The Sookie Stackhouse Challenge
I’ve completed yet another reading challenge! I finished reading the last of my Sookie Stackhouse book two days ago. I loved Sookie! As for the male protagonists, I can't decide who I liked more: Eric or Bill. I kept yoyo-ing between the two. I think I might settle for Bill (haha!). If you have no idea what I'm going on about, Eric and Bill are the two male vampires in Sookie's life—lucky girl. But not so lucky […]
Star Sapphire
STAR SAPPHIRE by Han May was brought to my attention by Jo Lau, a new friend I met at a blog event in Malaysia. I didn’t expect to enjoy this sci-fi novel as much as I thought I would, but now I’m glad I read it because STAR SAPPHIRE is great!
The novel feels different from the novels I have read and it does have a more local flavor to it. I cannot quite articulate how I feel about it but I think it is the way it’s written; yet, it touches me and draws me into the story. I found myself eager to know what would happen to Yva Yolan (the female protagonist who is half human, half alien) and the important people she crosses path with when she accepted the job onboard the spaceship Star Sapphire.
There Yva meets with the two main male characters, […]
If Only in My Dreams
IF ONLY IN MY DREAMS by Wendy Markham is my first book by the author and I liked it very much. The female protagonist Clara McCallum has just landed a huge part starring in a WWII film as a woman in love with a doomed soldier named Jed Landry. At the same time she’s also diagnosed with breast cancer, which leaves her devastated. While filming, she’s magically transported back in time to 1941 where she meets the real-life Landry; it takes her some time before she realizes that she’s no longer on the set but the real thing.
Garden Spells
GARDEN SPELLS by Sarah Addison Allen is a book I owned since July last year but only started reading this year. It is an enchanting story of two Waverley women of Bascom, North Carolina. The sisters, Claire and Sydney, were abandoned by their mother when they were young and brought up by their grandmother. Like the magic in this story, the pages of this novel turned effortlessly too.
Claire is the center of the story and she is very much a reserved woman.
Hari Raya Haji with My Taxi Driver’s Family
Hasan, my taxi driver invited me to his house today to celebrate Hari Raya Haji. He lives just across the road from my apartment. At 10 a.m. his wife and almost-2-year-old daughter were waiting for me downstairs at their block and ushered me up to their home. They are no strangers to me because sometimes they accompany him when he fetches me or his other customers.
The phone in the house rang. When she’d hung up, she informed Hasan called and sent his apologies for not being there because he has customers. Public holidays are the best time for additional income, I remember he told me this some time ago.
I’m bowled over by the simplicity of their living space. No furniture—[...]
Dogs and Goddesses
If you like stories with dogs and interesting men, you would like this novel. I sure did! DOGS AND GODDESSES is a fun read, full of smart dialogues and dogs that talk. You would understand dog-talk after taking the temple tonics offered by the risen-again ancient goddess, Kammani Gula, as in the case of the three female protagonists in the story.
Abby Richmond, Daisy Harris and Shar Summer are three women who crossed path at a local dog obedience-training school. The dog trainer is the now-risen Mesopotamian goddess Kammani […]
Let the Right One In
The story begins in Part One on 21 October 1981 and ends in Part Five on Friday 13 November. A lot happen in that slightly more than three weeks’ time—dark and disturbing. I am glad I read the book because it is so different from the vampire books I have devoured (oh yes, I’m quite fond of vampires and the paranormal world).
LET THE RIGHT ONE IN is about a child vampire living in Blackeberg in the suburb of Stockholm, Sweden. But this child, Eli, is actually a 200-year-old vampire [...]
Savor the Moment (Book Three in the Bride Quartet)
SAVOR THE MOMENT by Nora Roberts is the third book in the Bride Quartet. In the Bride Quartet, we meet childhood friends Parker, Emma, Laurel, and Mac, and their love stories. Together, they are the co-owners of Vows, a wedding planning company.
In Book 3, we savor the love and tension between wedding baker Laurel McBane and Ivy League lawyer Delaney "Del" Brown who also happens to be Parker’s older brother. Parker’s story will be the last one in the quartet, Happy Ever After.
Laurel has had a mega crush on Parker’s older brother Del for the longest time from childhood.
Page 69
"Marshall McLuhan, the guru of The Gutenberg Galaxy (1962), recommends that the browser turn to page 69 of any book and read it. If you like that page, buy the book. It works. Rule One, then: browse powerfully and read page 69."
The above is an extract from John Sutherland's HOW TO READ A NOVEL: A User's Guide.
Interview with Author Joan Hon
Today, I have the great honor of hosting an interview with Joan Hon, a remarkable author and academician. Besides writing books, she also taught Physics to Junior College students and mentored Olympiad students in one of Singapore’s top Junior Colleges.
The Penang-born Singaporean author, already in her sixties, was here in Penang on Tuesday, October 12 to share about her journey as an author. The engaging Book Talk was held at Precious Ones Collections. Now she shares more on my blog! She wrote a science-fiction romance STAR SAPPHIRE (1985) under the pseudonym Han May, which won a High Commendation Award from the Book Development Council of Singapore in 1986, the same year she was awarded a Commendation prize for her book RELATIVELY SPEAKING on her father and childhood memories in Penang. Please join me in welcoming Joan Hon!
Joan Hon Book Talk
I’ll be taking a day off from work on 12 October to attend a book talk and meet with author Joan Hon. Such bookish events are rare in my part of the world (Malaysia), so when Jo Lau contacted me about the author, I was excited! The Internet brought Jo and I together in July this year in a blog event. She is a Singaporean living in Penang with her husband. Jo told me she found me through my blog and I’m really glad!
Here’s more on the bookish event: […]
Mockingjay
I loved EVERYTHING about this series, and particularly, MOCKINGJAY, the last book of the trilogy. Brilliant plot, lots of action, plenty of suspense. It’s such a page-turner. Terrible, brutal truths are revealed in this installment. It is shocking to learn of the things the Capitol did or will do to the victors of the Hunger Games where children fight to the death. It turns out that Katniss and Peeta are not the only ones plagued with problems. You will learn more as the story unfolds.
What will it take to break Katniss Everdeen?
Special of the Day
SPECIAL OF THE DAY by Elaine Fox is a charming and witty story with an interesting male character named Steve Serrano. Steve is not just a handsome and charismatic bartender, he is also a smart guy who is a regular at the Library of Congress!
The pub where Steve works has been bought over by a lady and he knows where she lives: in the same building as his. With good intention to welcome his new neighbor, he goes to visit her at her apartment with a very good bottle of wine. Here is where things go wrong right at the very start.
Driven to Ink: A Tattoo Shop Mystery
DRIVEN TO INK by Karen E. Olson is the third book in the A Tattoo Shop Mystery series. The protagonist, Brett Kavanaugh, is a female tattooist who owns her own tattoo shop, The Painted Lady.
The series can be read as a standalone. No, you do not have to read the books in sequence, but if you do, you would most definitely benefit from knowing who Brett Kavanaugh and her friends are, and appreciate them more.
Girl, Interrupted
GIRL INTERRUPTED is a memoir that is all of these: Poignant. Funny. Optimistic. Fascinating. Stirring. It is heartbreaking and it is memorable. It drew me in immediately and got me hooked like drug.
In 1967, eighteen-year-old Susanna Kaysen was put into a taxi and sent to McLean Hospital to be treated for depression. There she met with the other girls in the psychiatric ward: […]
Dead Men’s Dust
DEAD MEN’S DUST, the first Joe Hunter thriller is a good read. Joe is a former Special Forces soldier who has worked 14 years as a counter-terrorism agent. The book has the necessary ingredients that make a good thriller, but it did not excite me as much as Lee Child’s Jack Reacher.