Heartless: Book Review

Heartless by Marissa Meyer is a standalone which tells the origin story of the Queen of Hearts. But before she was royalty, she was Cath, the daughter of a marquis who dreamed of opening a bakery with her maid. She would much prefer that to marrying the jovial but spineless king, who desires her hand, despite what her mother says about baking being below her. And when Jest, the new court joker, arrives in the kingdom of Hearts, Cath finds another reason to try to refuse the king.

But Cath's problems aren't the only things keeping her and Jest apart. Jest has come to Hearts for more important things than to be the court joker, and falling for Cath poses quite an obstacle...

Oh, and by the way, there's also a Jabberwock on the loose.

Midnight Never Come: Book Review

Midnight Never Come by Marie Brennan is a fantasy novel set primarily in London in the late 1500s, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I - and also during the reign of another queen. Invidiana rules the not only the magical Onyx Hall which lies beneath London itself, but also all of faerie England. Our story follows two main characters - Michael Deven, a gentleman who seeks to better himself in the service of Queen Elizabeth, and Lune, a recently disgraced faerie Lady trying to win back the cruel Queen Invidiana's favour - and their discoveries concerning a pact, a curse, and the schemings of both fae and mortal politics.

Red Queen: Book Review

Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard is a book I've had on my to-read list for quite some time. Set in a kingdom called Norta, where people with silver blood and supernatural powers rule over people with red blood, Red Queen is the first in a series of four books. The story centres on sixteen-year-old Mare, a seventeen-year-old Red from a poverty-stricken village who is doomed for conscription into a war she is sure to die in until she makes a very public discovery that she has a power much like those the Silvers possess. Unable to ignore the scandal Mare has caused, the Silver royalty decide to take her in and claim she is a long-lost Silver to cover up what they can't explain. From within the Silver court, Mare has the perfect opportunity to take down the Silvers from the inside and get the Reds the equality they deserve.

When I picked up Red Queen, I was very much expecting a high fantasy - perhaps something similar to A Game Of Thrones, though with less characters. So what I found surprised me. Despite being part of a fantasy universe, Norta has all the technologies of the modern day, including guns, television, electric lights, and security cameras. This gave the book more of a dystopian feel, which is certainly not what I was expecting, and it wasn't really what I'd been wanting either. Nonetheless, I tried not to let my personal tastes get in the way of my judgement of the book. After all, I would say it makes Red Queen a little more unique, with a world similar to that of The Hunger Games, but with the Silvers' abilities bringing more of a fantasy element to it. So if that's the sort of thing you're looking for, definitely give Red Queen a go.

As for the rest of the book, I found myself a little bored at times, and had to force myself to continue reading it. I didn't find Mare to be particularly likable and if you asked me to describe her personality, I'm not sure I could, at least not without thinking about it quite hard first. But maybe that's just because I wasn't paying close enough attention. Unfortunately, my disconnect with the narrator and protagonist wasn't an isolated issue; it meant that, in places where Aveyard built up suspense, I just didn't feel it because I didn't care about Mare and her situation enough. I didn't feel immersed in her world. Also, I found it a little too political for my personal tastes: there's terrorism, war, manipulative royals, detailed plots... It's quite a serious book (and slow in parts), but at least that means that nothing is romanticised. And speaking of romance, I at first found this subplot to be quite annoying because it seemed so predictable...

Except it didn't turn out to be predictable at all. In fact, by the end of the book I really liked how the romantic subplot seemed to be turning out (obviously, this arc is not finished; I imagine it will take many more twists and turns throughout the rest of the series).

And I'm very pleased to say that the other plotlines improved towards the end of the book too. By the last hundred or so pages, I was finally hooked; I finally cared about the characters and what happened to them. The suspense also increased hugely and, though I don't want to spoil anything for anyone, get ready for some major plot twists. Do not expect to see any of them coming.

In the end, I'd say that most of my problems with Red Queen are down only to personal preference: it's a good book, and I feel bad publicly discussing the bits I didn't like about it. But those last hundred or so pages made the last few weeks I've spent reading this book truly worth it, and I'll definitely be picking up both the sequel and the prequel (which actually sounds more to my taste than the original). I would highly recommend Red Queen to anyone looking for something similar to The Hunger Games, but if a high fantasy is what comes to mind when you read the blurb, I'd suggest trying a different book instead.

The Redwood Rebel: Book Review

The Redwood Rebel by Lorna George, published in 2015, is the first in the Redwood War trilogy. It follows the story of Naomi, a young soldier from the land of Ffion who, after being imprisoned for four years, makes a deal for her freedom in the hopes of eventually freeing her country from the tyrannical princess leading it to its own destruction. However, it's not long before her plan goes terribly awry and she ends up not only fighting for her life but doing so in a difficult and unexpected situation (no spoilers!).

I first came across Lorna George on tumblr, where she was promoting her book before it was even published. I heard it was a book with dragons and strong female characters, so needless to say, I was very excited to read it when I finally got my hands on a copy at Christmas.

I'd like to say that I wasn't disappointed, but I'd also like to be honest. I really wanted to fall head over heels in love with this book. I wanted it to be my new favourite - after all, it has dragons and strong female characters; what more could one possibly want from a book? Especially when the protagonist is possibly one of the strongest female characters I've come across? Naomi is not only an ex-soldier but also extremely well educated and written very realistically. She's stubborn and knows her own mind and isn't afraid to voice her opinion. And she's not the only well-developed character, thank goodness. Our other protagonist is just as stubborn and flawed as she is (no Mary Sues here, thank you very much!).

The thing I think I loved best about this book was its worldbuilding. Naomi spends a lot of time with a group from another of the two continents in Ilios, the world where The Redwood Rebel is set (I won't say which so I don't spoil it for anyone), and there are a lot of cultural differences. There is a huge divide between the views and mindsets of one nation and those of the other, and that's something I'm not I've seen before. It made for a very developed world, not to mention plenty of conflict as characters from different backgrounds argue over the right way to do things. It also led to numerous discussions on consent which of course was fabulous.

So, then, you may ask: how can you possibly be disappointed with this book in the slightest?
Sure, the characters were great, but that doesn't mean I connected with them that well. There were a lot of long internal monologues which described what our characters were feeling and thinking and pretty much every reason behind those thoughts and feelings. Counter-intuitively, I felt that this not only slowed down the plot but also distanced me from the characters. I felt I never got chance to get to know them, because I was just told about them instead. I'd heard Naomi mentioned so many times, I was really looking forward to meeting her, so I was disappointed that it didn't really feel like I'd met her - rather, it felt more like I was hearing about her from a friend.

But having said that, I have no doubt that The Redwood War series will only get better from here. I still definitely recommend reading The Redwood Rebel especially if you're looking to read something with dragons in, or a progressive fantasy. I can't wait to read the next installment!

Electric Reads Young Writers' Anthology 2015

Back in August, I came across a post on Facebook advertising a short story competition run by a company called Electric Reads. They were looking for British writers under the age of 25 to write a 3,000-word or less piece in any genre to be published in an anthology to showcase new talent. So I wrote a short fantasy story, which isn't something I often do (world-building gets a little difficult when you only have a limited amount of words to tell the story in). I was pretty pleased with the result, however, so I sent it to a friend for editing purposes. They basically told me they'd eat their hat if my piece wasn't chosen.

So I made the changes they suggested (and a few of my own) and submitted it. I was hopeful, but I wasn't really expected much.

Then, in early November, I got this email.

On the 11th of December, after several weeks of edits and preparations, the anthology was released worldwide! My story is one of only 25 to be selected and I am incredibly proud of this achievement. I haven't yet read the other stories (my copy only arrived yesterday!) but judging by the dedicated hard work the team at Electric Reads has put into this anthology, I know they'll have chosen some absolutely fantastic stories.

The Electric Reads Young Writers' Anthology 2015 is available from Amazon in eBook, hardback and paperback here, from Barnes & Noble in eBook here, and from Waterstones in hardback here. As young, uestablished writers, this is a huge opportunity for us to get our names out there so it would be amazing if you could support us by reading our stories and - even better - posting a review on any of the aforementioned sellers' sites, or on our Goodreads page. :)

Things People Say When I Tell Them I’m Writing A Novel

Being a writer is part of who I am, and I don’t want to hide it, so if someone asks me what I’m doing tonight, I’m not going to tell them that I’m watching TV all night when actually I’ll be working on my novel. This generally leads to the other person asking two questions: what's it about, and can I read it? You’d think I’d enjoy hearing these two questions - hearing that people are interested in my book - (I know, me too) so here's why I don't.

What is it about?

So many things about this question make me nervous about answering. Firstly, I never know where to start. My head has been filled with the characters, settings and various plot points of this story for almost three years now. It has gone through many changes and will go through many more. This makes it kind of difficult to step back from all the tiny details of the project that I’m currently dealing with to summarise the book’s exposition for you. I always struggle with working out which bits are important and which bits you will understand without me explaining the entire history of my fictional world. As a result, my answer will either be short and vague and therefore rather disappointing (usually I just say “oh, it’s a fantasy”, and only elaborate with something like “it’s about a girl searching for her family” after a little more prompting, though that doesn't do it justice), or you’ll have to hope you don’t have anything to do in the next few hours because I’m telling you everything. Secondly, as already mentioned, I hate oversimplifying it. It gives the wrong impression (I once told someone my book is about a revolution, which it is, but it lead him to think it's a political book, which it isn't) or makes it sound dull, or like I don't want to talk about it (I do, I just don't know how to without sounding silly - a pocket watch that gives you the ability to talk to ghosts, are you serious?). On the other hand, I also don't want to end up boring the other person with all the inconsequential details, or messing up my explanation and just confusing them (which is very likely). I feel like this question puts pressure on the writer to have a good grasp of their book, which you would think they have, but in reality, (at least for me) it's just a huge mess of ideas.

Can I read it (before it's published)?

I hate this question, usually because I have to try and find a nice way to say no ("not yet" is my go-to reply). Before you ask it me, I want you to ask yourself a few questions first.

1. Why do you want to read my work? 

If it’s for a ‘claim to fame’, then please don’t ask me if you can read my book. My neighbour is apparently convinced I’ll be the next JK Rowling and wants to be able to say he read my book before it was famous. This makes me uncomfortable partly because it’s highly doubtful I’ll be as successful as JK Rowling and he really shouldn’t expect me to be famous one day just because I’m writing a book, but mostly because it implies to me that he’s actually only interested in my book so that he can have something to boast about in a few years’ time. It also disregards the fact that right now, my novel is a hobby, and getting it published - never mind it being a bestseller - a far-off dream.

2. Are we good friends? 

My book is incredibly personal to me. It isn’t just a story, it’s my imagination laid bare on the page for you to see. So I’m very self conscious about my work. If we’re not really good friends, then I’m not going to want you to read my novel. I’m also not going to want to disappoint you and tell you that I’ll only let you read it when the entire rest of the world can read it too, which puts me in a slightly awkward position. Basically, if I’m not comfortable enough to be myself around you in person, then I won’t be comfortable enough to let you read my book. If it was ready for you to read it, I'd have started querying literary agents already. So if we don't know each other that well, don’t even ask.

3. Will you be able to give me hugely detailed feedback? 

If you think that writing a book is easy, or that the books you see on the Waterstones bookshelves are word-for-word the same books that their authors wrote when they first sat down at their desks with a vague idea in their heads, you would be wrong. So lower your expectations of however good you think my novel is going to be, and then lower them some more. This is a work in progress and in need of a lot of improvements.    

As the writer, I see my story from a completely unique angle. My position is all-seeing. I know everything that is, could be and could have been in my story. To me, it all makes perfect sense. Unfortunately, my readers will not have this viewpoint, so I have to make sure everything that is important is visible from their angle too, but I can’t see from their viewpoint either. This is where I need help. At this stage, I need readers willing to give me a huge amount of feedback to help me get across what I want to get across and not miss out anything important. If you’re not willing to tell me all of your opinions of my book - what you thought of every character in every scene, your theories on their plans, how much of their backstory you’ve worked out, what confused you, what bored you, what you thought was unnecessary, what you thought was supposed to be funny but really wasn’t and needs to be removed, and, of course, what you enjoyed - then you telling me that you want to read my book is just someone else waiting over my shoulder for me to finish writing, counting on me to come up with a spectacular bestseller all on my own (not going to happen, guys). Your answer to question 2 is also pretty vital here - if I'm not certain that I can trust your judgement and you'll tell me nothing but the truth, it doesn't matter if you're willing to give me all the constructive criticism in the world.

The likelihood is, if your answers to these questions are the ones I'm looking for, you won't even have to ask to read my book, because I'll ask you - I wasn't kidding when I said I will need help with writing my book. And if I'm happy with your answers to questions 2 and 3, I might even completely disregard your answer to 1, but not the other way around.

I'd like to add that these are only my views on this subject. I'm sure there are many writers who are very private about their writing and feel rather awkward when asked about it, like me, but I'm also sure there are many writers who are perfectly happy to talk about whatever project they're currently working on, who don't worry about mis-explaining their plot or sounding ridiculous, or who will let anyone who asks read their writing. Unfortunately, I'm not one of them.

NaNoWriMo 2014: From Heaven To Hell/Hydrena

Time for another story about a story idea!

When I was maybe 13, 14, 15 years old, I spent a lot of my time on a website called FictionPress.Net, posting stories and talking to people in the forums. The site users used to start informal writing competitions among themselves, and I took part in two. The second is irrelevant (at least for now), but the first involved starting your story with a short passage which ran thusly:

"Stop, you thief!" Panting frantically, I ran down the escalator from the heavily puffing security guard. I clutched the pack of cigarettes tightly in my hand as I made my jump to freedom – crashing into someone. I looked up to find myself staring into a Goth boy's green eyes.

I'm not sure if this was from something, or if the girl who started the contest just made it up; if I've just infringed some sort of copyright thing, I didn't mean to and I'm sorry.

From this passage, I developed a modern fantasy story about a girl who discovered a new world and a new race (by means of the green-eyed Goth boy, who was a part of this race), and ended up having to confront Death himself, and I called this story From Heaven To Hell. I made it up as I wrote it, so the plotline was a bit dubious, and what kind of character gets transported to another realm by some guy she literally just ran into and doesn't ask where she is or what the hell just happened, I don't know. But it was one of the few stories that I actually finished at that age, and despite the fact that my two main characters didn't have much personality-wise (much like the rest of my characters - guess who couldn't be bothered with character development when they were 14), they stayed with me.

I mentioned in my post about The Dragon Story that I have a habit of merging story ideas together, and so when I realised during the early stages of planning Barnabus' Balloons that I would want some sort of magical race in my story, instead of creating a new magical race, I decided to steal the one from From Heaven To Hell, thus linking the story ideas. I also mentioned that I had created a network of sequels, prequels and companion books. Barnabus' Balloons is to be the first in the main series, which will consist of four books, and From Heaven To Hell, which I am renaming Hydrena while I rewrite it during this month's NaNoWriMo with a better plotline and more developed characters, is to be the last, while The Dragon Story is to be the third. I am also planning a prequel and have numerous over ideas which I may or may not ever write.

So Hydrena - the rewrite of From Heaven To Hell - is what I am writing at the moment. We are ten days into NaNoWriMo now and unsurprisingly I am very behind (both with writing and with my uni work, but that is neither related nor the point). You want proof? Fine.

However, I am not the only one doing NaNoWriMo at my university, and we have got permission to have an overnight write-in at our library soon, so as long as I don't continuously forget to write until then, I should be able to catch up. :)

Post CampNaNo Update

With a few exceptions, I have managed to write at least a little bit every day since Camp NaNoWriMo ended. Having a daily word count goal to aspire to during Camp has improved my motivation to write; plus, I've reached 50,000 words in my novel, so I feel I might as well finish the damn thing. Right now, writing is going a little slow, but I'm determined to get to the end eventually.

One of the Camp NaNoWriMo prizes is a free hardcover proof copy of your manuscript through Lulu. The deadline for this is the 30th of August so I'm aiming to finish my first draft and do some minor edits (spell checking and things like that) before then. I've also been looking at the template that you use to format the manuscript to send it off for printing, and it's a little complicated, so I'm glad I've started doing that early, before I've actually finished the whole manuscript.

The Dragon Story

I have been reminded quite a lot about my love of dragons recently; I found a rather addictive game on my

phone the point of which is to raise dragons, I found a video on making origami dragons, and I have been promised to be lent Eragon once exams are over, because it came to light that I still haven't read it.

I fell in love with dragons when I read Cornelia Funke's Dragon Rider in year 5 or 6; I got it from the school library, and tried to read it fast so that I'd have finished it by the time I had to give it back (it was a big book), and cried after I did give it back. I believe it is the one book, or one of the very few books, I class as one of my favourites that I have not reread (that's another addition to my post-exams reading list, methinks).

So, I thought I'd talk a little about my one novel idea that actually has a dragon in it, albeit not very much. You'd think that a writer who likes dragons would have a dragon in like every single story, but apparently not. My lack of dragons makes me sad. I need to write about more dragons.

Anyway, this story started out life in a small black and red notebook with squared paper at my grandma's house when I was about twelve or thirteen. I believe it was the first project I ever took seriously (though of course, between the ages of six and ten I took my badly illustrated, badly handwritten, badly stapled together books very seriously - until I got bored of them a couple of hours after starting them).

What will from here on in be referred to as The Dragon Story was a fantasy story (naturally), though it didn't have a name and still doesn't now. I remember reading an extract out at my school's creative writing club (which I had only just joined), thinking it was brilliant - and looking back, I completely understand why the older students struggled to compliment me. It began completely unplanned - even as I wrote the first lines at my grandma's house I'd hardly even thought about it - and when I did start planning it partway through, the plot was over-the-top, carried by weak characters with few motives, who lived in a world that had no history (although it did have a map that I slaved over for hours and hours and have since lost the original of, so I only have bad photocopies).

The map shrank in the wash.

I recall one particularly melodramatic scene inspired by my favourite song (I Was Only Dreamin' by Bryan Adams - no longer my favourite song, but still close to my heart), in which my character fell asleep on the beach and woke up to find his lover gone - and he comes to the conclusion that she was merely part of his dream, and falls into despair until she reappears a few minutes later, much to his delight. Does that portray the levels of bad we're talking about here?

Naturally, my protagonists were going to win against the bad guys (who had a stupid, and stupidly long, name made up of a load of French words stuck together), and the two characters mentioned previously were going to get married and live happily ever after.

Good start.

So where does the dragon come into this? And why am I writing about this story that I abandoned when I was thirteen?

To answer the first question, I shall have to tell you a little about the plot. The first part of the story involved my characters fleeing literally to the other side of the world from the bad guys, until they found help in the form of an elf friend of one of theirs, who advised them to go to Wise Dragon (creative name, I know), who lived in a cave under a mountain which he never left (nice to know that my one dragon is an awesome, fearsome dragon). I'm not even sure my characters ever got as far as Wise Dragon except for in my plan, but Wise Dragon was going to reveal a few secrets about my characters' identities and send them off on their noble quest - he was rather an important plot point.

To answer the second question - I have a bit of a habit of merging numerous story ideas; so, this story has become embroiled in a rather large network of sequels and companion novels to Barnabus' Balloons which incorporates a great number of previously-thought-of, sometimes abandoned ideas, and a few new ones. Therefore, this story now takes place in the same world - and in some parts, the same queendom - as Barnabus' Balloons, but some years after the end of it, and also involves the same enemies as it, which no longer have a ridiculous group name. Basically, this particular link to the companion novel network (which may perhaps one day be something akin to Terry Pratchett's many, many Discworld novels) stemmed from my desire to replace these evil-for-the-sake-of-being-evil antagonists, and "hey look, I already have some more realistic villains with more plausible motives, why not just borrow those?" 

As I am mostly focussing on Barnabus' Balloons at the moment (apparently my concentration levels have increased from my days of badly illustrated, badly handwritten "books"), The Dragon Story is currently little more than a couple of initial chapters and a vague plan, but I do know that it will still involve Wise Dragon (who, unlike the antagonists, will keep his name, I imagine) and the plot will still revolve around a journey however the ending will not be as happy as my thirteen-year-old self intended. :)

Barnabus' Balloons

There are two people who have contributed to the code-name I have given my novel-in-progress, and one of them will know exactly who he is, while the other may have forgotten her contribution. But still.

I started this project in summer 2012, for Camp NaNoWriMo, having thought of my first ideas possibly a few months or possibly a few weeks before starting writing on the first of August. There were two novels that inspired me, and they were Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore - my idea of how the city this book is set in would look was different to the way it was actually portrayed in the book - and The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern - I fell so in love with the setting Morgenstern created that I felt compelled to at least attempt to create a setting so wonderful myself. I was also slightly inspired by the song Must Get Out by Maroon 5 (ah, how music tastes can change in as little as two years).

The idea behind (Camp) NaNoWriMo is to write a 50,000 word novel in a month. In August 2012, I managed 41,000 words, and I was not even halfway through my plot - I plan for the book to span an entire fictional year, and I believe I managed to get to June. I think.

Since then, I have not really left Barnabus' Balloons; I have temporarily left it in for other projects, but I have never fully abandoned it. And yet I have never reached an end either. I am currently writing what I am calling a third draft, despite having never finished either the first or second drafts. So technically, if I finish this third draft - which I am planning on doing, eventually - it will then become the first complete draft.

I have much hope for this draft.

Barnabus' Balloons is to be a fantasy novel, set in a world of my own imagining (hence the maps). I don't want to give too much away but it concerns family mysteries, searching for a new life and for what is lost, and secret organisations plotting revolutions - and, naturally, a bit of magic. The story focuses on Saffie, who is seventeen and lives with her older cousin in a remote mountain village, and who moves to The City (which I finally named today while messing with Storybook - how exciting!) for various reasons, and there discovers a great many things.

My reasoning behind discussing this is that I have a number of ongoing writing projects, and I'd quite like to mention them from time to time, seeing that this is a blog I am to dedicate to my attempts at writing, therefore I thought a little overview of each of my projects would be in order.

So, readers, I introduce you to code-name: Barnabus' Balloons.

I'd also like to point out that I sort of stole the idea of code-names from Kristin Cashore's blog and the wonderful code-name she has given to her sister, Apocalyptica The Flimflammer. I have no idea if there is any sanity to that name at all, but it is brilliant.