Saturday 30 December 2017

Sunday post 81, It's Monday, What are you reading? 66


The Sunday Post - a chance for bloggers to have a chat and a catch-up - is hosted by Kimba, here: https://caffeinatedbookreviewer.com/ and It's Monday! What are you reading? is hosted by Kathryn, here: https://bookdate.blogspot.co.nz/

I've been absent a couple of weeks, but I'm trying to go into 2018 with good habits and intentions, so let's see how well this goes.

We had a quiet Christmas at home, just the three of us. It was nice, and also timely, as spawn spiked a fever. I think it was an ear infection and it passed after a couple of days, but it would have been miserable for him if we had been out and about.

I've been working through - I haven't been there long enough to request holidays and we do have the stat days off anyway, so a couple of long weekends are nothing to complain about.

Work is going well. Sometimes I still have a mild shock that after so long I actually found a job, but here I am. Salaried and contributing and paying taxes and everything. And fretting about childcare - lol.

I took spawn to see The Last Jedi yesterday, and we both enjoyed it. Overall I preferred The Force Awakens but The Last Jedi was good. I also started my annual new cross-stitch project and Lord of the Rings rewatch last night. What can I say, when I party, I go hard out.

As for reading, I'm doing the #TheDarkisReading readalong of The Dark is Rising on the twitter. I decided to re-read the whole series and I'm up to book four, so my first read of 2018 will be The Grey King. Speaking of reading, I tanked my Goodreads goal so badly. So, so, so badly.

So for 2018 my reading goal is 52 books - pretty sure I can manage one a week. I also want to try and watch one movie a week. We'll see how that goes.

As far as resolutions go - I do want to set some goals, but my resolutions are the same as last year, I think: read more, drink more water, be kind.

What about you? How's your week? What are you reading?

Thursday 14 December 2017

Review - Relics by Tim Lebbon

Angela Gough is leading a happy if unremarkable life when her fiance Vince disappears.

Angela sets out to find him, and discovers that the London she thought she knew is actually a much, much stranger place than she could possibly have imagined.

Beings that were assumed to be nothing more than myths and legends turn out to be real - and the black market that deals in their artifacts is also very, very real.

Angela finds out that Vince has been working for a London gangster and retrieving these artifacts for his collection.

However, someone else is out there as well, and they are bent on killing the Kin that remain...

I have to admit, my reaction to Relics was a bit ambivalent. I enjoyed the pace of the story, and I really enjoyed the premise, but there was something about the execution that kind of made me think "... more?" I'm not sure what it was, or why, but I wanted there to be more to it than there was.

Having said that, it's the first book in a projected trilogy, so hopefully the elements that I found really fascinating - the idea of the Kin, and their fight for survival - might be more prominent in the next instalment.

Saturday 9 December 2017

Sunday Post 80, It's Monday, what are you reading? 65


The Sunday Post - a chance for bloggers to have a chat and a catch-up - is hosted by Kimba, here: https://caffeinatedbookreviewer.com/ and It's Monday! What are you reading? is hosted by Kathryn, here: https://bookdate.blogspot.co.nz/

Let's see ... mostly I've been working, I think. The job is going well, though, and I seem to be settling in okay. (I tend to underplay things because I'm naturally superstitious about ... everything - lol).

The Santa parade was on here last Saturday, so I took spawn to that. It was hot and humid, but I found a shady spot and parked myself. Spawn found a school friend to pass the time with, and every so often he'd come and tell me what he'd seen. Last Sunday I went to Murder on the Orient Express with a friend, and I have to say, as dubious as I found Kenneth Branagh's Poirot, I did enjoy the movie.

I've got all the Christmas shopping done - it's been a lean year, so I've not got anything for J - I'm not sure if I'll manage to or not. However, spawn is taken care of and while it's not a lot of stuff, I've managed to get him what he asked for, so hopefully he'll be happy on the day. We tend to have a quiet Christmas with just the three of us, which is nice. If not, we'll likely go to my sister's for Christmas dinner. I like Christmas but I'm not one for decorating the whole house with Christmas lights and a tree in every room. Our tree isn't even up yet because of the cats - lol.

As for reading, I have finished a couple of books - Some Kind of Wonderful by Barbara Feehy and Afternoon Tea at the Sunshine Cafe by Milly Johnson. I enjoyed both of them though they didn't particularly wow me.

I still have Hamilton on the go, and I'm about 3/4 of the way through Fire and Water, an M/M romance novel by Andrew Grey. I'm not sure what's up next - either Sleeping Beauties by Stephen King and Owen King, or It Devours, the new Night Vale novel.

I have a tradition every year at the end of the year - I re-watch the LOTR movies and start a new cross-stitch project. These are the choices for this year's project. I'm leaning towards the Nefertiti pattern, but the skin tones are very pale and she has blue eyes. So if I chose that one, I'd want to change the skin tone colours.

And of course starting something doesn't mean I'll finish it - I have quite a few starts. But it's about the journey for me.

How about you? How's your week? What are you reading?