Book Review: Wranglestone by Darren Charlton

In a Zombie Apocalypse, you may as well live next to a Super Volcano.

Winter was the only season every Lake-Lander feared…

In a post-apocalyptic America, a community survives in a national park, surrounded by water that keeps the Dead at bay. But when winter comes, there’s nothing to stop them from crossing the ice.
Then homebody Peter puts the camp in danger by naively allowing a stranger to come ashore and he’s forced to leave the community of Wranglestone. Now he must help rancher Cooper, the boy he’s always watched from afar, herd the Dead from their shores before the lake freezes over.
But as love blossoms, a dark discovery reveals the sanctuary’s secret past. One that forces the pair to question everything they’ve ever known.

This another post-apocalyptic Zombie book but this time it's Queer, therefore better than all the other zombie books. This book did take me a while to read, not the book's fault. I found myself enjoying the book but also having no will to physically read, which is how things go sometimes. I only say that as an excuse to as why I'm realising this review a day away from the publication date and if I get the beginning blurry.

I love zombies and love stories with Queer stories. Okay, I don't love zombies, but I'm was excited to see a Queer genre YA book. I do like zombie stories if done well. It's nice that the characters being queer isn't made a big deal of, and never comes into the plot. It's just character trait and just happens to be a Queer romance. This is M/M I have seen most reviewers calling this book "Gay" but no labels are used within the text and M/M doesn't make the characters gay. LGBTQ+ people, or Queer as an easy, assessable umbrella term when describing people's whose labels you don't know. It's not discussed at all in the book, but its apocalypse you would hope that people would just get on their lives in the best way possible.

Though, don't worry it does sticks to the zombie format of humanity being capable of terrible things.

The romance is really good, even some hot moments which makes me feel odd now that I'm so much older than the characters. I wished we spent more time with character development which I guess is kinda odd for a genre book. I just want character development in the backdrop of zombies waiting to eat everyone.

Peter is a Soft boy who is good at sewing (important skill once clothes shop stop being a thing) and not so much Survivalist skill, despite having spent most of his life during the zombie apocalypse, not remembering a time before.

The setting is a natural park, where people were evacuated to during the start of the outbreak. More specifically, the community lives on a lake in still houses, to keep the zombies away from them. So definitely cool.

This book is set up for a series, with a lot of plot elements that happen m. There are things I would like explored.

I can't comment on how gory this book is because I don't notice gore unless someone is being distractedly over the top with it. This is a zombie apocalypse so there is some gore.

Overall, I give this 4/5 stars for Car Holes. This a debut and I know I didn't read it in the best way for full enjoyment. I will stick with the series, a book two has been confirmed by the author and will buy my own copy of this book once I recover from investment in concert tickets.

Read: 21/12/2019 to 2/2/2020
Reviewed: 4/2/2020
Published Date: 6th February 2020
Publisher: Stripes Publishing
Source: Netgalley
I received this book as an e-arc from the Publisher, my reviews are always honest and my own opinion.
Content Warning for Book: Sexual Assualt referenced; Violence; Violent Death; enslavement; murder;

Book Review: All the Invisible Things by Orlagh Collins

What a Bi time to be Alive.


A warm, witty, important story about being a young woman today, and what it's like to find a real connection amid all the noise.


Vetty's never told anyone she gets feelings for girls as well as boys. It could have been easy once, back when Pez was the boy-next-door and she was still comfortable in her own skin. But then Mum died and her family moved out of London, and it felt much safer to keep her heart in hiding.

Now Vetty’s seventeen and heading back to London, she’s determined to start living out loud. Pez is the key, she’s sure. She was always fearless around him.

But Pez is different too. Guarded. It’s like their special connection never existed. And suddenly Vetty’s sure he’s hiding something too.

Okay, this is an odd one. I thought I had written a review for this book but can find no record of it. I definitely had thoughts when I finished this book and I looked everywhere to find a record of these thoughts but there must have got lost in the drama of another hospital stay. Not mine but I did a lot of dring this week.

This has a Bi main character realising she bi, but it's an odd one because it's like she doesn't have access to the internet. She knows she like girls at the start of the novel but has never heard of any Queer labelling outside of the LG, I mean Bi is the next letter after that. I mean this book name drops Tumblr and apparently before it managed to destroy itself. At the age of sixteen, she does a quiz to find out if she Bi, but knew she liked girls at age 12. It does have a moment of "I hate Labels" which is a trope I hate when it comes to people who are attracted to multiple genders. Yeah, some people haven't found labels they comfortable with, but why is always people who are Bi/Pan in media.

This book was meant to be set the during the time I read it and I have some tragic news. It either really dated or lives in a parallel universe as the plot involves NSFW things being still allowed on Tumblr. Maybe Tumblr will try to save itself and allowing NSFW stuff back on it. In the internet age, books can date so easy when listing the actual website. Even with a website that still exists, people who uses them changes. Facebook was for young people, not only parents use it. It's still good for group work but not much for else.

A lot of issues are dealt with in this book, including grief and addiction. The friendships and family relationships in this book were done well.

Overall, I give this book 3/5 stars for Wedding Planning. It is good to have a book about having someone know that they Queer and coming terms to the attraction to the opposite sex. The intention is very good, but cultures change over time, so I don't buy that main character even with her gay Aunts, I just don't buy she wouldn't have realised that multiple-gender attraction is a thing.

Read 24 July 2019, Finish Review 29/01/2020
Published Date 7 March 2019
Publisher: Bloomsbury YA
Source: Netgalley
I received this book as an e-arc from the Publisher, my reviews are always honest and my own opinion.

Long Live Europe.

The world is terrible. Of course, none of us are shocked by this information.

As of today, I can not say I have been an EU citizen for my whole life. An application I was recently filling out asked me if I had been one and that question really hurt me. I'm still in Europe.

Apparently, travelling is the same for the next 11 months, so until 2021, Maybe we have another referendum then. I have politically burnt out and they know we all politically brunt out but it never stops now. Now that the UK is doomed, I can stop engaging for a while. Not forever, but maybe a month. It's not I had any power over anything. I'm Scottish and young so I'm used to it.

There's not much to say other than My Chemical Romance are playing in Ireland and I wish I had known that before booking an non-refundable hotel. It would probably cost me the same to go fly from Glasgow to Dublin, rather driving down to the bottom of England. I would have rather done that and I would have actually become the Queen of the Emos having seen MCR and Fall Out Boy in less than 24 hours of each of, in two different countries. Instead of the two different countries and several days. Life is life. Of course, all MCR tickets are now sold out, because of course.

I wish I just renewed my passport when it expired. I don't want a shitty British Blue Passport. I want a Scottish Blue Passport, I think we go for bright Blue. Maybe even Baby blue so it looks fake. England have always hated being European so this suites them, changing their passports to match the EU flag.

Someday I hope to be an EU citizen again. I'm no way attached to being a UK one anymore. It doesn't seem to be much benefit to being one.

Book Review: The Suspect by Fiona Barton

Content Warning: Drug Use; Date Rape Drug used; Drugged; Death; Sexual Assualt Referenced; Murder; Corrupt Police; Cancer; Romantic Partner dying; Accidental Death; death by vomiting;

Of course, we ended up here.

‘The police belonged to another world – the world they saw on the television or in the papers. Not theirs.’

When two 18-year-old girls go missing on their gap year in Thailand, their families are thrust into the international spotlight: desperate, bereft and frantic with worry.

Journalist Kate Waters always does everything she can to be first to the story, first with the exclusive, first to discover the truth – and this time is no exception. But she can’t help but think of her own son, who she hasn’t seen in two years, since he left home to go travelling. This time it’s personal.

And as the case of the missing girls unfolds, they will all find that even this far away, danger can lie closer to home than you might think ...

This is the third and maybe the last Kate Waters novel, I haven't found confirmation of this, but this feels like the last of Kate Waters. Like the old girl is gonna been left to paster after this one. Also, the way things are referenced in this novel feel like a wrap-up. I have reviewed the first two novels, The Widow and the Child.

Kate Water's personal life was obviously set up from the last book for this one. Her son goes to Thailand and is still there all the years later. So of course, he ends up being involved.

Waters is pretty unlikeable in this one. The other ones she always seemed alright; a Journalist who had good intentions. I should have felt sympathy but it just didn't click in this book. Maybe it's all the complaining about the death of Journalism. Yeah, Journalism has taken a hit with the death of print, but there is Journalism still and in 2020 more people are aware of Clickbait. I don't know if it also I'm just sick of so-called Journalists who have failed to report on cases. Yeah, the internet is a trash fire of miscommunication and propaganda but so are newspapers. Speaking of.

This book takes place during the Scottish Refurdem, random and odd considering August was meant to be a slow time for news. I guess maybe in England but I remember a lot of lying going on then. Maybe it's somehow set in the future. The Scottish Referendum was five years ago and it honestly feels like more. Also at one point, a journalist refers to the case as "The Backpacker murders", which is odd as that refers to real murders that happened in Australia during the early 90s. He seems old enough to know that. Fiona Barton should know that.

The ending of this book acts like its a big dark reveal when its nothing. It's just okay. It is what is.

This book is in several points of view, and we have voices to match in the audiobook; read by Siân Thomas, Mark Meadows, Clare Corbett and Ria Zmitrowicz; this works well especially with my lack of affection for Waters this time. We have the police officer from the first book back to investigate and one of the girls who goes missing in Thailand. Works great as a method of getting the story across.

Overall, I gave this 3/5 stars for Big Mama. I don't think this was a series that benefited from me reading them all back to back. The first two books felt pretty self-contained, while this one felt like it needs the other books more. I don't if this is definitely the end of Kate Waters, but is probably the end of me reading about her.

Released: 24/1/2019/1 March 2019
Read 20/1/2020, Reviewed 26/1/2020
Source: Library

MCR is a thing I love.

I am going to see My Chemical Romance in June 2020. Not sure of the date. In my panic to get tickets, I forgot to ask what the day was.

So I called up again, it was for the 20th so I booked for the 21 as well because I am a loser and terrible person. But I have so little in life being the fool that sees a band twice is who I am now. In my defence, I booked the Sunday after I called back and got through to the Disabled again, so...I mean if you were all about it you would have tickets by then.

Yeah, I'm the worst when it comes to My Chemical Romances tickets. I was just gonna say I'm the worst, but there's a lot of bad things in this world like people who brought tickets to sell them. I am gonna see My Chemical Romance twice because my brain makes bad decision sometimes.

Thanks, anxiety, the thing that makes me miss out and gives me the fear of missing out. I don't know, should I cancel the ticket. I've been online and I don't see anyone say that they didn't get tickets. It just took them a long arse time. IDK, I know it was a bad thing to do but now I don't know wait to do about it. The Worse part is that Disabled access is appearing on Second Sale sites. I hope they get their tickets cancelled. I don't know what to do about this anyway.

Doing that whole going back to uni thing to become educated? Again. Doing the same level of uni but this time with the right level of support hopefully. I am Dyslexic and Autistic with fun side benefits of that. I'm a terrible procrastinator. I think I shall go to the GP and talk about how I think my Anxiety gives me physical symptoms.

I have chronic pain and had since I was a child. I've always had a bad back, I mean at least ten which is not right. Did I hurt myself and no one saw me do it? Obviously, as a kid, you don't tell your parents all the asinine stuff you do and maybe I don't remember happening because as Dyslexic kid I hurt myself all the time. I walk into walls. I almost fall all the time.

My bullet journal Obsession with international shipping has finally been caught by customs. I blame the Brexit. *Loud Sigh* Yeah, so that finally happened. Greaaaatttt...

It is what is, I still expect this nonsense to continue even now we no longer have the benefits of being in the EU. Now just stuck in the UK without any benefits under the tories.

So now I have ruined this post, turning a great thing of seeing My Chemical Romance into something really depressive.

That being said trying to get a ticket was a nightmare. I tried to get normal tickets because I've had cases where the Disabled tickets sold out before the normal ones, so I was hedging bets. But being there at 9.30 on the dot, got me nothing. No seats or VIP seats. I was there pretty quickly there for Sunday too, nothing. So I am mad with people who immediately sold tickets. Maybe both you got lucky in your gang to try to get them, but now there were people who brought tickets with no intention of using them.

So no luck through Ticketmaster. I did get through Disabled Finally. I had to call 75 times to get thought the first time, and I was in a panic when I did. They hanged up on me several times were caught in a loop pressing 1 and 1 over and over to get into the queue and then I was kicked off the queue three times which the worst part. I don't why they think that will actually get people to stop calling.

I felts so anxious before and afterwards. Just stress about the whole thing.

Melton Keyes being where MCR do their big reunion sounds like a joke.

I still hope they tour the UK because I always regretted not seeing them in Glasgow. I'm able so excited and happy about seeing them, but I can't keep that energy up till June.

Also, I am seeing Fall Out Boy and Green Day three days afterwards. This is a hilarious and delightful state of events. Also stressful. See you then.

Book Review: The Clockmaker's Daughter by Kate Morton

CW: Forced Prostitution mentioned; Threat of Violence; Suspensus Baby Deaths mentioned; Child Abuse; Death of a Parent/s; Accidental Deaths; World War II; Homeness from bombing;

The Attic will keep you safe.

My real name, no one remembers.
The truth about that summer, no one else knows.

In the summer of 1862, a group of young artists led by the passionate and talented Edward Radcliffe descends upon Birchwood Manor in rural Oxfordshire. Their plan: to spend a secluded summer month in a haze of inspiration and creativity. But by the time their stay is over, one woman has been shot dead while another has disappeared; a priceless heirloom is missing; and Edward Radcliffe’s life is in ruins.

Over 150 years later, Elodie Winslow, a young archivist in London, uncovers a leather satchel containing two seemingly unrelated items: a sepia photograph of an arresting-looking woman in Victorian clothing, and an artist’s sketchbook containing the drawing of a twin-gabled house on the bend of a river.

Why does Birchwood Manor feel so familiar to Elodie? And who is the beautiful woman in the photograph? Will she ever give up her secrets?

Told by multiple voices across time, The Clockmaker's Daughter is a story of murder, mystery and thievery, of art, love and loss. And flowing through its pages like a river, is the voice of a woman who stands outside time, whose name has been forgotten by history, but who has watched it all unfold: Birdie Bell, the clockmaker’s daughter.

This book leaps through time all surrounding this house slash the ghost who haunts it. Though, we start with archivist whose marrying someone she clearly doesn't like. Mainly it's the house and the ghost haunting it Birdie, who had a sad life and now has a sad afterlife. The end. Okay, there' s more to it that. This is about the mystery about who Birdie was and how she died.

My library has this as Historical Fiction > Crime & Thriller, I guess because there don't have mystery section in the Historical bit for some reason. It's a mystery. Crimes happened, not thrilling at all. Aren't genres a beautiful weird thing. It's very slow-paced.

No idea why they went for this title. Yes, her father is a clockmaker but it's not really a big deal. He's not really ever in the book. There are no scenes with him, and him being a clockmaker plays a very small part of the book. It would be like if someone called my life story the Taxi Driver's Child despite dealing with my life now when both of my parents are no longer Taxi drivers.

The ending was kinda asinine. Obviously, with Birdie being a ghost you know she has to die at some point but the way it happens feels so forced, especially with no one realising what is going on. It feels like Morton decided how she wanted the book to go, but then half-arsed.

Her name is made to be such a big deal and it's never revealed publically despite one the character discovering it. Instead, it ends with a weak thing about how cheating is complicated. Sure, in the Victorian times where marriages were mostly about power. A lot of characters end up injured with no memory of how they ended up that way. How convenient.

I'm not gonna lie, I kinda got bored during the end of this, during the kinda epilogue bit. They are so many characters of characters and time periods. This is a long book at 17 Hours 3 minutes, so you do spend a big chunk with all of them. The question is why though? There's no meaningful link up. I thought the book would have ended differently, which would have been more satisfying.

I listened to the audiobook as read by Joanne Froggatt. She does a decent job. Googling her lead me to find out there are only 16 episodes of Dinner Ladies. Watching things randomly on Gold sure leads you to think there's more of something than there really is. 

Overall, I gave this book 3/5 stars for Plotful Head-injuries. This book is frustratingly lacklustre at the end. There are questions left in the air that don't make sense at all. 

Released: 1 October 2018

Read 15 January 2020, Reviewed January 2020.

Source: Library

Pondathon

What is the Pondathon?

The Pondathon is a co-operative and story-driven readathon hosted and run by CW from The Quiet Pond. The aim of the Pondathon is to read books and collect points to protect the friends over at The Quiet Pond from the encroaching malevolent forces that threaten our friends in the forest. Have fun participating in the Pondathon readathon by joining one of five teams, each with a unique way to collect points and signing up! You can also follow the story of the Pondathon as it unfolds, and participants can also complete 'side quests' during the readathon to collect extra points. The readathon takes place from January 24th 2020 to March 7th 2020. More information about the readathon can be found here.

Information about Joining the Pondathon

1. To join the Pondathon, simply sign up anytime between January 18th 2020 to March 5th 2020.
2. Choose a team, create your own animal character for the Pondathon and create a character card!
3. Create a blog post, bookstagram post, booktube video, Twitter thread, or whatever medium you wish, with '#Pondathon' in the title or your tweet. Share the character you have created and your character card!
4. Link back to this post so that others can find this readathon and join in.

Share your updates on your blog/bookstagram/booktube and social media. You are more than welcome to tag @thequietpond or @artfromafriend on Twitter or Instagram in all your updates! We'd love to see all of the beautiful and awesome characters that you create!

My Pond Character

My Pond Character is called Raonaild, she good with a blade and a spell. Always, has a backup ready for a situation.
Yeah, I did this mostly because I thought she looked cute with a blade.

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My Pondathon TBR

My TBR will come later.

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[Book cover image] Book Name by Author [What is this book about? When did you acquire this book? Why do you want to read it? Are you looking forward to reading it? What are some thoughts you want to share about the book?]

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[Book cover image] Book Name by Author [What is this book about? When did you acquire this book? Why do you want to read it? Are you looking forward to reading it? What are some thoughts you want to share about the book?]

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[Book cover image] Book Name by Author [What is this book about? When did you acquire this book? Why do you want to read it? Are you looking forward to reading it? What are some thoughts you want to share about the book?]

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[Copy and paste the above if you want to add more books to your readathon TBR!]

Adventures in Dog Parenting

Writing prompts don't work for me anymore. I looked through them all the time for this blog but never come across one that sparks inspiration. I want to write weekly, but not much really happens to me because I never leave the house.

Well, I do but is that interesting that I went food shopping and my dogs pull my shoulder so hard that it's sore and numb the next day. I'm used to my arms going numb but it has lasted a while. I woke up on Friday with it still numb from the night before. It's numb in the centre, sort of an ache, but no tingling paint and it still feels things without it being painful.

He also jumped into a locke after a swan and I had to pull him out because he couldn't climb back over the mini-fence that separates dogs from the evil that is swans. He was soaked but fine. It's January so the Swans fled rather an attack my idiot. I honestly don't how he managed it because his lead was locked and I was trying to untangle Leia at the time.

Both were overly hyper for some reason. They get walked, and they see other dogs but on Thursday they were really excited about it for some reason. Leia has been to that park before, Skye hadn't. Him seeing a swan for the first time was to try to make friends with it, what a fool.


Next is the beach for Skye, Maybe go in the summer when it warmer than normal for Scotland. Maybe we get Summer in Spring this year. My mum's response to the swan story was at least I know he likes the water. He might be traumatised. Leia won't go in river water, she just tried to drink the beach water but with that being saltwater I didn't let her get too close because I was not prepared to go in after her that day.

Another joy of dogs was that Skye brought a dead rat to my door. I'm very thankful that I taught him not to bring outside toys inside. I don't think he killed it because it was cold and been out for five minutes. He could have killed it earlier. My guess is it died by poison and just happened to drop dead while in my garden.

He's part Border Collie and , both have strong hunting instinct and breed to bring kills back to their owners. Not Border Collie so much the last one. Yeah, Border Collie were not bred to kill their prey but I have known Border Collies to hunt moles and one time a pigeon. She was also obsessed with the cat too but she was would just stare at her. Oh, Mysti. Basically, there's a reason why they use Border Collie as search and rescue dogs.

I put the rat in the bin. Skye was very confused to find it gone when he went out later. I'm hoping there are no more dead rats out in my garden as if they have been poisoned that could make Skye sick.

Leia and Skye kinda love each other, but Leia will still randomly put him in his place. I get telling to go away when he's annoying her but some times she does it when he's walking past. Dogs are weird and Leia is grumpy about having a sibling when she not playing with him.

I have to go now as Skye is currently eating straight from the Puppy food bag.