I read some books recently, some with high expectations, others with low or none – and the results were surprising!

Murder Between Friends (Liz Lawson)

Went into this book with Absolutely no context, hadn’t heard of it before, and wasn’t sure what to expect. I really enjoyed it. Even though I piece together bits and pieces of the story as I went through the book, I didn’t piece it all together in the correct order until the end. I was invested in the mystery, trying to figure out what was going on as I went through and was actually quite engaged. After reading a lot of books in a similar genre, I wasn’t sure if it would keep me engaged. It did.
The characters were very much acting like teenagers, but that’s the point in a YA book. I didn’t mind too much, though I did find Ally was very angry a lot of this book. It did kind of grate on me, and I also thought that Grace was a lot of a pushover all the way through as well, which also grated on me. Some of this book was written really well, the mystery in particular was fantastic. Character wise it was fine, I’m not a teenager so some of that is going to naturally not be as easy to connect to any more. Having said that, I still thought it was really well done.

The 49th Mystic (Ted Dekker)

I’m really of two minds with this story. On one hand, I see the deep theological concepts at work. On the other side though, I see some of what appears to be closer to New Age understanding. I don’t know how to marry the two together. I always thought that the Circle world looked a little too deeply into the demonic side (particularly the fourth instalment). I’m not saying that there wasn’t Christian themes and theology in the story – because you could find it in there, but a lot of what was explored felt less biblical/gospel related like the Circle series was originally, and a lot more of that “spiritual” kind. I always feel a bit squirmy in some of the exploration of the darker side of these books.
The story itself, I found to be quite interesting. I liked that Rachelle was trying to work through the idea of being blind both physically and spiritually. There were some very interesting themes that were explored and I liked the concept of the city of Eden. I was tossing up with the rating whether it would be higher or not, but I think that I was left with the feeling of unease more so than contemplation as is often the case with Dekker books. Having said that, there were moments that I was challenged in my own understanding, and my own situation. We can all be blind sometimes to things in our lives, but I think we need to weigh up a story like this with the Scriptures.

How To Lose A Lord in 10 Days (Sophie Irwin)

4 Stars

Mixture of how to lose a guy in 10 days and pride and prejudice. It was really fun, and this period of history in writing does not usually appeal to me. This was one of the exceptions. I am so glad I read this book, it was so much fun. I loved the back and forth, the one upmanship, and The absolute chaos. It was too fun to watch these characters interact, and how things unfolded.

The Frugal Wizard’s Handbook (Brandon Sanderson)

4.5 stars

I wasn’t going to read this book, but when I started it just to check it out briefly I couldn’t stop.

It was funny, interesting and kept me engaged the whole way through. This was a prime example of the amnesia storyline done well. I’m not usually a fan of mediaeval timelines, or anything to do with wizardry, but there was honestly not really any magic in that way. I also enjoyed the mediaeval time, mostly because it had people from a little further in our time technology wise.

I enjoyed discovering our main character as he kept going through the series, and how he interacted with everyone as he went through it.

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While some books were nice surprises, others were disappointing, but that’s the nature of books. Sometimes you like them, and sometimes you don’t.

See You in the Adventures!
Christy Grace