Book Tag: The TBR Tag

I don’t know if I just didn’t feel inspired when looking for a tag this time, or whether it’s due to reaching the point where I’ve done a lot of them or the questions are similar, but I struggled this time. I looked at a couple but my mind went blank as to what the answers would be.

If you’re coming across some great tags at the moment, please let me know – I’d love to find some new ones!

Anyway, I stumbled across the TBR tag on Booklovingnut‘s blog and this one did catch my attention – and make me feel a little sheepish about my own TBR pile. I figured what better what than to try and organise it by answering some questions on it:

Writing Progress: February 2020

When I wrote my last writing progress post in August, I was full of good intentions with no plan in place to carry them out. Needless to say, those ambitious bore very little fruit and I barely progressed with any further edits towards the end of last year.

But, now we’re in 2020, things are changing.

February 2020 | 5 Films for your TBW list

While I play catch up with a few seasons (seriously, mid-season breaks confuse me!), I thought it was time to see what else I’d been watching.

Every month I vow I’m going to watch more films, then I end up binging something and not doing it. It’s taken me four months to watch 3 Star Trek films…and I still haven’t done it!

But I did get around to a couple recently – here are my thoughts:

Book Review: Arcana by Paul Kane

Author: Paul Kane

Title: Arcana

Publisher: WordFire Press

Date: 2019

Plot: In an alternate world where real magic exists, its practitioners are hunted down by police officers called M-forcers. But some groups are fighting back!

Callum McGuire is a new M-forcer who once worked the quiet streets of London. As an orphan, Callum has been brought up to believe that all magic is evil, but the more he sees of The M-forcers’ cruel methods (implemented by General Nero Stark, and his second-in-command Sherman Pryce), the more he begins to question whether or not they are right.

And when he unwittingly encounters a member of the rebel group called Arcana, he’s introduced to their world and realises that nothing will ever be the same again.

Monthly wrap up: January

Last year, I took the attitude that January was a trial month and didn’t count. Starting the year with sinusitis meant I nearly took that approach again. But once the headaches cleared up, I changed my mind.

This is the first time I’ve set monthly goals – and it worked. I broke them down into weekly targets and then, because I love a list, further broke those down into daily aims so I could consistently work towards what I wanted.

Last month, I read 7 books, wrote 5 fanfiction chapters and edit 2 chapters of my novel. I also spent tried to learn how to knit (and failed) and made it to the gym twice a week. Having a target to aim towards and a job to tick off certainly worked for me!

Book Review: In the Heat of the Light by Stephen Kearse

Author: Stephen Kearse

Title: In the Heat of the Light

Publisher: Kindred Books

Date: 2019

Plot: The book documents the rise and fall of an Atlanta graffiti crew. Set during a brutally hot Atlanta summer, the novel chronicles how each member of the crew reacts to the aftermath of their biggest tag, an audacious defacement of Georgia’s Stone Mountain. As the crew gradually unravels, two FBI agents attempt to untangle the knot of rage and confusion that led to the tag, surveying Atlanta’s underbelly in the process and becoming entangled themselves.

This novel explores the topography of Atlanta in vivid detail, dwelling in the city’s lesser-known corridors and assembling the city’s various ghosts — the Civil War, Jim Crow, the 1996 Olympics, the slum clearance of the 50s, and the Civil Rights Movement — alongside the city’s modern currents — gentrification, Black Lives Matter, traffic, and trap music. Five Atlanta teenagers choose between property and the commons when neither is immediately available to them, a heightened dilemma in this age of mass surveillance and income inequality.

Television Review: New Amsterdam, Season 2 Part 1

Show: New Amsterdam

Company:  NBC

Date: 2019

Plot: From executive producers David Schulner and Peter Horton, this unique medical drama follows Dr. Max Goodwin, the new medical director at America’s oldest public hospital, set on tearing down the bureaucracy to provide exceptional care.

Book Tag: New Year Book Tag

It’s book tag time! And for my first one of the year, what choice did I have but to find a New Year one?

I discovered this tag on Cleopatra Loves Books and had great fun reading through the answers. It was a different New Year tag compared to the one I did last year, so I figured it was fate that I came across it.

So, without any further ado, I present to you…my New Year Book Tag.

Getting Organised | Tips and Tricks for 2020

I have a constant battle with to-do lists. I find a system that works, then I go to the extreme and start adding on more than I can hope to achieve and it becomes this stressful, overwhelming situation I can’t get out of. Then I change strategy and start it all over again.

This year, however, I want to focus on being productive but not attempting to achieve too much. I have no idea whether I can carry this off, but I figured that if I can at least try, it might get me through a few months, right?

Book Review: Bloodchild by Anna Stephens

Author: Anna Stephens

Title: Bloodchild

Publisher: HarperCollins

Date: 2019

Plot: In this epic grimdark conclusion to the Godblind Trilogy, heroes, armies, and gods both good and evil will battle one last time, with the fate of the world itself at stake. . . .

The great city of Rilpor has fallen. Its walls have crumbled under the siege by the savage Mireces; its defenders have scattered, fleeing for their lives; its new rulers plot to revive the evil Red Gods using the city’s captured, soon-to-be-sacrificed citizens.

Now, with the Fox God leading the shattered remnants of the Rilporian defence and the Mireces consolidating their claim on the rest of the country, it’s up to Crys, Tara, Mace, Dom and the rest to end the Red Gods’ scourge once and for all.

While the Rilporians plan and prepare for one final, cataclysmic battle to defeat their enemies, the Blessed One and the king of the Mireces have plans of their own: dark plans that will see gods resurrected and the annihilation of the Dancer for all time. Key to their plan is Rillirin, King Corvus’s sister, and the baby–the Bloodchild–she carries. As both sides face their destinies and their gods, only one thing is clear: death waits for them all.