-
review; ace of shades
Ace Of Shades by Amanda Foody Welcome to the City of Sin, where casino families reign, gangs infest the streets… and secrets hide in every shadow. Enne Salta was raised as a proper young lady, and no lady would willingly visit New Reynes, the so-called City of Sin. But when her mother goes missing, Enne must leave her finishing school – and her reputation – behind to follow her mother’s trail to the city where no one survives uncorrupted. Frightened and alone, her only lead is a name: Levi Glaisyer. Unfortunately, Levi is not the gentleman she expected – he’s a street lord and a con man. Levi is also…
-
review; tales from a tiny room
Tales From A Tiny Room by Wayne Ree What happens when two gods sit on a park bench and compare universes? Why does a reporter’s world fall to pieces after he meets someone who can fly? What’s the secret of the man who changes with every city he’s in? Eleven short prose pieces taking you from the everyday to the extraordinary. These are the Tales From A Tiny Room. Review:
-
recipe; vanilla cupcakes
The first time I made these cupcakes was about four years ago for my youngest sister’s 11th birthday. She was having a purple zebra themed party, and I wanted to make something, so I attempted a simple recipe, but I coloured half the batter purple and tried layering it. The layering wasn’t done brilliantly, but the cupcakes were a hit. Which is a surprise in our family where everybody always asks for half a cupcake because nobody wants to finish the whole thing. Except this time, our cousins were asking for seconds. (There were not enough cupcakes for seconds.) Since then, these cupcakes have been my go-to when I want…
-
SPOTLIGHT; time to educate yourselves
We interrupt our regular schedule to bring you this post. This is not my usual type of SPOTLIGHT posts. Not even close. But I am tired, you guys. I am so tired. How many times do we – readers of colour – have to remind other readers that you can educate yourselves? How many times do we have to inform you about things you feel entitled to knowing by, what? Reading a book by an author of colour? How many times do we have to point out that authors of colour aren’t there to educate you, but to tell stories? Sometimes those stories include a little bit of the things…
-
;ten books that have been on my TBR forever
I was trying to think of something that I had not written about before when I found myself on Goodreads. I started wondering why my TBR was so big, and whether I had maybe forgotten to move books about when I had read them, and then I realised that some of these books I don’t remember adding to my TBR. Anyone else have that problem? Anyway, I thought putting the first ten books I added to my TBR – excluding books from the same series’ – would be a fun list to make so here we are! I’m listing the books in the order they were added to Goodreads, from…
-
review; plus one
Plus One by Elizabeth Fama It takes guts to deliberately mutilate your hand while operating a blister-pack sealing machine, but all I had going for me was guts. Sol Le Coeur is a Smudge – a night dweller in an America rigidly divided between people who wake, live, and work during the hours of darkness and those known as Rays who live and work during daylight. Impulsive, passionate, and brave, Sol deliberately injures herself in order to gain admission to a hospital, where she plans to kidnap her newborn niece – a Ray – in order to bring the baby to visit her dying grandfather. By violating the day-night curfew,…
-
the girl behind the book blog; a BLOGVERSARY post
If we are being completely accurate, my blogversary was yesterday! And I had actually planned this post for next week before I realised it was my blogversary this month. Yes, I am very good at what I do, clearly. In my first year of blogging here on WordPress, I had a much slower schedule, and then I disappeared for a while after finding out I was pregnant. Since then, I like to think I’ve gotten a little better? But we’re not here to talk about my blogging habits or my stats (which could be better, but hey, I’ve got a nice community of blogger and writer friends, so what do…
-
instant to-read; the tropes edition
When I set up this blog, I made a note to myself that I was going to write a post about tropes in books. What exactly that post would be eludes me – my notes are scattered in various notebooks as this was the pre-bujo era – but finally, finally, I am sitting down to write a post on tropes. Because tropes, love them or hate them, exist. Tropes are fun. I tend to lean more towards loving them in some cases. There are certain tropes that I will pick up almost immediately when they are advertised in the blurb of the book. These are the tropes I search for…
-
review; seraphina
Seraphina by Rachel Hartman Four decades of peace have done little to ease the mistrust between humans and dragons in the kingdom of Goredd. Folding themselves into human shape, dragons attend court as ambassadors, and lend their rational, mathematical minds to universities as scholars and teachers. As the treaty’s anniversary draws near, however, tensions are high. Seraphina Dombegh has reason to fear both sides. An unusually gifted musician, she joins the court just as a member of the royal family is murdered – in suspiciously draconian fashion. Seraphina is drawn into the investigation, partnering with the captain of the Queen’s Guard, the dangerously perceptive Prince Lucian Kiggs. While they begin…
-
recipe; eggless spinach & mushroom quiche
The first time I tried to make an eggless quiche, it was a vegan recipe I added lots of cheese to. I liked it. I did! My husband? Not so much. So I made it very rarely. Maybe twice in total. But then. But then. My husband’s gripe with the quiche was a lack of flavour. We’re Indian, we need things full of flavour, so I understood. But I also really wanted quiche. So I went looking for a way to mash up the vegan quiche recipe with a normal spinach and mushroom quiche recipe, and wound up making something my entire family would not mind having again. Thankfully, I…