December TBR

CHRISTMAS IS ROUND THE CORNER! And England's Second Lockdown will be over in the next few days (but I think all of us in the UK/worldwide are worried about what's going to happen next...). So, of course, this month's blogging will be shorter due to Xmas/New Year! 

But till then, let's carry on! So, what is December 2020's TBR? Well... no idea. I have no hard rules. I want this month's to be fun and getting us ready for the holidays, and yet, have a slight edge of darkness and murder. I have one or two ebooks in mind for my darkness. 

I might - and I stress this, MIGHT - casually take part in a readathon this month. I am strongly considering the Reindeer Readathon. But, if I do take part, it will be casually so I will only do probably two or three prompts. Plus, I will be using books, ebooks and audiobooks and, if I do include a book into this readathon, I will tell you in the blog post's title. 

DASHER - 15 PTS 

A book with a one word title. 

DANCER - 10 PTS 

A companion novel or a sequel (as in a dancing parter). 

PRANCER - 15 PTS 

A book with a map in it. 

VIXEN 25 PTS OR 20 PTS 

A book with a fox on the cover. (Alternatively, a strong female lead for 20 points). 

COMET - 30PTS 

A book you find intimidating. 

CUPID - 10 PTS 

Read a genre that you love. 

DONNER - 15 PTS 

A book with something hidden inside (under the dust jacket, chapter heads, art etc.) 

BLITZEN - 20 PTS 

A book with some sort of struggle (internal struggle, war, battle etc) 

RUDOLPH - 20 PTS 

A book where the main character doesn't seem to fit in (outsider, misfit).

15 BONUS POINTS: CHRISTMAS STAR (To be used with one above prompt ONCE)

Read a book 500 pages or more

50 BONUS POINTS: SLEIGHING IT (To be used once when ALL above prompts including Christmas Star have been completed)

For extra points, read a book that works with one prompt.

But what, I hear you ask, are the books I have my eye on? Well, as you know, I am very much a mood reader, so I can't say that I will stick to my ideas (Ha! I never do!), but I sense one or two of these might be appearing in one form or another... 

Audiobook Review - Serpent and Dove

I’m meant to be writing a review for Toksvig’s Almanac 2021 by Sandi Toksvig as part of NetGalley November. But I left it too long and I struggled most of Sunday morning to write it. Instead, I finished this audiobook and, while fresh in my mind, am going to write this up.

Now, before I go any further, I want to say that I’ve been aware of this book and I have been ooohing and aaahing over it, but whenever I think about reading this, I’m always been a bit meh over it. But, I saw this on my library’s audiobook app and thought, on impulse, to give it a go.

Title And Author: Serpent and Dove by Shelby Mahurin
Publisher: HarperTeen/Harper360
Physical, eBook or Audiobook: Audiobook
Bought, Borrowed or Gifted: Borrowed from local library via BorrowBox
Length: 528 Pages or 14 Hours 13 Minutes

Two years ago, Lou fleed for her life. She left her coven and took shelter in the city of Cesarine, vowing never to do magic again and stealing to survive, desperate to never return. But Lou lives in a world where witches are hunted, feared and, if caught, burnt.

Reid is one of the many huntsman - a Chasseur - for the Church and they all live by one principle: Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live. But when he and Lou cross paths and Lou accidentally pulls a stunt that could cause scandal, the two are forced to do damage control - and by that, I mean marriage.

Lou is now married to the enemy, and feelings between them are growing. But it’s only a matter of time before Reid finds out the truth about Lou being a witch. And all the while, Lou’s past is coming closer and closer, coming for her darling Lou…

NetGalley November - Snowbound At The Manor

I can already hear you going “OMG! Andrew, are you feeling well? You’re reading a straight-up romance novel. And not only that, it’s a Mills And Boon!”. And yes, it is. I have several that I requested from NetGalley (a mix of Mills and Boon Modern, Medical & True Love) as well as a bunch of other romances (both straight and gay), but after 2020 being what it has been, I think we all needed something fun, silly and us just knowing things are going to end happily (so, yeah, you are going to see a lot of romance stories over the next few weeks. Sorry/not sorry in advance)

Title And Author: Snowbound At The Manor by Ellie Darkins
Publisher: Mills and Boon
Physical, eBook or Audiobook: eBook
Bought, Borrowed or Gifted: Gifted by publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review/write-up
Length: 192 Pages
Buy From (Affiliate): Bookshop UK

Jess doesn’t do Christmas. So, her escape before spending an awkward and tense Christmas with her parents is to spend a long weekend with her influencer friend in a Yorkshire Dales stately home. But heavy snowstorms have other plans. Jess turns up to the manor with roads behind her getting blocked by snow, her friend Lara is stuck in an airport and can’t get to the UK and, just when she thinks things can’t get worse, the power goes out and she discovers a man - the owner, Rufus - lying almost unconscious on the front doorstep with hypothermia… Looks like they’re going to be spending Christmas together… Let the snow fall and the sparks fly…

Meowing About Books Tag

You know a few weeks back, I did a tag post from Breakeven Books called Barking ‘Bout Books (I will put the link to Erik’s video here and my blog post with my answers here). Not, I lie. I asked if I could be tagged oink Twitter and I was. Thank you Erik. 

But as you know, I am a cat person. My cat, Bagheera, is sleeping on my bed (though if I move to finish this post or do anything Animal Crossing or make self a cup of tea, he will be demanding treats!). So, of course, there HAD to be a cat version, right? Well, The Booktube Goddess has created one! Inspired by Breakeven’s, she has created a tag and tagged me in via Twitter (thank you!). All the questions are linked to felines and who am I to refuse a tag about cats?

Audiobook Review - Obsidio

I know this is NetGalley November. I know, but I asked you guys on Twitter if you wanted this write-up now or wait till December. You all voted now, so here we are. This is all on you!

And here we are. The final book in Illuminae Files series. And I blame you all for badgering me to read/audiobook this as, if you backtrack through most of my reads the past few years, I don’t jump to sci-fi books that often. I am much happier in fantasy and crime/thriller (though there are a few sci-fi books on my TBR that I do want to try and read/audiobook in the next few months. There are always expectations to the rule) but this series has a lot of love to it and I worried that I wouldn’t “get” this series… 

Hang on, let me get the info up and explain better in my write-up! 

Title And Author: Obsidio by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff

Publisher: Rock The Boat

Physical, eBook or Audiobook: Audiobook
Bought, Borrowed or Gifted: Bought
Length: 624 Pages or 13 Hours 1 Minutes

Asha survived the initial BeiTech assault on Kerenza IV and is trying to survive and be involved in Kerenzas ragtag underground resistance. But when a face from her past - Rhys - reappears, they find themselves on different side of the conflict. 

Meanwhile, Kady (Asha’s cousin, by the way), Ezra, Hanna and Nik narrowed escaped with their lives from the attacks on Heimdal station and find their situation all the more worse now they find themselves crammed in a container ship Moa with over 2,000 refugees, among them Nik’s cousin and Kady’s injured father. With the jump station destroyed, resources bare and an AI that can’t be trusted, their only opinion is to go back to Kerenza. But who knows what they’re going to find seven months after the invasion? 

It looks like their day in court is coming, and their final battle is coming stupidly fast. Let’s see how many of them survive, chum…

NetGalley November - The Missing Diamonds

I kept putting this book off. I know, I know. But, originally, my plan was to take part in this year’s Believathon, a readathon that focuses on middle grade books. But, my NetGalley TBR was getting out of hand so I decided to skip it and put this (and the sequel, which I also have) on the back burner. Then, my library’s audiobook app had this and I hit request so fast! Which is strange as BorrowBox has this on audiobook but not Audible. Go figure. 

Title And Author: Agent Zaiba Investigates: The Missing Diamonds by Annabelle Sami & Illustrated by Daniela Sosa

Publisher: Stripes Publishing

Physical, eBook or Audiobook: eBook & Audiobook

Bought, Borrowed or Gifted: Gifted by publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review/write-up and audiobooked borrowed from local library via BorrowBox

Length: 256 Pages or 4 Hours 21 Minutes

At her cousin, Sam’s, Mehndi party, Zaiba gets her first mystery: who is the mystery VIP staying at the same hotel. With the help of her best friend, Poppy, and her little brother, Ali, Zaiba puts her sleuthing skills to the test. But when the celebrity’s dog goes missing, along with its priceless diamond collar, it’s up to the trio to save the day. But are they up to the task?

NetGalley November - The Survivors

I’m in two minds on whether to post this now or wait till January 2021. Because this title is already out now and not. Confused? Well, the eBook version and Audiobook is out now yet the hardback is out in January 2021. So, in theory, I should put this up in the New Year. And yet, when have I ever done the sensible thing? Plus, as soon as I was approved to read this, I dived head-first into it as I LOVED The Lost Man (Jane Harper’s third novel and my first) so I wanna talk about! 

Info dump time? I think it is! 

Title And Author: The Survivors by Jane Harper

Publisher: Little, Brown

Physical, eBook or Audiobook: eBook and Audiobook

Bought, Borrowed or Gifted: eProof gifted by UK publisher via NetGalley in exchange for honest review/write-up, and audiobook was borrowed from local library via BorrowBox

Length: 384 Pages or 11 Hours 57 Minutes

Kieran Elliott’s life changed one horrible day when a mistake lead to devastating consequences that affected his family and his small coastal town even now, years later. When Kieran returns with his girlfriend and their new born, Kieran sees his parents struggling. Struggling with his father’s dementia, his mother’s grief and the loss of Kieran’s older brother, Finn. 

When a body of a tourist is found on the beach the following morning, a murder investigation begins and long held secrets being to come to the surface. Secrets that go back to that fateful day that has haunted Kieran…

NetGalley November - The Beast and The Bethany

I warned you guys that this NetGalley November attempt of mine this month is going to be a little erratic. But I didn’t think it would happen so quickly. I had planned to write-up my thoughts of The Survivors by Jane Harper or Karen M. McManus The Cousins before I attack this. But then, the UK Prime Minister announced a 4 week Lockdown on Halloween (aka Lockdown: The Revenge) due to a newspaper leak, and then with the US Election building up, my brain couldn’t handle these thrillers. So, on the first of November, I decided I needed something short, fast and fun! 

And this caught my eye! So… Hang on, info and affiliate link time! 

Title And Author: The Beast and The Bethany by Jack Meggitt-Phillips (Illustrations by Isabelle Follath)
Publisher: Egmont
Physical, eBook or Audiobook: eBook and Audiobook
Bought, Borrowed or Gifted: eProof gifted by publisher by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review and audiobook borrowed from local library via BorrowBox
Length: 256 Pages or 4 Hours 33 Minutes

Ebenezer Tweezer is not a nice man. He is a youthful yet spoilt 511 year old, and he has a beast living his attic. Ebenezer feeds the beast and the beast gives - well, vomits - out beautiful gifts for him. 

And yet, the beast is greedy. And he’s growing bored of eating rare animals, dusty statues and and singing parrots. The beast wants to try a new meal. One not tried before… for the beast wants a child…

NetGalley November: Let's Do It

My first NetGalley November write-up and it’s something a little left-field for me - a biography -, but when I saw this on NetGalley a fortnight ago, I knew I had to request from the publisher and hope that they would be kind and allow me to listen to it for review. Once I was approved (thank you UK publisher of Trapeze), I started almost immediately!

There is a slight problem with doing reviews or write-ups about biographies and autobiographies, and that is how to rate them. When you rate a book, you got with the writing and the story. But with a biography or an autobiography, people sometimes look at how you rate it or review it and say you’re attacking the subject of the autobiography or biography, and that’s not the case.

Most people, I found, only read a biography or autobiography if they know already that they are going to like the subject and it’s only if something really big happens that changes the person’s mind. So, going into this biography of the late great comedian of Victoria Wood, I knew I was going to like it. I mean, I grew up watching dinnerladies and watching repeats of As Seen on TV, Acorn Antiques and Housewife, 49. I remember dragging my mum to see Acorn Antiques: The Musical up in London so I knew, going into this, that I was going to find this fascinating and insightful

Oh, hang on. I need to do the info block and affiliate links before I go on. Hang on!

Title And Author: Let’s Do It: The Authorised Biography of Victoria Wood by Jasper Rees
Publisher: Trapeze
Physical, eBook or Audiobook: Audiobook
Bought, Borrowed or Gifted: Gifted by UK publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review/write-up.
Length: 592 Pages or 20 Hours 56 Minutes

Weave The Games

Remember, remember, the fifth of November...

Well, I have a blog tour post for you! And it's a little bit different from what I normally do (but hey, I like being a tad different recently, haven't I?)

The Game Weavers is Rebecca Zahabi debut, showing a darker and intolerant Britain where the national sport is no longer football but Twine, a game where players - Weavers - craft creatures from their fingertips to fight each other, watched by thousands.

Seo is Twine's youth champion, and he hides his sexuality. When he is outed as gay by the media, his can't use his magic to save him from what's to come. With help from his brother, Minjun, and Jack, the man Seo isn't sure if he's in love with or not, Seo has the get his life back of track, ready for one of the biggest matches...

I am thrilled to welcome Rebecca Zahani to the Pewter Wolf and chatting about how she found the voices of her characters! I want to thank Rebecca for finding time to write this guest post and I want to thank Emily from Conker Communications for email and bearing with our zany conversations!

And if you want to say hi to Rebecca, pop over to her website, rebeccazahabi.com. Plus, if you are curious about Game Weavers, you can go to Zuntold Publishing's website. 

Now, ONTO THE VOICES!!!

Vampires of Moscow Are A-Hunting

Blog tour time! And it's a bit of a curveball, I know, but stay with me as I saw this call on Twitter when I was on a mini-break with my Other Half last month (we wore masks all the time, washed hands a lot and followed guidelines. We were careful [though, according to the UK Prime Minister announcing a second Lockdown in England, not so much]!), and thought "Why not? This looks like fun!"

So, Vampires of Moscow is the first book in the Blood Web Chronicles series, written by Caedis Knight (the pen name of Jacqueline Silvester and NJ Simmonds), following Saskia de la Cruz is an investigator journalist for the biggest news outlet on the paranormal dark Blood web, The Blood Web Chronicle. She is, also, a Verity Witch - her only magic being that she can tell a truth from a lie. 

While working on her para-cases for the Chronicles, Saskia hopes that one day, she will discover a case that will lead her to her missing sister. 

So when drained bodies of illegal workers suddenly start appearing in Moscow, Saskia is sent to investigate a vampire crime ring that could be behind it. Saskia wants to get in, do the job and get out quickly... with her neck intact. 

But ballerina Konstantin Volkov and his wildcard Lukka complicate things as the vampire brothers have their own reasons to solve the murders, reasons that conflicted Saskia's... 

Basically, this sounds like the bastard love child of True Blood, Crescent City: House of Earth and Blood and Veronica Mars... so I sense you guys will LOVE it!

To celebrate the release of Vampires of Moscow and the eNovella prequel, Sirens of Los Angeles, Caedis Knight has written a special guest post and I am thrilled to share it with you! It's how Caedis Knight was created (as told by NJ Simmonds) and how Blood Web Chronicles came into being!

Now, before I hand it over to Caedis, I just want to thank them both for writing this guest post! If you want more info about the series or want to say hi to them, pop over to caedisknight.com or @CaedisKnight if you are a Twitter addict like myself!

Now, ONTO THE BIRTH OF CAEDIS KNIGHT AND THE BLOOD WEB CHRONICLES!

November TBR

This month's TBR is going to be a tad different from my previous attempts of making a TBR list (lists I normally don't stick to, FYI). This month doesn't really have a theme, either, though I do have a challenge in my head, which is why I am going to chat about it now in this small(ish) post. 

This month, my main TBR challenge is to focus on my TBR from NetGalley. 

Now, if you don't know what NetGalley is (I do reference it, but am not sure if I have ever explained), NetGalley is a site that booksellers, bloggers/reviewers, librarians, educators or those in the media can use to get Advance Reader Copies of books in eBook form. 

Now, I recently looked at my TBR on NetGalley and it's a lot. More than I thought. At the time of writing this (18th October, for those of you curious), I have around 160. So yeah, I need to sit down and get my backside in gear and make a tiny dent in them. 

Now, I am not going to review every single read from NetGalley on here. Lockdown reviewing has still burnt me out so some eProofs I read will only have a short review on Goodreads (goodreads.com/pewterwolf for those of you not friends with me or, if that's too much of a commitment, just follow!), but I will try and write a good few reviews up. My only warning for this month is that this month's reading is going to be really erratic, and because of that, I am weirdly excited to see what I read this month! 

I hope you join me for this month's weird reading on here, Goodreads (link in previous paragraph) or on Twitter on @PewterWolf (I am quite active on Twitter. I am a little worried that I might have an addiction problem with my phone/Twitter so might have to do a few days where I hide my phone and not touch it!). It's gonna be a weird one! 

Mini-Review Time - Memento & Gemina

I was planning to write these write-ups (and of Daphne and Velma: The Vanishing Girl by Josephine Ruby - though not sure if I will do a write-up of this book on The Pewter Wolf due to time and I'm tempted to keep that as a Goodreads only review [this was a gift via the first UK Lockdown from Jayde from Paperback to Hardback]) and post in December due to my November reading plans. 

However, last night, the UK Prime Minister announced the UK will be going into a second lockdown for the whole of November. And so, I decide to pop these two together (as part of the same series), write this post and make it go live today (I know. Am posting at a weekend!).

Now, as you know if you have followed me for a while, I first read Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff a few years back (2018, I think), and I did like it, but I did struggle with it. And I full on plans to continue and finish the trilogy. Expect I didn't. I got sidetrack - very on brand for me. So, earlier this lockdown (August, I believe), I got my hands on copy of the audiobook (you may blame Jen from Jenniely for that!) and, I really liked it this time round. Far more than I expected! So much so, I bought the rest of the trilogy (Gemina and Obsidio). I had planned to do the whole trilogy by the end of the year at the latest, by Halloween at the earliest (though, I highly doubted that!). 

And then, news dropped that the prequel novella, Memento, was getting published. This was published in Australia for a limited run as a preorder exclusive when Aurora Rising (by same authors and, yes, I have plans to read/audiobook this before year is out!) first came out. But, to celebrate 5 years of Illuminae's release, the novella has been published as audiobook and eBook.