Cute!

I was looking at pictures of goats online for a 3D model I was making and found this adorableness!

Lenobia's Vow: Book Review

5/5 Stars

Lenobia's Vow (Novella)
House of Night Series
By P.C. Cast
St Martin's Press (January 31, 2012)

Genre: YA Paranormal Romance

This story follows Lenobia, a horse mistress at the House of  Night Zoey is attending.  It takes place in the 1700's when Lenobia is but a teenager herself.  We discover she is a bastard child living on her father's estate as a servant girl.  Her mother is a very beautiful woman with grey eyes like her and her father desired her so much he had her brought from England to become his mistress.  There is much resentment from his real family towards Lenobia and her mother, and it doesn't help she bears a striking unmistakable resemblance to her half sister.  Her half sister that just fell ill and died, and no one outside of the property knows of yet.
Lenobia is pulled aside by her mother and told to flee the estate, away from a family that looks at her with disdain and a priest that looks at her in a very unpriestly manor.  There is a carriage about to arrive to take Cecile (Lenobia's half sister) to the docks, from the docks to a grand ship, and from that ship to the New World, New Orleans. Here Cecile's new husband awaits. Reluctantly Lenobia agrees to assume Cecile's life.   When the carriage arrives it dawns on Lenobia this the last time she will ever see her mother, and with a tearful goodbye they depart. Lenobia heads towards her new fake life; remembering her mother's words to be Cecile not to become Cecile. Now the only thing left to do is not get caught on the 8 week voyage to New Orleans.  But what Lenobia doesn't know is that something sinister is about to board the ship with her, and her life is going to change entirely in the most unexpected way.

Lenobia's Vow was a very quick read and not just because it's a novella.  It gives a little bit of background on Lenobia, one of Zoey's favourite teachers, and what had happened to her.  I would read this after you have caught up in the series because it gives background to her scars and also why she is so reluctant to fall in love, especially with a human.  If you love the series, and you like Lenobia's character, dive in! It's well written and a quick easy read.  The style in which it is written is a little different from her other books, but I think that it gives more character from Lenobia's perspective, and there is quite a bit of French text in it.  Most of it is repeated in English after they say it, and I was able to translate some of it myself (since I'm Canadian and they teach us french and I actually chose to learn it instead of staring at the ceiling not listening), but for those of you qui n'a pas etudier francais, you might want to google some of the words if it bothers you that much.

The Questing Beast: Ebook Review

4/5 Stars

The Questing Beast
By Ilona Andrews
Smashwords (May 16th, 2010)

Genre: Sci-fi 

Since it's a short I don't want to give too much away so I'll keep this as brief as possible. A small group of people are on a mysterious planet conducting research on its environment, and inhabitants; one of which are small furballs that eat metal so there are no laptops, no computers, no tv's, no internet for 2 years, all notes are taken by hand -ew. With 4 weeks left on the expedition sh** hits the fan and the only computer (which is really more like a server taking in information, sealed behind glass so the fuzzies can't eat it) get's a virus and all the data is corrupted.  Their only hope of not wasting two years of their life and salvaging the data is Nannybot (an odd robot that backs up information), which get's backed up one a week, so they're safe! Wrong. Someone else backed it up and now it's also infected with the virus, but Nannybot being an AI has made the virus infect it in an odd way.  Making it very hard to retrieve the data when the Nannybot is convinced it is a 14th centry knight who must capture the Questing Beast!

My Opinion:

Short and sweet just like the story!

I really like the way this short was written, and it was surprisingly funny.

Would I recommend this short? Yes! Would I read more books by this author? Yes!

Publishing Ebook How to: "I did it all by myself"

Now for the second instalment of creating your very own ebook. Last post I described what places you should plan on posting you book(s) on. Now I'm going to go into further details on how to do it.

If you have decided to go the route that is harder but makes you more money than doing it by yourself is the way to go.  Though you must keep in mind that some sites only allow aggregators to publish their books (ex Smashwords), like the Sony store.  If you’re American you’re in luck, you can publish (if you have the patience and requirements) at the iBookstore, Amazon.com is A LOT easier, and you can use PubIt! to publish on Barnes and Nobel. 

There is only one way to not take a loss and that is to have customers purchase your ebook off your webpage.  Quite a few people don’t have their own website and even less know how to throw a shopping cart on it.  I have my own webpage, but I don’t see the sense in making a shopping cart.  You might be asking yourself, why wouldn’t you want to make a 100% profit? My answer: Nobody knows who I am. why would they go to my site and buy me ebook? 

I think having your own site and own checkout is a great idea, but if you’re not established I don’t see it generating much income. If you’ve released a few ebooks and they are doing well then I would definitely consider this option and promote your website to your readers. Ex, put your website at the end of your ebooks, develop a fan page on facebook and tell your readers where to find your ebooks.

Now you have to decide where you want to release your ebook, the best thing to do is to release it on as many sites as possible. Please see my previous post for all the sites you can release it on.

Some tips:

Release your ebook for .99 cents (I know who wants all their hard work to get them less than a dollar, I sure don’t!) BUT people are much more likely to give an author they never heard of a chance for .99 cents.  Don’t fret though, you could set a goal for yourself like, if I sell 2,500 books I’m going to start selling my ebook at $1.99, and if your sales don’t drop after the price change you might say to yourself, if I sell 10,000 I’m going to change it to $2.99, etc, etc.  I wouldn’t go any higher than $3/4.99.

An Important thing to remember is once you start selling your ebooks don’t hike it up right away, you could deter people and then get less reviews than you want.  I am a strong believer in reviews if I see a book released with 300 reviews compared to one with 3 I am more likely to look at the 300 reviewed one, aren’t you?  SOMEONE out of those 300 is going to have a well detailed opinion, and we humans are drawn by popularity. We would trust a 4 star book with 300 reviews than a 5 star book with 3 reviews?

The more popular your book is the more popular it will become, period.  So don’t cut your books growth short too soon by hiking up the price to make a few extra dollars.

Option two (if you didn’t like the last option you’ll like this one even less) release your ebook for free and when it gets popular (set a goal for this two like maybe 10 reviews or 1,000 downloads or maybe just free for the first 2-4 weeks) start selling your ebook.  If you peeps have learned anything from my site, if it’s free I give it a go!

Next Wednesday: I'll be talking about converting you .doc to other files. 

77 Shadow Street : Book Review

4/5 Stars

77 Shadow Street
By Dean Koontz
Bantam (December 27th, 2011)

Genre: Horror, Sci-fi, Paranormal

It was odd reading this book, I'm not saying this as the content was odd or that there was something wrong with it, but that it had been so long that I'd read a book of this genre that that itself was odd.  It had been probably at least 6 months since I read one of his books (aside from picking up Lightning again to read it), and the last couple hadn't really been that scary more like a suspense than an actual horror.  It doesn't help either that most of the book I've been reading, while super natural aren't really scary or unnerving.  So I was a bit unprepared for this book.  When I first started to read 77 Shadow Street it was so creepy that I didn't even want to read it at night before I went to bed, I was afraid of having nightmares (sadly this happens often when I watch or read really scary stuff).  This is definitely one of his more chilling especially compared to what he's written lately. The story focuses multiple main characters from a soldier to a scientist, a song writer to a hitman, all destined for something terrible to happen.

Synopsis:

The Pentleton, an upscale apartment building that had been converted from a famous mansion, houses something dark and deadly, something that its about to unleash on its unsuspecting inhabitants.  Strange things begin to occur, things that can't be explained or comprehended.  A flicker here, a flicker there, the residents notice disturbing glimpses of alternate worlds, strange creatures, people that seem to be from a different era appear then disappear, and even the city disappears in a flash of lightning.  Something's not right.  But before the renters have a chance to understand what's happening, their world shifts and they're no longer in the Pentleton they live in, instead it has mutated in a landscape of nightmares.  Now they must band together or let this strange world devour them one by one.  77 Shadow Street is no longer their home but a homage to a future beyond disaster.

My Opinion:

It was refreshing to read such a scary novel by Koontz again, though most of his books follow human killers and sometimes mutated ones, few actually follow the theme of 'things that go bump in the night'.  This book is sure to leave you wanting to read during the daytime.  The creature creations he describes are disturbing to the say the least and the atmosphere so chilling it'll make your hairs stand on end.  If you're looking for something genuinely creepy this book will do it.  While it is not my favourite, it still had a very interesting concept, was of course wonderfully written, and had a shout out to Golden Retrievers at some point which is to be expected.  I would definitely recommend this book for others to read if this is a genre they enjoy, and as always I can't wait to see what he releases next!

His next book is scheduled to be released next month and it is the fifth in the Odd Thomas Series. I have yet to actually read this series, my sister read the first two and said it wasn't his best, but the series keeps on going. Makes me think if I should give it a go at some point. Possibly after I'm done reading the Frankenstein Series.

House of Night Series : Review

4.5/5 Stars

House of Night Series

By P.C. & Kristin Cast

St. Martin's Press

Genre: YA Paranormal Romance, Vampyre, Magick

Before I continue I have to say I'm excited to see that a film adaption is planned, yey! I think it'd be smarter to go the tv series route, but that would probably require a lot of unnecessary fluffing. So you either have movies that cut too much or TV shows that add stupid parts. Can't really win, since no one wants to make mini-series in NA. More info check out the wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Night

House of Night is a series of YA (young adult) Vampire books and novella's written by P.C. Cast and her daughter Kristin Cast. I had seen the covers to these books in grocery stores, drug stores, book stores etc... and I become intrigued because they were so lovely. I went to the library and picked up the first book Marked and read it within a few days. I then went back and grabbed as many books in the series as I could and within a month I read the series in its entirety. Since I read them before I started this blog and one consecutively after the other it's sort of turned into a big blob and I can't remember where one books ends and the other begins. Because of this I will dedicate this blog to the series and not the books individually. I will however give a short synopsis about the first book from Amazon:

Enter the dark, magical world of the House of Night, a world very much like our own, except here vampyres have always existed.

One minute, sixteen-year-old Zoey Redbird is a normal teenager dealing with everyday high school stress: her cute boyfriend Heath, the school’s star quarterback who suddenly seems more interested in partying than playing ball; her nosy frenemy Kayla, who’s way too concerned with how things are going with Heath; her uber-tough geometry test tomorrow. The next, she’s Marked as a fledgling vampyre, forcing her to leave her ordinary life behind and join the House of Night, a boarding school where she will train to become an adult vampyre. That is, if she makes it through the Change—and not all of those who are Marked do. It sucks to begin a new life, especially away from her friends, and on top of that, Zoey is no average fledgling. She has been chosen as special by the vampyre Goddess, Nyx. Zoey discovers she has amazing powers, but along with her powers come bloodlust and an unfortunate ability to Imprint with Heath, who just doesn’t know how to take “no” for an answer. To add to her stress, she is not the only fledgling at the House of Night with special powers: when she discovers that the leader of the Dark Daughters, the school's most elite group, is misusing her Goddess-given gifts, Zoey must look deep within herself for the courage to embrace her destiny—with a little help from her new vampyre friends.

I really like the character's and the story line, and the authors really get you hooked in and wanting more. The characters are such individuals (except for the 'twins'), and they all function very well in the story. The authors' draw you into this magical world that Zoey lives in, which is unique, dangerous, enchanting and yet still pretty believable. Cast isn't trying to cram as many supernatural beings into series as humanly possible, unlike other series *cough* Sookie Stackhouse *cough cough*. I enjoy the style it is written, the majority of the series is from Zoey's perspective and by the words selected by the authors' you feel that it is told from the perspective of a teenager. That also goes the same for the other character's, you pick up strong personalities.

My only complaints are I am older than the characters in the book so all the crying and boy drama can get tedious. A lot of bad stuff happens within a few short months after Zoey is Marked, and the character's seem to be balling through half the series. Also Zoey is constantly being chased after by multiple boys/men and half the story is about her trying to deal with that. ***SPOILER**** It goes from her being in involved with Eric/Heath, Eric/Heath/Loren, briefly just Loren, then heart broken Eric and Heath, a crush on Stark, then Eric/Kalona, then Eric/Heath/Stark/Kalona, then Heath/Stark/Kalona, then just Stark, and now we have circled around again (I'm assuming from the latest book) to back to Heath/Stark. GAH JUST PICK SOMEONE!

***SPOILER OVER****Aside from that it's a great series, a very interesting take on Vampyre's, and I would definately recommend to anyone who likes Vampyres, 'magick' and the super natural. I'm not really sure if I have a favourite book, since again it's just a big Zoey's a gifted vampyre's who's life's gone to hell blob, but I suppose I would go with Burned. If you haven't read the series, try out the first book, and if you're hooked then you'll enjoy the whole series. Cast has 3 novella's planned, one of which I've read (Dragon's Oath), the novella's give the history as to what makes the professor's the Vampyre's they are. Lenobia's Vow was just released so when I read that I will blog about it. And novel #10 is hitting shelves October of this year I believe, and it is titled 'Hidden'. I'm not sure when the Neferet's Novella is being released but that's soon also.

The books go as follows:
Marked
Betrayed
Chosen
Untamed
Hunted
Tempted
Burned
Awakened
Destined

Novella's:
Dragon's Oath

Paraprosdokians

Parapros-what-a? Yea, I'm thinking the same thing. What the fef is this crazy word and what does it mean?? The explanation is much simpler than the word itself. They are are figures of speech in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase is surprising or unexpected; frequently humorous.


Google it, it's fun! Go on


Here are a few I really enjoyed:


- The last thing I want to do is hurt you.. But it's still on my list. 


- Since light travels faster than sound, some people appear bright until you hear them speak. 
  
- If I agreed with you, we'd both be wrong. 
  
- We never really grow up, we only learn how to act in public. 
  
 - War does not determine who is right - only who is left. 
  
- Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad. 


- I thought I wanted a career. Turns out I just wanted paychecks. 
  
- In filling out an application, where it says, 'In case of emergency, notify:' I put 'DOCTOR.' 
  
- I didn't say it was your fault, I said I was blaming you. 


-  A clear conscience is the sign of a fuzzy memory. 


- There's a fine line between cuddling and holding someone down so they can't get away. 
  
-  I used to be indecisive. Now I'm not so sure. 
  
- You're never too old to learn something stupid.