Mara Dyer Trilogy

Here's the reviews for the Mara Dyer trilogy by Michelle Hodkin! They are not that great because I read them last month and it kinda made it difficult to separate the two stories 🙊 

But here they are and I hope I did alright... If not then you will get more information on goodreads or other pages 😉

The Evolution of Mara Dyer

The Retribution of Mara Dyer

The Sunrise - Victoria Hislop

The Sunrise is the first book I have read by Victoria Hislop so I didn't know what to expect from her. I got this book as a present from my parents few years ago and if it wasn't for them I don't think I would have had bought this for myself. The blurb sounds great, but not really my kind of book. After diving into it, I got surprised. I actually liked it! I think want to check out more of her books tbh :)

The Blurb:
Cyprus, 1972.
Famagusta is the Mediterranean's most desirable resort, a city bathed in the glow of good fortune. An ambitious couple open the island's most spectacular hotel, where Greek and Turkish Cypriots work in harmony.

Two neighbouring families, the Georgious and the Özkans, are among many who moved to Famagusta to escape years of unrest and ethnic violence elsewhere on the island. But beneath the city's façade of glamour and success, tensions is building.

When a Greek coup plunges the island into chaos, Cyprus faces a disastrous conflict. Turkey invades to protect the Turkish Cypriot minority, and Famagusta is shelled. Forty thousand people seize their most precious possessions and flee from the advancing soldiers.

In the deserted city, just two families remain.
This is their story.

My Thoughts:
I started writing this review early December last year and I think it's time to maybe finish it? Yup..

I don't remember much since I finished reading it over a month ago so this might be a short review. My apologies.

When I jumped into this book I immediately found out that this was not my type of book. Not much happened and it was all about this hotel called The Sunrise and all that rich interior that was in it and in the end I was like: yeah.. I get that now.. it's a wonderful (and really expensive) hotel! And the characters... I like books with main characters from the start, but this one started with how glorious this hotel was and didn't really know who the characters were. But! After some chapters, when things actually started to happen and the characters became more "present", I actually started to enjoy this book very much. There was lots of drama, tragedies, loss, betrayal.. you name it. Talking about the lack of characters in the beginning, there turned out to be a quite few of those after a few chapters, so you had to remember which character belonged to whom. It got bit confusing, but still managed somehow to connect them to "their right family" 😛

After Turkey invades Famagusta, two families decides to stay behind because of their sons who's been gone/missing right before the whole invading started. It's not only those to families you get to read about. There's also a couple - the couple who owns The Sunrise - that is a part of this story as well. Their escape from Famagusta and how they survive the travel and stuff. Not going to reveal to much! It was a thrill read (in the end) and you do get a little bit attached to some of the characters.

All in all, I'm glad that I didn't give up reading The Sunrise to be honest. Because it was so, so much better than I thought it would be.

And that's it. That's the only things I remember at the moment.

Bye!

3/5

Two more books

Gonna run out of place preetty quick if I continue to buy more books...
Oh well! These books have actually been on my desk for over a week now, but I haven't had the time nor energy to sit down and write tbh. Been in a zombie mode for a while..

Until now.. Hello!

So here we are again! New books (and less space left in my bookshelf)! I did actually have some kind of a reason for purchasing these two books though😛 They might sound weird but in my head these reasons sounded perfectly reasonable at the time. Almost..

The Dreaming Void by Peter F. Hamilton
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (The original screenplay) by J. K. Rowling

Book #1: Lack of space for new english books in the store - Bought this one to get at least some space that I could fit some of the new ones. Did not take one just to get some space, I actually wanted to check it out as well so it was a "win-win" situation (and also a reason to buy a book)..

Book #2: Was the first to unpack these gorgeous looking copies of Fantastic Beasts at work - Bought one in case we ended up selling everyone by the end of the day. Turned out this was not as popular as the other HP book.. we still got plenty left in stock. But hey! At least I got one 😛

Excuses, excuses.. I know, but.. you know.. it sounded reasonable enough in my head😆


And that's the end of the last blog entry for today. Hopefully it won't be long till the next entry. I am currently reading The Sunrise by Victoria Hislop so there will be a new review up soon-ish. Gonna try and write it the same day I finish reading the book unlike the other review that took me almost 2 weeks to write. It's up now though so.. better late than never..?

Bye! xx

Daughter - Jane Shemilt

I actually started on this review almost two weeks ago, but haven't had the time nor energy to finish it (been in a zombie mode this passed week so all the energy I have had, I used on my daily drawings..)😴

Anyway... back to the review!😉

Daughter was the first book I've read by Jane Shemilt. I didn't know that much about this book before I started, but I was not that disappointed 😊 

The Blurb:

The night of the disappearance

She used to tell me everything.

They have a picture. It'll help.

But it doesn't show the way her hair shines so brightly it looks like sheets of gold.

She smells very faintly of lemons.

She bites her nails.

She never cries.

She loves autumn, I wanted to tell them. She collects leaves, like a child does. She is just a child.

FIND HER

One year later

Naomi is still missing. Jenny is a mother in the brink of obsession. The Malcolm family is in pieces.

Is finding the truth about Naomi the only way to put them back together?

Or is the truth the thing that will finally tear them apart?

My Thoughts:

Like I said in the beginning of this review, I started writing this review almost two weeks ago which means that it's been around two weeks since I read this book. So.. I might have forgotten some of the things that happened in this story, but I will try my best!🙊

So this is one of the typical disappearance stories about someone who's missing and the mother (or another family member or someone else) who wants to find the truth of what happened that horrible night. And it also got this mysteriousness to it that keeps people like me wanting to find out more and ends up reading the whole book 😛  There's also a twist in the end as it usually is with these kind of stories.

The story changed between the past (the days before the disappearance and after) and present (round a year later). I know I've said something like this before, but the way the chapters changed between then and now was not as confusing as it can be when it comes to these kind of stories. I did go back once to almost at the beginning to check something out that turned up at the near of the book, but that was it 😛

I can say that the ending was quite a surprise. I did not see that coming at all! I had some suspicions in my head, but this ending was not one of them. I was not that disappointed either about the end. I actually want to know what happens next, but I know I will never find out. I think. 

All in all, this was a nice and suspenseful thriller with a huge twist at the end and (like I said) I was not disappointed! I will definitely check out more of her books one day😊 

And that's the end of this review! Can't think of anything else to say so this is it. 

Bye! x

(I'm going to upload a new blog entry pretty soon that was also supposed to be up a while ago.. whoopsie!)

(Also..just discovered the emojis that's been added recently as you probably have noticed by now 😛)

Currently reading - The Sunrise by Victoria Hislop

On the Other Side - Carrie Hope Fletcher

On the Other Side is Carrie Fletcher's debut novel (apart from her biography called All I Know Now). I found out about her through her brother, Tom (from McFly, my all time favourite band) some years ago and been watching her yt channel and stuff since then. When she announced that she was writing a book, I was excited to see how it would turn out! And here I am, writing my review on her book :)

The Blurb:
Your soul is too heavy to pass through this door: Leave the weight of the world in the world from before.

Evie Snow is eighty-two when she quietly passes away in her sleep, surrounded by her children and grandchildren. It's the way most people wish to leave the world, but when Evie reaches the door of her own private heaven, she finds that she's become her twenty-seven-year-old self and the door won't open.

Evie's soul must be light enough to pass through so she needs to get rid of whatever is making her soul heavy. For Evie, this means unburdening herself of the three secrets which have weighed her down for over fifty years, so she must find a way to reveal them before it's too late. As Evie begins the journey of a lifetime, she learns more about life and love than she ever though possible, and somehow, some way she may also find her way back to the only man she ever truly loved...

Powerful, magical and utterly romantic, On the Other Side will transport you to a world that is impossible to forget. This is a love story like no other which will have you weeping because of the sheer joy and beauty of it all.

My Thoughts:
This was such a lovely novel! I got sad, angry (at her mother in particular and the tradition the family had.. grrr! What a cold mother she was!) and happy reading about Evie and the other characters in this story. I also had tears in my eyes at one point! The story between Evie and this guy called Vincent (you get to know him after few chapters so no spoilers there) was so sweet, and romantic and also sad. The things she had to let go because of reasons I'm not going to say was devastating.

I liked the way the chapters were divided into different sections between the three secrets she had to let go of. The chapters were divided between Evie's "afterlife" (how she ended up there, what she had to do to reach these people to get to the other side), the past (were we find out what happened when she was young and in love) and the present (the people she have to tell her secrets to). It sounds like it could be bit difficult to follow because of the timelines, but it wasn't. She did a great job with that :) There were also chapters were you first read about one person and in the middle of the page, you end up reading from another character's perspective, which also sound confusing, but wasn't :P (this whole explanations of the chapters sounds confusing to understand....oh well)

There were also moments when I had to read the same things over and over again to figure out wether some of the things that happened was a metaphor or if it literally happened. Like, for example:"my face turned into stone", is it just a metaphor or did my face literally got turned into stone?... (weird example, but you know..) So there were few times were I just sat there and didn't know if there was some magic involved or not :P Other than that, I really liked the way this story turned out. It had some disney-ish about it (like the surnames of the characters and some things that happened) and there was also a Once Upon a Time reference in there as well. I liked that :P

After finishing this, I'm pretty sure there was some real magic going on in there because of the things that happened :P

The ending was amazing and I had a huge grin on my face at the end of it (and maybe some happy tears). All in all, this is truly a wonderful "girlie book" were magic things happens and hearts gets broken. All in true disney style (that sounded weird but I wanted to write something like that so there it was). And maybe, just maybe, there's chance of a happy ending for Evie after all..? Who knows?

Guess you have to find out for yourself! ;)

I know this review sounds confusing and stuff, but I have a reason for that (for once)... I've been really tired today and my head has been a derpiederp all day (even at work I felt like I was a "walking dead"...you know.. the zombies, not the main characters) but I wanted to write this review today anyway so here it is :P

And here I am, signing off.

Bye! xxx

4/5
Next book to read: Daughter by Jane Shemilt

The Secret Keeper - Kate Morton

The Secret Keeper is the second book I've ever read by Kate Morton. I read The House At Riverton a while back ago and feel completely in love with that book. I'm glad my grandmother told me that I should read this right away. If she hadn't borrowed it from me few month ago, then it might have taken some time before I would pick it up (got lots of other books to read so..). But here we are and I was not disappointed at all!

The Blurb:
1961: On a sweltering summer's day, while her family picnics by the stream on their Suffolk farm, sixteen-year-old Laurel hides out in her childhood tree house dreaming of the bright future she can't wait to seize. But before the idyllic afternoon is over, Laurel will have witnessed a shocking crime that changes everything.

2011: Now a much-loved actress, Laurel finds herself overwhelmed by shades of the past. Haunted by memories, and the mystery of what she saw that day, she returns to her family home and begins to piece together a secret history: a tale of three strangers from vastly different world - Dorothy, Vivien and Jimmy - who are brought together by chance in wartime London and whose lives become fiercely and fatefully entwined.

Shifting between the 1930s, the 1960s and the present, The Secret Keeper is a spellbinding story of mysteries and secrets, murder and enduring love.

My Thoughts:
One thing..: How am I going to review this without any spoilers?! This is not going to be easy, mind you but I will try my very best to not spoil anything important!

Ok, first of all, what a book! After finishing the first chapter, I was hooked! Unfortunately my eyes thought otherwise.. which was frustrating. The reason why it took me so, so long to finish this book was because my eyes got tired pretty much in the middle of every single chapters. No matter how thrilling that chapter was, my eyes could barely keep themselves up. Argh! Maybe because the text was small or something.. I don't know.

Despite my tired eyes, I loved this book as much as I loved The House at Riverton. It was suspenseful, thrilling and all in all a great book to curl up with on a rainy day (or weeks in my case).

The characters had their own personalities and you felt like you got to know them well. The shifting from past and present, and between the characters was well written and didn't feel "messy". I liked the way the stories from the past kind of blended with the things Laurel found in present time. I didn't have to wait long for the meaning behind those findings and it still made me wanting to find out more about the life of her mother and also the other people that was part of her life one way or another.

And that ending. That was a huge twist right there! I literally had tears in my eyes reading the last page. I really, really want to spoil it all but I won't do it. You just have to read it yourself!

That's all I'm going to say. If you want to know more then.. well.. read it! (You can also ask me or look up more reviews online :P )

Bye! xx

5/5

Next book to read: On the Other Side by Carrie Hope Fletcher

Oh look! More books!

Like I said last time, no more promises about not buying any more books for a while. So here we are :P

It was half price on everything at work Wednesday evening so I decided to buy some books (you know... because it was 50% off... can't miss those deals, can ya? :P ) and I also bought a book yesterday when I was at work..for uhm.. research..*ahem*. So this week I ended up buying 6 more books to add to my collection. Three of those are in Norwegian and they are also some of the books I don't mind reading in my language. That also mean that I won't be doing any review on those since, you know, they're in Norwegian :P

Steinhimmelen by Karin Brunk Holmqvist
Rosa Elefanter by Karin Brunk Holmqvist
Kaffe med Musikk by Karin Brunk Holmqvist
Six of Crows (#1, Six of Crows) by Leigh Barduco
I Let You Go by Clare Mackintosh
Daughter by Jane Shemilt

Lots of things has happened these past few days with work and all so today I felt like I could sit down and write this blog post. I also finished The Secret Keeper by Kate Morton late last night so there will be one more post up pretty soon!


See ya!

Bye xx