I loved the premise of this meme {WWW Wednesdays} due to the dexterity that it gives the reader! :) Clearly subject to change on a weekly rotation, which may or may not lead to your ‘next’ read which would provide a bit of a paradoxical mystery to your readers!! :) Love the concept! Therefore, this weekly meme was originally hosted by Should Be Reading who became A Daily Rhythm. Lovingly restored and continued by Sam @ Taking on a World of Words. Each week you participate, your keen to answer the following questions:
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What are you currently reading!?
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What did you recently finish reading!?
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What do you think you’ll read next!?
After which, your meant to click over to THIS WEEK’s WWWWednesday to share your post’s link so that the rest of the bloggers who are participating can check out your lovely answers! :) Perhaps even, find other bloggers who dig the same books as you do! I thought it would serve as a great self-check to know where I am and the progress I am hoping to have over the next week!
Join the Convo via: #WWWWednesday
What are you currently reading!? (Wednesday to Wednesday)
- A Woman of Note by Carol M. Cram (blog tour Thursday!) (Synopsis)
- Decorum by Kaaren Christopherson* (Synopsis)
- Those Who Remain by Ruth W. Crocker (Synopsis)
- The Tulip Resistance by Lynne Leatham Allen* (Synopsis)
- Summer Campaign by Carla Kelly* (Synopsis)
- Fool’s Gold by Zana Bell (Synopsis)
- A Thousand Words for Stranger by Julie E. Czerneda (Synopsis)
- The Particular Appeal of Gillian Pugsley by Susan Örnbratt (Synopsis)
- Yellow-billed Magpie by Nancy Schoellkopf (Synopsis)
- #SRC2015: Eight Hundred Grapes by Laura Dave (Synopsis)
- #ReadingIsBeautiful: Summer by Summer by Heather Burch (Synopsis)
- Ignoring Gravity by Sandra Danby (Synopsis)
*Titles were blog tours I missed hosting over the Summer.
A beautiful mixed bag of readerly delights await me, as I tackle the stories I had meant to read and review over the Summer (June – September) whilst dipping into my first reads for Autumn! As you might have noticed I have an appreciation for stories during the war eras and for war dramas in particular, but I took a chance on a non-fiction piece that is set around redemption and solace when I elected to read Ruth W. Crocker’s book. The Tulip Resistance will be taking me behind the lines of war from a Dutch perspective whereas I generally enter through the World Wars through the British or French lines of perception.
My eye is drawn into wicked good historicals year-round, which is why I am opt-times unable to read as much science fiction and fantasy as much as I’d prefer! A remedy to this is my participation in #RRSciFiMonth (as I fondly refer to as ‘Sci Fi November’) and the Sci Fi Experience following suit in December and January. I have an idea about how to insert Fantasy into my life and am hopeful in a few weeks I can reveal my plans as I want it to continue the pace I am starting in the Autumn once Winter grabs hold! Til then, my initial readings of Julie E. Czerneda’s The Clan Chronicles are beginning!
Eight Hundred Grapes & Summer by Summer are part of my Summer Reading challenge books, the first of which will start to be featured next week! You can read more about my initial announcement of my choices on my first #BookishNotBookish and a recap on my last #BookishNotBookish (i.e. a journal of my bookish wanderings and not bookish news, too!) You’ll also catch my sweet joy in discovering the Indie publisher Light Messages, of whom my first review will be The Particular Appeal of Gillian Pugsley!
Fool’s Gold was the new book by Zana Bell last October I dearly wanted to read and wasn’t able to request it for review until this year instead. I loved her debut novel Close to the Wind and wanted to become swept up inside a new world of hers as soon as I put the first one down!
Ignoring Gravity has an interesting story attached to it, as I originally found it via Twitter by way of an independent platform for emerging authors; yet how I received it was by an interesting twist of fate where the author and I crossed paths a bit after that first encounter! I had meant to feature this in the Spring, but Spring and Summer were not the best months for me this year. I loved the premise immediately because I’m an amateur genealogist like my Mum! We love noodling out bits and bobbles about our ancestral past!
Yellow-billed Magpie is a classic example of how I’m curiously curious about stories which are published that either make you think considerably after a book is put down or are so uniquely their own styled novel that you are genuinely keen on reading them! I love seeking out Indie publishers and Self Published authors for this very reason: you simply find yourself awakening inside a work of art.
What did you recently finish reading!?
(these were the reviews I posted since October began)
- Avelynn by Marissa Campbell (review)
- Girl Waits With Gun by Amy Stewart (review)
- Darkness with a Chance of Whimsy by R.J. Sullivan (review)
- Recipes and Road Stories by Caroline and Hannah Melby (of HanaLena) (review)
- Inspector Dewey by Kristen Heimerl (review)
+ featured Author Guest Posts & Interviews
- Interview with Marissa Campbell (featured underneath my review)
- Interview with Amy Stewart (featured underneath my review)
- Interview with Kristen Heimerl (featured underneath my review)
Normally, I only focus on the stories I’ve been reading from week to week per this meme, however, in this particular case, as my Summer ended on a difficult note (i.e. tech woes) I decided to re-highlight the reviews I’ve been writing since my connectivity has been restored. It will take me a full two months to post the blog tours and the reviews I had scheduled from July-September due to aftermath of the lightning storms which caused me a great deal of headache. I’m splitting my #SRC2015 & #ReadingIsBeautiful reviews between the last fortnight of October and the month of November where I’m featuring two novels in tandem between the two reading challenges.
As you can see from this list, I like reading an eclectic mixture of stories, and one of these (Darkness with a Chance of Whimsy) highlights the fact I’m properly addicted to reading anthologies for SFF!
Avelynn answered my question about the Vikings as who amongst us has fancied Vikings since their girlhood years without really understanding anything about them? I was so swept inside this novel that I dearly ached to know what was going to happen next because it’s not the kind of story you want to end on an ambiguous cliffhanger! (see this tweet of mine from Thursday) (and the author’s reply!)
Girl Waits With Gun took me unawares – I was initially thinking it was going to be set-up quite differently than it read, but as you will see in my review, there was quite a bit that was working for the story!
Darkness with a Chance of Whimsy gave me a foothold back into the writings of R.J. Sullivan as I had hoped I’d find a way to read his stories after my first encounter didn’t quite encourage me to continue. I loved his quirky humour (as his style of humour is on par with E. Chris Garrison who wrote Blue Spirit an equally enjoyable recent read!) and was happily surprised to find his depth of compassion writing about the human condition.
Inspector Dewey charmed me to the core of my heart and HanaLena’s recipes had me tempted to find the ingredients during the hours the grocery shoppes are closed! It was a nice rounding of the eclectic choices I regularly make in my reading wanderings because I like to keep my reading life a bit on the edge of discovery.
What do you think you’ll read next!?
I have three weeks until my blog tour stop arrives featuring the seventh novel in the Clan Chronicles by Julie E. Czerneda, which is why each Wednesday leading up to my review of This Gulf of Time and Stars will be a short recapping of my readings of the first two trilogies leading up to the final trilogy which concludes the series. I am reading these behind my re-scheduled reviews and the few blog tours I had scheduled for October.
I’m reading a bit of Children’s Literature right now, as I had the pleasure of discovering the illustrated stories of Muon Van (In a Village by the Sea); the Middle Grade adventure story of The Contaminated Cooking Contest by ?; and two beautiful non-fiction collections for young adult readers where the lives of female scientists come fully to life in Magnificent Minds & Remarkable Minds.
I am starting to borrow books again from my local library, as I want to find the balance between what I am hosting on my blog with the selections I am making from the library’s card catalogue. It’s a goal of mine to spend 2016 blogging my reading life in part from three different veins of interest: hosting authors for blog tours and/or non-blog tour reviews or guest features; reading from my personal library; and reading the books which wick out a fetching interest to consume via my local public library. On that score, I’m starting to seek out which titles interest me before the close of the year, to where I might read a few of them before 2016 or sample them whilst laying to mind which ones I want to read after the 1st.
Here are a few of the ones I’m considering:
- The Watchmaker of Filigree Street by Natasha Pulley (Synopsis)
- The White Magic Five and Dime by Steven Hockensmith (Synopsis)
- A Curious Beginning by Deanna Raybourn (Synopsis)
- Mrs. Sinclair’s Suitcase by Louise Walters (Synopsis)
- Ghostlight by Sonia Gensler (Synopsis)
- The Dust that Falls from Dreams by Louis De Bernières (Synopsis)
Whilst I’m deciding what to read amongst my library check-outs, I happily received a print copy and audiobook copy of The devil in the white city: murder, magic, and madness at the fair that changed America by Erik Larson which I am reading for #NFBookClub’s October selection hosted by Doing Dewey! I have been keenly interested in reading whilst listening to an audiobook version of the same story since I first discovered The Ghost Bride was narrated by the author! (review) This is one step in that direction where I can bridge the gap between merely reading a story and listening to how the story is reflected through the voice of a narrator!
I’d love to hear your thoughts on my selections!
Did anything tempt you to pick up yourself? OR have you read one of these already?
What are you currently reading?!
{SOURCES: The WWW Wednesday badge created by Jorie in Canva as a way to promote the weekly meme for those who want to take part in it. Rainbow Digital Clip Art Washi Tape made by The Paper Pegasus. Purchased on Etsy by Jorie and used with permission. Comment Box Banner made by Jorie in Canva.}
Copyright © Jorie Loves A Story, 2015.
I got to virtually meet Stewart about a year ago when she was promoting ‘The Drunken Botanist.’ I’m glad to hear her new book is enjoyable, I haven’t had a chance to read her yet (though it’s on my list). Happy reading and thanks for participating in WWW Wednesday!