REVIEW || Last Light by CJ Lyons

*** I was approached by the author with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. This in no way influences my thoughts and opinions.***

In this novel, we follow Lucy, a former FBI agent who has been given the opportunity to lead an office-based task force solving crimes from the past. Which is great for Lucy really. During her FBI days, she and her family were targeted by a violent predator, leaving Lucy with a life-altering injury. However, when Lucy hears of the case her taskforce are trying to crack, she can't resist going back out onto the open road to try and crack the case. Along with her team, Lucy tries to solve the case of a murder from 29 years prior, which sees her travel to rural Texas to discover who actually murdered Lily Martin and her family. As she and TK, a former Marine who struggles with her life transition from action to rural life, do the field work in Texas, not all is as it seems in Blackwell County, and the further the investigation develops, the more foul play arises.

*This review may contain spoilers*

I've been updating my status a lot on Goodreads as and when I find something incredibly interesting happening in the plot, which actually turns out to be the majority of the time! These updates can be found here (granted, they are short and snappy and trying to predict the killer but still, "called it!").

I don't know why I didn't pick this up sooner. It's fast-paced, action around every corner and has an average reading speed time of roughly 3 hours on Kindle. That's an afternoon. Not long at all! The book reminded me of a crime series episode (take your pick, an hour long, typical setup), which kept my attention well and could be paused at any time. It was so easy to pick back up again after setting down, that I had no concern over leaving it a few days just because I 'wasn't in the mood for reading' (it happens to the best of us).

***SPOILERS***

I adored the character development throughout the book, with perhaps the most surprising development coming from TK. I expected her to be a hard nut to crack, constantly fighting this imaginary battle in her head. However, when she met David, it was easily noticeable that she softened ever so slightly. He taught her to ease up a little and not take things so serious, got her to unwind at the bar, although it did end in arrest! The fact that the novel went from being all about solving the crime to also solving TK's own personal crisis was a wonderful touch from the author also.

***SPOILERS END***

Overall, I'm going to give this novel 4 out of 5 stars. Watching character developments as the novel unfolded was extremely fascinating, and I found myself understanding and relating to almost every single character in one way or another - even the bad ones! An excellent start to what I hope will be a substantial crime thriller series!

Being Ruthless

If there's one thing I've learnt so far in 2016, it's that life is too short. Far too short. In the midst of family issues, and celebrities dropping like flies, along with career alterations and just life in general, I've started to focus on things that matter the most to me, and spending more time doing the things I love. Whilst this includes reading, some 'light' crafting, and filming for my YouTube channel and writing blog posts, it also means spending time with family, fiance, and friends.

So what does this mean for my blog and YouTube?

Absolutely nothing.

As soon as I finish a book, I'll be posting a collective review of my thoughts and feelings surrounding the book, its plot, characters etc. I'll still be posting videos as and when I can, with hopefully a variety of content.

But what about my reading?

Well, that's actually what I wanted to talk about in this post to be honest. I've FINALLY decided to make the executive decision of being ruthless toward my reading. I have such a huge TBR pile that it just has to be done. So how am I going to do it?

It's simple. If I'm reading a physical book, I'll give it 3 chapters, or between 30 and 50 pages, depending on what I reach first. If the book seems promising and I'm enjoying it, I'll see it out. If it isn't tickling my fancy, it'll have until the 50 page mark to redeem itself, or else it will be going on my DNF pile. If I'm reading an eBook, it will have between 10 and 20%, depending on the size of the book. If the book is large, I'll apply the 50 page rule, as long as my kindle has the page number option available. If not, it'll have up to 30% to redeem itself, or else I will be leaving it unfinished, It's a shame to have to be strict on myself and my reading, but when I have such a busy schedule, along with a continuous growth spurt of my TBR, it has to be done.

Have any of you had to be ruthless with your TBR? Or with anything else for that matter? If you have any more tips or tricks about being ruthless, let me know down below!

See you all soon with another post!

REVIEW || Flawed by Cecelia Ahern

***this book was received as an eArc in exchange for an honest review***

You want honest?

I've never read Cecelia Ahern.

Now, I'm well aware of just how popular her works are and how successful a writer she actually is. So when I heard she was venturing out of her usual writing realm and diving into YA, I thought 'good for her'. Well, you can only imagine my surprise at seeing her new novel available on the eArc site I use. I snapped that bad boy up.

So what is Flawed about exactly? Well, we follow Celestine, our main female character who is 17 years old. Lives with her parents and siblings, straight A student with an amazing boyfriend. One problem. There's this thing called the Guild. The Guild are there to protect the community, by preventing corruption and dishonesty in leaders BEFORE it has a chance to happen. How? They monitor your every move. If you do something morally or ethically wrong through any of your actions, you get punished, and are seen as flawed. The punishment is simple. You are branded - with a hot iron just like cows no less- in one of five places, depending on your sentencing. Those places each have a different meaning, and being flawed and branded restricts your freedoms and corrupts your quality of life. So what exactly does this have to do with Celestine, our seemingly perfect female lead? Well, she's faced with a rather tough decision, and whatever path she follows for that decision has grave consequences...

This book is phenomenal for a first time venture into YA fiction from an author outside the field. Throughout my goodreads updates, I found myself going through the motions with Celestine. When she was scared, I was scared for her. When she was worried, I was too. And so on. One thing I didn't like however, is that this is part of a series. The ending clearly leaves the series open to a number of different directions, but I felt it didn't have the closure I usually prefer, which naturally would come from a standalone piece.

Overall, I'm rating the book 4 out of 5 stars. I may pick up the sequel (if I remember to), but if not, I can leave the series knowing that I have been pleasantly surprised by yet another novel, with an ending open to interpretation for myself.

Have you read this book? Let me know down below and we can chat about it! (I promise I'm going to try harder with comment replies!)

Why I Love my Kindle.

Okay, so I know that there's probably a billion different blog posts on the Amazon Kindle,  or it's various products including the Kindle Fire, PaperWhite and the original Kindle, so yep, I'm writing another one.


Just about everybody has heard of an Amazon Kindle, or owns one themselves. And if the figures are anything to go by - a staggering 64 million e-book purchases between January and September of 2014 (figures found in this article) - pretty much everyone will have read a book in their format, or know someone who has. If this is in fact true, then why do people seemingly scoff, or scrunch their faces up at me, when I tell them that the Kindle is my tablet of choice?

Kindles run on the Android system, just like the Samsung/Sony/HTC/pretty much anything except Apple products. Yet I know people who swear by Android as they 'cant get away' with using Apple products, but they still own an iPad that they treat like their baby, or an additional limb. So really, what is the issue?

Personally, I believe there are a number of things about it to make you fall in love with a Kindle. For example, it's the device that was created for e-books. Its initial purpose was to support PDF and e-book formats in the best possible way, to allow more people more access to their books on the go, rather than lugging their War and Peace novels around with them (believe me, it's actually pretty hard, speaking from experience). However, the thing I think I love the most about my Kindle (a Kindle Fire), is its versatility. One minute, it's a book, the next a game, or an App, or a different book! But then it becomes a film, or it becomes music. The only thing that my Kindle lacks, is a camera. However, that is because my Kindle is the version before the ones with the cameras installed. But that really doesn't bother me. I'm more than content just flipping between my apps and my books.

I think that's just about it for now. However, I will be posting again in the near future regarding my Kindle! Next time, it wont just be me declaring my love for an e-reader, it will actually be two posts comprising of the books I own on my Kindle, how much I paid for them, and whether I've actually read them yet!

Just a quick last note about those future blog posts - the unread HEAVILY outweighs the read books on my Kindle!