I am in love with White Mountain.

Hello Bookies,

I apologise for my absence, I contracted a very bad virus and I have slept for the last fortnight.

I have tried to keep up with my reading as much as I could and I managed to get to chapter 10 of White Mountain by Sophie E Tallis so I thought I would have a little catch up and let you know what you are in for if you haven't read it yet and give you my take on characters thus far.

I credit these chapters with allowing me to escape my illness in the time I spent at home.
Between naps and baths I would have this book in my hand. It is absolutely wonderful.
I haven't felt a connection like this with characters in all of my adult life (apart from my dear Shirelings.)

Here are some of the characters I have met:

• Gralen (the dragon I mentioned in my last post) is absolutely amazing still. I feel like he is my best friend, he is no longer Scottish in my mind now that I have read more of him, he's actually changed nationality completely and is now English! I don't know what region I haven't decided yet perhaps the author can tell me what voice she has in mind when she wrote him? He is so loyal and fierce he is the perfect companion for a story of this nature. He's like a great big green guard dog.

• Morrek "The Master" is the stuff of nightmares and I haven't even actually met him yet! The image Tallis paints of him within her pages is truly petrifying, at one point I turned my big light on whilst reading about him because it scared me being in a dimly lit room. Along with Fire Wolves. HOLLY HELL the thought of looking out into blackness and have eyes of fire staring solidly back at me made me read faster just to get rid of them!(Gralen stepped in and made me feel a bit calmer about the whole thing)

• Mr. Agyk is the main protagonist and he has a very Gandalfian/Dumbledorean feel to him but perhaps this is just because he is a wizard, he looks very old in my imagination, more of a Dumbledore circa Philosophers stone (none of this Gambon nonsense) yet dressed like Gandalf but in green. I'm pretty sure it hasn't mentioned whether or not he has glasses but in my head he wears them and they change colour when he does his incantations.

• Wendya, the only female character we have seen so far and I am so glad to have met her! I feel connected to her, I suppose the correct way to say it is that I relate to her. Wendya is a lover of all things, animal, mineral, human, wizard, etc. She is very much mother nature in this story. I can feel her pain in my guts when certain events in the book take place through Tallis's brilliant writing. So far, we know that Wendya is a witch, living alone in a secluded part of the world with no family. However, she cares so much for the world that she has in fact made the world her family, therefore I feel she will never truly be alone. She is a beautiful character and I am waiting for her to kick ass, I think it is coming in the next few chapters.

I'm enjoying it so much, I will continue reading it as much as I can now that I am back in work. It is a heck of a book I am currently on page 150/421 so much has happened already which is making me want to continue reading and knowing that it is the first book of a chronicle makes me so excited that this will be a story that will be new and exciting in years to come as more and more get written and released.

It has me in the palm of its hand... even though it is literally in the palm of my hand.

I've been vague because I do not want to give away any spoilers but if you are a lover of fantasy and adventure you need to read this book. Sophie E Tallis is rightly placed alongside Tolkien in alphabetical terms, in my bookshop and also in my heart.


If you would like to buy a copy I have some in the store so please contact me either in the comments or call the bookshop 01443 231177


Regards,

The BookLady.

Sophie E Tallis has the best dragons.

This is my copy, isn't it pretty! Its also a matte cover and it feels delightful.

Hello Bookies!

I'm not one for spoilers when I'm reviewing, I usually only tell people about one major thing in a book that stood out to me and then I let others read the book to find out more.
I'm currently reading White Mountain by Sophie E Tallis and my goodness! 
MY GOODNESS! I LOVE it.

There is always something in a book that keeps you reading, I tend to latch on to a certain character and follow them the whole way through the story and in the first chapter of White Mountain we encounter, the brilliant, Gralen.

Gralen is a Dragon and in my head he's Scottish. I don't know why, my head just read him in a Scottish accent and now I cant read him unless my head-voice gets all Glaswegian. All we are told to begin with is that he is a North Eurasian dragon (species almost extinct.) so who knows why my head went "Yep, I bet that's close to Scotland."

Gralen captured me straight away in the first chapter of the book, because although he is a fair sized dragon, 
"Standing eight feet tall at the shoulder and fifteen feet to the top of his head" he actually reminds me of a great big, old, podgy, can't-really-be-bothered cat. 
He is the companion of Mr. Agyk, whom I will speak of more in either the full review or another midview of this amazing novel. 
Gralen is written the way that literary dragons should be, as a friend to those that reside in the magical realm. After waiting outside for a time for Mr. Agyk to come home, they enter through the front door together and we read that Gralen curls up in front of the fire to warm and at the mention of food his eyes widen and he sits bolt upright, wrapping his tail around himself as he sits. He comes across as very feline, domestic and friendly with a sarcastic nature to his voice, this is MY kind of dragon.
Not so much a pet, but more like a family member, we can see the clear love and respect in the relationship between Gralen and Mr. Agyk. I cannot wait to read more into this witty and very loveable character and I am excited to read more of the adventures that begin around White Mountain.

Sophie E Tallis is an amazing talent with the ability to show everyone a clear picture of the world she has created, you see every character, every item and every place she writes of, she makes it very easy to believe in her world, a dream to read.

I cannot wait to read more of her work.

White Mountain is the first work of The Darkling Chronicles. Click here for more information.

Review. Caitlin Moran - How to be a Woman.

Winner of the 2011 Galaxy Book Awards Book of the Year

Image of Moran taken from Google.

This is the first How to.. book I have ever read.

Perhaps a little strange that I am reading a book on how to be a woman, when I am in my early twenties with a diamond weighing down my left hand. In most ways I am already a woman. 

Even so, it was actually the author that made me want to read this book, not my apparent incapability of being something that every girl naturally grows in to.

Now that I have finished reading it, I realise that I have misunderstood the title entirely, it is called "How to be a Woman" not "How to become a Woman."

To me, it has acted like a little paper friend, reassuring me that all of my feelings, all of my bodily functions and a lot of my thoughts about feminism are completely normal and they are shared by every woman not just myself. It is 16 chapters of ultimate, unifying, femininity.

Caitlin Moran entered my life in 2013 when I was encountering personal issues and a lecturer of mine recommended I read "How to be a Woman" I had never heard of this Caitlin (you say it Catlin) Moran, and I thought my lecturer was telling me to politely, "Man up and get over it."
But, in fact, almost two years later when I finally bought a copy and read it cover to cover, I see that all my lecturer was trying to show me, is that I am amazing, I am absolutely amazing and one of the reasons I am amazing, is because I am part of the female population of this world. That was when I realised, I am a feminist.

Being a feminist does not mean I hate men, it means I love being a woman.

Beginning in Wolverhampton 1988 on her 13th birthday, Moran guides you through the adolescent female right through to the mid-thirties female and tells you every gory detail of her life in between.

Moran has written How to be a Woman as an insight into her life and what growing into a woman was like for her. In some areas, reading this book was just like reading parts of my own life back to myself and as scary as it was at first, I now find it comforting to know that I wasn't on my own during that time. Women fight a lot of silent battles on our own, battles that we think are personal when in actuality if we spoke openly about them we would fine a whole army of hormonal, feisty, bitches that are feeling the same way as each other and I feel this would lead to nothing but good things for us.

How to be a Woman is witty, hilarious, repulsive, upsetting, and comforting all at once. It has made me laugh more than anything, but some chapters did break me and I shed a little tear in bed in the early hours before uttering to a sleepy, pissed-off SK, "just one more page and I'll turn the light off... please get me a tissue" 

It has everything that the average woman will encounter, whether it is in their own life or the lives of other woman around them, all manner of periods, sex, breast envy, public sexism, love, vaginas, sex, friends, sex, body image, marriage, childbirth, miscarriage, abortion, work, work related sexism and a whole KFC bucket load of other topics all crammed into 320 pages of pure, loyal, explicit, feminism.

I give this 5/5 stars. Every woman should read this book.

Caitlin Moran calms my wedding nerves.

I'm only a few chapters away from finishing this book.I didn't think I'd be doing this but considering it ties in nearly with my bookness and my upcoming wedding I thought it very fitting.
Moran starts writing about her wedding day in Chapter 10 "I Get Married!" and I obviously got excited, I am getting married this year and am currently in the bridal phase that makes me want to know the ins and outs of every wedding that ever happened EVER before my own.I will be having my father, Martin, and my stepfather, Matthew, to both walk me down the aisle. I worry about the words they will each speak to me before they walk me out of their lives and into SK's. I've had a bit of anxiety about it already, but! whatever happens, nothing will ever be as bad as what Moran's father says to her just before she walks to her future husband. On page 187 she writes:

- "[G]iving away his first child in marriage...'Darling girl,' he says, as the usher opens the door, and I see the whole congregation crane around, to watch my entrance. 'Darling love. Remember you're a Womble.' "

I feel much better now. Thanks Caitlin!

I cant wait to review this book, I should be done in a few more days.
Happy reading!

Regards,
The BookLady.

Greetings!

My name is Emily Rogers and I am a BookLady.

What is a BookLady?

- Well, anyone can be a BookLady (or a BookLord) as long as you have a passion for literature, writing and reading.
I am the BookLady of Pontyclun, a small village in the Rhondda valley of Wales. I am the author of "Foxgloves" (coming 2015) and I run the local book shop. 


I am using this blog to write reviews on books that I have read/ am reading, I'll us this blog to store some unpublished work in drafts before I am ready to show it to my publisher, and I will also use it as a bit of a diary for my wedding that will be happening on August 28th 2015!
This year is going to be massive so I thought why not document it a little and get creative.

Happy reading everyone!

Regards,

The BookLady.