RCT's COUNTY SHOW

Went to the RCT county show and they had fabulous, fabulous display. Take this cake for example, it's mouth watering and freshly made. I did not stay at the event very long because I was hungry!

Then they had flowers on display. This is my favourite...

One of the tables was displaying these wonderful creations of bangles and necklaces for cheap prices... I ended up buying a pink hello kitty wrist watch for a bargain!!

Not a lot of people went but I think that was down to advertising. I do not think that people did not come because they don't want to or that they were not attracted to the event, but because they did not know about it. Me, being such a nosey git, I knew about the event and went there.

Pictures are courtesy of WalesCymru.

A TASTE OF DARKNESS

A Taste of Darkness by Nina Bangs

Genre: urban fantasy

My Review:
The author obviously has a very good sense of humor and is showing through the lines in the pages. Which makes a very fun reading indeed!

I only realized that this is the third book in the THE MACKENZIE VAMPIRES SERIES halfway down the book. Maybe if I've read the first three books first, then perhaps I would have a greater appreciation of events and characters. As it is, the story telling quality wasn't very compelling. I find my mind wandering while reading that it took me a few weeks to finish this book.

I would say this is a good read but not grab-your-attention-and-carry-you-away kinda book.

Cherry's Rating: 3 out of 5 cherries


Caption at the back:

He'd lived a thousand years for this? Reinn Mackenzie was a one ticked-off vampire.

Werewolves - furry pains in the butt. Werecats - sneaky whisker-twitching manipulators. Reinn hated them all. But most of all, he hated his job. Guardian of the Blood. What a crock.

The Mackenzie council, in its infinite stupidity, had ordered him to protect the purity of the clan's bloodline. What purity? They were all just a bunch of bloodsuckers, for crying out loud. Besides, how cold he destroy a clan member for mating with someone not on the council's approved list when the very sight of a certain little werecat revved his engine?
Kisa Evans made it impossible for him to think about anything but the dangerous fantasy of freeing his own inner beast. No matter how he fought the desire to feel the soft heat of her throat beneath his lips, the craving only grew. Kisa might be the enemy, but he longed to show her the sweet ecstasy to be found in...
A Taste of Darkness

DENTIST

Went to the dentist yesterday and I'm still smarting from my dentist calling me old. Of course he dressed it up in dentist talk and all, still the same, "old". *sigh*

G.I. JOE : THE RISE OF COBRA

My Review:
I enjoyed this movie although there were some "unable-to-suspend-disbelief" moments where a scene is just too unbelievable to connect with. Where a scene is just too unbelievable for a viewer to suspend disbelief even if one went into it wanting to suspend disbelief. However I like the way they put a scientific background to the ScienceFiction/Fantasy issue in the story. As in, they explained the fantastic metal-eating warhead with nano technology.

Obviously the producers are planning a sequel since they added a cliffhanger there at the end.

Cherry's Rating: 4 out of 5 cherries

The story is about:

A US secret paramilitary-force-ala-A-Team with James Bond gadgets to deal with extra special threats such as crazy super-intellegent geeks who invents nano-war-heads for world domination.

Genre:

• modern fantasy which is also sort-of a science fiction
• a comic-book adoptation (I think)

INTERTWINED SWEEPSTAKES

Get your chance to win $10,000 grand prize plus lots and lots of other prizes at Harlequin Teen:

If you get the most Grab & Posts, you'll win a Harlequin TEEN Prize Pack:

• a copy of Intertwined, signed by Gena Showalter
• a copy of My Soul to Take by Rachel Vincent
• a copy of Elphame's Choice by P.C. Cast
• an Intertwined t-shirt
• a My Soul to Take t-shirt

This widget is also on the sidebar for later visitors.

LOOKING FORWARD TO:

Upcoming Releases:

SPOOK'S SACRIFICE

The Spook's Sacrifice by Joesph Delaney

Genre: YA, fantasy

Verdict: Story well-told.

My Review:
J. Delaney did not disappoint. Absorbing world, this book is.

Plus this time, a bit of an adventure was added into the mix. It probably helped that England (Tom and Spook's country) is on the same continent as Greece (Mam's country). I like this new twist in the series. Adventure plus a deviation from Tom's usual Spook's apprentice thingie. Keeps the series from being monotonous. Will continue to look forward to reading more of the Spook's series.

Hey they made a new website for J. Delaney's Spook series books!!!

http://spooksbooks.com

Plus a blog: http://www.spooksbooks.com/authorblog

Cherry's Rating: 4 out of 5 cherries.

Caption on the cover sleeve:

'Witches, Mam? We've made an alliance with witches?'

'I know you'll find it hard because of what your master's taught you,' Mam said, laying a hand on my shoulder, 'but we can't win without them. It's as simple as that. And we have to win, we really do.'

As the Spook's apprentice, Tom's first duty is to protect the County from the dark. But now Mam needs his help in her homeland of Greece. One of the most dangerous of the Old Gods, the Ordeen, is about to return there, bringing slaughter and devastation.

Mam has summoned a powerful group to her side, but among them are Tom's old enemies, the Pendle witches. Can Tom go against all the Spook has taught him and ally himself with witches What is the secret that Mam is keeping from him? And what sacrifices must be made in the battle against the dark?

The sixth chilling tale in the Wardstone Chronicles.

STRANGE ANGELS

Strange Angels by Lili St. Crow
Book 1 of the Strange Angels series.

Verdict: Irritating read

My Review: It has all the elements of a good urban fantasy chicklit. Magic, werewolves, vampires and a kick-ass chick. But the main protagonist is consistently, irritatingly stupid. Or was it the way the story was told?!... Granted, she is a teenager and therefore expected to be occasionally stupid. But a ridiculously stupid protagonist makes an irritating read. Some authors can pull it off, having a teen protagonist who is stupid enough to be real and still have a pretty good read without being irritating. But this author is not one of them.

For those readers who are more forgiving than me, then this might be a good read for them. But I wouldn't read another Lili St. Crow. I am more of a Jim Butcher kind of reader.

Genre: urban fantasy, chicklit, YA

Rating: 2 out of 5 cherries.


Caption from the back cover:

Dad? Zombie.
Mom? Long gone.
Me? Well, that's the scary part.

The Real World is a frightening place. Just ask sixteen-year-old orphan Dru Anderson, a tough girl who has taken down her fair share of bad guys. She's armed, dangerous, and ready to kill first and ask questions later. So it's gonna take her a while to figure out who she can trust...

Dru Anderson has been "strange" for as long as she can remember, traveling from town to town with her father to hunt the things that go bump in the night. It's a weird life, but a good one - until it all explodes in an icy, broken-down Dakota town, when a hungry zombie busts through her kitchen door. Alone, terrified and trapped, Dru's going to need every inch of her wit and training to stay alive. The monsters have decided to hunt back - and this time, Dru's on their menu. Chances of survival? Slim to none.

If she can't last until sun-up, it's game over.

I do not expect the world to have exact the same tastes as I do, so for those who would like this kind of reads, you can buy this at the Buy Link below. This book has been receiving mixed reviews. Some people really like it, some don't. Here are some other reviews on this book:

• Hagelrat's review at Un:Bound - http://hagelrat.blogspot.com/2009/11/strange-angels-lili-saintcrow.html

Please tell us if you know of any other review on this book so that I can tell other blog readers about it.

Buy Link:


*NOTICE: Please note that amendments has been made to this post since it's first posting.

ELVENBORN

Third book of the Halfblood Chronicles by Andre Norton and Mercedes Lackey.

Genre: epic fantasy

My Review:
Interesting but not very good.

It took me a long time to read this book. The ending was a bit of an anti-climax. The pleasure is more on the reading of their adventure rather than what happened at the end. The authors are admittedly a good spinner of a tale, but did not quite pull it off in the end, which was rather surprising. This book is almost like a WGC (wild goose chase) that Heroes Adrift by Moira Moore is.

There were a few salient points in the story that the authors completely missed to exploit. They either did this intentionally with an intent of another book to follow or they just completely missed, hence the flat ending. I think they intended to follow this book up in the beginning. But it seems that got cancelled as shown by Mercedes Lackey's website that this series is supposedly to have four books. The fourth book being Elvenbred. But Elvenbred was never published (yet).

Cherry's Rating: 2 out of 5 cherries.

Caption on the book cover sleeve:

In this long-awaited new novel in the Halfblood Chronicles, fantasy greats Norton and lackey tell the enthralling story of the reclusive elvenlord Kyrtian, who emerges as a hero in a world torn by politics and war. When his cousin, Aelmarkin, tries to prove that Kyrtian is unfit to run his estate, the plan backfires, and soon Kyrtian, who doesn't share the venal, greedy nature of his cousin, finds himself with more power than he ever wanted.

Like his father before him, Kyrtian has always treated humans on his estate like servants, instead of enslaving them as other elvenlords do. His father's legacy also leads Kyrtian to learn ancient military skills long since lost to elvenkind through the carelessness of the elvenlords. Kyrtian's re-discovered knowledge piques the interest of the current elvenlords, and soon Kyrtian finds himself appointed the new commander of the army, to the relief of his ruling peers.

For the Young Lords, sons of the most powerful elvenlords, have rebelled against their fathers and are waging war. But by taking advantage of both the privileges of his new command and the help of some unexpected new friends, Kyrtian finally gains the resources to embark on his own, personal quest - resuming his father's search for the Great Portal, the magical doorway through which the original elvenlords entered this world.

As war rages between some sons and fathers, Kyrtian reaches desperately for his own lost father, hoping to uncover not only the mystery of his disappearance, but also the secret behind the origin of elvenkind.

Books in this series in chronological order:
Elvenbane Mercedes Lackey with Andre Norton
Elvenblood Mercedes Lackey with Andre Norton
Elvenborn Mercedes Lackey with Andre Norton
Elvenbred Mercedes Lackey with Andre Norton
Source: http://www.mercedeslackey.com/books/elven2.html on 20/07/2009.

BESTEST BEST BOOKS EVER! (BBBE)

Over the years, I have waded through tons and tons of bad books. Occasionally I come across really, really good ones and these are the ones which keeps me wading through more books even though most of them are quite bad to read.

These occasional really good books have given me lots of reading pleasure. And I wanted to share this "happy feeling" with everybody. Especially to people I call friends! That is you!

So I thought I would put together the bestest best books I've ever read and put it in a goody bag and give it away! Of course these books are second hand because I've read them already. But they are worth re-reading and re-reading! Absolutely!! Hoping that whoever gets it will also enjoy the book(s) as much as I did and will give you the same happiness as it did to me!

Now, if you have a book which made you happy and you would like to share this happiness to everybody too, then email me about it and I will see if I could obtain a copy of it to put into our goody bag!

Come on people, let's spread happiness!!

The Bestest Best Books Ever! (BBBE)
Here is my list of Bestest Best Books Ever! Feel free to email me your Bestest Best Book and I will try to add it to our list. You probably have already read most, if not all, of the books in this list. In which case, if you win, all I ask is for you to share it to your friend. And hopefully recruit another SF&F / Romance fan to our ranks. The draw will be at the end of August (2009). This will hopefully give us enough time to buy, beg and/or nick the books which are the Bestest Best Books Ever! and put them into our goody bag! And if you win the goody bag? you might just discover a great new read or two in our pile!

Storm Front by J Butcher
Dark Lover by JR Ward
Fantasy Lover by S Kenyon
Weremones by B BeCraft-Woodall
Beyond The Highland Mist by KM Moning
Slave To Sensation by N Singh
Spook's Apprentice by J Delaney

There are more books I've read which belong to this list but it is just not possible to list all of them or we will have 20-pages worth of blog. Full list will be displayed and updated at the CherryD public blog.

If you are interested in becoming a member of our panel to determine which ones should make it to our list of Bestest Best Books Ever! then contact me and tell me about your interest. If you have a book you would want donate into our goody bag, please contact me about it as well.

How To Enter?
You are automatically entered if you are a member of the CherryD Science Fiction / Fantasy / Romance community (http://cherryd.ning.com/).

You can increase your chances of winning by gaining additional entry credits. If you gain an additional credit, then that is another piece of rolled paper with your name in it in the hat for you! 1 credit is = 1 rolled paper with your name. Gaining extra entry credits:

• 1 credit = Blog about the Bestest Best Book Ever! in your blog or website with a link back to CherryD (http://cherryd.ning.com/). Please tell me the URL of the blog or website where you blogged about this contest can be found so that I can find it.
• 1 credit = Membership with CherryD ning community.
  If you have suggestions about how to gain more entry credits, you can tell me about it at cherry@dmailcentral.com.

The Draw
The Draw will be done in the traditional manner where all names to be entered will be written in a piece of paper and rolled and will be placed into a hat. After the hat is shaken to mix them all up, I will pick one out of the lot randomly with eyes closed to eliminate biase. The winner will be announced at CherryD.

The Prize?
The Prize will consist of all the books in the Bestest Best Books Ever! list in a cherrydecena tote bag, plus a few nice things besides:

· Donations accumulated for our goody bag!
· Cymru mug
· cherrydecena T-shirt
· free postcards
· free pens
· a box of chocolates!!!!
"Life is like a box of chocolates..." - by Forest Gump's mother

The official BBBE post is at: http://cherrytrouble-cherry.blogspot.com/2009/07/bestest-best-books-ever-bbbe.html and the BBBE list is at: http://cherrytrouble-cherry.blogspot.com/2009/07/bbbe-list.html.

Regards,
Cherry

ICE AGE 3

Why does the crazy buccaneer sounded British? Do we come across as that crazy to the rest of the world? Of course, I honestly think we are quite sane. But that is not an objective opinion having lived in the UK for a good part of half a generation. But, then again, we get movies like Pirates of the Caribbean where Johnny Depp just plays the loony British-ish pirate a bit too well. *sigh* No wonder we are perceived as a bit loony-ish by the rest of the world, eh?! I enjoyed it though. But then I'm a big kid.... :)

That side story of the scarts is so, so reflective of reality simplified and cartoonized that one can’t help relating to it.

Rating: 4 out of 5 cherries