Shelloquent

Time for another book review! I'll be trying to do these on weekends, especially when I've finished a book that I really want to talk about. And I really want to talk about Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire. EVERY HEART A DOORWAY by Seanan McGuire I have been a Seanan Fan for a few years now. I picked up the first in her October Daye series when I got sick of Jim Butcher's Dresden Files (for many reasons I chose to stop reading it), and found that Seanan's series delivered exactly what I'd wanted from Butcher's. I picked up more and more of her work, increasingly please by what I read. I have a lot of Feels about Seanan's work, and was super excited to pick up Every Heart a Doorway. Blurb: Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children No Solicitations No Visitors No Quests Children have always disappeared under the right conditions; slipping through the shadows under a bed or at the back of a wardrobe, tumbling down rabbit holes...

Sup everyone? Enjoying your holiday weekend if you're in the States and/or work someplace that observes Memorial Day? Don't forget to take some time to reflect on why we have a day off for Memorial Day while we kick off the unofficial start to the summer! This is the first in what's going to be a series called Monday Me-Time where I'll blog about something personal: my likes, travels, something that means something to me. But before I get into that I want to talk about what I did over the weekend: ta-dah ! I have a website! I thought it'd be good to put myself out there professionally, partly to improve my online footprint (I barely have one!) and partly to make sure I keep my professional achievements chronicled. Still more to come obviously: the "Work" page needs to be updated with some press releases, achievements, and articles I've been featured or quoted in. But I'm really excited about how it came out! Now, moving onto my Me...

Hello again folks! As I said in my previous entry, I wanted to diversify the blog a bit, so that it's not just book reviews and so that posts come more frequently. While I do read a lot, I don't always have time to sit and write a proper review. So I'll be saving that for books I'm really excited about reading, while I also impart some knowledge about publishing, as well as some insight into me, myself and I. Today's topic falls under the umbrella of the former: publishing industry info. "Working Wednesday" is going to be a once a month thing where I discuss what's going on in publishing from industry events that I've attended to knowledge I've gained on the job that could help aspiring writers or just excite readers. For my first Working Wednesday I want to talk about the question I get asked most in some way: how do I get published?

Oh wow have I been slacking here or what? I did however come up with a plan to get myself more organized around here, and keep my updates coming more regularly. Hopefully it it will work out. They won't just be book reviews; I'll be diversifying a bit with some more personal things, as well as monthly posts on the publishing industry. I'm getting back in the writing grove with a book review for the last book in the Raven Cycle series by Maggie Stiefvater. I read these as they came out so it was a long ling coming waiting for book four. Let's get right into it. THE RAVEN KING by Maggie Stiefvater Blurb : Nothing living is safe. Nothing dead is to be trusted. For years, Gansey has been on a quest to find a lost king. One by one, he’s drawn others into this quest: Ronan, who steals from dreams; Adam, whose life is no longer his own; Noah, whose life is no longer a lie; and Blue, who loves Gansey… and is certain she is destined to kill him. Now ...

Ok, I know. It's been too long since my last review. There were holidays, a rough start to the new year, and just not a lot of time to review what books I did read. But I just read one I absolutely need to talk about. REBEL OF THE SANDS by Alwyn Hamilton Blurb: She’s more gunpowder than girl—and the fate of the desert lies in her hands. Mortals rule the desert nation of Miraji, but mystical beasts still roam the wild and barren wastes, and rumor has it that somewhere, djinni still practice their magic. But there's nothing mystical or magical about Dustwalk, the dead-end town that Amani can't wait to escape from.  Destined to wind up "wed or dead," Amani’s counting on her sharpshooting skills to get her out of Dustwalk. When she meets Jin, a mysterious and devastatingly handsome foreigner, in a shooting contest, she figures he’s the perfect escape route. But in all her years spent dreaming of leaving home, she never imagined she'd gallop...

Okay spoiler alert: this was probably the cutest book I have read all year. I picked this up when I was at Book Riot Live last month, but I'd been eyeing it for longer, ever since I sat in on a webinar about LGBT publisher and this publisher was featured. Iwent to check out their site and saw a YA book about a selkie boy and I knew I had to have it.And the other main character being a bisexual poc was even better! So here we go: SEVEN TEARS AT HIGH TIDE by C. B. Lee Blurb : The sea holds many secrets ... Kevin Luong walks to the ocean’s edge with a broken heart. Remembering a legend his mother told him, he lets seven tears fall into the sea. “I just want one summer—one summer to be happy and in love.” Instead, he finds himself saving a mysterious boy from the Pacific—a boy who later shows up on his doorstep professing his love. What he doesn’t know is that Morgan is a selkie, drawn to answer Kevin’s wish. As they grow close, Morgan is caught between the dan...

Continuing the trend of unusual historical romance, I decided to review Such a Dance by Kate McMurray, which is a fabulous LGBT book set in the 1920s prohibition era. SUCH A DANCE by Kate McMurray (Lyrical Press) Blurb : When a vaudeville dancer meets a sexy mobster in a speakeasy for men, the sparks fly, the gin flows, the jazz sizzles—and the heat is on… New York City, 1927. Eddie Cotton is a talented song-and-dance man with a sassy sidekick, a crowd-pleasing act, and a promising future on Broadway. What he doesn't have is someone to love. Being gay in an era of prohibition and police raids, Eddie doesn't have many opportunities to meet men like himself—until he discovers a hot new jazz club for gentlemen of a certain bent...and sets eyes on the most seductive, and dangerous, man he’s ever seen. Lane Carillo is a handsome young Sicilian who looks like Valentino—and works for the Mob. He’s never hidden his sexuality from his boss, which is why he was cho...