kiwigirl reads. . . .

Synopsis:   Necromancer Eric Carter returns home to Los Angeles looking for answers following the brutal murder of his sister. He figures it’s the least he can do after abandoning her fifteen years earlier. After reconnecting with old acquaintances and crossing paths with powerful gangsters — both alive and dead — he soon realizes his return was never mere chance.  Review: Published in 2013, this was a more recent read for me, and I was pleasantly surprised. It’s one of the better urban fantasy books I’ve read in a while. I’m also a sucker for a Chris McGrath cover, so that definitely didn’t hurt either. There are about nine books in the series so far so it is nice to know there are quite a few to get onto in the future. Dead Things is a dark, gritty noir-style urban fantasy packed with intriguing magic and necromancy. There is plenty of violence and action, and just the right amount of grim humour and sarcasm. It has a very fast-moving feel to the story that kept me engaged ...

The Great American Read from PBS is an eight part series exploring the power of reading. 100 books were chosen as the top 100 most-loved novels in America. PBS conducted a survey asking Americans to name their favorite fiction novel and around 7,200 people participated.  You can find out more about the series, books and how they were chosen on the official website . Here is a list of the 100 books chosen: 1984 - George Orwell A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving A Separate Peace - John Knowles A Tree Grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smith The Adventures of Tom Sawyer - Mark Twain The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho Alex Cross Mysteries (Series) - James Patterson Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll Americanah - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie And Then There Were None - Agatha Chistie Anne of Green Gables - Lucy Maud Montgomery Another Country - James Baldwin Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand Beloved - Toni Morrison Bless Me, Ultima - Ruldolf...

Good news from one of my favorite authors recently. Chaz Brenchley has re-released his Northern Lights duology on Amazon. It's hard to believe but the first one - Dead of Light is 21 years old and the follow up Light Errant is 19 years old. They have snazzy new covers and all. Below is his post from Facebook which I have shared here. You can follow the link to the original. I reviewed Dead of Light a while back on this blog so you can also check that out here . Chaz Brenchley via Facebook: People, you won't believe this, but it's been twenty-one years since the first publication of DEAD OF LIGHT. (My baby's old enough to drink legally in America! Snf!) In due celebration of which, we have published new anniversary editions of both DEAD OF LIGHT and his nineteen-year-old baby brother LIGHT ERRANT, both with lovely new covers by Layla Lawlor. At the moment these are technically Amazon-only, because reasons. However, I do have epub and pdf editions ava...

I have been meaning to put this post up for a bit but am as usual behind. I was very lucky to win a signed Advanced Readers Copy (ARC) of the last Lotus War book - Engsinger by Jay Kristoff.  It's my first ARC - exciting. I have not actually had a chance to read it yet. I haven't read the second one in the trilogy so need to get that finished first. I am planning to do a review on the first one Stormdancer in the near future. Endsinger is out now so if you are looking for something a bit different then check it out, the series is kind of steampunk/fantasy set in feudal Japan. I would also recommend you check out Jay Kristoff's blog , he is an Australian author and a funny guy. The blog site is http://misterkristoff.wordpress.com/. This is where I won the ARC from, it was a worldwide competition which was great for me as I live in an obscure part of the world. Also came with a nifty bookmark

I ordered some books from The Book Depository a little while ago and they arrived this week. Yay! I am looking forward to reading and reviewing them. For those of you who don't know The Book Depository is an online book seller based in the UK. The great thing about them is that they have free worldwide shipping , the books were reasonably priced too. I will probably be doing most of my online book shopping through these guys now as it is much cheaper. I purchased: Desdaemona by Ben Macallan Hounded by Kevin Hearne Midnight Riot by Ben Aaronovitch They all came individually, Desdaemona and Hounded came on Thursday and then Midnight Riot an Saturday (not sure why the delay on only one of them).  I was a bit upset as the cover of Desdaemona has been damaged but I think that was due to whomever put it in my post box - its really small and they squashed two books in there together instead of just putting them in the package area of the building. Sigh.   Anyway it w...

Hi, my name is Amy and I have started this blog to try and kick start my reading habits for this year.  I have become a bit lazy in the past couple of years and my reading has declined in favour of TV. I want to be able to keep track of what I have been reading, what I liked and did not like and share with you all what I find out. I read a wide range of books, really whatever catches my eye, I do however favor the fantasy genre in all its forms. For the past ten years or so since college I have been reading a lot of what has become know as Urban Fantasy.  Some of that blurs into Paranormal Romance and it is often hard to make a distinction but I usually divide it up by whether or not the romance is driving the action or if the romance is just a byproduct of the action. I have come to prefer the more action driven Urban Fantasy as they usually have a better storyline but I do read some of the romance ones.  I will say right here and now I have not read Twilight...