twelve years for a crime Celestial knows he didn’t commit. Though fiercely independent, Celestial finds herself bereft and unmoored, taking comfort in Andre, her childhood friend, and best man at their wedding. As Roy’s time in prison passes, she is unable to hold on to the love that has been her center. After five years, Roy’s conviction is suddenly overturned, and he returns to Atlanta ready to resume their life together.
Book Review
Roy and Celestial are in love and married for a year and change. Their story starts out with a working marriage. Roy is happy with his wife and his greatest concern is how he can get his mother and wife to be friends. There are cracks in the tapestry. Celestial suspects Roy is not entirely faithful, and Roy is determined to prove her wrong. There is the problem of the in-laws who might or might not like Celestial. The serious pressure from both pair of parents to get a child. Roy and Celestial are living a relatively happy life until Roy is arrested and falsely accused of a crime he did not commit. Celestial becomes a wife to an incarcerated man. Roy becomes a husband locked away for a whopping twelve years. Their new dynamic strips them of dignity, long held expectations and dreams, and a challenge on commitment begins.
I enjoyed how real Roy and Celestial are portrayed in this book. Their relationship is far from perfect. They fight and make up. They even have a phrase to help them get back from the edge, to escape irrevocable damage. They might have worked out their differences with time. When they are forced apart…pulled asunder by the law of the land, their life changes.
Absence takes hold of them and a new path starts for Roy and Celestial.
An American Marriage explores relationships between parents and their children. Roy’s parents have a very strong impact on his life, and on Celestial. Celestial’s parents also play a role for Roy and what he believes his dreams to be. The most interesting relationships were between fathers and sons. Roy had two, and at a point this hidden truth results in a fight between him and Celestial. Much later, it plays a role in getting Roy through a difficult five years in prison.
At the heart of this story is a relationship between a man and his wife, and Celestial’s best friend, Andre. At one point Celestial Davenport thinks “…I never imagined myself to be the kind of woman who would find herself with both a husband and a fiancé…” Roy cannot accept this reality and does his best to fight for his rights as a husband when he gets out. After all he was innocent when he went to jail, he did the time and hoped his wife would still be where he left her when he got out.
Yet, Absence grew in five long years, life continued and did not stay still when Roy was inside. Celestial’s choice to have Andre as a fiancé is harsh on Roy. She comes off as disloyal, but maybe their relationship was already on shaky ground from the start. It would not have been strong enough to withstand five long years of absence. The true tragedy here is the catalyst of Roy’s incarceration. Without the false accusation, Roy and Celestial would have continued on, living their lives as they were.
Stories and Book Talk 