Arena by Holly Jennings

Arena is a face-paced, thrilling tale of a teen gamer girl who makes history in the futuristic RAGE tournaments: the most popular sport in the world. Leading her team in virtual fights to the death, Kali Ling struggles with balancing the real world and the gaming world, as well as dealing with tragedy and the pressures of the media.

I loved the honesty of this book and the narrative about celebrity life and pressures when dealing with the media and the public's expectations. While the details are sometimes horrifying (drug overdoses and the indifference of the sponsors) and inappropriate (sex in and out of serious relationships, and the media playing with it), the message Jennings delivers through her protagonist is strong and inspiring. "Watching" Kali fight her opponents in the arena, her rivals in real life, and fighting her inner struggles of drug addiction, anxiety, and feelings of helplessness encourages the reader to become strong in a variety of different ways to not only be a hero to others but a hero to oneself.

Holly Jennings' Website

Amazon

Goodreads

Barnes and Noble

Pop Manga Coloring Book

Camilla D'Errico's Pop Manga Coloring book is a very uniquely styled adult colouring book to add to your collection. Unlike half of the ones out there, this coloring book requires no prior knowledge of the subject to enjoy it fully. It doesn't matter if you don't know Harry Potter's hair color or who that one person in Throne of Glass is. D'Errico's drawings are completely from her own imagination and you are free of any self-inflicted obligation to color things "the right way."

This book is full of cute, beautiful, and strange creations that will spark your imagination or leave you wondering. Either way, you will be entertained and relaxed while coloring the art. D'Errico even has a little creature who shows up to remind you that you're allowed to colour however you want to because this is YOUR art now, too.

Grab your favourite coloring tools and your childlike imagination and prepare to enter a world unlike any other.

Camilla D'Errico's website
Buy the book on Amazon

**I received this book for free from Blogging for Books in exchange for an honest review**

Update

Hello to all who still read this!

I've changed the title to "Lady Victoria's reviews" since that is what I am going by in my little craft business I'm trying to start up with my friend, and also what I plan on using when I publish things I write.

I won't make any promises about regular posting since I'm quite busy with school and work and cosplay, but I will do my best. If you're interested in hearing updates about other aspects of my life, try the following links:

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instagram

The Watcher by Lisa Voisin

A fallen angel seeking redemption. A demon seeking revenge. The teenage girl caught between them.

Since the new guy, Michael Fontaine, came along, Mia Crawford is being hunted. Strange creatures appear out of nowhere. Visions of another time and place creep into her thoughts. 

Searching for answers, Mia discovers a past life of forbidden love, jealousy and revenge that tore an angel from Heaven and sent her to an early grave. Now that her soul has returned, does she have a chance at loving that angel again? Or will an age-old nemesis destroy them both?

Ancient history is only the beginning.

I'm struggling between 3 and 4 stars because of some things I didn't like, but it leans more toward 4.

Now, before you roll your eyes at the "fallen angel love story" and give up, just hear me out.

Gorgeous angel meets a beautiful girl, they fall in love, heaven finds out, the angel falls, and they end up together and happy forever. Maybe this happened today, maybe it happened 500000 years ago and they're reincarnated and reliving their love. Sound familiar?

Think again.

Michael fell from heaven thousands of years ago when he fell in love with a girl. Having broken one of the rules of Heaven for angels, Michael began his "descent" as he lusted after her. Captivated, he ignored the rules and married her, but she was met with an untimely death by a demon, and he was convinced everything was his fault. Now, he's in "rehab," trying to recover from falling and return to Heaven.

Mia starts seeing strange things right before two new boys start at her high school. Beautiful Michael and dark, mysterious Damiel are the focus of all the girls in the school, but Mia is wary of them. When she agrees to go on a date with Damiel, she discovers that he is actually a demon hunting her. Michael saves her and tells her some of their past.

Michael devotes his time to protecting Mia from Damiel, but being around him tempts him to his limits.

Lisa Voisin weaves a captivating story that is more than just your typical angel/mortal love story. With religious details and unexpected twists, The Watcher is much more than what you would expect.



Some personal thoughts on the book (SPOILERS INCLUDED):

Despite the originality, a part of me still hates the "fallen angel love story" cliche, so that was difficult to get past. And though the mating aspect was necessary for the context of the story,  it still made me uncomfortable.
At one point, Mia finds out that Michael cheated on her with another girl. She gets very upset, but not because of the fact that he slept with another girl. Honestly, it seemed like she couldn't care less about that. She cried merely because she couldn't have sex with Michael right then. How stupid is that? Or maybe that's just my opinion...
However, I loved the fact that despite Michael and Mia being super attracted to each other and Michael's sin being lust that he could hardly control, the two managed to stay together and "behave." I have no idea what the rest of the series will bring, but I really liked this aspect of the story and it was definitely a welcome change from all the other YA romance novels like this that are out there.

**I received this book from Netgalley in exchange for my review

The Passion of Dolssa by Julie Berry

Young and gentle Dolssa is fearlessly and passionately devoted to her Beloved. When the inquisitors hear of her faith and popularity among the people in her village, they demand that she stop telling them about the love of Jesus, accusing her of blasphemy and heresy. Boldly refusing, she faces execution at the stake, but miraculously escapes. On the run, she is found by Botille, a young woman running a tavern with her sisters. Botille helps keep Dolssa hidden from the inquisitors and the two girls form a bond of friendship.

Based on true events, Julie Berry creates a beautiful story of devotion to one's beliefs and friends.

I loved this book. Julie Berry is my favourite author, and the story she wove for this novel is beautiful. I don't always enjoy historical novels, but of course Julie Berry did an amazing job.

Goodreads | Amazon | Barnes and Noble | Julie Berry's Website

Marked in Ink by Megan Massacre

Four Stars

Believe it or not, this is my first "adult" colouring book. I've seen them in the stores but never actually got the chance to try one. So when this book came up on the list of review books, I was really excited.

The images in the book for you to colour are really creative, with different patterns and styles of art to inspire just about anyone. The theme is tattoo designs, so there are many elaborate images as well as simple ones. As soon as I opened the package, I took out my special markers my dad gave me and started colouring.


My only complaint is that with some of the images, there isn't much of a variety. We have a mermaid, a cat, a bat, a dog, and a set of daggers (along with many others), and then half of the selection is different versions of skulls. I get it - skulls are popular tattoo designs. But when every other page in the book is a full-page skull, it gets kind of old.

The design of the product itself is beautiful - full colour images on the cover, thick pages that tear out to make colouring easier, and even a special page to write your name and colour a design around it. There are maybe about 30-40 different things to colour, including the design on the front cover of the book (though I don't know if I can do that after seeing what the artist was able to do...).

**I received this book free from Blogging for Books in exchange for my honest review.

Amazon | Goodreads | Barnes and Noble | Walmart | Megan Massacre

Release Day Celebration: The Perilous Journey of The Much Too Spontaneous Girl by Leigh Statham

The Perilous Journey of the Much-Too-Spontaneous Girl by Leigh Statham

Presented by Month9Books

Be sure to enter the giveaway at the end of the post!

Lady Marguerite Vadnay and her trusty automaton, Outil, have settled into life in New France rather well. Marguerite is top of the class at flight school and her future as an aerpilot is nearly secure. She has everything she wants— except a commission on the pirate hunting dirigible The Renegade. Using every card in her aristocratic arsenal, Marguerite wiggles her way onto the finest warship France has to offer. But as usual, Marguerite’s plans endanger the lives of those she holds dear— only this time no one else is going to save them. As Marguerite and Outil set off on a rescue mission they may not return from, she finally realizes it’s time to reorder her cogs.

This steampunk adventure is littered with facts from The Golden Age of Piracy and follows (not too closely) some of the lives and adventures of the brave men and women who sailed the seas as privateers, pirates and soldiers.

The Perilous Journey Of The Much Too Spontaneous Girl (The Perilous Journey of the Not So Innocuous Girl #2) by Leigh Statham

Publication Date: September 20, 2016

Publisher: Month9Books

Goodreads

Purchase Links:

Google Play | BAM | Chapters | Indies | Amazon | B&N | Kobo |TBD | iBooks

Don't forget to read the first book!

Lady Marguerite lives a life most 17th century French girls can only dream of: Money, designer dresses, suitors and a secure future. Except, she suspects her heart may be falling for her best friend Claude, a common smithie in the family’s steam forge. When Claude leaves for New France in search of a better life, Marguerite decides to follow him and test her suspicions of love. Only the trip proves to be more harrowing than she anticipated. Love, adventure and restitution await her, if she can survive the voyage.

Giveaway Information: Contest ends October 7, 2016

• One (1) winner will receive a scrabble tile book cover charm (US ONLY)
• Five (5) winners will receive a digital copy of books 1 and 2 in the Perilous Journey of the Not So Innocuous Girl series by Leigh Statham (INT)

Click here to enter!

Author Leigh Statham

The Raft by S. A. Bodeen

I couldn't get past chapter 4...the writing was meh and Robie is so stupid.

She's staying with her aunt in Honolulu, but her aunt has to go somewhere for a while, so Robie stays at the apartment. A friend of the aunt is supposed to check in on her, but then something comes up and the lady can't. Robie decides not to tell her aunt that no one will look out for her, and then goes into near-hysterics later that night, convinced that a drunk man who grabbed her on the street has followed her home and is trying to break into the apartment. And before she gets inside, she realizes she lost the keys and breaks down crying in the hallway. Even after all this, she won't call her aunt or anyone in the city. She attempts to call her parents, but the phone line won't connect to the island they live on.
Tired of being alone and scared, she books a flight back home to Midway...without telling anyone. And it's not a professional passenger flight, either - it's a cargo flight, which means no one in the world knows but the pilot...
So when the plane goes down, no one knows to come rescue her...

And that's honestly all I know from what I read because it was just so...ugh

Punderdome: A Card Game for Pun Lovers

Great fun for frequent punners...difficult for normal people

Puns are great. And annoying sometimes. But still pretty great. Everyone loves making dumb puns to make their friends groan, and everyone dreads hearing those dumb puns from said friends.

Like Apples to Apples and Cards Against Humanity, Punderdome features two sets of cards - and all of those cards come with a Pun Question on the back (aka a bad joke). The first person to answer the question correctly receives points, and the best pun for the Apples to Apples-type cards gets to keep the card. First person to 10 cards wins.

Another weird feature that doesn't make much sense is that the "host" must put prizes in the mystery envelopes to give to the winner. The idea is that one is a good prize, and the other is a dumb joke - the winner hoping to pick the right envelope. (For example: A drink on me vs. a dirty napkin)

The idea of this game sounds really fun, but in reality, I found it very difficult to think of puns to go with the prompts. Like, who can think of a pun for "Outer Space" and "Farming" off the top of their head? And then continue to do that for a bunch of other random match-ups? Maybe I'm just really bad at making up puns, but I can't...

**I received this free for review from Blogging for Books

The Walking Dead, Vol. 01: Days Gone By

Last semester at my college, I took a Zombies honors course from my English department, and one of the requirements was to watch the first two seasons of The Walking Dead. Of course I couldn't stop there, so I watched the other seasons as well and am currently waiting for the next one to come out. (Comment your theories about the finale below!)

I've been interning at my town's library this summer and while there are lots of things to do, there are also many times when I have nothing really to do, so I have started going through the comic books.

This comic wasn't bad, but I think it went WAY too fast. Compared to the show, the first volume is basically all of Season 1, plus an event or two from later seasons that happen as well. There is not much time for character development, especially with three of the main characters already dead by the end of the book.
The entire series is told from Rick's point of view, so we won't get to see anything like Morgan almost shooting his dead wife or things like that. Rick is the only character we know anything about, really, and we don't know that much. Some facts, but personality-wise, we know next to nothing.
By the end of Volume 1, ***SPOILER*** Amy, Jim, and Shane are already dead. ***END SPOILER*** We don't really get to see much of Amy and Andrea's relationship, and we don't see Shane's character development and his decent into madness. In the comic, Carol's husband has died already and there are quite a few characters in the camp that were not in the show...and we still don't really know anything about them. Meryl isn't in the story causing problems, and, as most people know, neither is Daryl. Rick teaches everyone in the camp to use a gun right off the bat, so we don't see much of the fight between Rick and Lori about Carl learning to shoot, and we don't see Andrea's development into a stronger character.
One thing I do like about this version is that there aren't any characters playing the race card. In the show, we saw the conflict between Meryl and T-Dog mostly due to racism, but since neither of them are in the comics, and everyone in the camp is white (Glenn being Asian-American). Though the fact that there aren't any black characters in the camp might be another issue, we don't have the discrimination or superiority that we have to deal with in the show. While this can be an important issue to address, I think it can also detract from the story, and in this situation, I am glad it was not included.

As of right now, I do plan on continuing the series...when I can find volume 2...someone has it out from the library right now...


To watch AMC's The Walking Dead, visit their website or Netflix. Or check your local library or bookstore for the DVD collections.