Tuesday Intro & Teaser: Shades of Grey

First Paragraph - First Chapter - Tuesday Intro is hosted by Bibliophile By the Sea. So for this book meme, I just have to post the first paragraph of the first chapter of either a book I am currently reading or about to start.

I'm going to be focusing on a book which I have already started reading - Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde. Not to be confused with 50 Shades of Grey! It is a VERY different book indeed! This is my first Jasper Fforde book and I am really enjoying the satirical humour and the world he has created. He has an amazing imagination and is a real wordsmith.

"It began with my father not wanting to see the Last Rabbit, and ended up with me being eaten by a carnivorous plant. It wasn't really what I'd planned for myself. I'd hoped to marry into the Oxbloods and join their dynastic string empire. But that was four days ago, before I'd met Jane, retrieved the Caravaggio or explored High Saffron. So instead of enjoying aspirations of Chromatic advancement, I was wholly immersed within the digestive soup of a yateveo tree. It was all frightfully inconvenient."

Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by Miz B of Should Be Reading. So for this book meme, I have to randomly turn to a page (or two) and choose a sentence to post here to tease you all with. I'm combining the two book memes and using the same book for both.

My teasers:

"Colourising gardens was a complex task that involved matching the osmotic coefficients of the different plants with the specific gravity of the dyes - and that was before you got started on pressure density evaporation rates and seasonal hue variation". ~pg 12

"There was a fear - enthusiastically stoked by other Chromaticologists, I believe - that if you annoyed a Swatchman they'd flash you a peek of 332-26-85, which dropped an instantaneous haemorrhoid". ~pg 35

Shades of Grey: View on Amazon || View on Goodreads

What do you think? Would you keep reading?

Mailbox Monday (9)

Mailbox Monday is a book meme which is hosted by Marcia at Mailbox Monday blog.

In this post, you can see which books I have bought, received for review, or borrowed this past week.

This has been an exciting week for books as I won one! And I also got hold of a book through NetGalley which I have been really looking forward to. That always cheers me up! Here is what made it in to my house:

Personal Purchases:

Free Books

I received The Lost Empress through NetGalley. It's part of a series about a Genealogist who solves mysteries and I have thoroughly enjoyed the other books in the series. I was really excited about this book and it is due out around my birthday so I was going to treat myself to it but then I saw it on NetGalley and now I can spend my pennies on another book instead.

The Magician's Lie I also received through NetGalley - it said it was for fans of Water for Elephants and The Night Circus, both of which I really liked. And the most exciting thing of all...I won Acceptance on Goodreads. It is the third book in the Southern Reach Trilogy. So I HAD to buy book two, Authority (see above), so I could carry on with the series.

Library Books Borrowed:

Have you read any of these? If so, what did you think? If not, do any of them take your fancy?

Review: Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer

Area X has been cut off from the rest of the continent for decades. Nature has reclaimed the last vestiges of human civilization. The first expedition returned with reports of a pristine, Edenic landscape; all the members of the second expedition committed suicide; the third expedition died in a hail of gunfire as its members turned on one another; the members of the eleventh expedition returned as shadows of their former selves, and within months of their return, all had died of aggressive cancer.

This is the twelfth expedition.

Their group is made up of four women: an anthropologist; a surveyor; a psychologist, the de facto leader; and our narrator, a biologist. Their mission is to map the terrain and collect specimens; to record all their observations, scientific and otherwise, of their surroundings and of one another; and, above all, to avoid being contaminated by Area X itself.

They arrive expecting the unexpected, and Area X delivers—they discover a massive topographic anomaly and life forms that surpass understanding—but it’s the surprises that came across the border with them, and the secrets the expedition members are keeping from one another, that change everything.

Reading Format: Kindle eBook
Year Read: 2014
Star Rating: 3.5 stars

This is the first book by Jeff VanderMeer that I have read. He has been on my radar for a while though as his books have kept popping up as recommendations on Goodreads and Amazon.

Annihilation is the first book in the Southern Reach trilogy, all books being released in 2014. This first book is pretty short (approx. 200 pages). Personally, I think I'd have preferred one chunky book rather than three short books - I have thought this on several occasions with series which consists of lots of short books. The next two books in the series are much longer though so I can kind of see why it's been done like this. Also there's a growing trend of releasing sections of books a little like TV episodes of a series - another book series like that which springs to mind is the Wool series by Hugh Howey.

Back to this book! A team of four women are chosen to enter Area X, where many teams of scientists have gone before them, most of which didn't come back or came back changed in some way. So from the outset you know things aren't going to end well!

I enjoyed the book and I read it quickly and I wanted to find out more but it was lacking but I'm not sure why. I thought the ending was a little vague but that's because there are more books to come.

I wrote the review above shortly after I read the book (back in June 2014) but since then, it has grown on me and I think I would probably rate it higher now as I look back on it with fondness! It was a strange little book.

I recently entered a competition on Goodreads to win the third installment, Acceptance, and I WON!!!! I was so excited! So I bought book two, Authority, so that I can continue on with the story. When my prize book arrived, I noticed that Stephen King, one of my favourite authors, had blurbed the book stating that he had enjoyed the whole Southern Reach trilogy and that it was creepy and fascinating. Now I'm even more excited to get back to the series, especially as I have heard some very good reviews about the third book finale!

WWW Wednesday (4)

The book meme WWW Wednesdays is hosted by Should Be Reading.

The aim of WWW Wednesday is to answer the following three questions…
• What are you currently reading?
• What did you recently finish reading?
• What do you think you’ll read next?

What are you currently reading?

I am not far off finishing Shift by Hugh Howey which is the second book in the Wool Series. While it's the second book, it is actually a prequel which I think upsets the overall series flow. It is very interesting to read about how the apocalypse came about and what happened in those early years but there is definitely less suspense (and surprises) compared to the first book. I'm still enjoying it though and I have the final book, Dust, already loaded on my kindle.

What did you recently finish reading?

Last night I finished reading Rose of Sarajevo by Ayşe Kulin for a buddy read plus I needed to review it for NetGalley. At the beginning, I wasn't sure whether the author knew whether she wanted to write a history book or a novel. It was heavy on the politics and history which I found very interesting but I didn't find that it weaved smoothly into the fictional story line. The second half of the book flowed better and was more focused on story of the main characters. I have learnt a lot about the Yugoslavian war though which was one of the main reasons I wanted to read the book.

I finished Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn which was an amazing read. I'm very sad now though as I have read all of Flynn's books and have to wait ages now for her next one! Flynn's books seem to be either love it or hate it mainly because she focuses on the darker side of life. I love that kind of thing as I think it is more real than a book which is all happily ever after.


What do you think you’ll read next?

Next up is Spell Bound by Kelley Armonstrong, which is the 12th book in The Women of the Otherworld series. I've thoroughly enjoyed the series but I'm kind of glad that it's coming to an end soon (just one more book to read after this one).

Have you read any of these?

Tuesday Intro & Teasers: Spell Bound

First Paragraph - First Chapter - Tuesday Intro is hosted by Bibliophile By the Sea. So for this book meme, I just have to post the first paragraph of the first chapter of either a book I am currently reading or about to start.

I'm going to be focusing on a book which I am planning to start soon - Spell Bound by Kelley Armstrong. It is book 12 in The Women of the Otherworld series. I am so close to finishing the series - one more book after this one which is aptly titled 13!

"He watched a girl stumble from the motel office, room key glinting under the harsh lights of the parking lot. Lightning flashed, illuminating her figure. Tall and slender, barely more than a teen, too young to be out alone in a place like this, on a night like this.

Thunder rumbled and crashed. The parking lot lights flickered and buzzed. Sheets of ice-cold rain battered the girl. She kept walking, oblivious, as her long hair whipped against her face.

She paid no attention to the storm. No attention to the dark. No attention to him, standing across the road, watching."

Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by Miz B of Should Be Reading. So for this book meme, I have to randomly turn to a page (or two) and choose a sentence to post here to tease you all with. I'm combining the two book memes and using the same book for both.

My teasers:

"He can summon just about any demon you care to deal with. And for the right price, he will." ~ g 61

"When I called Paige back after that ordeal, she said they'd send someone to take Roni to a safe house." ~ pg 133

Spell Bound: View on Amazon || View on Goodreads

What do you think? Would you keep reading?

Mailbox Monday (8)

Mailbox Monday is a book meme which is hosted by Marcia at Mailbox Monday blog.

Basically, we have to make a post featuring the books which we bought, received for review, or loaned this past week.

For a while I thought I wasn't going to have anything to report in this week's Mailbox Monday but a Kindle Daily Deal and a NetGalley request came through at the last minute! Here is what made it in to my house:

Personal Purchases:


I haven't read any books by McCammon before but a lot of my friends on Goodreads rave about him and he is recommended by Stephen King so I think I will like him. Unfortunately all of his books are really long and have generally been quite expensive which has put me off buying them but this one appeared on a Kindle Daily Deal for £1.29 this week and I thought it was too good to miss out on. I might allocate it as my Halloween read!

Swan Song: View on Amazon || View on Goodreads

Books for Review on NetGalley:


Everything I Never Told You: View on Amazon || View on Goodreads

Have you read any of these? If so, what did you think? If not, do any of them take your fancy?

Review: The City & The City by China Miéville

Inspector Tyador Borlú of the Extreme Crime Squad finds deadly conspiracies beneath a seemingly routine murder. From the decaying Beszel, he joins detective Qussim Dhatt in rich vibrant Ul Qoma, and both are enmeshed in a sordid underworld. Rabid nationalists are intent on destroying their neighboring city, and unificationists dream of dissolving the two into one.

Reading Format: Kindle eBook
Year Read: 2014
Star Rating: 5 stars

I have thoroughly enjoyed all the Miéville books I have read so far and I had started to feel a withdrawal from his writing but wanted to read one of his shorter books so thought I’d give The City and The City a go. It seems that every Miéville book has a different writing style while at the same time still being recognisable as being by him. This book is a crime mystery, more speculative fiction than science fiction I would say but still elements of the unusual. This book is more political which I really got in to.

At the beginning, I wasn't sure exactly what was going on with the two cities: Ul Qoma and Beszel. I was very intrigued and I had to keep reading and things then started to fall in to place. It’s hard for me to give a rundown on this book without giving too much away but basically a woman is found dead in the back of a van and a Detective from Beszel's Extreme Crime Squad is sent to investigate it but he quickly finds himself wrapped up in red tape and politics as it’s not a straightforward murder.

This story is complex! It needs your undivided attention at all times but it’s worth it! Such a creative idea for a setting and the way it was written, the two cities almost became characters all of their own. The last quarter of the book was tense and I couldn't put the book down.

I think I would have enjoyed it more if I could have read it consistently but part way through the book I had to take part in a reading challenge so I put it aside to read another two books then came back to this one. Still a 5 star read though!

The City & The City: View on Amazon || View on Goodreads

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