Books of Amber

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End of an Era

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This is such a weird post for me to write. I’m not finding it difficult or challenging, per se, I am more in disbelief that the day has finally come. You may know that I’ve been blogging for almost 12 years now. I started off on Blogger after discovering that book blogs were a thing, and a few years later I migrated my blog over to WordPress because that seemed like the more elegant option.

I had the same theme for years (designed and created by my wonderful friend Judith @ Paper Riot, who is sadly no longer blogging), and I didn’t really mix things up. I continued to post wrap ups, reviews, and memes. Everything slowly started to feel more and more stagnant. I tried to introduce a few new things to my blog, but to be honest I lost a lot of the passion that I once had for it, partly because a lot of my blogging friends had stopped blogging by 2015. 

I went on a long blogging break at the beginning of 2016 (I somehow got a social life), and while I kept trying to make a return over the years, nothing really stuck. This year – 2022 – is the most consistent I’ve been in quite a while.

I love blogging, and I love the book community. I really do. But I somehow lost my spark, and when my blog started to deteriorite after theme changes and host moves, I wasn’t particularly motivated to fix it. I tried a few times, yes, but without the motivation I found myself becoming more and more frustrated with the site I’d been curating since 2010.

So what did I do? I started a new blog! 

BOOK TREK

I’ve decided to completely revamp my brand (if this is even a brand, which I’m not sure it is) and combine my love of reading with my passion for travel. Words cannot express how excited I am for this new adventure, and I really hope that you all want to join me. 

I’ve been trying to incorporate travel posts into Books of Amber for a while, but it never really felt right. Books of Amber wasn’t meant to be a travel blog, and that made me sad. So I created a whole new blog, with a whole new purpose. 

On Book Trek I’m planning on balancing my time between travel posts and bookish posts. There may well be some lifestyle content thrown in there for fun too, but I’m sure books and travel will be enough to keep me busy to start with.

I’m still tweaking things over there and until I find the perfect layout I’m sure the aesthetics will change a lot over the next few months or so. I’m also still trying to figure out the best schedule that works for me, and I’m dipping my toes into the travel community – which is SO different to the book community, but also similar in some ways. It’s a big change, but I’m finally very much enjoying myself when it comes to blogging again.

And that is all for Books of Amber! I’ll be leaving my site up for the foreseeable, but it will no longer be updated. In the meantime, please come and visit me on Book Trek and give me a follow. I’d love to see some familiar faces over there!

The Maid by Nita Prose | Book Review

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The Maid by Nita Prose
Release Date: 4th January 2022
Genre: Mystery
Source: Publisher, NetGalley
Rating: ★★.5

Molly Gray is not like everyone else. She struggles with social skills and misreads the intentions of others. Her gran used to interpret the world for her, codifying it into simple rules that Molly could live by.

Since Gran died a few months ago, twenty-five-year-old Molly has been navigating life’s complexities all by herself. No matter—she throws herself with gusto into her work as a hotel maid. Her unique character, along with her obsessive love of cleaning and proper etiquette, make her an ideal fit for the job. She delights in donning her crisp uniform each morning, stocking her cart with miniature soaps and bottles, and returning guest rooms at the Regency Grand Hotel to a state of perfection.

But Molly’s orderly life is upended the day she enters the suite of the infamous and wealthy Charles Black, only to find it in a state of disarray and Mr. Black himself dead in his bed. Before she knows what’s happening, Molly’s unusual demeanor has the police targeting her as their lead suspect. She quickly finds herself caught in a web of deception, one she has no idea how to untangle. Fortunately for Molly, friends she never knew she had unite with her in a search for clues to what really happened to Mr. Black—but will they be able to find the real killer before it’s too late?

The Maid was one of the first 2022 releases I got excited about, but unfortunately it turned out to be a disappointment. Not only did I find the story to be very boring, I also didn’t like any of the characters in this book. 

When the book was first released, reviewers were talking about how the main character is neurodivergent. This made me excited because I always want to read about autistic main characters in books that AREN’T lit fic, and the thought of an autistic/neurodivergent character solving a mrdr was enthralling to me. 

As I continued to read, though, I did question why the author decided to write Molly this way. It’s never mentioned whether Molly is autistic, nor neurodiverse, and the characters all treat Molly as though she is a child instead. I’m not sure if the author has experience with neurodiversity, and I certainly don’t want to assume, but I did find an interview where Nita Prose described Molly as “socially awkward”. So I’m not sure she has ever confirmed that she tried to respectfully write Molly as a neurodivergent character. It seems to me that she was writing all the stereotypes instead, but again, I don’t want to assume.

Would I be interested in an adaptation of this book? Yes… maybe. I wasn’t impressed by the mystery enough to care, to be honest, but of course if there are some great actors and screenwriters working on the project I might check it out. It could work better on screen with the right development.

Overall, The Maid isn’t the worst book I’ve ever read, but it’s certainly the dullest mystery I’ve read this year. I don’t get the hype! 

Top Ten Books I Was SO Excited To Get… But I Still Haven’t Read

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Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. I haven’t taken part in a while, but I felt I just HAD to talk about these books that have been sitting on my TBR shelf for ages because I haven’t gotten around to them. I have been so excited to read these in the past, but I’ve put them off for one reason or another. None of those reasons are good ones…

1. Empire of Storms by Sarah J Maas

I was BIG into the Throne of Glass fandom when the books were first coming out. I didn’t love Throne of Glass, but my close friend Judith was on the street team and she convinced me to continue on with the series. I really started to fall in love with it when I read Heir of Fire, and by the time I read Queen of Shadows I was obsessed. I preordered Empire of Storms as soon as I could, but then I just didn’t read it. I took a long break from Booktube and blogging just before its release and I got SUPER distracted by my new social life, so I never actually read the rest of the series.

I’m planning on marathoning the series sometime this year though when the feeling calls to me. I’m thinking in the next couple of months!

…

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Dead Silence by S. A. Barnes | Book Review

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Dead Silence by S. A. Barnes
Publication Date: 8th February 2022
Genre: Science Fiction, Horror
Source: Publisher, via NetGalley
Rating: ★★★★★

Claire Kovalik is days away from being unemployed—made obsolete—when her beacon repair crew picks up a strange distress signal. With nothing to lose and no desire to return to Earth, Claire and her team decide to investigate.

What they find at the other end of the signal is a shock: the Aurora, a famous luxury space-liner that vanished on its maiden tour of the solar system more than twenty years ago. A salvage claim like this could set Claire and her crew up for life. But a quick trip through the Aurora reveals something isn’t right.

Whispers in the dark. Flickers of movement. Words scrawled in blood. Claire must fight to hold onto her sanity and find out what really happened on the Aurora, before she and her crew meet the same ghastly fate.

What an EXCELLENT spooky read! I absolutely devoured Dead Silence, after putting it off for months because I was scared it was going to let me down. My experience showed I was being silly, though, because this book was incredible.

I was on the edge of my seat the entire time. Literally, the ENTIRE time. As soon as I picked the book up and I read about the characters picking up on a ghost signal, then watching them as they came across an abandoned luxury liner, I was hooked. I couldn’t wait for them to step on board, but I was also dreading it because I knew it was going to go OH SO WRONG.

There is a dual timeline in this book where the main character has lost most of her memories past a certain point, and she has no idea how she got off the ship. I know dual timelines sometimes bother people, so I wanted to mention that the jump back and forth in Dead Silence is handled very subtly and is used as a tool to catch the reader up and bring them to the present when the two timelines are about to meet. I loved this aspect of the book and I thought it really added to the suspense, as we know that somehow Claire got off the ship, and we need to find out how.

Dead Silence was true sci-fi horror, and it made me crave more of both the genre and the author’s works. I can’t wait to see what S A Barnes comes out with in the future, as she has just given me a favourite book of the year!

The Twyford Code by Janice Hallett | Book Review

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The Twyford Code by Janice Hallett
Publication Date: 13th January 2022
Genre: Mystery
Source: Library
Goodreads
Rating: ★★★

It’s time to solve the murder of the century…

Steven Smith has just been released from prison, and he is finally free to investigate a mystery that has haunted him since childhood. Forty years ago, he found a copy of a famous children’s book, full of strange markings and annotations. He took it to his remedial English teacher, Miss Isles, who became convinced that it was the key to solving a puzzle. That a message in secret code ran through all Edith Twyford’s novels. Then Miss Isles disappeared, and Steven’s memory won’t allow him to remember what happened. Did she sense her own imminent death? Was she right about the code? And is it still in use today? Desperate to recover his memories and find out what really happened to Miss Isles, Steven revisits the people and places of his childhood. But it soon becomes clear that Edith Twyford wasn’t just a writer of forgotten children’s stories. The Twyford Code has great power, and he isn’t the only one trying to solve it…

I feel very conflicted about The Twyford Code. On the one hand, I loved the format and the concept of this book. The story is told in transcripts of audio files from a guy called Steven Smith who is recording messages for his son as he tries to crack a code written by an author during WW2. 

Having read The Appeal by this author before, I was KEEN for this one to say the least. I think the transcript format mostly worked well (although not as well as the emails and messages in The Appeal) and it was very ambitious. It was a very unique way of telling a story and I enjoyed reading along and trying to solve the mystery.

I did, unfortunately, start to get a little bored about halfway through the book. While I was hooked in the beginning, by the halfway point it was starting to drag and to feel a little bit silly. My interest picked up again towards the end when the reveals started coming through, but since I had lost interest towards already it all fell a little flat.

I think the reveals at the end were a mixture of clever and ridiculous – but that was the case for The Appeal as well, so I think that’s just the author’s style as she writes these mysteries.

I’m definitely looking forward to seeing what the author comes out with next. At least I know the format is going to be unique and entertaining!

The Woman They Could Not Silence by Kate Moore | Book Review

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The Woman They Could Not Silence by Kate Moore
Publication Date: 22nd June 2021
Genre: Non-Fiction
Source: Publisher, via NetGalley
Goodreads
Rating: ★★★

1860: As the clash between the states rolls slowly to a boil, Elizabeth Packard, housewife and mother of six, is facing her own battle. The enemy sits across the table and sleeps in the next room. Her husband of twenty-one years is plotting against her because he feels increasingly threatened – by Elizabeth’s intellect, independence, and unwillingness to stifle her own thoughts. So Theophilus makes a plan to put his wife back in her place. One summer morning, he has her committed to an insane asylum.

The horrific conditions inside the Illinois State Hospital in Jacksonville, Illinois, are overseen by Dr. Andrew McFarland, a man who will prove to be even more dangerous to Elizabeth than her traitorous husband. But most disturbing is that Elizabeth is not the only sane woman confined to the institution. There are many rational women on her ward who tell the same story: they’ve been committed not because they need medical treatment, but to keep them in line – conveniently labeled “crazy” so their voices are ignored.

No one is willing to fight for their freedom and, disenfranchised both by gender and the stigma of their supposed madness, they cannot possibly fight for themselves. But Elizabeth is about to discover that the merit of losing everything is that you then have nothing to lose…

Book Review

The story of Elizabeth Packard is inspiring and frustrating, and, honestly, so was this book. I really admire the time that Kate Moore has put into researching Packard in order to fully tell her story. It is truly quite a feat. However, this book went on and on for absolutely ever, and I felt myself growing tired of it towards the end.

I think The Woman They Could Not Silence could – and should – have been condensed. At almost 600 pages, the book spends a lot of time going into detail of what happened to Elizabeth Packard when she was in the asylum, but not much time going into her background or the events after her release. Of course, the amount of time Packard spent in the asylum was significant, but I would have liked more focus on what came after if the book had to be this long.

I’m a little disappointed because I read The Radium Girls by this author a few years ago and adored it. I’ve been recommending it every time someone asks for a non-fiction rec. This one, however, while detailed and admirable, was far too long and dragged out for my liking.

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