GoodRead - Skulduggery Pleasant Short Stories

In my Kindle reading blitz, I discovered these on my Kindle. These are two short stories that you can get both of these FREE from HarperCollins and Amazon and these short stories take place between the main Skulduggery Pleasant novels.

The Lost Art Of World Domination is the first short story within the Skulduggery Pleasant series that takes place a few months after the first novel where our hero, Skulduggery, is chained to a wall while Scaramouch Van Dreg is planning on world domination...

Gold, Babies And The Brothers Muldoon takes place several months after the second novel, Skulduggery Pleasant: Playing With Fire. In this, Skullduggery's partner, 13 year old Valkyrie Cain has to make a delicate deal with a trio of ugly, hairy goblins for the lives of three babies. But these goblins don't intent to keep their side of the deal...

Now, I have to honest, I did read the first few books within this series but stop between the third or fourth books (The Faceless Ones and Dark Days). The reason why, though I loved the darkness of the series, I began to feel that the humour was being used less and less and that's why I got into the series in the first place. Though I have chatted to Rhys from Thirst4Fiction about this (and he told me that Dark Days has the jokes back while the darkness of the story is still there - his review of Dark Days is here!),
I am still hesitant over returning into this world. So, rediscovering these was a real treat.

In my opinion, both stories show the best qualities of a Skulduggery Pleasant novel. With The Lost Art Of World Domination showed the humour of the series while Gold, Babies And The Brothers Muldoon showed the action. While I read Gold, Babies And The Brothers Muldoon and thought it was ok, I found The Lost Art Of World Domination chuckle-worth. I felt I had rediscovered the Skulduggery Pleasant that I first fell in love with.

Though I still not 100% certain if I will return to the series (I hope so, but it might take some time), I at least will be open to reading more books in this series or return to the first book in the series. I know that there is a short story released for World Book Day 2012 - The End Of The World - in March next year and I hope to read that when it comes out and it will let me rediscover the joys of the skeletal Private Eye...

GoodRead - Thorn In My Side

After reading a lot of novels recently, I wanted to do a bit of reading on my Kindle. It's being feeling a bit unloved. So, I decided to put the books that publishers and friends have given me on hold (I WILL GET ROUND TO THEM! I PROMISE!) and attack my Kindle for a few days. The first I read was Thorn In My Side by Karen Slaughter.

This short story tells the story of conjoined twins Kirk and Wayne. One night, Kirk picks up a random girl in a bar, while Wayne has to pretend he's not there. Expect dark deeds happen in the car park that night...

Now, in theory, this should be an interesting story. The idea of what would happen if a brother did a terrible thing while his conjoined twin tried to stop him and whether the law would convict one brother for the sin of another would have made interesting and gripping reading. Instead, out of the 68% that was the story, the second chapter (there was three in total) was the most interesting. It was very much an three act - crime, aftermath, consequence. And for the price of this short story - £1.83 - while Karen's other short story, The Unmarkable Heart was 47p, a tiny part of me thought I kinda got rip-off.

It has faults, but it wasn't awful either. I just feel that, unless you're a true crime or a Karin Slaughter fan, you might want to wait till this becomes free or cheaper than it is now...

(And now for music choices... I read this while I was listening to Kelly Clarkson's new album [which is AMAZING! I need to see her live! Anyone know if she's coming to the UK?] hence my choices! ENJOY!)

The Hunger Games Trailer

Earlier today, Good Morning America (a breakfast show on ABC in the USA) revealed the trailer for The Hunger Games... and here it is!



Reactions, ladies & gentlemen?

And This is Why Cows Scare Me...

GoodRead - Sarah Millican's Support Group (Audiobook)

While my PIW (the Person I'm With - Last time I'm going to tell you this) and I were away for an anniversary to Alton Towers (I know. HOW ROCK AND ROLL OF US!) last month, we listened to this on the way back.

Sarah Millican's Support Group was a BBC Radio 4 series (this was series 1 - no idea if/when series 2 will be released as an audiobook or if BBC Radio 4 has commissioned a third series) where Sarah and two "experts", sexist taxi-driver Terry & snooty counsellor Marion who "did an Open University degree... and got a B" helped with fictional situations (such as dating outside your social class, a young man caught in the middle of his current and first love and a 50 year old grandmother rediscovering life, much to her daughter's horror among other situations) and having audience involvement, which allow Sarah to improvise.

I do love Sarah Millican so I found this stupidly funny. But I do know that she's not everyone's cup of tea in comedy. If you're not sure, YouTube her doing stand-up for the BBC show, Live At The Apollo and see if she appeals to you...

GoodRead - Clockwork Angel

I have to admit I had this book since it came out last year. But, due to the fact I was ill then real life and other books got in the way so this kept going down and down in the To Be Read pile.

And then, Mundie Moms turned round to me after a short twitter chat and said "We're starting a Read-A-Long for Clockwork Angel", I decide to try and take part. So, I owe Mundie Moms a big THANK YOU to them for them to help me FINALLY get round to reading Clockwork Angel.

In this, the first book in the prequel trilogy for the Mortal Instruments, Tessa Gray arrives to Victorian London. But instead of her being meeting her brother, Nate. Instead, she is taken and held hostage by the Dark Sisters. When she is rescued by Will, Tessa finds herself slowly entering the world of Shadowhunters and Downworld, where demons, fairies and vampires are common. The deeper Tessa enters this new and dangerous world, Tessa finds herself in the middle of two friends and finding that is she more connected to this new world than she first thought...

Now, this is a strange book to me. I really liked the Mortal Instruments series (well, first three books, seeing as this new trilogy in the Mortal Instruments I haven't started yet!) so entering this world again was always an exciting idea, but going back to Victorian London was interesting. I'm not a great lover of historical fiction so reading this was going to be an odd read for me, but after the first few chapters, it felt like I had re-entering a wonderful world again, and I quite enjoyed this new side of the Shadowhunter world.

I did worry for quite some time about reading this (and I still have this fear with City of Fallen Angels [which is the fourth book in the Mortal Instruments series]) as I thought these books will ruin the magic of the first three books, but I shouldn't have worried.

While Clockwork Angel was a bit slow to start as this was Tessa discovering this world (and we knew it!), it picked up the pace and laid down the fountains for the rest of the trilogy, while explaining little titbits that were hinted in City of Bones, City of Ashes & City of Glass. It was, also, great not to have a "He's your brother!" twist (which caused many a reader to throw City of Bones across the room)! We have a love triangle. A REAL love triangle. And what an interesting triangle - quiet, thoughtful Jem and impulsive, hot-tempered Will. I fear I know where this might be going, but I live in hope! SURPRISE ME!

After all the twists that came out at the end of Clockwork Angel, I am itching to read the sequel, Clockwork Prince!

Is This How Annoying Songs Get Stuck In Your Head?

Blame my twitter-pal Sasha (aka FzngWizbee) for this. I have to watch this film one day...!

ENDLESSLY Cover Reveal

Late Thursday night/Friday morning, Kiersten White revealed the US cover for the third and final book in the PARANORMALCY trilogy, Endlessly on her blog.



LOOK AT ALL THE PURPLE! Aren't it beautiful? And from how the UK covers of the trilogy look, we will get this in the UK too! Yeah!

But what do you think? Do you like the purple or not?