WWW Wednesday 24th February 2016

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This meme is hosted by Sam over at Taking on a World of Words. A similar meme, This Week in Books is hosted by Lipsyy Lost and Found.

Why not join in? Just answer the following three questions in a post and then put a link to that post in the Comments over at Taking on a World of Words.

The questions are:

  1. What are you currently reading?
  2. What did you recently finish reading?
  3. What do you think you’ll read next?

As always, clicking on the cover image will take you to the book’s Goodreads page.

1. What I’m reading at the moment

A Gathering of Shadows FinalA Gathering of Shadows (Shades of Magic #2) by V.E. Schwab

I loved A Darker Shade of Magic – it was one of my top 5 books of 2015 – so I’ve been looking forward to the sequel for ages!

The blurb: Four months have passed since the shadow stone fell into Kell’s possession. Four months since his path crossed with Delilah Bard. Four months since Rhy was wounded and the Dane twins fell, and the stone was cast with Holland’s dying body through the rift, and into Black London.

In many ways, things have almost returned to normal, though Rhy is more sober, and Kell is now plagued by his guilt. Restless, and having given up smuggling, Kell is visited by dreams of ominous magical events, waking only to think of Lila, who disappeared from the docks like she always meant to do. As Red London finalizes preparations for the Element Games—an extravagant international competition of magic, meant to entertain and keep healthy the ties between neighboring countries—a certain pirate ship draws closer, carrying old friends back into port.

But while Red London is caught up in the pageantry and thrills of the Games, another London is coming back to life, and those who were thought to be forever gone have returned. After all, a shadow that was gone in the night reappears in the morning, and so it seems Black London has risen again—meaning that another London must fall.

2. The last books I read

Blue Lily, Lily Blue (Raven Cycle #3) by Maggie Stiefvater

Blue Lily, Lily Blue by Maggie Stiefvater Raven Cycle 3 by Maggie Stiefvater book coverHooray! After the slight disappointment of book 2, I enjoyed this very much. Here’s my full review of Blue Lily, Lily Blue.

Roll on The Raven King (not long until the end of April!), even though I’m slightly worried about whether all our heroes will reach The End unscathed.

The blurb: There is danger in dreaming. But there is even more danger in waking up.

Blue Sargent has found things. For the first time in her life, she has friends she can trust, a group to which she can belong. The Raven Boys have taken her in as one of their own. Their problems have become hers, and her problems have become theirs. The trick with found things though, is how easily they can be lost.

Friends can betray.
Mothers can disappear.
Visions can mislead.
Certainties can unravel.

AND

The Versions of Us by Laura Barnett

The Versions of Us by Laura Barnett book coverWhether you enjoy this or not will hinge on what you think of the characters. If you like them, I’m confident you’ll think it’s a brilliant book. If you just don’t get on with them (that was me), you will possibly produce a slightly ranty review.

The blurb: A man is walking down a country lane. A woman, cycling towards him, swerves to avoid a dog. On that moment, their future hinges. There are three possible outcomes, three small decisions that could determine the rest of their life.

Eva and Jim are nineteen and students at Cambridge when their paths first cross in 1958. And then there is David, Eva’s then-lover, an ambitious actor who loves Eva deeply. The Versions of Us follows the three different courses their lives could take following this first meeting. Lives filled with love, betrayal, ambition but through it all is a deep connection that endures whatever fate might throw at them.

The Versions of Us explores the idea that there are moments when our lives might have turned out differently, the tiny factors or decisions that could determine our fate, and the precarious nature of the foundations upon which we build our lives. It is also a story about the nature of love and how it grows, changes and evolves as we go through the vagaries of life.

3. What I’ll read next

The House of Silk (Sherlock Holmes #1) by Antony Horowitz

The House of Silk Sherlock Holmes 1 by Anthony Horowitz book coverI love Conan Doyle’s Sherlock tales and am more than happy to give Horowitz’s version a go!

The blurb: In freezing London, November 1890, Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson receive a man unnerved by a scarred-face stalker with piercing eyes. A conspiracy reaches to the Boston criminal underworld. The whispered phrase ‘the House of Silk’ hints at a deadly foe. Authorized by Doyle’s estate.

 

AND

I Hunt Killers (Jasper Dent #1) by Barry Lyga

I Hunt Killers Jasper Dent 1 by Barry LygaI’ve been wanting to read this trilogy for ages after reading several highly enthusiastic reviews by my fellow bloggers. My library has books 2 and 3, so I’ve treated myself to book 1.

The blurb: What if the world’s worst serial killer…was your dad?

Jasper “Jazz” Dent is a likable teenager. A charmer, one might say.

But he’s also the son of the world’s most infamous serial killer, and for Dear Old Dad, Take Your Son to Work Day was year-round. Jazz has witnessed crime scenes the way cops wish they could—from the criminal’s point of view.

And now bodies are piling up in Lobo’s Nod.

In an effort to clear his name, Jazz joins the police in a hunt for a new serial killer. But Jazz has a secret—could he be more like his father than anyone knows?

Have you read/are reading any of these? What are you reading? Let me know! 🙂

Recipe recap on Art and Soul featured

I was in the editing cave all last week and didn’t have time to bake anything new. So I did a recap post featuring five of my favourite recipes from the archives. Including: lemon sponge cake, mint choc brownies, gingerbread women, and smiley face biscuits!

Claire Huston / Art and Soul

 

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74 thoughts on “WWW Wednesday 24th February 2016”

    • Well I’m glad to hear it’s not just me who didn’t get on with The Versions of Us! All the reviews I’ve seen were “love it” and I started to wonder if I was just being really grumpy 🙂

      I’m a bit late getting to WWWs today. I’ll check out your post now!

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    • Thank you! I just couldn’t get on with the characters at all. My poor husband had to listen to me having a good rant about it! At the same time though, I did appreciate how much work the author must have put in. I imagine there were large wall charts involved… (my idea of a nightmare!).

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    • I’ve had to skip past so many blurbs! I get so far behind with series… it’s nice to be up to date with The Raven Cycle now that I’ve read Blue Lily, Lily Blue. Although, coming to series late does have the advantage of not having to wait for ages for the next installment 🙂

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      • I do try to stay caught up but it can be tricky. I’ve come to many series late when there were already several books out, so it might be a bad habit born from that. I do try to be better now 🙂 But as you said, coming to a series late does have its advantages. The series I finished recently, the Sword of Truth by Terry Goodkind, must already have had 15 of its 17 books out by the time I started, and the final book was released while I was reading the second-to-last one 🙂 I got quite lucky there ^^

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    • If you could get a library copy, it might be worth trying the first few chapters. Readers who haven’t had the same problems as me with the character have loved this book… so I wouldn’t tell anyone not to try it for that reason.

      Although if you can’t stand books with virtually no dialogue, definitely stay clear!

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  9. I’m so glad you enjoyed Blue Lily Lily Blue. And I think I hunt killers is on my TBR. So looking forward to your review of it. Also Sherlock Holmes, let me tell you that I’m obsessed. But lately I just get disappointed with the new versions of it. So you ket me know if this one’s any good. 🙂 Happy reading.

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  10. I’m so glad you loved Blue Lily, Lily Blue! I’m so eager for The Raven King to come out!
    I’m waiting for my March MuseMonthly box to come out! That month’s box is AGOS and I need it now! LOL. 😀
    I loved House of Silk. I thought Anthony Horowitz did a wonderful job with a telling a new Sherlock Holmes story. I hope you enjoy it.
    Thanks for stopping by my post!

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    • I’m looking forward to The Raven King, but also a bit worried because I don’t want anyone to get killed off!
      AGOS is very good so far 🙂
      Yay! I’m happy to hear that about The House of Silk. I love the original stories so I’m a little cautious about someone doing a new one.
      Thanks for visiting and happy reading!

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  12. First of all: I HUNT KILLERS; YESSS!! I loved that series and I really want to do a reread soon… I hope you will enjoy it as much as I did. Reading your thoughts on the third Raven Cycle book really makes me want to pick up the sequels soon… Hopefully next month. I have been dying to read A Darker Shade Of Magic and its sequel as well; now the sequel is out I really don’t have an excuse anymore. 😉

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    • Prioritise ADSOM over the Raven Cycle 🙂 It’s really really good. Currently slightly better than the sequel (which, at about two thirds of the way through is currently still a 4-star read… I’ll see what happens in the last third!).
      I’ve been waiting AGES to read I Hunt Killers and I’m really looking forward to it!

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  15. All of these look sooooo good! I keep saying I’m gonna read The Raven Boys series but I just haven’t gotten around to it yet. I’m usually not one for thrillers but I Hunt Killers sounds incrediblely cool. I’ll be adding it to my TBR pile.
    Great post!

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  20. I hope you’re liking ‘A Gathering of Shadows!’ I can’t wait for the reviews of it to start popping up and I have my fingers crossed that they’re good. Happy reading and thanks for participating in WWW Wednesday!

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    • Oh, yes. Definitely! And the nice thing is, although they’re both fantasy, the Raven Cycle is YA and Shades of Magic adult, so they’re quite different in tone as well as subject.
      I just finished the 2nd Shades of Magic book about 10 minutes ago and it’s really good 🙂 So definitely worth starting the series!

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  22. I see from the above comment you enjoyed A Gathering of Shadows—yay! 😀 I’m glad to have an assurance that investing my time in the Shades of Magic series is worth it, lol.
    And I’ll be interested in hearing what you think of I Hunt Killers! I’ve seen so many other bloggers pick it up and love it. ❤ Happy reading!

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    • I hope so. I’ve heard so many good things about I Hunt Killers and the other 2 books in the series. I’ve been looking forward to it for months. I only put it off because my library never had the first book (the 2nd and 3rd though) and in the end I just thought, “ah, what the hell” and bought and 2nd-hand copy of the first one.

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  26. I Hunt Killers is sitting on my TBR list, too! I’m looking forward to what you think of that and House of Silk. Normally I don’t like when other people play with the Sherlock Holmes characters in books, but that’s usually because they go with Sherlock’s ‘sister’ or ‘niece’ or ‘daughter’ or what have you. I can be a bit of a purist about that sort of thing… But this one actually uses Sherlock and Watson, so that’s already different.
    Thanks for visiting my WWW post, and happy reading!

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  27. Excited to see what you think about A Gathering of Shadows–I love that cover & I added it to my list a while back. I think I might give The Versions of Us a try… I kind of like unlikable characters. Or are they not unlikable, you just didn’t like the way they were written?

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    • A Gathering of Shadows is brilliant. Not quite as good as A Darker Shade of Magic, but then the middle book of a trilogy is rarely better than the first – it has so much to do!
      The Versions of Us it was the characters themselves. That and the lack of dialogue. I think hearing them speak more might have made them more likeable…brought them to life a bit more? I think it’s definitely worth trying because it’s well written and loads of reader have loved it 🙂

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    • I was relieved when Book 3 of the Raven Cycle was a return to form. Nothing worse than discovering you’ve invested a lot of time in a series only for it to go to the bad!
      A Gathering of Shadows is brilliant. Not quite as brilliant as book 1, but that’s more to do with the pressures on any second book in a trilogy. I can’t imagine how hard it is to write what is effectively a bridge between the beginning and end but also trying to make it interesting in itself.

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  30. I’ve been dying to read A Darker Shade of Magic. Now that I have a copy of it, I have no excuse! Hopefully I’ll read it ASAP!
    I am so excited for you to read I Hunt Killers! So far everyone I recommended it too has loved it and the rest of the series.

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