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Showing posts from March, 2016

The Story of Hong Gildong a Korean Folktale

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You've probably seen the cover for this new translation all over the internet by now and I'm pleased to say that we got our hands on a copy from the author himself Minsoo Kang. The Kirkus Reviews says "If you read only one book about courageous Korean Outlaws this should be the one". https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/minsoo-kang/the-story-of-hong-gildong/ Now in case you missed the big circular icon on the front cover this is a new translation of a very old, very epic, Korean Folktale. Hong Gildong is to the Koreans what Jesse James is to Americans. He's the Robin Hood of their culture and in true Korean style the story is epic and the language is dramatic. Take for example the scene of Gildong's birth.         'And so time passed, through ten lunar months, until a day came when a tempest blew, fierce rain poured down, and a fragrant air filled the house. Chunseom gave birth to a precious boy whose face was the color of snow and whose pres

Review: I Hate H3roes:

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I Hate H3roes: by L. Bryant IV My rating: 2 of 5 stars I put this graphic book in my rotation on the request of one of my co-workers who complained that my book review blog never had any type of comics, graphic novels, or manga on it. This review is for you Jaz and any of my other fellow anime, comic book, graphic novel geeks (yes I'm one too it's my dirty little secret). Let me first start off by saying that though I do have a vast appreciation for the amount of work that goes into creating one of these pieces of literature I have never reviewed one. I have read them and I have enjoyed them immensely but I've never put pen to paper and written a review. I find that there are two parts to reviewing a piece of work such as this. You have to review the story and also review the artwork. I felt the story in this piece was somewhat lacking. The author simply gave too much away in the beginning and the story line didn't flow with any sense

This weeks book swag winner

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Our winner of The Veil book swag raffle is Sharyonda Yarbrough!! Sharyonda you have been emailed with directions on how to receive your book swag. We look forward to hearing more from you in the future. We'll return next week with more reviews for you to poor over. We'll be taking this weekend off from reading and reviewing to spend to the holidays with your families. Thank you all for sharing our little corner of the internet with us and from us to you HAPPY EASTER!!!

Hello Darkness my old friend...

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No One Knows by J.T. Ellison Thank you to Netgalley for a copy of this arc in exchange for a fair review. So Aubrey's husband Josh has just been declared dead after disappearing five years ago. Aubrey is just getting her life on track when she meet's a new man that reminds her of Josh. What comes next is a total twisty ride trying to find out what happened to Josh, or what really happened in general. This book is like an onion, I mean serious layers to what was going on. In face without any spoilers I will get my biggest complaint out of the way, the ending felt a little disjointed and kind of confusing. That is the only reason this isn't a five star read for me.  There are parts in general that felt very confusing especially once you get to the end and it is all unveiled, but while those bother me a tiny bit, I feel the author did that on purpose to keep you off track until everything was let out of the closet. This is my first book by J.T. Ellison and I would

The Veil by Chloe Neill

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It's no secret we love Chloe Neill's Chicago Land Vampire Series so we were exceptionally excited to hear she was writing a new series centered around my own hometown of New Orleans, Louisiana. For those of you not familiar with the reputation of New Orleans let me break it down for you in very generalized words. New Orleans is a place like no other on the planet. The closest thing to the atmosphere of New Orleans would probably be Romania. It's a city steeped in superstition, voodoo, vampire myths, and magic of all kinds. This makes it the perfect setting for a post apocalyptic magic war.  The aptly named The Veil is the beginning of what isto be a new trilogy from Chloe Neill. Some really bad fae dudes and dudettes ripped a hole from their dimension to our and invaded the Earth. This hole would later become known as The Veil. Neill does a great job of mixing gritty, raw, urban decay with the fantastical and magical. Many of her descriptions of Post Apocalyptic Ne

Review: Midnight Marked

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Midnight Marked by Chloe Neill My rating: 5 of 5 stars I could not put this book down. Book 12 of the Chicago Land Vampires sees a return to all things we love about this series. You will be left slack jawed at the twists and turns this book takes I did not see a few of those plot twists coming!! That ending..all I have to say is AWWWWW that ending is why we love Ethan and Merit so much. In case you don't recall book 11 left us with some unanswered questions namely "who is the circle?" "What do they want with paranormals?" and "Why Chicago?" This book will answer all of those questions and when you find out the answers you'll be left reeling in shock, not to mention the epic fight scenes including that one at the end! Of course Merit's family, namely her brother, throw up emotional roadblocks and the Cadogen Vampires are once again left to solve Chicago's paranormal problems. I was equal parts frustrated

Re-Reads and the joy of visiting old friends

We love to read new stories, make new fictional friends and visit new worlds created from the imagination of talented writers yet there are some so pervasive that we find ourselves drawn to them time and again. This week and for the next month I'll be working some old favorites into my new reading schedule. I'm excited to be re-reading the Night Huntress series by Jeanine Frost. Cat and Bones's story is always a fun ride and Frost's world is rich in detail with three dimensional characters. You'll love Cat's sense of humor and Bones's sense of loyalty their friends Rodney, Denise, Vlad (yes THAT Vlad), Mencheres, Kira, Don and Tate and the rest of Cat's team will leave you with all the warm fuzzy feels expected from a great story. There's a reason these characters have such a huge fandom so if you haven't checked out Frosts' Night Huntress series I strongly recommend that you give them a chance you won't be disappointed. My next serie
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Friday's Wrap Up

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We're at the end of the second week of March and we have two winners to announce for our March Madness Giveaway!! Congratulations to Laura Bryan she is the winner of the ebook copy of Midnight Marked by Chloe Neill. Laura you've been emailed with your copy of the book happy reading!!! Congratulations to Debbie Koenig she's won the ChicagoLand Vampires Book Swag! If you didn't win this time don't despair we have a new giveaway coming next week starting on Monday you can enter for your chance to win some more book swag! We'll be giving away The Veil book swag in honor of our review of the new series by Chloe Neill. Next we'll also be bringing you new reviews of the following books: The Veil by Chloe Neill, The Story of Hong Gildong newly translated by Minsoo Kang, and finally our first ever graphic novel review of I Hate Heros by L. Bryant and Gerald Cole. That's it for this week folks check back with us on Monday for all the newest a

Gateways and Ghost Hunters

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This book is not what you think it is when you see this cover. I was pleasantly and slightly horrifically surprised to find this book is all about the dearly departed..or the dearly not so departed. Jessica Ballard is the main character of this trilogy and in this first book the author E.E. Holmes grabs you from page one and literally drags you through to the last sentence on the last page hoping that what you're reading isn't actually about to happen!  Jessica or Jess as she likes to be called wakes from a disorienting nightmare into a terrible tragedy. Jess's life hasn't exactly been easy as she's spent her childhood on the road with her alcoholic mother cleaning up her mom's messes. Jess both loves and resents her mother and yet when her mom turns up dead under mysterious circumstances Jess realizes just how much she loved her mother. Jess goes to live with estranged relatives she's never met while waiting to attend St. Matthews University. It

Review: Potential

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Potential by M.L. Ridener My rating: 2 of 5 stars The Potential definitely has potential as an overall shifter story. This is the first book in a series with the second book due out later this year. This is book is less than 200 pages long so it's a quick read with lots of familiar story tropes. There's the familiar high school sterotypes complete with mean girl Stacey who of course goes after all the hot shifter boys. Stacey finds out, that well, she's no match for the main character Ari whose the first potential to come of age. The potentials haven't been seen for over 300 hundreds years and the ability to be one is passed down through the family line. All of the potentials are females and it appears there's going to be five of them which works out well for the remainder of the wolf shifter pack since they only have five members left as well. The antagonist of the story is the Panther Shifters who are viscous, slightly insane, a

Midnight Marked Giveaway!!

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As promised everyone our very first March Give away!! Just in time to for the new release of the 12th book in the ChicagoLand Vampire series. Good Luck everyone! a Rafflecopter giveaway

Review: Leaves of Revolution

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Leaves of Revolution by Breeana Puttroff My rating: 3 of 5 stars I liked book six of this series but it only got three stars because the ending was pretty anti-climatic. I really wanted to see Quinn wield the dagger but I gotta give props to Thomas he brought the pain TWICE!! View all my reviews

A little too cute for me.

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Holding Court by k.c. Held Thank you to Netgalley for a copy of this arc in each for a fair review. I thought the premise was cute, and the book was cute. Probably just a tad too cute for me. Jules was interesting main character especially her blurting out psychic predictions with zero control. But for a psychic sometimes she seemed to have no idea what was going on. The love interest is in a weird quasi relationship with another friend who is.... well I won't spoil that.  This particular story wasn't for me, but that being said I loved the King Arthur theme going on, and the costumes. There were a lot of cool things going on in the book, but the author blended just a few too many ideas.  At it's core this book was light-hearted and fun, but it tries to throw in some dark elements and it was just not needed. It wasn't believable and this is probably why I had such a hard time really getting into this book.