Saturday 20 September 2014

Catch Me When I Fall by Vicki Leigh

Choosing which book to read and review is often hard, it can be hit and miss whether the book catches you imagination and pulls you into its world.

Catch Me When I Fall had me hooked from the first paragraph.

My first impressions of the main character, Daniel, was that I felt sorry for him being trapped in his roll as a Dreamcatcher/Protector of the Night (which will be referred to as PoN from now on).  Being a PoN means basically spending every day in battle, protecting unwitting humans from Nightmares (Demons). A PoN can be killed, a second and final death for them. If this happens they cease to exist. No heaven awaits them as reward for all they've done. 

To me this seemed harsh, my first thought was had Daniel done something truly awful in his human life to be sentenced to serve as PoN? The answer it seems, is no. To be a PoN is to die protecting someone else. It is an offer, one which can be refused. Daniel's choice for becoming a PoN was simply for his family, he was young when he died and he did not want to completely leave them.

The character of Daniel reminds me a lot of Jace Wayland from the Mortal Instruments series. Actually a few references in this book remind me of others book series' for example;

There are Witches and Warlocks in this book also known as Magus, their creation (a demon and a human procreate and the child is born a Witch or Warlock) reminds me a lot of the Dhampirs (a Moroi and a Human procreate and the child is born a Dhampir) from the Vampire Academy series as well as Warlocks (Demon and Human procreate and the child is born a Warlock) from the Mortal Instruments series.

Anyway back to Daniel, he's been a PoN for over 200 years and is one of the best Dreamcatchers currently in service. In his human life he was the son of an Earl and at the tender age of 17 he joined the army and went off to war in 1812, where he died.

I won't go into too much detail here as I don't want spoilers, but the gist is, he gets a charge named Kayla and in typical style of these kinds of books he starts to fall for her. There is a Big Bad which is after Kayla and Daniel does all he can to protect her whilst trying to defeat the Big Bad.

There are a few other characters or sidekicks as I like to refer to them, that are essential to the story.  We have Giovanni who is the kind of boss to the PoN, my impression of him is dislike and distrust. Personally I felt after first meeting him, if a Nightmare decided to go on a suicide mission it could start by killing Giovanni.

Then there's Bartholomew, he's Giovanni's boss and is as old as time itself it would seem, he appears to be a wise old guy, kind and likes a good budding romance. I really like this character a lot.

Of course no story is complete without the best friend, the little sister/brother and an ex. Well we get those in the form of Seth (funny guy, likes a good prank and a good knees up.), Tabbi (sweet little sister kind of girl, great banter between her and Daniel really does remind me of a sibling relationship.) and Samantha (Daniel's trainee who he had a one night stand with and then told her it was a mistake - ouch).

I absolutely adored this book, the setting and events were very descriptive and the character progression is great. The flow of the storyline is well written and I can't pick a fault at all with this book. To be truly honest, I can't wait for more.

It's clear that author Vicki Leigh has a blossoming career ahead of her and I for one will be right there buying her books as they're released.

So, make sure you add the date for this book release to your calender and get it hot off the shelf, you certainly won't be disappointed.
release date: 23rd October 2014

The next book I'll be reviewing is...........

It Must Have Been The Mistletoe by Judy Astley
Release Date: 25th September 2014

Doctor Who: The Crawling Terror (12th Doctor novel)

Well, it took over a week to read this book, at just under 200 pages I'm angry with myself for taking so long.

The reason I think it took so long is simply because of the layout of the story on my reader.  It was extremely difficult to follow the story and characters, as one sentence would be set at a different location with different characters and then the next sentence would be a different location and characters talking that I grew confused.

But i persevered and finished the book with a sigh of relief.

If you are squeamish about bugs and insects please note, DO NOT READ THIS BOOK BEFORE BED! Seriously creepy nightmares of giant spiders crawling all over me, urgh.

So, the story itself.

The story in itself is quiet good, not up to the TV show standards but still a good little read.There's plenty of "typical doctor" moments. You can sometimes imagine that this is an 11th Doctor story and not a 12th Doctor one. The setting is very descriptive so you can picture the scenes well as you read. Clara's character is very true to the character in the show, which is something I liked.

There was a Harry Potter reference which I loved.

There was a few errors I found whilst reading. Here we go, please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

Chapter One:

 "To Kevin's horror he realised that there was nothing left of the flesh of the animal."

yet the next sentence says:

"All that was left was skin and bone."

How is that possible? If there's no flesh on the animal how can there be skin left? Isn't flesh skin? 

Another error is words out of order.
"...on you as you as soon as you..."

Another thing I found hard to believe was that there's a point in the story that is set during the second world war, everyone knows about the blackouts, yet one character in the story in that scene didn't. I find it extremely hard to believe that someone would think during those circumstances. 


My favourite character in the whole story is young Private Sanford.

Overall the story is good, the epilogue is a nice touch. However the layout for me on my reader made this not so enjoyable to read, so I recommend if you are a big Doctor Who fan and like the books, make sure you actually buy the book and not download it onto a reader. 

I give this novel 3 out of 5 stars. There is room for improvements.

The next book I will be reading and reviewing is.........

Catch Me When I Fall by Vicki Leigh
release date: 23rd October 2014

Wednesday 10 September 2014

Introduction.

Hello and welcome to my book review blog, Truth About The Book.

My name is Bee and I will be giving my honest opinion on the books I read.  No matter how awful the book I will finish it and I will review it.

I will try my hardest to not post spoilers, but if I must do so to get my point across i will give you a fair warning.

A little bit about me.

Well, like I said, my name is Bee and I have had a love affair with books since I was about 13/14 years old. Before that books were for nerds, but then, ah the magical world of witches and wizards and He Who Shall Not Be Named, landed in my lap and I realised books weren't for nerds, books were for those with an imagination that knew no limits.  How wonderful it was to escape the cold hard reality of life by opening a book.

After reading Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, I began to read books by Christopher Pike and L.J. Smith.  As I grew older, I began sneaking book's off my mum's bookshelf. That was when my true journey began.

I discovered the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, had my eyes opened by Virginia Andrews and fell in love with Eponine and Marius.

By the time I was 21, my book habit had become dangerous. Who knew an Ikea bookcase couldn't hold the weight of almost 200 books and who knew that said bookcase would collapse in the middle of the night turning you into a ninja in pajamas. 

Over the last five years I've had to admit defeat with the bookcases. Replacing them, repairing them, it all just became too expensive so I said goodbye to my trusty well read books (except the first editions I have!) and handed them over to the local Cat Protection Charity Shop for re-sale. In their place I bought my first ever eReader (which died 5 months ago and my reaction to it's death led to growing concerns for my sanity after I posted a Facebook status about my heartbreak and devastation over the untimely demise of my one true friend. Apparently family and friends felt I should have clarified that it was my eReader that had died and not a person. Pfft is all I have to say that.).  I now own a tablet which, I find, much better than a plain eReader, as I can read all different file formats thanks to so many wonderful apps. But of course nothing can ever replace the feel of a book in your hand, the smell of the pages... Clearly I have a problem.

So, why am I only now starting a Book Blog? Well, I'm constantly leaving reviews on Amazon and Goodreads that I found myself thinking, why not have a no holds barred blog where I don't need to censor myself for the sake of others. 

And that folks, is that.

Stay tuned for my first ever review on this blog. The book has been chosen and my skin is already crawling in anticipation after seeing the cover art, the book I will be reviewing is *drumroll*

Doctor Who: The Crawling Terror (12th Doctor novel) 


If you want to drop me an email with a book suggestion, feedback or abuse (i give as good as i get.), feel free to do so at: 
truthaboutthebook@gmail.com