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Hayley

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Everything posted by Hayley

  1. That’s a beautiful edition! Is the tassel from your bookmark or is that attached to the book? Fairy Tale is on my wish list I’m currently reading the last Frey & McGray book, The Sign of the Devil. As expected, I’m really enjoying it 😄 (although I’m still sad that it’s the last one…).
  2. The Last Smile in Sunder City by Luke Arnold 3.5/5 I felt like reading something a little bit comforting to start the year off, so I went for this detective novel set in a fantasy world. It turned out to be quite a lot darker than I expected! Sunder City is where most of the action happens and it is filled with various fantastical creatures (vampires, demons, kobolds, werewolves etc.) but it is also in a world that has lost its magic. Due to what we'll refer to as an 'incident' (for potential spoiler reasons), the whole world has been impacted by a total loss of magical power. This has various consequences for the formerly magical beings. The detective element of the story is about the attempt to find a missing vampire teacher, but quite a lot of the time it's not really about that at all... it's about the detective and his role in the 'incident' and it's about the power dynamics of a society that's undergone a catastrophic shift. I liked all of the background to the construction of the world but it's also the reason I didn't give it a higher star rating. A lot of it felt like it was setting us up with information for something that's yet to come. There are already two (I think) more books in the series and I'll definitely be getting the next one. It's a really interesting concept and I hope that there's a bit more room for detective work in the next one!
  3. Last year was one of my slowest ever reading years. According to my Goodreads record, I only read 11 books! This year I'm determined to get a lot more reading done. Not because I think there's anything particularly important about the number of books you read per year, but because I know that the amount of reading I do for fun directly correlates with how much time I'm actually giving myself to relax and enjoy things - and that's important. Last year I was setting things up to work completely for myself - taking on freelance work tutoring and editing to see if I could realistically do that full time. I was experimenting with how many hours I could do and how efficient I could be. It's fair to say that mistakes were made and I now have a better idea of how much is too much! This year I will be putting everything into practice and trying to make this work properly. It's a little scary and there's a chance that it won't work out but if I don't go for it, I'll never know! Giving myself time to actually relax is going to be an important part of it working though. For me, that means reading! So here it goes, 2023...
  4. I love witchcraft and weird happenings, so I've added The Craftsman to my wish list . It's great to see that your first books of the year have all been good ones!
  5. Sorry if I missed your review elsewhere but what did you think of Cat's Cradle? I liked the concept but found it very depressing!
  6. I’m also excited for this one! Also on my wish list (and, I’m hoping, somewhat similar to Laura Purcell!), I have: Fyneshade by Kate Griffin and The Company by J.M. Varese
  7. I went on holiday last week too and also noticed that the small selection of books on display in the airport WHSmith were mainly celebrity books! It’s sad. Luckily I had bought a book with me though!
  8. I haven’t read many stream of consciousness texts (and, to be honest, I’ve disliked most of the ones I have read…) but I really liked Kew Gardens by Virginia Woolf. It’s basically a really beautiful description of a nice garden! Plus it’s very short, so you haven’t wasted a lot of time if you don’t like it 😄
  9. Stream of Consciousness it is! I really don’t know what I want to read for this one yet - what are you all going for!?
  10. You all seem to be flying through books so far this year 😄. I’ve started with The Last Smile in Sunder City by Luke Arnold.
  11. A shorter selection than expected now but the poll is up! Let’s get picking 😄
  12. This poll is to decide the first category of this year’s book club! Participants will have three months to read a book from the chosen category.
  13. Let’s get our list up then! Please leave your suggestions in this thread and I’ll aim to get the poll up tomorrow if we have enough of a response
  14. I wasn't anticipating quite so many suggestions, (@lunababymoonchild you are too good at it ). How would others feel about limiting to one suggestion per person? Of course, if you have more than one excellent idea, you can save one for the next challenge!
  15. What is everyone doing for New Year’s Eve? Do you go out? Do you celebrate it differently now than you used to? Are you ignoring it and going to bed at your usual time? 😄 I’m planning to use it as an excuse to read until midnight, getting a good start on my 2023 reading challenge 😁.
  16. Oh I played this game too but I used pen directly on the inside cover! I was clearly much more of a vandal as a child
  17. Part 1 of the new BCF Book Club is now up! I am currently experimenting with the 'clubs' feature to see how well that would work alongside this, so watch that space!
  18. My category suggestion: A Book About Time Books related to time travel would fit well with this, such as H.G. Wells' The Time Machine or Jodi Taylor's Chronicles of St Mary's series .
  19. Throughout 2023, the BCF Book Club will be in session! We will vote on categories four times per year (January-March, April-June, July-September, October-December) and participants will choose a book from that category. This means that we might not all be reading the same book, but we will all be reading from the same category. Please leave your category suggestions for the first Book Club event below! It would be helpful if you could leave a book suggestion next to your suggested category. We will hold a poll to choose our final category on January 1st!
  20. Nastiness towards animals is actually a total deal-breaker for me. I won’t be reading it if that’s the case!
  21. This is on my wish list! I’ll be interested to know why you only have it 3 stars. That is such a brilliant present idea.
  22. Well it sounds as though it should be excellent!
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