Book Review: Camelot Burning by Kathryn Rose

Camelot Burning by Kathryn Rose

Genre: Historical Fiction/Fantasy

Publisher: Flux

Pages: 384

Recommended Age: 12 and up

What it’s About:

Seventeen-year-old Vivienne lives in a world of knights and ladies, corsets and absinthe, outlaw magic and alchemical machines. By day, she is lady-in-waiting to the future queen of Camelot--Guinevere. By night, she secretly toils away in the clock tower as apprentice to Merlin, the infamous recovering magic addict.

Then she meets Marcus, below her in class, destined to become a knight, and just as forbidden as her apprenticeship with Merlin. When Morgan le Fay, the king's sorceress sister, declares war on Camelot, Merlin thinks they can create a metal beast powered by steam and alchemy to defeat her. But to save the kingdom, Vivienne will have to risk everything--her secret apprenticeship, her love for Marcus, and her own life.

Review:

Yay! I finished another book on my TBR! *applause for me*

Anyways...this book was a really good read. I found it very enjoyable and got into it quite easily.  I didn’t want to put it down and wouldn’t have if I hadn’t been reading in school.

Vivienne is a normal heroine. She wants to do things for herself. Her brother, Owen constantly wants her to leave when he is talking to fellow squires and knights. He doesn’t believe half of the conversations are fit for a lady which she often shoves off. She also insists on fighting in the battle for Camelot. She is a heroine who actually wants to be a heroine and doesn't want to leave the fate of everything in a bunch of tin men [sorry knights :( ]

One thing I didn’t like however was the fact that she fell in ‘love’ too fast with Marcus (a squire). Yes, sure he’s attractive but maybe she should have tuned it down a bit and not have been falling in love with someone she’d only seen once or twice.

Luckily, no love triangle which sometimes annoys me to the point of me wanting to throw my book off of a roof and then have someone trampel it. [Okay, maybe not that much. But you get the idea].   

You have to pick up this book and give it a try because who doesn’t love a little bit of Camelot?

My Rating: Four Point Five Out of Five Stars

Book Review: Palace of Spies by Sarah Zettel

Palace of Spies by Sarah Zettel

Finished One Book On My TBR!

Publisher: HMH Books for Young Readers

Pages: 384

Recommended Age: 12 and up

What It’s About:

Sixteen-year-old Peggy Fitzroy is an orphan, raised by her aunt and uncle in 1700s London. She is smart, charming, feisty, and unwilling to accept the repulsive and immoral suitor chosen for her. Angered by her refusal, her uncle throws her out. Homeless, Peggy agrees to disguise herself as a lady-in-waiting at the court of King George I, taking the name and identity of Lady Francesca Wallingham, recently deceased from supposedly natural causes. In this fashion, Peggy becomes a spy and finds herself involved in multiple mysterious and perhaps nefarious intrigues, all while falling in love with the handsome and gentlemanly artist Matthew.

Review:

So, I have to say I loved this book so much! It was a really interesting Historical Fiction novel and I got really into it.

Recently I have been really into reading Historical Fiction stories and a Historical Fiction mystery. Well...who can pass that up?  

I loved how Peggy wasn’t a needy girl and wanted to figure things out on her own and was even annoyed by the fact that people thought women were so needy and needed someone to save them from everything.

Spoilers Below:

The chemistry between Matthew and our main character, Peggy was there and there was a tiny bit of chemistry between Robert and Peggy but hardly any. Partly due to the fact that she wasn’t really the girl he had been in love with, she was just impersonating them.

I’d recommend this book to anyone who enjoys historical fiction or mysteries. It is a wonderful Young Adult book.

My Rating: Five out of Five Crowns

August Favorites

August 2015 Favorites

Hello lovelies,

         As the title says, I am doing my August favorites!  I can’t wait to share them with you.  

I also have an IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT!

As soon as I start to have less homework and more time. Which will probably be the weekend, I will do a movie review for you guys. I have been dying to do so and it will probably be on a Marvel movie that I have recently seen. So look out for that! :)

Without further ado here they are:

Song by Female Artist: Bad Blood by Taylor Swift and High by the Beach by Lana Del Rey

Song by Group: Drag Me Down by One Direction

Book: Stitching Snow by R.C. Lewis

Food: Pizza

Snack: Asiago Cheese Bagel

Place: Panera Bread

Movie: Thor

Dessert: Shortbread cookie

Outfit: black shorts, converse and Tinkerbell blue top

Hair: Straight and down

TV show: The Avengers

Social media: Google Plus

Beauty Product: Eos

Story on Wattpad: The Last Knight by May Tijssen

Thanks for viewing this.  Please stay tuned for further updates! :)

August 2015 Wrap Up

August 2015 Wrap Up And Book Reviews

Hello lovelies,

           So, the lovely month of August has just finished and with it brings another wrap up of what I read during this month and some book reviews.  So, I read a couple books this month that I wanted to and some that I didn’t want to. Overall this wasn’t a month that I accomplished a lot sadly.

So, without further ado, here are the books I read.

I read Kingdom Keepers Disney After Dark.  This was an amazing book about five teens who are chosen for a new program at Disneyland and then they cross over during the night and have to save Disneyland from the evil Overtakers.  I highly recommend this book to anyone and everyone, especially if you love Disney.

I also read Stitching Snow which is a sci-fi retelling of the fairytale Snow White. It is also amazing and I did a review in my August TBR so go check it out! :)

And lastly, I read The Once and Future King by T.H. White.  This book was alright though I did find it quite boring for the first two mini-books inside it.  Then it got better and the last mini-book was much better.  I read this for a school project!

That concludes my August Wrap-Up.  Yes, I didn’t read much and I have another ambitious TBR for September coming soon.

August TBR

August TBR (To Be Read):

I plan to read more in August as I will be in my own house and comfortable environment and I can go to the library more often. Also, I have been recommended a lot of books and I am determined to read many of them.  These are just some of the books that I shall be reading this month.

Stitching Snow by R.C. Lewis

Kingdom Keepers Disney After Dark

Kingdom Keepers Disney At Dawn

City of Bones by Cassandra Claire

A Grimm Warning by Chris Colfer

A Court of Thorns and Roses

The Kiss of Deception

Obsidian Mirror

The Scorch Trials by James Dashner

Stitching Snow I’ve already finished as we are already part way through the month of August and I have to say it was one of the best books I’ve ever read.  Not only is it very well written, it is also a fairytale retelling set in the future.  Yes this is a sort of Fantasy/Sci-Fi book.  It is a retelling of Snow White so yes there are most of the elements.  The summary from the book is: Princess Snow is missing.

Her home planet, once known for lush landscapes, is now filled with violence, fear, and corruption at the hands of King Matthias and his new wife as they attempt to punish the princess’s captors. The king will stop at nothing to get his beloved daughter back-but that’s assuming she wants to return at all.

Essie has grown used to being cold. Temperatures on the planet Thanda are always sub-zero, and she fills her days with coding and repairs for the seven loyal drones that run the local mines.

When a mysterious young man named Dane crash-lands near her home, Essie agrees to help the pilot repair his ship. But soon she realizes that Bane’s arrival was far from accidental, and she’s pulled into the heart of a war she’s risked everything to avoid.

In her enthralling debut, R.C. Lewis weaves the tale of a princess on the run from painful secrets (and a poisonous queen). With the galaxy’s future-and her own-in jeopardy, Essie must choose who to trust in a fiery fight for survival!

You have to read this book! Essie is a very strong-willed, stubborn, and surprisingly lovable heroine. You’ll love this book if you enjoy fairytale retellings or sci-fi romance.

The Kingdom Keepers books I have read before but I am re-reading them so I can finish the last 4 books in the series which I haven’t read before.  

The last four books I have not read but they have been recommended to me so I have decided to try reading them.  I’ll let you know how they go!

July 2015 Book Reviews

July 2015 Book Reviews

Hello lovelies,

       I am going to have book reviews for each month and a list of books that I want to read.  So, let’s get started.

In July I read a couple books: 

The Falconer by Elizabeth May

The Diamond Thief by Sharon Gosling

The Falconer by Elizabeth May

Publisher: Chronicle Books

Pages: 378 

Recommended Age: 14 and up

One girl's nightmare is this girl's faery tale

She's a stunner.
Edinburgh, 1844. Eighteen-year-old Lady Aileana Kameron, the only daughter of the Marquess of Douglas, has everything a girl could dream of: brains, charm, wealth, a title—and drop-dead beauty.

She's a liar.
But Aileana only looks the part of an aristocratic young lady. she's leading a double life: She has a rare ability to sense the sìthíchean—the faery race obsessed with slaughtering humans—and, with the aid of a mysterious mentor, has spent the year since her mother died learning how to kill them.

She's a murderer.
Now Aileana is dedicated to slaying the fae before they take innocent lives. With her knack for inventing ingenious tools and weapons—from flying machines to detonators to lightning pistols—ruthless Aileana has one goal: Destroy the faery who destroyed her mother.

She's a Falconer.
The last in a line of female warriors born with a gift for hunting and killing the fae, Aileana is the sole hope of preventing a powerful faery population from massacring all of humanity. Suddenly, her quest is a lot more complicated. She still longs to avenge her mother's murder—but she'll have to save the world first.

Review: 

The Falconer is an excellent book set in a sort of steam-punk London and it is about a girl who kills fairies.  Okay, that doesn’t sound all that great.  I mean, who would want to read about someone killing fairies. But they are not lovable fairies.  They are ones that kill humans.  And her mother was killed by a fairy so she wants her revenge.  And of course, this story wouldn’t be complete without two totally handsome, swoon-worthy love interests. One of them was her friend from when she was younger and the other is a fairy.  This book is a great book and I totally recommend it. I don't normally go for these kinds of books that are more dark but I absolutely loved it! :)

Rated: Five Out of Five Crowns

The Diamond Thief by Sharon Gosling

Publisher: Curious Fox

Pages: 288

Recommended Age: 11 and up

The Diamond Thief is a book also set in steampunk London. The main character is named Remy. She works in a circus where she is a trapeze artist called Little Bird.  The man who runs the circus makes her go steal a jewel. Except when she comes back she has a fake. She has to find out who stole the real one and turn it in. And her love interest is a policeman/detective who gets kicked out of the police force for failing to watch the jewels which had indeed been stolen. And she doesn’t like him at all.  

I loved this book so much because it isn't centered around a romance or a forbidden one or anything of that sense. It was a good historical fiction read and I highly recommend it. It is a Young Adult novel so all of you Young Adult's should devour this book!

Rated: Four Point Five Out of Five Crowns

Anyways...my next post will be about books I will read in the month of August. See you soon!

July 2015 Favorites

July 2015 Favorites

Hello lovelies. Today as my blog title states I am going to do my July favorites.

Here they are:

Song: Good for You by Selena Gomez   I love this song so much because it is by one of my favorite artists and because it is just plain beautiful! I couldn't stop listening to it for this whole month and that is why I adore it! Listen to it if you have not heard it yet.

Book: The Diamond Thief by Sharon Gosling. I chose this book as my favorite book this month because I absolutely loved the plot of this book and loved how it wasn't a complete love story and the girl wasn't obsessed with the guy. :) Rating: Five out of Five Crowns

Food: Caesar salad. I love this type of salad because the dressing is creamy and delicious on top and it is a really good salad. Try it if you haven't.

Snack: potato chips. So, who doesn't love chips? I love these because they are a really good short snack. And yes, I do know that they are bad for you but at least I'm not eating them 100% of the time...

Place: Disneyland. Yes, I know you can't go here multiple times in one month but since my family and I got to go here for two days it was by far my favorite place to be. :)

Movie: Paddington. This is such a cute and good movie. It's sort of like a feel good movie that you should watch if you want something that is cute and has a happy ending. I love this movie and had to buy it!

Dessert: ice cream with chocolate syrup

Outfit: black shorts, purple Airwalk shoes, and an Ariel/Disney top

Hair: Straight and down

TV show: Poldark. This was a summer tv show that my family and I watched. It was a break from the other shows that we really like. It was interesting and historical and did I mention that Aidan Turner is pretty attractive in this?

Social media: Pinterest. This is what I did a lot because I didn't have much time to be on the internet. And I also don't own much social media!

Beauty Product: Baby Lips. I love this beauty product. When you put it on, it makes your lips feel all smooth and all. You should try this out if you haven't.

Story on Wattpad: The Last Knight by May Tijssen. This is such a good story on Wattpad. So, if you have Wattpad please go read it and support the author. She is also really nice. :)

I shall do a couple book reviews for some books I read in July and will do an August TBR! :)