Grace Draven

The State of the Reader: 6/29/22

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<–The State of the Reader: 6/15/22         The State of the Reader: 7/13/22–>

A biweekly post updated every other Wednesday detailing my current reading projects and what new titles I’ve added to my to-read list.  Title links go to Goodreads, and if you have an account there feel free to friend me!  I’d love to see what you’re reading and/or planning to read.

Books Purchased: 4

Total: $12.87

Books Finished: 3

Title: The Last Anniversary
Author: Liane Moriarity
Date Added: June 3, 2022
Date Started: June 3, 2022
Date Finished: June 22, 2022

Cover of The Last Anniversary by Liane MoriarityMedia: eBook/Kindle

I finished this quickly one, because it was a library book (I just got in under the wire); and two, Liane Moriarity is always engaging.  I really, really wish she didn’t hate fat people so much though :\  I know she’s a middle-aged white lady and that’s the “low-fat and diet everything” generation, but it’s really pervasive.  She also has the “tough it out” mentality about marriages that really should end, but that’s a boomer battle cry, too.  All this sounds like I didn’t like the book when I loved it.  I kind of figured out what was going on, but that doesn’t take anything away from the author’s planning; I’m just kind good at figuring out the pattern of stories lol.  I was hoping one aspect wouldn’t be there, but it honestly only made sense, too.  Moriarity is a master at misleading and misdirection, and this one didn’t disappoint.

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The State of the Writer: 6/26/22

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<–The State of the Writer: 6/12/22         The State of the Writer: 7/10/22–>

A post updated every other Sunday discussing my current writing projects and any completed the prior two weeks.

Finished Projects: 2

Project: Story/Series
Working Title: The High Archon (The Truth Seeker Chronicles)
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Type: Original
Length: Novel
Current Word Count: 11,282
Status: Reorganizing & Worldbuilding
Progress: Figuring out more terms and definitions

It took me a bit to locate a good source for this picture, and I actually had to find one that’s the same model in a different pose.  There is also artwork based on this by Âu Trung at Artstation that I almost took for the actual image.

So who is this anyway?  She’s a minor character from the first novel in the series who’s only mentioned once or twice lol; however, as I was fleshing out the details about my protagonist’s father, I realized I was writing a lot about her and granting her more importance.  I realized I needed to make a page for her, too, but then I ran into a problem…

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The Lightning God’s Wife by Grace Draven (Master of Crows)

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Title: The Lightning God’s Wife
Series: Master of Crows
Author: Grace Draven
Date Added: September 27, 2017
Date Started: October 17, 2018
Date Finished: October 19, 2018
Reading Duration: 2 days
Genre: Fantasy, Short Story, Paranormal Romance

The Lightning God's Wife coverPages: 29
Publication Date: September 17, 2014
Publisher: Self
Media: eBook/Kindle

It hasn’t rained for a quarter of a century, and a dying world gasps for water. Outcast and exiled, the rain priestess Revida rescues a man and his children as they flee from the wrath of a creator god known as the Bitter Dark. But Atagartis is more than a man, and Revida soon discovers the lover she’s known only in dreams has a purpose for her and the tearless grief she’s born for more than two decades.

This short takes place in the same world as Master of Crows, occurring after the first novel in the series.  Silhara and Martisse (the OTP) serve as a framing device for the tale at hand, as she’s telling him the story after they’re both woken up by a storm in the midst of a bad drought.

While I enjoyed reading about Silhara and Martisse again (I love when a deadpan snarker is matched with cool witticism), the Lightning God and Rain Goddess story was (ironically) kind of dry, which is a double shame because I’m pretty certain they were supposed to complement to the sorcerer and apprentice turned lovers from the first book.  The idea was good, but the execution didn’t do anything different with the motifs of *spoiler* warring sibling gods and deities falling in love with humans to whom they eventually grant apotheosis. *end spoiler*   This could be because Draven didn’t have time to flesh out these characters in this short excursion into the world, so if the story had either been longer or actually focused on Martisse and Silhara, it would’ve worked better.

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The State of the Reader: 10/6/21

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<–The State of the Reader: 9/22/21         The State of the Reader: 10/20/21–>

A biweekly post updated every other Wednesday detailing my current reading projects and what new titles I’ve added to my to-read list.  Title links go to Goodreads, and if you have an account there feel free to friend me!  I’d love to see what you’re reading and/or planning to read.

Purchased: 10

Total: $58.80

Books Finished: 3

Title: The Husband’s Secret
Author: Liane Moriarity
Date Added: August 18, 2021
Date Started: September 15, 2021
Date Finished: September 22, 2021

Cover of The Husband's Secret by Liane MoriarityMedia: eBook/Kindle (Library)

The more I think about it, the less weird it seems that I like stuff like this.  While I definitely have favorite genres, at the end of the day I just want a good story and Liane Moriarity delivers.  This is one of those where I guessed some of the main points, but it doesn’t take away from my enjoyment, because there are aspects of the situation that could go another way (plus I sometimes just know how a story is going to go).  I am noticing a pattern with this author though.  She likes to have a character wind up with or rather stay with someone I don’t think they should.  That kind of frustrates me, but it is what it is.  I enjoy stories that don’t have easy answers or choices, and Moriarity has the talent to at least have acceptable justification for her characters’ (poor) decisions.

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The State of the Reader: 10/7/20

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<–The State of the Reader: 9/23/20         The State of the Reader: 10/21/20–>

A biweekly post updated every other Wednesday detailing my current reading projects and what new titles I’ve added to my to-read list.  Title links go to Goodreads, and if you have an account there feel free to friend me!  I’d love to see what you’re reading and/or planning to read.

Purchased: 5

Title: The Snow Queen
Series Title: The Snow Queen Cycle
Author: Joan D. Vinge
Date Added: December 11, 2014
Date Started: September 22, 2020

Cover of the Snow Queen by Joan D. VingeMedia: Hardback (Library)
Progress: 26%

I’m getting really into this.  It reminds me of Dune, but with a more interesting and female main character lol.  I’ve been talking to the friend who lugged this book around with her all through high school, and she had a friendly “I told you so” about my Dune observations (it’s also another reason why she has no interest in Dune).  I’ve read Dune, which I enjoyed, but I wish I’d been into sci-fi back in high school because I would’ve loved this.

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The State of the Reader: 6/5/19

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<–The State of the Reader: 5/22/19         The State of the Reader: 6/19/19–>

A biweekly post updated every other Wednesday detailing my current reading projects and what new titles I’ve added to my to-read list.  Title links go to Goodreads, and if you have an account there feel free to friend me!  I’d love to see what you’re reading and/or planning to read.

Books Obtained: 25

  • They Don’t Make Plus Size Spacesuits by Ali Thompson – $2.99 @ Amazon
  • The Republic by Plato – $0.60 @ Amazon
  • A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett – $0.00 @ Amazon
  • Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie – $2.99 @ Amazon
  • The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton – $0.00 @ Amazon
  • The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexendre Dumas – $0.00 @ Amazon
  • The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde – $0.60 @ Amazon
  • The Last Stitch Goes Through the Nose by Moses Norton – $2.99 @ Amazon (Kindle)
  • Archangel’s Legion by Nalini Singh (Guild Hunter) – Gift from Barnes and Noble
  • Archangel’s Prophecy by Nalini Singh (Guild Hunter) – Gift from Barnes and Noble
  • Archangel’s Storm by Nalini Singh (Guild Hunter) – Gift from Barnes and Noble
  • Archangel’s Consort by Nalini Singh (Guild Hunter) – Gift from Barnes and Noble
  • Archangel’s Enigma by Nalini Singh (Guild Hunter) – Gift from Barnes and Noble
  • Archangel’s Heart by Nalini Singh (Guild Hunter) – Gift from Barnes and Noble
  • Archangel’s Shadow by Nalini Singh (Guild Hunter) – Gift from Barnes and Noble
  • Archangel’s Viper by Nalini Singh (Guild Hunter) – Gift from Barnes and Noble
  • Archangel’s Blade by Nalini Singh (Guild Hunter) – Gift from Barnes and Noble
  • Angels’ Blood by Nalini Singh (Guild Hunter) – Gift from Barnes and Noble
  • The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë – $3.79 @ Amazon
  • Captivating Melody by Katherine McIntyre (Discord’s Desire) – $0.99 @ Amazon
  • Forged Alliances by Katherine McIntyre (Tribal Spirits) – $3.03 @ Amazon
  • The Last Stitch Goes Through the Nose by Moses Norton – $6.99 @ Amazon (Physical)
  • Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney by Kenji Kuroda (Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney) – $10.99 @ Amazon
  • Miles Edgeworth: Ace Attorney Investigations by Kenji Kuroda (Ace Attorney Investigations) – $10.99 @ Amazon
  • A Wilderness of Glass by Grace Draven – $2.99 @ Amazon

Lots and lots of books this time.  My husband got me the entire Guild Hunter series by Nalini Singh for my birthday, and I was overjoyed to be able to purchase Moses Norton’s  (aka The Well-Red Mage) novel The Last Stitch Goes Through the Nose on both Kindle and physical!  I also picked up a few more of Katherine McIntyre’s novels and made an Indie Author Shopping List on Amazon. The author of They  Don’t Make Plus Size Spacesuits is by one of my favorite people on Twitter (Mean Fat Girl).  She’s a fat activist whose done a shit ton of research on dieting/diet culture and how toxic it is.  Due to the number of books, I’m not going to put links to all of them, which is why I focused on the most important (aka indie) ones.

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The State of the Reader: 10/24/18

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<–The State of the Reader: 10/10/18          The State of the Reader: 12/5/18–>

A weekly post updated every other Wednesday detailing my current reading projects and what new titles I’ve added to my to-read list.  Title links go to Goodreads, and if you have an account there feel free to friend me!  I’d love to see what you’re reading and/or planning to read.

Books Purchased: 3

Books Finished: 4

Title: The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue
Series Title: Montague Siblings
Author: Mackenzi Lee
Date Added: August 18, 2018
Date Started: September 24, 2018
Date Finished: October 16, 2018

The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and VirtueMedia: eBook/Kindle

This book was not remotely what I expected, and that’s a wonderful thing.  It was spectacular.  Even though it took place in the 1700’s, there was nothing occurring that’s not relevant today.  Racism, sexism, homophobia, ablelism, etc. were perfectly represented along with how people can have both privilege and oppression as well as the intersection of it to navigate, as is the case with Percy as the half-black son of an English gentleman and a woman from Barbados.  While he has wealth and the privileges that go along with that, he has more than one obstacle to navigate.  Monty showcases how you can completely not understand someone’s point of view if you insist on only viewing it through your own lens, and it was often Felicity who completely got where Percy was coming from even as she herself had some seriously problematic views about homosexuality.  None of the characters were perfect and that’s exactly what made them so.

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The Three Things Tag

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What’s this?

Jack from The Nightmare Before Christmas saying

Too goddamn easy

I apologize for nothing.  It’s fall.  It’s almost October.  They’re selling candy corn and mellowcreme pumpkins.  That pretty much means it’s spooky time.

Dancing skeletonsThe sad part is this post isn’t even about Halloween.  It’s about listing things in threes and I yoinked it from Cupcakes and Machetes.  So let’s get into it without any further distractions.

3 READ ONCE & LOVED AUTHORS:

Grace DravenGrace Draven is the author of the Wraith Kings series, which is this fantastic paranormal romance.  It was my top series last year, and I can’t wait for the third book to come out.  I actually just got an email from Goodreads and Amazon about her newest release Phoenix Unbound that I downloaded a sample of.  As my newest favorite author, I can’t wait to see what else she puts out.

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20 Questions Book Tag

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Another one from the indomitable Writer Michelle Payne.  I think I can answer 20 book questions 🙂

1. How many books is too many books in a series?

Hm, that’s one of those “it depends” questions.  If the series remains fresh and relevant, keep going, but if the plot lines are going stale and the characters are stalling, I think it’s time to retire it.  I’d say 20+ books is too much with the same characters and setting.

2. How do you feel about cliffhangers?

They’re evil and I love them. Re: Strange the Dreamer.

Strange the Dreamer cover

3. Hard copy or paperback?

I prefer paperback.  They’re easier to carry around and to read.  Hardback usually has an annoying cover that, while aesthetically pleasing, tends to flap around and get in the way.

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The State of the Writer: 5/20/18

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<–The State of the Writer: 4/22/18          The State of the Writer: 6/3/18–>

A biweekly post updated every Sunday discussing my current writing projects and any completed the prior two weeks.

Finished Projects: 6

Book Reviews: Master of Crows by Grace Draven – 5/7/18
Tags: The WIP Tag – 5/8/18
Game Reviews: Paper Mario Color Splash – 5/10/18
Awards: Mystery Blogger Award #4 – 5/10/18
Book Reviews: Moon Called by Patricia Briggs (Mercy Thompson #1) – 5/16/18
Book Reviews: The Diamond Tree by Michael Matson – 5/19/18

It was a productive two weeks 🙂

Project: Story
Title: The Broken Rose
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Type: Fanfiction (FFVII) Novel
Current Word Count: 261,336
Prior Word Count: 261,419
Word Difference: -83
Status: Revising
Progress: First edit of Chapter 5

Quill pen with shadowI made some good progress in these last two weeks and am currently halfway through the first edit of the 5th chapter (that is a lot of numbers).  I think once I finish this I’ll be able to continue with my regular editing and posting schedule…after I consult my checklist of course 😉

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