So, my dog’s name is Zenith. I’ve had a lot of reactions to that name over the years: Xena? No, Zenith. Ze-what? Zenith. Like, the TV brand? Um, no. The truth is, she’s named after Zenith SunSoar from The Wayfarer Redemption series by Sara Douglass. My youngest cat, River – short for RiverStar – is named after RiverStar SunSoar from the same series. And I’ve thought about naming a future male pet Drago, short for DragonStar…you guessed it, SunSoar. I would love […]
So I’ve been branching out on Instagram more lately – visiting other accounts, perusing my favorite hashtags, creeping my suggestions for new posts and people. And I’ve noticed something. I stumbled on a picture in a new account. I got to looking at it, and thought, Wait. I just saw this picture this morning….on someone else’s account. Sure enough, the picture did not belong to that person. I was pissed. Which is stupid, because it wasn’t my picture. But still, that makes me […]
You all know what I’m talking about. You see a cover, and it’s SO beautiful you immediately fall in love with it, and you’d do ANYTHING to have the book in your hands right now so you can drool over it. Then you start to read it. And you get angry. WHY IS SUCH A TERRIBLE BOOK DRESSED IN SUCH A GORGEOUS COVER?! You’re devastated, and a little piece of your soul dies. Here are just a few of the covers I […]
We’ve all seen those “how-to” posts on writing reviews. Do this, don’t do that, make sure you blah blah blah. I hate those posts. Why? Because there are no rules. There are no guidelines. Your blog is YOUR space, and yours alone. Not anyone else’s! No one should ever, ever tell you how to review (or how not to). I cringe every time I see posts like that. Here are a few lines of “advice” I’ve seen that really annoy me: Don’t be sarcastic. […]
I recently updated my Reviews by Year page to include a section for books I read before the year I started blogging (2011). I was surprised by how many there were (I didn’t think I read that much before I blogged!), but what I was most surprised by was the whopping amount of 5 star books I read back then. So, I started analyzing some rating stats from my reading years and what I came up with was very interesting! […]
When I first started blogging, I had NO idea what an ARC was. (Ah, to be blissfully ignorant again.) After a few months, once I found out and got established, I discovered NetGalley. Then Edelweiss. SEDUCTRESSES. I (like most of you probably did) went on a massive downloading spree. FREE BOOKS! FREE UNRELEASED BOOKS! Alas, they were not “free.” They came with guilt, and pressure, and…*cringes* obligations. Eeeeeek. For a while there, I was drowning in them. And guess what? Once you’re […]