Review: The Strangely Beautiful Tale of Miss Percy Parker (Strangely Beautiful #1) by Leanna Renee Hieber

In the dark allies of Victorian London, phantoms, ghosts, and demons alike haunt the city streets. A group of six are chosen as protectors known as, The Guard, helping keep London and the public safe from paranormal danger. The first night of their meeting, they are told of a prophecy who will be put in their path to strengthen The Guard and make them complete not just as a group but for one member in particular–their dark, brooding leader, Alexi Rychman.

In Leanna Renee Hieber’s para-romance, The Strangely Beautiful Tale of Miss Percy Parker, we meet the shy, meek, phantasm-like name sake: Percy Parker. She arrives at the London school Athens Academy feeling quite alone in the world. Percy is quite different from the other students at the academy: she is older, gifted in languages, has few ‘friends’, and unlike most of the normal world she can see ghosts. Looking much like a ghost herself, she spends most of her day ‘hiding’ behind veils, shaded glasses, and long gloves. She is a luminescent with her pearl white hair and alabaster skin…she glows like a ghost but yet is mortal.

When she meets Alexi, her terrifying mathematics professor. Though wickedly attracted to him, she knows her feelings can never become more than fantasy but yet she is strangely drawn to him, and he to her. Though gifted at languages, she cannot grasp math to save her life. Alexi begins tutoring her in math and slowly she reveals her nature to him….she discovers she is not alone in the world, like her Alexi can also see the ghosts who haunt the city. Continue reading “Review: The Strangely Beautiful Tale of Miss Percy Parker (Strangely Beautiful #1) by Leanna Renee Hieber”

Review: The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde

What would you do if you had a face that could literally stop time? Or if you could really clone yourself? How about meet and greet your fav literary character? In the world of SpecOps and LiteraTec (Literary Detective division) extrodinaire, Thursday Next, all of these things are possible.

My sister recommended the book, The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde, to me a few weeks back…and now that she wants to commandeer the book from me, I figured I better get a move on since she will be wanting it by Christmas no doubt.

This speculative fiction book is a hodge-podge mixture of sci-fi, fantasy, time travel, YA, mystery/detective novel, steampunk, and vampire/werewolf fiction all in one…and the best part, it’s all based on classic British Literature. Set in 1985 Great Britain, detective Thursday Next (a Crimean War vet) is living in an alternative universe where time travel (among many things) are all possible.

Next is sent to investigate a puzzling case, someone has taken Charles Dickens’s original manuscript for Martin Chuzzlewit. The LiteraTec task force suspects notorious mass murderer and thief Acheron Hades…except there is one problem, no one knows what he looks like except Next. Continue reading “Review: The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde”

Review: A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

Bah humbug! The snow is falling, Christmas carolers are in the streets London, dinner is in the oven, families are laughing around the fire, and Ebenezer Scrooge is busy ‘bah humbug-ing’ everyones Christmas cheer!

In the timeless classic A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, Scrooge is visited by three ghosts: Christmas Past, Christmas Present, and Christmas Future. The ghosts are sent to help Scrooge realize the importance of giving, being thankful, and of course being merry during the holiday season.

I decided to read this book for both the Victorian Literature and the Christmas Spirit reading challenges since I have never actually read the classic novel.

As a child I remember watching the Muppets version of this book but that’s about it….and I just have to go on record….I love the Muppets Christmas Carol! I know lots of families read this book to their families every year as part of their holiday tradition as it is relatively short (surprisingly for a Victorian era novel….and a Dickens novel!)

Needless to say I was really excited to start it especially during the holidays….something to get me really excited for Christmas. Continue reading “Review: A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens”

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!”

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”