Book Journey

The Sorcery Code by Dima Zales

Published on February 17, 2015February 17, 2015 by Sheila (Book Journey)5 Comments

Blaise was once a powerful and respected member of the Sorcerer’s Council. Not agreeing with the council’s need to keep magic only to the select few, Blaise finds himself on his own. Secretly, Blaise has been working on a special project that could chance everything. The result of his hard work was not exactly what he expected…
He made Her.
Gala is amazing. Born of the Spell Realm, she is beautiful, graceful, and intelligent. Neither she nor Blaise know quite what she is capable of, Gala fully invested in learning about the world that Blaise wanting to know more about the Spell Realm.
Augusta, Blaise’s ex-fiancé is a powerful and gorgeous sorceress. When she learns what Blaise has done, what he has brought into their world; she is furious and will stop at nothing to destroy Gala.

I do enjoy a good fantasy style of read and The Sorcery Code was a nice take on fantasy with a new twist. I like a story line that moves along without too much foretelling that leaves me feeling the book is bogged down with TMI. Thankfully, this one moves quickly into the action and I enjoyed the ride.
I enjoyed the strong characters and found them engaging and well flushed out. The story brings with it a lot of action and as the book closes there is still a lot going on. I look forward to the next book in this series.
I listened to this on audio and narrator Emily Durante brought an excellent voice to this listen.

Audible Audio Edition
Listening Length: 7 hours and 32 minutes
Program Type: Audiobook
Version: Unabridged
Publisher: Mozaika Publications
Audible.com Release Date: March 13, 2014

Morning Meanderings… Confession, I Am On The Crack

Published on February 17, 2015 by Sheila (Book Journey)24 Comments

Good morning! Tuesday is here! I am checking off that to do list this week and making progress early on in the week already! YEAH!

SO today’s post is brought to you by…

Trivia Crack.

Have you heard of this?

It is a game app you can play on your phone or for those of us who grow up in the 80’s and think bigger is still better, you can play on Facebook on your lap top/IPAD/etc….

Basically the game has these cute icons (above) that represent categories: Entertainment, Sports, Geography, Art, and History. You spin a little wheel…

… and whatever subject it lands on you answer a question about. Three questions answered and you get to move on to the grown or you can land on the crown. The crown lets you choose a category question and if you answer it right you receive that Icon piece. The goal is to get all the icon pieces before your opponent.

Fun, addicting, and you learn along the way.

Sometimes the questions are pretty easy… .there are many Harry Potters questions that I rock at. 🙂 Some are harder (*cough cough sports*) and you think who would possibly know that answer… and then like yesterday, sometimes you get too excited and click on the wrong answer.

Here is my Facebook post from last night:

I dont know if I can keep playing Trivia Crack…. it makes me swear. Latest question, animal best known in Edgar Allen Poe’s poem…. I quickly and confidently clicked on….
crow. *doh!*

LOL. The crack got me.

Today I am working out and working on a project for Camp. I am debating on an author event for this evening in the cities but think I am going to pass as it is 2 hours away and will involve driving in the dark tonight.

Are you playing Trivia Crack? Do you have a “fun” question that you missed?

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?

Published on February 15, 2015February 15, 2015 by Sheila (Book Journey)73 Comments

Hello! Welcome to It’s Monday What Are You Reading? The meme that we use to share what we read this past week and what our plans are for the upcoming week. It’s a great way to see what others are reading and add to your own To Be Read list. 😀 You never know where that next great read may come from!

What a week! You ever have those times when you are reading and or listening to audio and everything is just about finished but not quite? That’s the week I had. I two audio books I am finishing and two books I am finishing. I hoped to have one more complete today but after staying up too late watching True Blood (I just started watching the series last night and the jury is still out on how I feel about it),I fell asleep in the chair this afternoon while reading.

Here is what was posted this week:

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce

Bookies Book Club Thoughts on Silent Sister by Diane Chamberlain (w/ discussion questions for your groups!)

American Sniper – The Movie

One Step Too Far by Tina Seskis

I Was Here by Gayle Forman

E Readers and Books… What Will Make It To The Next Level? (weigh in on this one!)

Ok, I guess I read more than I thought I had. Not bad for it being my birthday this week, my son was in town for two days, and I had book club on Tuesday!

This week should be a good one. My week is quiet, I have some writing to do, but not a lot of running around to do. I plan on:

For My Eyes

Irrepressible Biddy Leigh, under-cook at forbidding Mawton Hall, only wants to marry her childhood sweetheart and set up her own tavern. But when her elderly master marries young Lady Carinna, Biddy is unwittingly swept up in a world of scheming, secrets, and lies. Forced to accompany her new mistress to Italy, she documents her adventures and culinary discoveries in an old household book of recipes, The Cook’s Jewel. Biddy grows intrigued by her fellow travelers, but her secretive and unconventional mistress is the most intriguing of all.

In London, Biddy finds herself attracted to her mistress’s younger brother. In France, she discovers her mistress’s dark secret. At last in Italy, Biddy becomes embroiled in a murderous conspiracy, knowing the secrets she holds could be a key to a better life, or her downfall.

Inspired by eighteenth-century household books of recipes and set at the time of the invention of the first restaurants, An Appetite for Violets is a literary feast for lovers of historical fiction. Martine Bailey’s novel opens a window into the fascinating lives of servants, while also delivering a suspenseful tale of obsession and betrayal.

Strong-minded and ambitious, Madeleine Karno is eager to shatter the constraints of her provincial French upbringing. She wants to become a pathologist like her father, whose assistant she is, but this is 1894, and autopsies are considered unseemly and ungodly, even when performed by a man—hence his odious nickname, Doctor Death. That a young woman should wish to spend her time dissecting corpses is too scandalous for words.

Thus, when seventeen-year-old Cecile Montaine is found dead in the snowy streets of Varbourg, her family will not permit a full post-mortem autopsy, and Madeleine and her father are left with a single mysterious clue: in the dead girl’s nostrils they find a type of parasite normally seen only in dogs. Soon after, the priest who held vigil by the dead girl’s corpse is brutally murdered. The thread that connects these two events is a tangled one, and as the death toll mounts, Madeleine must seek knowledge in odd places: behind convent walls, in secret diaries, and in the yellow stare of an aging wolf.

For the readalong 😉 Dark times have come to Hogwarts. After the Dementors’ attack on his cousin Dudley, Harry Potter knows that Voldemort will stop at nothing to find him. There are many who deny the Dark Lord’s return, but Harry is not alone: a secret order gathers at Grimmauld Place to fight against the Dark forces. Harry must allow Professor Snape to teach him how to protect himself from Voldemort’s savage assaults on his mind. But they are growing stronger by the day and Harry is running out of time. These new editions of the classic and internationally bestselling, multi-award-winning series feature instantly pick-up-able new jackets by Jonny Duddle, with huge child appeal, to bring Harry Potter to the next generation of readers. It’s time to PASS THE MAGIC ON .

* I am late on this book… fell behind on my own read along! Sheesh! 🙂 Here is the link to link up your posts on this book. I will be there soon!

For My Ears

Once a respected member of the Sorcerer Council and now an outcast, Blaise has spent the last year of his life working on a special magical object. The goal is to allow anyone to do magic, not just the sorcerer elite. The outcome of his quest is unlike anything he could’ve ever imagined – because, instead of an object, he creates Her.

She is Gala, and she is anything but inanimate. Born in the Spell Realm, she is beautiful and highly intelligent – and nobody knows what she’s capable of. She will do anything to experience the world…even leave the man she is beginning to fall for.

Augusta, a powerful sorceress and Blaise’s former fiance, sees Blaise’s deed as the ultimate hubris and Gala as an abomination that must be destroyed. In her quest to save the human race, Augusta will forge new alliances, becoming tangled in a web of intrigue that stretches further than any of them suspect. She may even have to turn to her new lover Barson, a ruthless warrior who might have an agenda of his own…

He is the deadliest American sniper ever, called “the devil” by the enemies he hunted and “the legend” by his Navy SEAL brothers.

From 1999 to 2009, U.S. Navy SEAL Chris Kyle recorded the most career sniper kills in United States military history. The Pentagon has officially confirmed more than 150 of Kyles kills (the previous American record was 109), but it has declined to verify the astonishing total number for this book. Iraqi insurgents feared Kyle so much they named him al-Shaitan (“the devil”) and placed a bounty on his head. Kyle earned legendary status among his fellow SEALs, Marines, and U.S. Army soldiers, whom he protected with deadly accuracy from rooftops and stealth positions. Gripping and unforgettable, Kyle’s masterful account of his extraordinary battlefield experiences ranks as one of the great war memoirs of all time.

A native Texan who learned to shoot on childhood hunting trips with his father, Kyle was a champion saddle-bronc rider prior to joining the Navy. After 9/11, he was thrust onto the front lines of the War on Terror, and soon found his calling as a world-class sniper who performed best under fire. He recorded a personal-record 2,100-yard kill shot outside Baghdad; in Fallujah, Kyle braved heavy fire to rescue a group of Marines trapped on a street; in Ramadi, he stared down insurgents with his pistol in close combat. Kyle talks honestly about the pain of war – of twice being shot and experiencing the tragic deaths of two close friends.

I think it should be a good reading week! How about you? Big reading plans this week? One in particular? Please share! Add your Its Monday What Are You Reading to the link below.

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For those who read mainly children and middle grade books please add your link here as well:

E Readers and Books… What Makes It To The Next Level

Published on February 15, 2015February 15, 2015 by Sheila (Book Journey)63 Comments

First up. This post is Meg’s fault. 🙂 Write Meg wrote earlier this week about her Kindle Vs. the paperbacks. It is a good post. Read it.

I know the discussion is not a new one, in fact I am pretty sure somewhere in my archives among the cobwebs deep within this blog shoved in a corner box marked Old Posts, I have talked about this as well…. however… I think my opinion has slightly changed.

In response to Meg’s post I wrote:

I am with you. I “kindled up” a couple years ago myself and I go in spurts of using it and then not… now it sits on my end table in the living so it at least has been upgraded out of a corner in the book room wondering where its charger is. 🙂 Like you, I enjoy the look and feel of a real book. Like you, I also find myself appreciating the Kindle more than I used to…. I can accept a Netgalley read right away as opposed to waiting for it to be sent to me. It obviously takes up less space…
One fun fact I learned from our library board is that e book check outs have plateaued. Interesting. I wonder what that means?

SO what has changed for me… and for possibly you… and maybe the world as opinions on e readers?

For me…

E Reader +

Honestly…. the e reader, a Kindle in my instance, is convenient. It is small, I can slip it in my purse and take it with me. For traveling it is wonderful… I can take with me a mystery, a non fiction, a literary, classic, best seller, and a Chunkster *cough cough Harry Potter*, all in the space of smaller than a paperback.

I like highlighting passages I plan to go back to for quoting purposes to friends, or at book club. I like to put my finger on a word and have a dictionary pop up and tell me what it means.

E Reader –

Sometimes my e reader does not hold my page. I may go out of that book to start another one on the e reader and when I come back, it has started over. Flip flip flip through the screen trying to find where I was…. annoying.

Charge it! Not always convenient. Granted the battery lasts for quite a while, but thinking ahead to having a full battery before I take off is not always on the agenda. Nothing worse than you are in a good part of a book and suddenly you can not read it.

Books +

Lets be honest…. I LOVE books. I love the look, the smell, the weight. I love the covers. I love it when the covers have a texture to them, I love the pages when they are beveled, or off white, or white, or have words on them.

I love the look of books in a home… they tell me something about the person.

I love being able to see what people are reading when I pass them in waiting rooms, on a plane, in a library, anywhere…

Books are conversation starters.

I love book rooms and book shelves. I love books in piles… on tables, end tables, coffee tables, counter tops, in rooms… on beds…. wherever.

A book does not need to be plugged in. In a power outage, I can still read by candle light. In a dystopian world of no electricity, my book still works… and if the new world is bad enough, it is also a weapon. 😉

Book –

It is hard to travel with books. If you are like me, you never know what you are going to want to read. That means when I traveled, I would take about 4 or 5 books of different genres. Notoriously, I would purchase book(s!) wherever I traveled to and add them to the 4 or 5. Basically – I take a carry on a plane for my books. It is a bit ridiculous. (I have since went to using my Kindle for travel and perhaps one real paper book).

They do take up A LOT of space. I have a room in my house for my books. I LOVE that room. I love the look and feel of it but quite honestly… it is a lot of books. It is like a page out of hoarders, except in my defense they are in alphabetical order by author and I think my case will stand up in court. 😀

I think what I am getting at here is there is a place in my world for both the paper book and the e reader. They can work together harmoniously.

What are your thoughts on books and e readers? Do you favor one over the other?

Morning Meanderings… Technology Fail… But There Are Books!

Published on February 15, 2015February 15, 2015 by Sheila (Book Journey)29 Comments

Good morning! YAY! Sunday!

Yesterday I mentioned I was having trouble uploading pictures from my phone. When taking pictures for Book Journey I usually take them on my phone and then email them to myself to nab off my laptop. Yesterday morning I took several pics for the morning post but could not get them to upload.

This morning I tried again, rebooting my phone and everything. Still didn’t work. Then I went to the magic of all things Google and Googled my problem. All sorts of things came up about MMS… blah blah blah, stuff over my head.

I stared at my phone filled will reminders that the message had failed…

and then I knew what had happened.

I never use my phone to check email. I receive too much email on three different accounts and it is a huge battery suck. Only if I am super desperate to check for an email will I use it and then it usually needs about 5 minutes to sync as the last time I checked it was months prior…

Well…

on Tuesday I needed to print an email for book club and I do not have a printer hooked to this laptop. I do however have one hooked to my office laptop. When I went to retrieve the email downstairs somehow I had been logged out on my main email. AND… I could not for the life of me recall the password. In order to retrieve the email I needed to print, I had to…

you guessed it…

CHANGE THE PASSWORD.

Bingo.

My phone could not send to the email as it no longer had the correct password.

GAH.

A quick fix and I received my photos no problem. 🙂

And just in time too as here are the books that came in this week:

The Girl On The Train by Paula Hawkins (audio)

Molly’s Game by Molly Bloom

Night Is The Hunter by Steven Gore

The Forgetting Place by John Burley

The Boy Who Loved Rain by Gerald Kelly

Two Moons by Thomas Mallon

The Snow Globe by Judith Kinghorn

Splinters Of Light by Rachael Herron

I am pretty caught up around here, house cleaning is done, errands complete… I have been working freelance projects for the past 4 days and think today is an official reading day. I look forward to a comfy chair and a good book or two.

What are you doing with your Sunday?

I Was Here by Gayle Forman

Published on February 14, 2015February 14, 2015 by Sheila (Book Journey)11 Comments

Cody and Meg were best friend. Considered inseparable all through their school years the girls were constantly together until Meg receives a full scholarship and goes away to college. They still communicated by email and phone calls but life gets busy… and the calls are more infrequent…

Then Cody is shocked when an email arrives from Meg telling Cody that by the time she read the message, it is already too late.

And it is.

Cody is confused by her friends suicide. What signs did she miss? When Cody goes to Meg’s college to collect her things she learns a lot more about the girl she thought she knew. As Cody looks through Meg’s laptop she finds things that may be clues, including an encrypted file in the recycle bin that may hold more that Cody bargained for.

I enjoyed listening to I Was Here on audio. This book deals with the hard subject of suicide and what happens after to those who are left behind. Jorjeana Marie was an excellent narrator for this book, she held the right voice.

The basic story line of this book is good and I think author Gayle Forman in on the right track with Cody discovering a side to her friend she didn’t know existed, however some things did not work for me in the story.

Meg’s parents come off as distant and I get grief, but the fact that they did not go to the college themselves to pick up Meg’s things seemed odd.

Cody’s actions throughout the book are off as well. I felt as though in the end I knew Meg more than I knew Cody.

Do not get me wrong, I did like I Was Here as a whole. It tells a good story of a major loss. I was very impressed with the epilogue which included the author giving a statement on suicide as well as help lines(including phone numbers!) for those who are having suicidal thoughts.

While I did not fully connect with the book, it was a good listen.

Gayle Forman is also the author of the book If I Stay which this last year was a major motion picture.

Listening Length: 7 hours and 42 minutes
Program Type: Audiobook
Version: Unabridged
Publisher: Listening Library
Audible.com Release Date: January 27, 2015

Morning Meanderings…. 50 Shades Of… AWESOME!

Published on February 14, 2015 by Sheila (Book Journey)11 Comments

New coffee cup pic to come… I have one but for some reason can not get it to upload this morning and tired of waiting 😉

Happy Saturday! I have the best weekend ahead of me here…. no plans!!! I love it! I might have lunch with a friend, visit my aunt, try out the snow shoes finally… the possibilities are endless 🙂

As you probably know, today is the official release day of the 50 Shades Of Grey movie. It’s Valentines Day… aren’t they cute? I have not read the book and do not plan too and will more than likely be passing on the movie as well. However, I would be neglect if I did not say the play on the title (mush as I have done today) has been fun. 😀

Today for Saturday Snapshot, I thought it would be fun to post pics of my book club through the years because they really are 50 shades of AWESOME! I was going through pics on Facebook the other day and thought it was fun to see all the crazy things we have done through the years. Granted, this is not all of the craziness… this is just some.

This was for our review of Garlic and Sapphires by Ruth Reichl. We disguised ourselves like she did in the book. Can you find me in this group? 😉

Pride and Prejudice was the classic we were reading…. we dressed the era.

Sharon’s birthday. We surprised her and wore our “Bookies” shirts

When one of us was diagnosed with breast cancer we wore pink to the meeting in support of her.

Our first SKYPE with author Sandra Brannan. Sandra had sent us a care package for our review.

This has been fun for me to look back through these pics of a book club I adore. Going strong since August of 2001! There are a lot more pics, but now I think I am on a mission….. more on that later 😉

One Step Too Far by Tina Seskis

Published on February 13, 2015 by Sheila (Book Journey)12 Comments

Emily and Caroline are surprise twins. By surprise, I mean that their mother did not know that she was going to have twins until… they were here. Emily slips from her mother perfect and easy, shortly after along comes Caroline, blue and not breathing… a struggle from the moment she is born.

As the girls grow to adults, Caroline who knows she is not loved by her mother as Emily is, lashes out in her own ways with respect for no one’s time and a liking to the shocking as well as to alcohol.

Yet as the story opens, Emily is fleeing her life and her husband. She is changing her name, picked up a new job, and remaining hidden… although we do not know why. What has happened to this girl who by all outward looks seemed to be the one that had it together?

Told in alternating voices and in flash backs, slowly the puzzle begins to clear… and that one step too far… means so much more than you think.

Side story. I love the Renaissance Festival. My very first time I went as I walked down a narrow wooded dirt path to the entrance with my friends a costumed man sitting up in a tree above me hollered down with an accent, “DO NOT STEP IN IT!”

I of course stopped and looked at him. Then I glanced around. There was nothing there but trail. “What?” I responded.

“DO NOT STEP IN IT!” he cried again more urgently.

I giggled, this being my first introduction to the Renaissance and it was a fun exchange. “I do not see anything to step in,“ I responded.

“IT! IT”, he said loudly with anxiety in his voice and pointing at the ground. “DO NOT STEP IN IT!”

I then looked down and seen right where I stood in the trail, the word “IT” was scratched into the dirt.

I was not even in the front gate yet and already loved the Renaissance Festival.

That may seem like a random story for a review, but it actually fits. I thought of that story as I listened to this book on audio, mainly because as I listened I could not help but feel as though I had stepped in IT. And… like that day at the Renaissance, I loved it.

One Step Too Far starts out with a lot to take in. You have the girls and their mother… you see that Caroline is a bit of a struggle. So when Emily is the one who seems to go a bit nutty… it is shocking and you spend much of the book learning what has happened.

And when you know…

whoa.

I really enjoyed listening to One Step Too Far. I admit I was a bit nervous when the audio started and it seemed as though I had found my way to yet another read that is told from multiple perspectives, flashes back and forth… and quite honestly, I have had enough of that style for a bit. Yet, One Step Too Far pulled away from that format by engaging me fully into the story. In the end, I was impressed.

Elizabeth Knowelden and Paul Fox are excellent narrators for this book. Flawlessly, they complimented each other.

Audible Audio Edition
Listening Length: 9 hours and 8 minutes
Program Type: Audiobook
Version: Unabridged
Publisher: Harper Audio
Audible.com Release Date: January 27, 2015

Morning Meanderings… A Day In The Life of a “Want To Be” Writer

Published on February 13, 2015 by Sheila (Book Journey)19 Comments

Good morning. I think I need a new Meandering pic… the one I have been using prior to today I do not believe is accurate. My hair is not as wild as that pic, it is more like the one above. Anyhoo… that was random. 🙂

Since returning from our vacation in January I have been playing catch up on projects, but also trying to set some sort of routine that works for working from home.

Currently it looks something like this:

Up around 7 am.

Coffee.

Emails.

Coffee.

Facebook.

Think about working out.

Shower instead.

Coffee.

Check calendar for any writing projects I should be working on – magazine articles, freelance work…

Coffee.

Start writing, either for me… or for a project.

Around 9:30 am make any phone calls I need to make.

Back to writing.

Break around 11 am, if I did not do the workout earlier, do it now.

Lunch.

Water.

Run any town errands (optional)

Check emails.

Back to writing.

Water.

Writing.

Around 3:00 pm, take a look at any non profit projects I am working on (lately that has been authors for Wine and Words and lining up the July bike ride for Camp Benedict.)

Make phone calls surrounding the non profit stuff.

Think about what is for dinner.

Around 5 pm either go back to writing, work on no profit, or put it all away and read for a bit.

5:30 – 6:00 pm start dinner.

Al in the house around 7 pm, catch up with him and have dinner.

7:30 pm we either watch tv together, he watches tv and I read upstairs, or I continue to play around with a project.

8:30 pm – Al is in bed, I read or watch something mind numbing on tv (currently I am addicted to a series I found on Amazon Prime called AWKWARD.)

It is not down to a science and as anyone’s day goes, it does not always work that way. Occasionally I have a meet up with a friend, or I run to the library, or I work on laundry or dishes or tackling a closet.

It is a different feel for someone who is used to be going going going out in the public. I hope eventually to find my groove, but for now this is it 🙂

American Sniper – The Movie

Published on February 12, 2015February 10, 2015 by Sheila (Book Journey)18 Comments

Just this weekend I had the opportunity to go and see American Sniper with my husband. You may think that he picked the movie, but it was actually my pick. I am not a fan of war movies, however this is a true story and an incredible one at that. I want those of you who think like me that a war movie is a guy thing… let me just say not always. Do not write this movie off.

The basic synopsis is that Chris Kyle (Bradley Cooper) has always been an overachiever. When he sets his mind to do something he fully plans to do it right and go all the way. When he joins the Navy Seals he does it because he wants to protect his country.

Before he leaves to be part of the war efforts on Iraq after 911, he meets his future wife Taya,(played by Sienna Miller). They fall in love, get married and start a family. While Taya is pregnant, Chris is fighting for his life and his country.

Chris in all does, 4 tours. While this is the source of many arguments with his wife who feels he has given enough to his country and it was time for him to give to his family, Chris finds he can not let go. As in his obsessive nature, he knows that he can save lives. And he knows he can not do that form the comfort of his couch and home.

You may know the rest of the story. In fact it is in the news right now. It is a powerful story about love and loss and truly giving it all. It honestly broke my heart. The movie is about the war yes, but it is also about one man’s desire to save every life he can. Chris Kyle becomes known as the deadliest sniper in America with 255 kills.

Yes you do see some graphic details of the war, yet coming from someone who is sensitive to things like that, the movie as a whole far out weighs that.

I highly recommend seeing this movie. I recently purchased the audiobook and plan to listen to that soon.