Lost in a Good Book

Busy (remaining) week ahead

20 May 2015 Leave a comment

by Amy in Rambles, Writers Festival Tags: rambles, reading, swf, sydney writer's festival

My “huge week ahead” post is coming to you on a Wednesday because I have had such a hectic week already I haven’t gotten around to it. Because this week has been rather busy I haven’t had much chance to share my excitement about the Sydney Writer’s Festival since the program was first launched.

The Festival has been going since Monday but tomorrow starts my first day of attending. From Thursday through to Sunday I am going to be heading down to Sydney to enjoy a full day of books, writing, and everything in between. Like last year and the year before this means very early trains, long train trips, and late nights back home, but a full day of amazing fun in between.

Last year the ongoing joke was that we left and came home to the same moon, which was not untrue in a way. Because of the early setting sun I know the same will be true again for this year but what’s a Writer’s Festival without super early mornings and twelve hour days!

Over the next four days I have 14 sessions planned and I have a nice little pile of books to get signed by some of my favourite authors. Garth Nix, John Marsden, Melina Marchetta, and a whole heap of others are going to be there and while I have met each of these authors either once or many times before, I am still going to be excited and nervous to meet them once again.

This year I am also going to try super hard to post something each day about the festival, and maybe even share something on Facebook or Twitter. I know this didn’t really work with the Newcastle Writer’s Festival but that was blamed solely on poor internet and preserving battery. This time it will be much better.

What these long train trips and long days mean is I will also get time to read, specifically my book club book which has so far been neglected. The bonus also being it is a paperback which means I don’t have to waste half my battery before I even get to Sydney reading on the train!

In other reading matters, I have exciting news (for me but maybe not really for you), I only have 17 books left on my list to read! From having 23 books left to read on 30 April, I now have 17 which is great, even more so because I’ve only added 2 more books to the list. Another amazing achievement is I am only two, possibly three weeks behind schedule where once I was two months behind. I say two months behind, but it was really a two month wait pretty much between request and review because of a sudden influx but it settled down and there was managing and organising and it was all quite exhausting for awhile but now there’s some control and I am actually now only a few weeks behind where I planned to be.

So aside from that piece of great news, I am looking forward to my busy few days. Once again the festival coincides with Vivid so on Sunday night I’m going to stick around and catch the light show in Sydney which should be amazing once again. If anyone is going to the festival I hope your sessions are amazing and you get to discover new authors and fall in love again with favourites.

Timothy Other: The Boy Who Climbed Marzipan Mountain by L. Sydney Abel

18 May 2015 Leave a comment

by Amy in 3 Stars, Junior Fiction, Young Adult Tags: ebook, junior fiction, L. Sydney Abel, three stars, young adult

Published: 2nd October 2014
Publisher: Solstice Publishing
Pages: 354
Format: Ebook
Genre: Junior Fiction/Young Adult
★ ★ ★ – 3 Stars

12 year-old adventurer, the intriguingly named Timothy Other, escapes the Dreams and Hopes Orphanage and travels to the bizarre world of Marzipan Mountain, where he befriends some amazing creatures.

With the help of his friends, Timothy seeks to discover his true origins and returns to the Orphanage. He becomes embroiled in a matter of life and death and faces the evil forces that crave the secret of ‘Golden Life’.

He becomes embroiled in a matter of life and death and faces the evil forces that crave the secret of ‘Golden Life’.

Note: I was provided with a copy of this book from the author for review.

From a captivating and really sweet beginning this story turns into one that is filled with adventure, puzzles and mysteries, and a lot of other elements that are a combination of magical, bizarre, and delightful.

The narrative is interesting, it is cryptic and elusive, with tiny tit bits dropped throughout that pique your interest. The tone is light and casual, conversational almost like that of a storyteller, but it soon settles into an almost regular narrative style while still maintaining its deliberate style. There are also multiple points of view which allow an understanding of all angles and character intentions, both good and bad, and Abel makes use of these nicely to propel the story along.

There is just enough character depth and explanations to make the situations believable and the events make sense. Timothy goes off on a spontaneous adventure and is quite accepting of the strange and bizarre things that follow, but there are brief explanations that justify what happens which doesn’t make it too farfetched, and the mindset and justifications of a twelve-year-old can account for a lot of things.

Timothy is a decent main character, he is a bit snappish and he likes to tease and bicker seemingly out of the blue, plus he is slightly intolerable, all of which was a little strange but if you remind yourself he is only twelve then it does help explain his behaviour.

Other characters are interesting, unique in their own way, and a mix of quirky, eccentric, and strange with a few stereotypical figures like jolly cooks and maternal housekeepers, but Abel has them in a place that suits them, and makes it a nice environment. There are some darker characters who are not just mean but a tad threatening, but there is restraint in their behaviour and while the actions can be quite dark, Abel doesn’t make it too disturbing.

Plot wise there were a few odd things that were explained strangely or just accepted, even with a magical reasoning. Though this does add to the quirky and mysterious nature of the story, and while it feels like a few things haven’t been answered as much as you’d like, it doesn’t affect the story too much. Where the story shines is towards the end when after all the dropped hints and secrets and puzzles Abel does a great job of bring the story to a close, solving many of the riddles and offering wonderful surprises while still hinting at further adventures.

I wouldn’t call this a Young Adult book; it is more down the Junior Fiction 10-13 year old bracket, though admittedly not unenjoyable for older readers. There is adventure and mystery, with fantasy mixed in but there is also a sweet story as well. There is a slight paranormal element but it is pleasant rather than scary, and coupled with the magical and fantasy components it works really well.

Overall it is nice, complex and delightfully cryptic with secrets to reveal and a fun bunch of characters in a detailed but not over the top adventure story.

You can purchase Timothy Other via the following

Amazon

Amazon Aust

Amazon UK

Weekly Wrap Up

17 May 2015 Leave a comment

by Amy in General Tags: weekly wrap up

This week on the blog

Flank Street by A.J. Sendall

★ ★ ★ ★ – 4 Stars

The Art of Raising Hell by Thomas Lopinski

★ ★ ★ ★ – 4 Stars

The Art of Raising Hell by Thomas Lopinski

14 May 2015 1 Comment

by Amy in 4 Stars, Young Adult Tags: ebook, fiction, four stars, thomas lopinski, young adult

Published: 25th March 2015
Publisher: Dark Alley Press
Pages: 191
Format: Ebook
Genre: Young Adult
★ ★ ★ ★ – 4 Stars

“There are some people that walk around on two feet and others like me that run on all four.” Newbie Johnson tries to understand the meaning of this statement while learning about friendship, loss, and love as a small town teenager.

“The Art Of Raising Hell” is a coming of age story set in the 1970s that centers around four teenagers and their involvement with a larger-than-life character named Lonny Nack.

Newbie had recently moved to Bunsen Creek, when his mother is killed in a devastating car crash. Nursing a broken soul, he soon hooks up with the three best friends a guy could ever ask for and meets the love of his life, Sally Nack.

Sally’s brother, Lonny, fears no one, including The Law, and soon takes his peculiar sense of justice, along with his love of practical jokes, to new heights while entertaining the colorful characters of Kickapoo County.

Note: I was provided with a copy of this book from the author for review.

This coming of age story has a wonderful balance of fun, self-awareness, and profoundness to make it a rather moving story. In essence it is just about growing up in the 1970s but Lopinski makes it much more than that. Newbie tells the story with a sense of reflection and while a lot of the story discusses the various adventures and misadventures he and his friends had growing up, there is a great and meaningful story as well. It becomes about making deep and important friendships, about leaving childhood innocence behind and finding your place in the world, and accepting changes and challenges both big and small.

The tone is light but is very much one of being narrated to, Newbie’s voice reads like he’s telling someone his story, which essentially he is, and with that comes a certain type of language. It does work well, even the few places where it references that a story is being told to a reader, but these are minimal and getting caught up in Newbie’s storytelling overrides any minor narration quirks.

The time period covered crosses many years and can often skip months at a time, but Lopinksi maintains the flow of the story nicely and the narrative never falters, nor do you lose track of the story. It was quite interesting to see how the characters grew and changed over the years and the differences this had on their perspectives on life and the wisdom they thought they held.

Despite being told from Newbie’s perspective, Lopinski seamlessly weaves in the stories and lives of other people in the town in a way that feel natural and real and helps you get to know them as well. Characters are connected in ways you do not understand at first and by the end everything is wrapped up beautifully and loose ends and unanswered questions you had forgotten about or didn’t realise were unanswered are all addressed impeccably.

Lopinksi treats his characters right and everyone gets a decent representation. There are no one-dimensional side kick friends or characters just for the sake of characters. Each character has their own story and even if their appearance if brief, Lopinski manages to still tell their story and bring a bit of life to them with a history and personality.

Lonny is one of these great characters, he seems wild and unruly but he isn’t a bad influence or a rough character, just someone who likes to cause mischief and live life to the fullest. In a way Lonny is both the main focus of the story while still being a semi background character. He has a huge presence in town and almost everyone admires him or knows him, and a lot of Newbie’s life centres around him. I liked that Lopinski didn’t make Lonny a bad person, or someone who only Newbie stood up for. He is complicated and energetic and having him flit in and out of the story was an excellent move, it let the great friendship between Newbie and his main friends develop and strengthen, while still enabling him to have a huge impact on their lives.

Lopinski doesn’t make this a happily ever after but he concludes it well and with a feeling that everything is going to be alright, even after all that has happened. I really liked this story, it is insightful and reflective without being too intense and over the top, and it is filled with surprises and moments, good and bad, that capture a moving tale about being young, growing up, and learning some of the harder lessons in life.

You can purchase The Art of Raising Hell via the following

Amazon

Amazon Aust

Flank Street by A. J. Sendall

11 May 2015 Leave a comment

by Amy in 4 Stars, Crime, Thriller Tags: a.j sendall, crime, crime thriller, ebook, four stars, In the Sydney Underworld, thriller

Published: 15th May 2015
Publisher: Ascend Digital Publications
Pages: 310
Format: Ebook
Genre: Crime Thriller
★ ★ ★ ★ – 4 Stars

Flank Street is set in Australia, mainly in Sydney’s Kings Cross. It’s written in first person from the distorted reality of Micky DeWitt, a shiftless career criminal and world sailor.

Micky arrives in Sydney by boat, broke and on the lookout for opportunity. After taking a job as barman in a Kings Cross pub, he’s eventually approached by a high-end escort who needs something stolen.

Nothing is what it seems, as Micky falls into a honey trap that spins his life out of control.
Some characters from Heather make an appearance, including Mitchell, and the enigmatic Ray Peterson.

Note: I was provided with a copy of this book from the author for review.

This is the second book in the Sydney Underworld series and takes place before the events set in Heather but remains connected to the life at Kings Cross and includes many familiar faces. It was interesting to read about what the Cross was like before Loretto Reed took over and where certain characters started out, and knowing how the story pans out it was great to see little clues and references scattered throughout. Reading this also made me realise I had made assumptions in Heather which I hadn’t noticed, and having read Heather it made this a better read as well because there was a deeper understanding of even minor characters.

Told from a first-person perspective Flank Street focuses on Micky, a guy with a mysterious past who turns up to Sydney on his boat with the intention of getting involved with the underbelly of Sydney life. I liked Micky’s no-nonsense approach, he knew what he wanted and he went out and got it. His history is not really known and while he makes passing references to where he has been, there is still not a lot known about him. While I would love to know more about Micky’s history it isn’t important to the story and it also made him fit in well with his new life, someone with secrets, a vague past, with a certain set of skills.

It’s hard not to see similarities between Heather and Sam from the first book and Micky and Carol in this one, but at the same time they are also totally separate as well. While Sam enters the Kings Cross life after being convinced by another and with a mission to achieve, Micky chooses it because it is a world where he is comfortable and a place where he is looking to get in with a particular type of people and seeing where that road leads him.

Having only heard about Carol in snippets previously it was easy to see her as a victim, but getting to know her makes you realise she isn’t the nicest person, nor is she that innocent. From early on Carol got little sympathy for me, she was manipulative and selfish and it appears she has secrets of her own. Her association with Micky was curious, never quite trusting one another and both trying to get something from the other. Micky isn’t a fool, he is smart and he is wary but he does get talked into things. Even after telling himself she is not to be trusted that she is playing him, he still goes along with her ideas, against his gut instinct.

I loved getting back into the gritty Underworld of Sydney, albeit from a different angle. Sendall captures the atmosphere of that life and the control one person can have over a place but doesn’t make it too over the top, unrealistic, or even overly dramatic. The hidden threat and the secret agenda of nearly everyone involved means that everyone can be hiding something and not really knowing what people are thinking or are capable of makes for an enthralling read.

Much like Heather this story is one of boats, the underworld, and an outsider looking for a way in, but Sendall makes it much more than that. He has managed to create an elaborate story with intricate connections and complex and mysterious characters that all come together in an engaging and clever read. Flank Street is a wonderful continuation of the series and with a conclusion that boggles your mind and makes you rethink everything you have read Sendall makes sure to uphold your interest and eagerness for the next book in the series.

You can purchase Flank Street via the following

Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.com | Amazon.com.au

Barnes & Noble | Createspace