Mini Review: Hounded by Kevin Hearne

Title: Hounded
Author: Kevin Hearne
Publisher: Orbit
Series: Iron Druid Chronicles #1
Source: Bought
Genre: Urban Fantasy

Description: Atticus O'Sullivan, last of the Druids, lives peacefully in Arizona, running an occult bookshop and shape-shifting in his spare time to hunt with his Irish wolfhound. His neighbors and customers think that this handsome, tattooed Irish dude is about twenty-one years old - when in actuality, he's twenty-one centuries old. Not to mention: He draws his power from the earth, possesses a sharp wit, and wields an even sharper magical sword known as Fragarach, the Answerer.
Unfortunately, a very angry Celtic god wants that sword, and he's hounded Atticus for centuries. Now the determined deity has tracked him down, and Atticus will need all his power - plus the help of a seductive goddess of death, his vampire and werewolf team of attorneys, a sexy bartender possessed by a Hindu witch, and some good old-fashioned luck of the Irish - to kick some Celtic arse and deliver himself from evil.

My thoughts: I love stories that involve mythology, especially when it's something slightly less commonly used, like this one with the use of celtic myths. It got straight to the action, which I like in a new series and kept up a fast pace. There are some hints of romantic options for Atticus which again I like to see but they weren't a big part of the story or the plot. And of course we have Atticus' relationship with his dog - as a dog owner, how could I not love that? Overall I thought this was a good book and I'll definitely be reading more of the series. I'm giving it 7/10 and from what I've heard the series gets better as it goes along, so I've got that to look forward to.

~Ailsa

Mini book review: Cursed Moon by Jaye Wells

Title: Cursed Moon
Author: Jaye Wells
Release date: August 2014
Publisher: Orbit
Series: Prospero's War
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Source: Bought

Description: When a rare Blue Moon upsets the magical balance in the city, Detective Kate Prospero and her Magical Enforcement colleagues pitch in to help Babylon PD keep the peace. Between potions going haywire and everyone's emotions running high, every cop in the city is on edge. But the moon's impact is especially strong for Kate who's wrestling with guilt over falling off the magic wagon.

After a rogue wizard steals dangerous potions from the local covens, Kate worries their suspect is building a dirty magic bomb. Her team must find the anarchist rogue before the covens catch him, and make sure they defuse the bomb before the Blue Moon deadline. Failure is never an option, but success will require Kate to come clean about her secrets.

My thoughts: I loved the first book in this series so I was eager to get stuck in to this one, and Ms. Wells did not disappoint. The pace, action, twists and character development are as good as book 1 (Dirty Magic). I love the will-they-won't-they, does-she-even-realise-she-likes-him-that-way side of Kate' relationship with Moralles. I also really enjoyed seeing the changes in her relationship with her brother after the events of the previous book.
As a classicist and having written my dissertation on Dionysus, I really enjoyed that aspects of his myth were used in this story as well. I always enjoy seeing how different authors use various myths and as you can guess, Dionysus is a bit of a favourite :)
There are a lot of characters that readers got to see a bit more of in this book who I look forward to 'meeting' again in subsequent books in the series - Uncle Abe and John Volos in particular.
I'm giving this 8 stars, it was one of those books I wanted to keep on reading but also wanted to make last much longer!

Getting Back To Blogging

It's been a busy few months for me, first working a job I hated which left me exhausted at the end of each day and without much free time, then throwing four weeks of work experience while still working full time into the mix. I have actually read a lot more books than I've reviewed so far this year, and I was determined to get some of them posted so my reading challenge on Goodreads doesn't show up as having quite such a bad result as it currently does! I was all set to do a 'thirty reviews in thirty days' challenge through December to get caught up. Then in the first week of the month, I went to a job interview, was offered the post the same day, and moved to London from Scotland a week later! So I didn't have quite as much time for reviewing as I thought I would this month!

I'll be getting as many mini reviews onto Goodreads as I can before the end of the year, but I'm going to be spacing them out a little bit more on the blog - probably one a day. Unlike my normal full length reviews, these will all be 'mini reviews', just a few sentences about my thoughts on the story, with a couple of exceptions for my favourite books of the year. Once I'm all caught up on posting my 2015 reviews though, I'll get back to normal length reviews for 2016.

I've got a 9-5, 5 days a week, ordinary job now - for the first time ever! This means life will be a lot more organised this year, so I really want to get back in to blogging regularly. My aim with the blog for 2016 is to post at least two reviews a week, plus joining in with a couple of memes/blog hops. Hopefully this year I can stick to that!

What are your blogging goals for the year? Do you have some kind of timetable in mind, or are you more free flowing with what you post and when?

~Ailsa