Tag: birthday

Posted in Books

Book Ban Update

Posted on by Evallone

Way back at the start of this hell year, I made myself a challenge that I wouldn’t buy any new books for 2020. The only exceptions were my Kindle Subscriptions, Audible and the new Dresden Files book.

Temptation is everywhere

I hadn’t realised on the one hand how freaking easy it would be because I’ve not been in a bookshop since… November? Obviously Amazon keep tempting me with their Kindle Daily Deals with amazing books for only 99p, but I’m resisting! I have also cancelled my Kindle Unlimited sub because I’m not reading the books I have in real life, never mind those on my online shelf. I got through a few of them before it cancelled. I have also put Audible on pause for a few months since I’ve quite a collection of lecture series to listen to. Plus, I’m skint.

I like Big Books and I cannot lie

Being home so much has got me looking at the books which I want to read but are too big and awkward to take out to read. One is Lord of Shadows by Cassandra Clare. I’m very much into the Shadowhunters books, but felt the departure from Jace and Clary with the new trilogy, The Dark Artifices – Lady Midnight quite strongly and it took me a bit to warm up to Emma and Julian. Needless to say I was quickly hooked and rushed out to buy the blue edged paperback of Lord of Shadows when it came out… then it sat on my shelf for years. And I’m sorry it did. It was great. I won’t go into a full review here, but I’m pissed as hell at the ending, if you can call it an ending and not a total ploy into making you buy the next book: Queen of Air and Darkness. Which of course, I priced on Amazon – but book ban! I didn’t buy it. My birthday is in November, perhaps the book fairy might visit.

Damn you, Butcher!

While taking a wee break from reading last week, I noticed Prime added the old Dresden Files TV show. I’ve heard so many bad things about it but Paul Blackthorne is a good actor and I watched the Shadowhunters movie twice. Needless to say the show was cancelled after only one season, and I imagine because the fans couldn’t get behind it. They changed so many little things that make no sense why they would need to be changed. The casting was odd for Murphy and the actress who played Susan gave it a good shot, but she was not Susan. I won’t say much more other than, where’s the damn Beetle (car)?, Why is Bob a person? and a drumstick?!?!

Alas, it got me thinking about the new book and that I should probably read back over the summaries and maybe read the last few books to refresh my memory since it’s been six years since the last book. So I jumped onto Jim Butcher’s website and saw the artwork has been released for Peace Talks.

Peace Talks by Jim Butcher

Isn’t it beautiful?

Then I noticed on the upcoming works… a very interesting sentence:

THIS JUST IN: TWO DRESDEN BOOKS WILL BE RELEASED IN 2020! PEACE TALKS HITS STORES JULY 14TH, AND BATTLE GROUND COMES OUT SEPTEMBER 29TH!

Jim-Butcher.com

OMG! That crazy freaking wonderful man has decided to treat us to two books this year! After all it is the 20th Anniversary of The Dresden Files (how wild is that?) I’ve only been around for the last ten years of it and it’s such a big part of my literary life.

Battle Ground by Jim Butcher

Finally some good news during this hell year! I’m holding off pre-ordering just now, maybe I’m hoping against hope but I’d imagine if bookshops are open again by July that they might do a midnight launch of Peace Talks… I guess we’ll see.

Anyway, I’m off to stir myself into further hysteria with all the YA and Urban Fantasy books I have.

Have any of you read the Dresden Files? Might you be inclined to try it now? Would you go to a midnight launch if there was one?

Stay safe and keep reading!

e x

Posted in University, work, Writing

Tumbleweed

Posted on by Evallone

I know things have been quite here for a few weeks, but everything all hit at once; the final assessment for uni, getting ill, birthdays, and working.

Everything has been going well though, I spent little pockets of free time in May to work on my assessment so I didn’t have to rush much at the last minute ( just the commentary, which is horrendous) and I managed to get some last minute feedback on my chapters which was stellar and just a few typos. I’m feeling good about it! Just have to wait until the 17th of July to get my overall results for this first year, so I’m waiting until then to apply for second year. Also still waiting on SAAS because this year they decided to confuse themselves and not properly read my application before halting it… and an eleven minute conversation (six minutes on hold) only got me as far as sending a query to SAAS which they promised to get back to me about within 28 days -_-

I caught another stomach bug (4th in a year!) and was laid up for a few days while still trying to pull off mum’s birthday – I managed it and I’ve survived but honestly the whole weekend is something of a blur. But mum loved all the presents I gave her and how I decorated the living room with balloons and banners and made such a fuss over her. Great treat for a 60th… even if no one else believes her age!

In other news, now that uni has finished until October I’m using the summer to catch up for second year. We’ve been given the reading list that will be used so I have time to work my way through it (some books I’ve already read) and the tutor also gave us an assessment break-down for the year. There will be six assessments and the End of Module assessment of 15,000 words. I used and developed a novel throughout this year which will be book 1 of my novel series. However, as I jumped around a lot with chapters and sections for the assessments, my plan is to use the summer to finish book 1 and to start book 2 for my assessments for year 2. PLAN! So far, I’ve not had a lot of time to work on book 1 so my collated word count at the moment is just shy of 10k words, need to times that by 8 to get my expected word count. Then, I’ll be self-publishing though KDP and onward and upward!

Better get back to writing now, tight schedule!

e x