Book Review: Paris By The Book by Liam Callanan

Title: Paris By The Book
Author: Liam Callanan
Publication date: June 2018
Publisher: HQ
Genre: Contemporary/Literary Fiction
Source: Review copy from the publisher

Description: In a city of millions, it’s easy to lose someone…

Twelve weeks before Leah Eady arrived in France, her husband disappeared. Early one morning, he walked out the door and never came back. All he left behind was a scrumpled note in a cereal box, leading her to the bustling streets of Paris.

Once she arrives, she discovers a mysterious unfinished manuscript written by her husband, and set in the very same city. Hoping to uncover more clues, Leah takes over a crumbling bookshop with her two young daughters, only to realise that he might just be closer than any of them ever imagined…

…but what if he doesn’t want to be found?

My thoughts: From the description and cover, I was expecting a light, charming story about a woman running a bookshop in a foreign country, trying to trace clues of her missing husband and struggling with life alone in a new place trying to look after her daughters. Well, the first big difference to that is that it is not light and charming. I found it incredibly boring and slow in a lot of places. It's trying hard to be 'literary', I think, which does not come across in the cover at all.

A good portion of the book is set before the family arrive in Paris. It covers Leah meeting her husband, their hopes and dreams, and how they don't actually communicate very well with each other. It's a look at a not-particularly-strong relationship. Then we get to him disappearing. I found all these flashbacks a bit frustrating, when I was promised a story about a bookshop in Paris. There isn't even much focus on the bookshop when the story does get there. Leah isn't really looking for clues - she's jumping at shadows, looking for her husband around every corner and on every stranger's face, unwilling to move on and accept that he walked out on her and their daughters.

Overall, I found this a very boring book, and I think it must have been one of the last ones that I pushed through until the end before I started embracing more of an acceptance for DNF'ing (did not finish-ing) books. Life is short, there are lots on my shelf I do want to read, so I'm not going to force myself to carry on with books I'm not enjoying. Paris by the Book by Liam Callanan gets 4 stars from me.

Book review: Fahrenheit 451

Title: Fahrenheit 451
Author: Ray Bradbury
Genre: Science Fiction (Traditionally, although today most people would say dystopian)
Publisher: HarperVoyager
Source: Free copy via the publisher

Description: Guy Montag is a fireman. His job is to burn books, which are forbidden, being the source of all discord and unhappiness. Even so, Montag is unhappy; there is discord in his marriage. Are books hidden in his house? The Mechanical Hound of the Fire Department, armed with a lethal hypodermic, escorted by helicopters, is ready to track down those dissidents who defy society to preserve and read books.

The classic novel of a post-literate future, ‘Fahrenheit 451’ stands alongside Orwell’s ‘1984’ and Huxley’s ‘Brave New World’ as a prophetic account of Western civilization’s enslavement by the media, drugs and conformity.

My thoughts:
*contains spoilers*

I've wanted to read this for a while, as it's one of those stories everyone references and sounds like it was a significant milestone in the genre. I liked the premise: books are banned and firemen have the job of burning them.

I was pretty disappointed.

From the first page, the writing is overly flowery, using five words where one would do. It turns out Guy Montag, the fireman, is married to an idiot zombie, who is attempting suicide one day and completely dismissing the events the next. He meets a strange girl and starts to question thing, but it quickly becomes clear that he was questioning and acting on those questions before that meeting, after all. He runs away, finds book keepers in the wilderness, then the city is blown up. Yes, Bradbury shows a future which is looking more and more possible every year, with superfast cars, surround television and atomic warfare, but it is the setting that is the interesting part. To me, the story itself was not.

I give Fahrenheit 451 4 stars out of 10.

Review: Nightfire by Lisa Marie Rice

Title: Nightfire
Author: Lisa Marie Rice
Publisher: Avon Red
Release Date: Feb 7 2012
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Notes: Book 3 in a series, but stands alone pretty well
Source: review copy from publisher via edelweiss

Description from publisher: Chloe Mason can't remember much about her childhood, except for being in and out of hospitals. Now healthy and all grown up, she's determined to fill the gaping hole that was her past.. When she finds her long lost brother, Harry, she discovers family and something else that was missing from her life. Love.


As a child, Mike Keillor helplessly watched as his parents were massacred. Vowing to never again be vulnerable, he joined the Marines and became a Recon sniper, SWAT officer, and an expert in martial arts, before establishing his own successful security company. When his friend and partner Harry reconnects with his long lost sister, Chloe, the hard-as-nails Mike is felled by the one thing he can't fight. Love.


But their future is jeopardized when Chloe accidently steps into the path of the Russian mob. Though his adversary is way bigger than he is, nothing can stop Mike from saving the woman who has captured his heart. He lost his family, and he will not lose Chloe. Failure is not an option.

My thoughts: It's taken me a while to start writing this review because there were bits that really bothered me in the book. There were other bits that I quite liked. At first, we meet Chloe as she's in the waiting room of a mysterious company, waiting very nervously to speak to someone. She's had a hard childhood, and been a victim of abuse, which is clear early on. She reveals through a tearful conversation that Harry is her brother. Aaannd here it started losing me with the lack of realism. The family that are there at the office immediately welcome her as a sister, and they go home (where the three families involved in the series have apartments almost nextdoor to each other) and have a big family lunch. They've literally just met each other, and they go to have this cosy meal. Mike helps Chloe collect her stuff from the hotel she was staying in, because of course the family want her to stay with them, and while in the hotel room, the insta-lust between them bubbles over. Abused, virginal Chloe makes out with him against a wall, and lets him touch her intimately. It just seemed so unbelievable to me that a woman who's been through what Chloe has, and is still a virgin, would suddenly be so happy with physical contact when she's shied away from it with anyone so far in the book, and then would suddenly let herself be intimate with a man she's just met.

Moving on from that, there were bits that were very well written and I hoped it would turn out ok. There were a couple of other things along the lines of Chloe's intimacy issues that bothered me, but mostly it was the torture and the treatment of the prostitutes that also are tied in to the story. Perhaps stronger-stomached readers would have faired better, but I just didn't feel comfortable reading it. Readers here how secure Mike has made his apartment, and then someone finds a way to get in anyway - I really found it hard to accept that he would have thought of all these other ways to stop things and miss this one rather obvious one.

There is good writing in there, but I just didn't feel like it was very believable in a lot of places, and I was very uncomfortable with some scenes. I think this book has to get 4 out of 10 from me. I might read something else by this author if it had good recommendations, but it's something I'll be quite wary of.

~Ailsa

Indigo Blues by Danielle Joseph

“When I found out that ‘Indigo Blues’ hit number one on the Billboard charts this morning, I ran to the bathroom and threw up. Then the toilet lid smacked down on my nose. Now, at the insistence of my mom, I’m zoning with an ice pack on my face.”

Think about the worst rumor anyone has ever spread about you and then imagine that someone turned that rumor into a song and it became a hit single overnight. This is the stuff nightmares are made of. This is Indigo’s life.

Told from alternating points of view, Indigo Blues shows what happens to both the songwriter and the muse after a breakup inspires a hit single. Adam Spade’s band Blank Stare is the newest craze and all Adam can think about is Indigo. She won’t return his calls or texts, but she never leaves his thoughts. For Indigo, this seems like the peak in her sudden rise to infamy and even though Adam has ruined her life he still won’t stop calling her.

It’s hard to give a better description because, honestly, not much happens. The story centers around Indigo and Adam’s relationship as Adam struggles with newfound fame and attempts to write a song that will live up to the standards ‘Indigo Blues’ has set and Indigo tries and fails to stay out of the limelight. Indigo finally gives in to one of the numerous requests for an interview and agrees to go on TV with Adam to put to rest all of the rumors surrounding the song.

To be honest, I found Indigo annoying. She whines and complains but doesn’t actually do much. And plus, the thing she’s complaining about is something most girls are searching for everyday: a guy who is completely in love with them. She broke up with Adam after they’d been dating a few months not because he was mean, a cheat, or a liar but because he was too devoted. Really? Give me a guy like that any day. I liked Adam better, but could see in his tendency to clinginess an insecurity that would ruin all of his relationships. Still, I thought he grew as a character more than Indigo through the book. I probably could have dealt with all this if there had been more of a conclusion to the story. Did Adam and Indigo find closure or a way back to each other? You could argue it either way.

The prose itself read well and there were some very pretty phrasing, but overall, I liked Shrinking Violet a lot more.

Sera’s Rating: 4/10 stars

Mini review: Flirt, by Laurell K. Hamilton

*Sometimes I don't have much to say, but still want to talk about a book, so I'll do a mini review instead*

Title: Flirt

Author: Laurel K. Hamilton

Publisher: Headline (UK)/Berkley (US)

Release date: 2010

Source: library

Notes: book 18 in the Anita Blake series. Novella.

Description from back cover: I am Anita Blake, vampire hunter and necromancer, and when I meet with Tony Bennington, who is desperate to have me reanimate his recently deceased wife, I feel sympathy for his loss. After all, I know something about love, and I know everything there is to know about loss. But I also know that what I can do as a necromancer isn't the miracle Tony thinks he needs. The creature that I could coerce to step out of his late wife's grave would not be the lovely Mrs Bennington. Not really. And not for long.

I have been relaxing just a bit with the men in my private life. The affectionate warmth of being with them seems to bring out something softer in me, a sense of safety I can almost trust. They do love me; that part is for ever and for sure. But flirting with feeling safe is a dangerous thing...

My thoughts: I'll be honest, I didn't really like this book. I think it's because the pacing doesn't quite work for me. At the start of the story, we get to see a bit of a normal day for Anita. She meets an awkward client, then goes out for lunch with Micah, Nathaniel, and Jason, and they flirt a little with one of the waiters. Then she has a second awkward customer in the afternoon. The similarity of these two scenes made the second one a little boring, and while it's kind of interesting to see some of the people Anita meets in her everyday life, I don't think it was really necessary to show both meetings. A couple of weeks pass before the next chapter, and suddenly the action starts, with Anita being kidnapped. I won't spoil who does the kidnapping, but they threaten Anita that if she doesn't cooperate, they will shoot one or several of her men.

I really felt like what happens from that point on in the book happens far too quickly for the length of the story. The consequences are too big for the series - I feel like, if Anita is continuing to add to her 'menagerie' of people to feed from, then it deserves a bigger book, and we should have been able to meet this character a little more before what happened, happened. I guess my overall feeling is, I don't like the outcome at the end because of the speed things happened.

I give this book 4 out of 10

Across the Universe by Beth Revis

If you thought things could get wrong in life here on Earth, try it out in outer space on a spaceship.

Beth Revis' debut novel, Across the Universe, is a captivating mystery that keeps you guessing until the end.

Summary from Goodreads.com:

A love out of time. A spaceship built of secrets and murder.

Seventeen-year-old Amy joins her parents as frozen cargo aboard the vast spaceship Godspeed and expects to awaken on a new planet, three hundred years in the future. Never could she have known that her frozen slumber would come to an end fifty years too soon and that she would be thrust into the brave new world of a spaceship that lives by its own rules.

Amy quickly realizes that her awakening was no mere computer malfunction. Someone-one of the few thousand inhabitants of the spaceship-tried to kill her. And if Amy doesn't do something soon, her parents will be next.

Now Amy must race to unlock Godspeed's hidden secrets. But out of her list of murder suspects, there's only one who matters: Elder, the future leader of the ship and the love she could never have seen coming.

Granted, the summary says there is romance in the story.  For me, I saw the tiniest sliver of it.  Mostly from the character, Elder.

For this book, I read it because I had heard a lot of good things about it (usually why I read the books I do), but about halfway through the story I really just wanted the story to be finished.  I was only intrigued by the mystery side of the story and wanted to see how it all turned out.  Luckily for me, it all turned out very different than what I was guessing.  Doesn't mean I will tell you how the book ends.  That would just be plain mean. 

We get the two main character point of views in this story.  Amy--the girl who was frozen with her parents and expecting to wake up on a new Earth-like planet, and Elder--the future leader of the ship Godspeed.  When Amy wakes up fifty years earlier, that was the first thing that caught my attention.  If I was Amy, I'd be angry and upset, as anyone would be.  Now she would be older than her parents when they woke up.  

Beth is an incredible descriptive setting writer.  Every room, every building, every part of the story, including the stars are all beautiful and I feel like I'm on Godspeed walking around.  However, there are aspects of the story that I felt were unnecessary to the story, but may be a major player in the next couple stories that come next.  

Only one character I found to be enlightening and had any real development throughout the whole story.  And that is Elder's best friend on the ship--Harley.  He is the one character that the reader can relate to in the entire story.  I love Harley and he will be a character that really stands out to me for a long time.  Very memorable, very good Harley.

I really can't write much else as a review on this because the only things I like are the descriptions of setting, the mystery and Harley.  This story doesn't do much for me as a reader in entertaining me.  I had a really hard time and pushed myself to the end but if you like science fiction, try this story.  Give it a go.  You may like it more than I did.

Fallen by Lauren Kate

Take three of this book!  I know it's been reviewed twice already on our lovely site here, but I do need to put my two cents in as well.

In case you didn't catch it the last two times, but this story is about Luce (Lucinda) Price.  Being the new girl isn't easy, even if you are going to Sword and Cross reform school.  A piece of her past sent her to this school.  Where cell phones are banned and so is keeping a pair of scissors.  The teachers always seem to have missed their morning coffee and the cameras watch your every move.

But as soon as she sees Daniel Grigori, she has a gut feeling she knows him from somewhere, but he won't give her the time of day.  There's something strange about him.  Something strange that seems connected to the shadows she can see around her.

The only guy who seems to acknowledge her existence is Cam, the school's popular guy.  She doesn't like Cam, but she likes him enough to keep her attention.  Still, things are eerie around both Cam and Daniel.

The one thing I did not like at all about this book was how slow it moved.  It was incredibly dragging itself and nothing was really happening.  All I kept reading was how Luce liked Cam, then liked Daniel, then liked Cam, then liked Daniel.  It picked up about half way through but still, that, for me is way too long to grab my attention and keep it there.  We're reminded of the situation that got Luce to Sword and Cross...in my opinion, way too much.  The descriptions seemed to be the same (as in the same wording, no more intense or less intense wording) when shadows would appear and scare Luce. 

There really was no feeling of emotion put into this book.  It was too bland for me.  When the story finally took off, I enjoyed the plot.  I enjoy the concept of fallen angels, but really, I think Lauren Kate could have bumped up something more mysterious about Cam or about Daniel earlier on instead of Luce pining after both of them and being all whiny about it.

Luce is not my favorite character at all.  I hate whiny characters.  I really wish that Luce wasn't a bland character.  I did not "feel" her character like I do when I read Bella from Twilight or the characters from Shiver and Linger.  There was no vibe there for me.  Luce seems like she could be a really good character with some power in her own story, but I don't think the author gave her that chance to tell the story.  That's one thing I keep reading (as an aspiring author) that you need to listen to your characters and then everything will come to light and your story will be more relatable to your readers.  Nothing relatable happened to me with Luce.  I didn't feel her pain, I didn't feel her love for Daniel as strongly as Bella's love for Edward or for Jacob is.  I saw her pain, I saw her love.  I wish I could've felt it.  That I could've been in her shoes.

However, I pushed myself into finishing the book.  I finally got to a point where something revealed itself, but it ended up being the ending of the book!  Okay, so now we definitely have a defined villain and a defined hero/heroine.  We now have a story!  Why couldn't she have put in more closer to the beginning of the book?  Luce has dreams about Daniel.  Dreams that would tell her a lot about him, but if she is so connected to him, then why not show her past lives with him in a dream?  Why not have her discover things about certain characters like Arriane or Gabbe?  Not until the end do we see such things and begin the real story.  I think the whole beginning was just background and description.  But with the dodgy girls at school (Gabbe being one of them), but then becoming good friends with Luce, that didn't make sense at all.  Bringing Penn into the picture seemed to be the only normal thing that happened in the story, but she seemed to be a character that was brought in at the last and wasn't meant to be in the story at all.

With pushing myself to the end, I made it through and I may possibly pick up the next one to hopefully see it not move so slowly.  I hope that Luce is more developed as a character in the sequel and that Daniel isn't so elusive.

I will tell you my favorite character was Arriane.  She had this tone about her that really actually made her the most developed character in the book.  When I turned the page, I always died when I couldn't read a conversation between her and Luce.  I really like Arriane as a character and hope that Lauren Kate continues with her in the next book.

There is my two cents and I tried to be as nice and as thorough as possible.  So, I guess I can't say I didn't like this book, but I also can say that I didn't like it.  I'm in the middle on this and we'll see if the sequel can change my mind on that in the future.