Category: Book Critic

Book Challenges, Book Critic, Book Review, Books, Gen Lit, Literary Criticism, Reading, Reading Challenges

2012 Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire Series) Reading Challenge, Sign up now!

by The Lit Bitch17 Comments on 2012 Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire Series) Reading Challenge, Sign up now!

Winter is coming.

Well I guess technically winter is already here in Oregon’s as is it almost everywhere else in the Northern hemisphere….LOL :).

As many of you know I am hosting the Outlander series reading challenge again this year…..and I know I said I was a little over epic book series, but I am totally going to make an exception for this series! I have heard such great things about the Game of Thrones (a Song of Ice and Fire series) and I have had the first 2 books on my shelf at home begging me to read them.

The time has come, I can no longer ignore the books….I must read them!! I am dying to watch the HBO Game of Thrones series as I hear it rivals even that of the books but sadly I have to wait till it comes out on DVD which will probably be sometime in March…which is just enough time for me to read the Song of Ice and Fire series and what better excuse than a reading challenge.

I am hosting a very informal reading challenge for the Song of Ice and Fire series here on my blog this year for those of you who are in want of motivation to read this series. The rules are simple, read the Song of Ice and Fire series…post comments, blog about it, review the series….totally up to you!

You must sign up for the series here via Mr Linky and please also spread the love by grabbing the button and posting to your blog.

Grab the button by copy/pasting the code below to your blog or by locating the Song of Ice and Fire Series Reading Challenge button on the main page: Continue reading “2012 Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire Series) Reading Challenge, Sign up now!” →

Book Challenges, Book Critic, Book Review, Books, Gen Lit, Literary Criticism, Reading, Reading Challenges

Review: Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

by The Lit Bitch18 Comments on Review: Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

Like the misty, whispering moors of northern England, Emily Bronte’s one and only novel, gets under your skin….tapping oh so quietly on the lattice window like Cathy asking that you only let it in to come home. Every Thanksgiving break I read Wuthering Heights, don’t ask me why but somehow it became part of a holiday tradition but this year I was able to enjoy it knowing I was also reading it as part of both the Victorian Literature Reading Challenge and the Gothic Literature Reading challenges.

I had hoped to read loads more Victorian novels this year but sadly I don’t think I will satisfy my original challenge goal of 15 books, but I was able to read a fair few on my list….I guess there is always next year though. But when I started the challenge, I knew I would read this book…there is no denying that which one loves.

Some people talk of the moors like they are a mystical and enchanting place  perhaps they are….a place that even if you move far away, the moorland winds keep calling you back to the only place where you can ever truly be free….home.  I include myself in this analogy, though I am not a Yorkshire native by any long stretch of the measure but at times, the moors seem like a place that I could call home. Perhaps that’s why I love novels set on the moors…my mother would say that is my ‘Irish spirit’ longing for it’s homeland….not sure about that (sorry mom) but I do love the misty moors.

The moorlands are among some of the most solitary lands on earth….there is little society and much isolation. The moorland isolation provides one freedom though….a wild, untamed spirit. Perhaps that’s why even when people leave the moors they always find them calling them home no matter how far away they are. In Yorkshire there is one saucy, wild, moorland child who is nothing but a force of nature: Catherine Earnshaw. Continue reading “Review: Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte” →

Book Challenges, Book Critic, Book Review, Books, Gen Lit, Literary Criticism, Reading, Reading Challenges

Review: The Mischief of the Mistletoe (Pink Carnation #7) by Lauren Willig

by The Lit Bitch11 Comments on Review: The Mischief of the Mistletoe (Pink Carnation #7) by Lauren Willig

Tis the season for purloined pudding! Christmas pudding, bonnets, love, and mystery are all literary in the air in Lauren Willig’s book The Mischief of the Mistletoe. This book is #4.2 in Willig’s wildly popular Pink Carnation series.

I saw this book advertised on Goodreads a few weeks ago and fell in love with the cover and….suddenly I had to read it! So I picked up a copy and then I saw the Christmas Spirit Reading Challenge hosted by  the True Book Addict and suddenly I couldn’t wait for it to be Christmas season so I could read this book! Biding my time, I started the book the day the challenge started and finished the book like 2 days later!

I have never read any of these books but heard LOADS about them from friends and of course my sister. I have always wondered why I hadn’t read any of them because they seem like books I would devour! I supposed somewhere between all the epic series I have ben reading over the last couple of years….I guess I just missed this one, and that my friends is my biggest regret! This is a charming, enchanting, and above all….a captivating series. Continue reading “Review: The Mischief of the Mistletoe (Pink Carnation #7) by Lauren Willig” →

Book Critic, Book Review, Books, Gen Lit, Literary Criticism, Reading

Review: The Devil’s Ribbon (Hatton and Roumonde Mystery #2) by D. E. Meredith

by The Lit Bitch2 Comments on Review: The Devil’s Ribbon (Hatton and Roumonde Mystery #2) by D. E. Meredith

Green, the symbol of Irish pride and a symbol of Irish rebellion–this is what forensic scientist and doctor Adolphus Hatton is thinking when he pulls a green ribbon from the mouth of cadaver.

In D.E. Meredith’s latest thriller, The Devil’s Ribbon, London is a pressure cooker….the searing July heat of 1858, the wretched stink of the Themes, deadly diseases lurking in every inch of filth from Highgate to the Rookeries of  the East End, and….feuding Irish and British tensions are at their breaking point. Hatton and his assistant Albert Roumande, are knee deep in a spike of cholera deaths when Inspector Grey of Scotland Yard approaches them with a curious case….a predominant leader in Irish/British relations is found dead and murder is suspected.

When Hatton and Roumande examine the body they find that is jaw just isn’t ‘quite right’ and once opened they pull out a silky green ribbon. Grey knows exactly what this means….its a message from the Fenian groups–a band of Irish revolutionary thugs and terrorists. If word of this kind of execution reaches the public, the London press will have a field day and it will only increase the mounting tensions between the Irish and Brits….these three unlikely companions join forces to try and catch the killer before it is too late.

Though Hatton and Roumande have the new forensic science on their side, the killer or killers are always one step a head of them. The body counts rise and with each victim comes a calling card–the green ribbon. Riots being raging in the slums as word of the murder spread and the pressure is on Grey and the two scientists to solve the crimes….after a strategic bomb rips through a popular London shopping district the Irish communities in London’s slum claim responsibility….Hatton must solve this one and quickly. Continue reading “Review: The Devil’s Ribbon (Hatton and Roumonde Mystery #2) by D. E. Meredith” →

Book Challenges, Book Critic, Book Review, Books, Gen Lit, Literary Criticism, Reading, Reading Challenges

The Christmas Spirit 2011 Reading Challenge

by The Lit Bitch3 Comments on The Christmas Spirit 2011 Reading Challenge

The holiday season is upon us! With the year coming to a close in a few weeks, I was not going to join anymore challenges but I just couldn’t resist!

The Christmas Spirit Reading Challenge 2011 was just too cute to pass up! The challenge is being hosted by the True Book Addict on her special blog page devoted just for this challenge!

Since the challenge is only going on for a few weeks, I am only planning on reading one book (maybe two if I am lucky) so I will be going for the ‘Candy Cane’ level (1 book).

I might make Mistletoe level (2 books) since crossovers are ok, but I am sure I can do at least one.

I plan on reading The Mischief of the Mistletoe by Lauren Willig for the challenge, if I do get to a second book it will be the Charles Dickens classic A Christmas Carol.

If anyone else is interested in signing up here is the challenge info, visit the True Book Addicts Christmas Spirit blog for more details, it also looks like there is a give-a-way as part of the challenge if that sort of thing also interests you :).

The Christmas Spirit 2011 Reading Challenge details: Continue reading “The Christmas Spirit 2011 Reading Challenge” →