Wednesday, 22 February 2017

Chuckles 2017 E-Book Blitz


Owls are wise right? So when Mr Owl says that 2017 is time to tackle my e-book pile, I think I better listen to him! This year I really need to reduce the pile of bargain books so I'm having an ebook blitz through the entire year. It doesn't matter how many I finish or how many I DNF as long as I get them off the TBR! 

Well I've picked out another pile to tackle from now until the end of the month and we'll see how we get on with this lot. As it stands my physical tbr stands at 875. Need to get that down a fair bit this year!

Jack Lewis-Fear the Dead
John W Vance-Grid Down
Kyle Pratt-Through many fires
Jeremy Dyson-Rise of the Dead
Joshua Jared Scott-Sanctuary
K Michael Gibson-Dead Pulse Rising
Mike Carey-The right to bear arms
Kyan Yauchler-Homeostasis Lost
L Michael Rusin-Avalon The Retreat
George Rippey Stewart-Earth Abides
Douglas Moore-Playing God
Scott B Williams-The Pulse
Kurt Gepner-Pavement Ends
DJ Mitchell-Ordinary World
JZ O'Brien-Surviving Abe
Brad Manuel-The Last Tribe
Ira Tabankin-The Shelter
Devon Sagliani-Undead LA
Ike Hamill-Extinct
SM Stirling-Dies the Fire
Ryan King-Glimmer of Hope
Nathan Van Coops-In times like this
Richard McCrohan-Pandora

 
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Monday, 20 February 2017

Book Review: Saber Tooth by Lou Cadle


A time gate...
A team of teen scientists...
A desperate fight to survive...

Park Ranger Hannah Kates is leading a group of gifted teens on a fossil-hunting field trip when a rock slide uncovers a portal through time. They are whisked back to an era when giant predator mammals roamed the earth. They want, desperately, to find their way home. But first, they have to survive a world where bizarre--and hungry--mammals ruled North America. They have to survive the Dawn of Mammals.

In Book 1 of the series, Hannah and nine teens are thrown back thirty million years to the world of saber-toothed nimravids, ferocious carnivores. Will all of them be able to survive this vicious world of tooth and claw?

My Review: 
Ranger Hannah and paleontologist MD are taking a group of teen scientists through an area of fossils when MD falls through a shimmery curtain of light after an accident and most of the group follow him out of curiousity. Now they are suddenly stranded in a prehistoric land with no way back, limited resources and hostile animals. How do they get back? Can they use their knowledge to survive?

OK so this plot might sound dumb but I'm not bothered how modern humans come into contact with extinct species-I just like it when they do because it makes for lively and interesting plots. However a word of warning-the blurb makes it sound like the group is being continually hunted and picked off by a pack of vicious sabertooths but that is kind of misleading. This is not the all out gorefest that you might expect. The saber tooths are in the book and have a couple of encounters with the group but they aren't the main focus of the story. The main story is the survival in a hostile environment, dealing with food, water, security and medical dramas as well as interaction with animals that are extinct. There are tense scenes, a few action encounters but it is not a gory horror, more of an adventure story.

Hannah is a good character, with knowledge, intelligence and can connect with everyone on the team. MD has the knowledge but he also has an addiction problem which is going to cause a lot of issues for Hannah during the crisis. I liked Rex, the nerdy astronomer who is very smart and he is the one who first realises that they are not still in the modern world due to the position of the stars and lack of GPS. The kids in the group are smart and capable, and only Dixie is a bit of a whiner. But they do work pretty well as a team to deal with their environment. MD is the one who gets on my nerves as his addiction issues and withdrawal endanger the group.

Only Mimi, her mother and two other kids stay where they are and don't follow the group through the curtain. We don't know what they do next or if they raise the alarm because we don't see them again for the duration of the book. I don't know if we see them again in the series or not.

It was a decent enough story but a bit more YA adventure than gory horror which I had been looking for. If I see the rest of the series cheap I might consider continuing with it but I wouldn't pay full price to read on. 
Read December 2016.
star rating photo: Three Star Rating 3stars.png
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Book Review: Jurassic Sea by Viktor Zarkov (Jurassic Adventures #2)


Fresh off of a horrifying trek to a fabled island where dinosaurs nearly killed him, B-list celebrity Colt McKinnon finds himself heading directly back into the world of the unexplained. This time, his new employer is sending him into the area known as the Bermuda Triangle. Recent storm surges and electromagnetic anomalies have seen an upswing in strange activity in the area. Happy to dive back into a journey into the unexplained and out of the shadows of the dinosaurs that neatly killed him, Colt happily packs his bags

But when the Triangle dumps him into a sea stranded somewhere in the cracks of time, Colt soon learns that he may not be done running from dinosaurs after all. 

My Review: 
Colt escaped with his life from Jurassic Island thanks to the arrival of Nyoko and now he is flooded with offers for interviews and tv appearances. But Nyoko has been monitoring the Bermuda Triangle and wants to fly through it as an experiment. When their plane crashes, the couple and pilot Heath are stranded and there is a jurassic sea monster and a long missing boat in the area. Colt needs to solve the mystery, avoid the sea monsters and find a way home...

You would think that Colt had had enough of risky adventures but when Nyoko tells him what she studying, they decide to hire a pilot who survived a bizarre flight through the Bermuda Triangle so they can do scientific tests on a repeat flight. But of course things don't go quite according to plan and they find themselves in a different time and place, with Jurassic sea monsters and a liner last seen in 1945 along with two people who have been missing for two weeks. Where are they? How are they going to get home?

This doesn't have the all out action that we saw in Jurassic island but it is still a decent enough short thriller. It doesn't have a lot of sea monster action compared to the dinosaurs in the first book and it focuses more on what the liner was there for and who had been using it. As a plot it was ok but I would've liked a lot more of the monster action that I was expecting. The second half of the book is much better as we do get the monster stuff as Cole develops a plan to get them back home, a plan that is going to endanger their lives.

I liked Cole and Nyoko as main characters and they work well as a team. I wouldn't mind reading more about them if the book had more action and more monsters. This was a decent enough read but not anywhere near as good as Jurassic Island so I was a bit disappointed with it.
Read December 2016.
star rating photo: Three Star Rating 3stars.png
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Sunday, 19 February 2017

Chuckles Cover Love #14


If there is one thing that makes a great book even better, it is when it has a cover that we love! The cover design is what catches the eye as we browse through a bookstore shelf or check out the Amazon or Goodreads recommendations. The right cover makes me look closer at a book, to read the blurb and maybe make a purchase. A poor cover might mean I never look at the blurb at all. 

 This week I'm going to look at survival in the apocalypse. I love that kind of book whether it is about ordinary people struggling to adapt or preppers who are ready for disaster. I haven't read this series by A American yet but I've heard good things about it, it sounds good...and I really love the covers!



I like the mix of colours and scenes and that the covers match the story that they are telling about the apocalypse. I'm not sure if there are going to be more in the series but I want to read the whole thing this year as part of my series catch up!
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Saturday, 18 February 2017

Stacking the Shelves #169


Stacking the Shelves is a meme hosted by Tynga’s Reviews

Stacking The Shelves is all about sharing the books you are adding to your shelves, may it be physical or virtual. This means you can include books you buy in physical store or online, books you borrow from friends or the library, review books, gifts and of course ebooks! Click on the link under the book to find its page on Goodreads or Smashwords. 

Please note that I always leave a message on your STS/SP if you visit me, but if you use DISQUS or a similar third party I will not be able to leave a comment on your page. I don't allow any company access to my social media accounts and I certainly don't allow them to edit and take over the way DISQUS does. So if you use DISQUS, I can't leave comments on your page so I can't follow you back, sorry! (see below why I say NO)

Authorize DISQUS to use your account?
Disqus is a service and tool for web comments and discussions.
This application will be able to:
*Read Tweets from your timeline.
*See who you follow, and follow new people.
*Update your profile.
*Post Tweets for you.

I'm noticing that some blogs set with Google Plus are trying to force you to open a Google Plus or Facebook account before you can leave a comment. Well, I have no interest in rejoining Google Plus or joining Facebook so if your blog uses this set up, I won't be following it or commenting! And sometimes, I have problems leaving messages on blogs hosted by Wordpress-they try to block me so there might not be a message from me some weeks or you might get a double message sometimes! Blame them, not me but I will persevere as it only happens the odd time!
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The end of another week. I've been feeling ill on and off over the last few weeks with crippling stomach pains, nasty toilet visits, constipation and feeling sick and stuff so I was about to go to the doctor when I spoke to a friend who swears by alternative medicine. She said coffee is one of the biggest issues in triggering irritable bowel syndrome. I take one iced latte every morning and that's all but I decided to stop taking it. The results were surprising. I have had no nausea, stomach pains, IBS symptoms of any kind for five whole days. I couldn't believe it. I feel human again. Something about the caffeine was throwing my system into chaos and now I feel so much better. If you are having IBS issues it might be worth experimenting to see if any of your regular food and drink could be upsetting your system. There are lots of health pages about foods that trigger IBS so you can google 'em.
 
Feeling ill at the start of the week meant I actually had to stop my hot streak of reading for three days as I couldn't really concentrate on books. I'm back on track now thankfully and as a bonus, I caught up on a rewatch of the first two seasons of Bering Sea Gold which I LOVE! I enjoy these tough job reality tv things better than films or drama shows! I might need to do a post about them and what I need to get watched. Nyargh. One of those author newsletters pointed me to an urban fantasy free book bonanza with all new-to-me authors so I grabbed a pile. It would've been rude not to! I'm starting to wade through the emails and decide which authors don't write my kind of books and unsubscribe. But I've also found a few more who write my kind of books! Exciting reads ahead!
 
DOWNLOADS:
The first six books were all free thanks to the kindness of authors who put them into an urban fantasy giveaway! The next three were through author newsletters and were happily grabbed! My tbr thanks you...sort of...

 
 
 
 
 
 
PAPERBACKS:
I paid more for this than I wanted but it was the only main part of Pack story that I didn't have and I loved the cover. Short read but loves the wolves in it!
 
 
 
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