The Shadowland by Elizabeth Kostova- Review

I can’t find the words to describe how disappointed in this book I am so suffice to say, I am very, very disappointed.

Elizabeth Kostova is one of my favourite authors. Her book ‘The Historian’ is my ultimate and completely favourite book ever published and I also really really liked her follow up, ‘The Swan Thieves’

This book however, just does not compare to either of her previous works.

So the story tells of Alexandra who is in Bulgaria and comes across an Urn with a persons ashes in, it is her mission to get these back to the right people and so the story begins. It also shows flashbacks from her life which were interesting and then flashbacks to another persons life- Stoyan a violinist and not so interesting.

This book as the others are, is particularly well written, most of the characters are developed well enough but the pace was atrocious. I was last half way and virtually nothing has happened which surprised and disappointed me.

I picked it up to read tonight and I realised I wasn’t looking forward to it so I decided to DNF’d it.

Heartbroken. Totally heartbroken. This could have been an excellent book but just wasn’t.

1.5 stars.

The life I left behind

Going through a MAJOR reading slump at the moment but which isn’t helped by rubbish books.

This was one such book. Absolutely terrible attempt at a psychological thriller in the vein of Girl on the Train and everything else in that genre ever since.

So it’s a story with multiple povs. Great. I like that mechanism but when it includes the POV of a dead woman it requires you to suspend belief a bit. A bit too much but not too offputting as a whole.

The storyline seemed okay. Pretty atypical of a psychological thriller and nothing special but again, not too offputtinf.

My problem with this book was the way is written. It was just so wordy. Unnecessarily so. It just bored me in the end and I wasn’t making much progress so I gave up.

This author was just not for me.

1 star. 

Clockwork Prince review

Started 2nd of April, finish date (well, DNF date 18th April), this is so slow for me so shows what a steaming pile of crap this book really was for me!
I love TMI series. It’s probably the best series I’ve ever read and so wanting to get hold of everything my newfound favourite author had written, I picked up this one. I read the clockwork angel in its entirety and wasn’t particularly keen on it, slow, unlikeable characters. I rated it 2 stars. As I bought the trilogy though, I thought I’d persevere and see whether it got any better I.e Tessa became more likeable (she didn’t and I didn’t like her at all), Will became nicer (nope, still the same asshole he was in the previous.l book) or whether the plot became better (it didn’t),
I just can’t find the words to describe how much I HATE this series compared to TMI. Makes my blood boil I wasted time on cardboard cutouts and thin plots which have no substance.
I’m binning them. Binning them all.

Lamb to the slaughter- Karen Ann Hopkins- Review

Well I really am on a roll as far as free kindle books are concerned. Third one in a row and it was also awesome! This books deserves four and a half stars.

So I love reading about anything Amish. I’ve read quite a bit of Christian fiction surrounding Amish families and I always really really like them. I find them and their way of life extremely unenviable but fascinating on the other hand.

So when I saw this, a crime book combined with an Amish theme I thought I have to pick this book up.

This surrounds a killing of an Amish girl and tells the story from her perspective, the sherrifs perspective and an ‘ex’ Amish persons perspective. I really liked the multiple pov s. It made the story flow really well and added a great deal of pace to the story.

The characters were well drawn out and I really liked Daniel, the ex Amish person. 

I felt the romance between him and the Sheriff was a little OTT and unrealistic but that was my only negative thought.

Loved this. And will read the rest in the series. 4 and a half stars

Introduction!

My name is Yas!

I’m a 29 year old lawyer from Staffordshire in the UK.

I’ve recently taken up a new hobby, baking and gotten more into my old hobby of reading and books now I’ve gone self employed and have more time on my hands so I thought why not set up a blog! I have every other form of social networking, I just need this! 😀

I’ll be reviewing books, posting pics of my latest bakes and food (I want to personally see how I develop as a cook/baker as I’m considering a career change) and have a general occasional post about life or so.

Hope you enjoy!

Yas

xoxox