Writing and reviews with an environmental, science fiction, and fantasy touch
Critters and Crises launches tomorrow. What? you ask. Well, more below. Today is the Insecure Writers Support Group monthly post. IWSG is a lovely group of people all posting monthly on the first Wednesday of the month, exploring all sorts
Memory was the #writephoto prompt from 27 February 2020. Last week I hoped Sue’s eyes would improve to enable her to blog again. This week she wrote what she thought would be her Last Post, since the failing eye is
Dangerous Women came to me from the publishers via Netgalley, after I fell for the blurb. I’m so glad I did! Dangerous Women by Hope Adams Nearly two hundred condemned women on board a sailing ship bound for Australia. One
Returning was the returning writephoto challenge from Sue Vincent in January. I caught up with the second one. Now Sue is having eye trouble and has had to skip blogging for a while till that’s sorted. I know how close
The Lantern Men is number 12 in the Ruth Galloway series by Elly Griffiths. You’d think after writing twelve in a series they would be getting stale. Not a bit of it. This one’s a real page-turner! Even when something
The Kiss, by Gustav Klimt, is one of my favourite paintings, and I had the pleasure of seeing it at the Belvedere in Vienna, many years ago now. It also introduced me to Egon Schiele, and Kokotchka: in one room
Deeper and deeper into the mire of work backlog… it’s WEP week, so I wasn’t ready to do a second flash fiction in response to Sue Vincent’s #writephoto prompt. Apart from the WEP flash fiction for Wednesday, which I’ve been
Settings that feel like Characters are what the literary agents are looking for. So says J Lenni Dorner in his introduction to this short book, aimed at authors. The good news is: readers feel your settings more acutely if they
Appointed is today’s #writephoto prompt, courtesy of Sue Vincent. This crow sitting on top of a tree reminded me of something I wrote several years ago to the title Crow of Nine-World, but that is no longer on the blog,
Pax, by Sara Pennypacker, was on and off my TBR several times a few years ago. Although I don’t remember, it was probably when it was first published. Thanks to the GMGR’s Book of the Month, I finally read it.
Thank goodness January is over. I’m not sure how much of my attitude for the last couple of weeks has been down to the start of the year, Covid, hiding away in my little lockdown space and wondering what the
Hera’s Spicy Tofu Bake is a recipe given to me by my dear friend Hera, way back in 1989. I’m presenting it here today in honour of Jo Wake, who died on December 16th. Ninja Captain Alex J Cavanaugh explains:
Guarded is today’s #writephoto prompt, with the photo below, and I’m pleased to say it is a 2021 one! Sue Vincent is providing prompts as long as she can, so it has spurred me on through a little non-writing spell.
The Weather Weaver caught my eye as a Netgalley ARC offer. Well, what a gorgeous cover! And when I read on, I couldn’t resist, especially as it’s a children’s/middle grade book. I’m very grateful to the publishers for the chance
The Galaxy, And the Ground Within is the fourth (and final) book in Becky Chambers’ Wayfarers series. You can read my reviews of the others here: Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, A Closed and Common Orbit, and Record
The collected adventures of Dylan, Dougall and Deirdre is nearing completion. I’m wondering what to call it. This is a project that emerged from the short stories I originally did for the BookElves Anthologies. Then I did a follow-up in
Interesting Times was on the library shelf when I took Thief of Time back. I wasn’t going to read any more this quickly but… and it was due back on Wednesday this week, so I had to finish it, since
Entrance, a #writephoto prompt, succeeded the first one I did last year. Hopefully, I can fill in last year’s gaps with stories this year, until Sue Vincent returns to full strength. I write that in hope, but Sue’s post last
The Light Ages came out in the autumn, and got squeezed off my reading schedule by A Life on Our Planet. I apologise to the publishers and Netgalley for this, and hope it won’t count against me too much. The
As usual, I’m trying to pick a Book of the Year, as in, books I read in 2020. Last year I gave up asking for your help, as you reply you haven’t read them. That never stops me voting for
Welcome to 2021. It’s hard to think of anything that could be relentlessly worse than 2020, but here’s hoping it has plenty of good points. I’ll get to the question of the month below, but first some thoughts I’ve been
As usual, I give you a round-up of the trials and tribulation for my reading challenges, and tell you which ones I’m doing for the coming year. Lessons learned from Reading Challenges in 2020 Don’t take on hefty reading challenges
The Stranger Times, my first review of the year, is my last book read in 2020. It got me to my Goodreads target at about 10 p.m. This was an advance copy from the publishers via Netgalley, for which I
The January 2021 Of Books Giveaway hop starts today. Thank you, Shannon @ It Starts at Midnight and Lonna @ FLYLēF for hosting it! The Giveaway Prize I’m giving away one paperback book up to $15 or £12 from Book Depository, internationally
This second Book Review Binge is to catch up with books I read in December, attempting to reach the summit of my Mount TBR Challenge for the year. I selected them from my Kindle on the basis they looked short,