Mel (Epic Reading) > Recent Status Updates

I’ve nearly started this one 3 times in last year. So I’m finally committing!! And print copy is about to expire for third time from library so I’m gonna get it done. lol!

Horror books about paintings always make me think of Dorian Gray. Let’s see where this one takes us.

Story # 4 - The Art of What You Want
This one is brilliant!!! An amazing twist!
Story #5 - The Lunar Eclipse
Short, sweet and sad.

New GR challenges for the quarter/season are up! I did quite poorly on the winter ones so hoping to get a few more knocked off this time around. Only time will tell if I can do it. One category is large books and I sure have enough of those on my TBR! 😅🤣

This second half is really nothing like the first half… and while the blurb tells us it transforms, I’m not sure it really gives any sense of into what the story changes into. It’s not a bad thing I just feel like this second half is a totally different book…

Well this has not gone as I expected. Interesting…
”But unseen in darkness, things are free to shift.”

Story #4 - ha! I always love a good horror Christmas story!

Story #2 - only horrific if you know the name… interesting choice…
Story #3 - shudder. Nothing gross or even that scary here unless you’ve always found pregnancy and birth (like me) to be a bit alien. Then this is like the beginning of so many nightmares I’ve had.

Pretty average so far…

Story #1 - Rest Stop (longer story)
Wow does Nat Cassidy know how to get me. Put a big spider in a confined space and sure enough I’ll have literal shivers, a want to stop reading (but I gotta know what happens to feel better right?), and an overall visceral reaction. This story is so bizarre and yet so good. The Saw reference made is perhaps a nod to some of Cassidy’s inspiration. Horror for horror’s sake.

An engaging set-up.

Short story collection starts off with a longer novella.

The physical timeline in this is so hard to get my head around. I know what happens and how passage of time is being handled; but it’s hard to imagine what they would feel like. Both for our time travelling gal and those she ‘visits’.

This is a very clever way to get a lot of non-historical readers to read about slavery. And a good way to bring non-science fiction readers into the ‘what if’ realm of science fiction. I dunno if this is ever taught in schools but it feels like a perfect literary education story (or book club book of course).

Very hard to put down!

I’m engaged.
Although I do want to know how a book on edition 12 and 30 years old still has an obvious typo…

Yup… this poor book sat for over a month with a bookmark and no progress; as library books and authors I was meeting books took precedent. Now it’s finally Kindred’s turn.

Seriously?! We spent like 400 pages on all that came before but then after one chapter, 3 measly days of travel our MC is now reflecting like she’s been gone for months?!?!
Very poor handling of time continuity. If you make other travel times seem like a long time you can’t make your most important one (seemingly to the character) that changes her perspective be so short!

Okay… so finally a romance moment and he gropes her? Is that supposed to be sexy? Cause it didn’t feel like it… and I totally let my husband feel me up on our first date so I’m not a prude (lol).
Away we go in danger again… I feel like for every two step forward we go one back… so it’s not ‘bad’ but it’s not ‘good’… sigh.

Really?!? You give me a map with landmarks and areas indicated. I finally get some descriptions of previous kingdoms areas and the landmarks aren’t on the map?!
Sloppy… no true fantasy writer would have made such an error. This is falling more and more into the romance with an attempt at fantasy category. Which is really too bad as it’s immensely readable; if frustrating in its content.

I need to veer off the romance train I’ve been on recently, and 13 short stories from Nat Cassidy seems like the perfect way to do. I just need to remember not to read them right before bedtime!

Finally the full prophecy and some details about our leading man. A little bit info dumpy in its dialogue between our lady and the ‘enemy’ man but at least we got some details. The plot is very thin here. If not for the good writing and prose I think I’d be very annoyed. However I’m still flipping pages quick enough so will see where it goes. I do hope our lead gal gets a bit less annoying…

This was going so well…and then it got a lot like every other enemies romantasy and that is disappointing. It’s immensely readable, very fast paced, but the decisions our lead girl is making and some of the dialogue is getting to be a bit cliche. The lore is also just meh. I mean you want to base your book on a prophecy but never actually give it in full in the narrative!! Kind of insulted as a fantasy reader…

”The biggest great you will ever face, the toughest battle you will ever fight, is against your own limit”
As an ex-addict this resonates… the toughest battle is the internal struggle to have a limit and keep it. An interesting comparison when it comes to the use of magic…

The word ‘Reavers’. My first encounter with it was The Witcher (I think). It became common word to me with Firefly/Serenity. It’s interesting that it’s used here.
While not in the dictionary it’s clearly a word the fantasy genre (across many media’s) has taken to mean barbarians, cannibals, or butchers.

I can’t seem to put this down! Nothing shocking in terms of tropes but it’s soo captivating and well written. Alas I must sleep a couple hours before working in the AM. (lol)

Captured my attention in chapter 2! Impressive!

Half fae, half human, all unwanted. Here we go.

Some obvious reveals… but one reveal, so far, I was not expecting which is nice. The final reveal I believe I’ve none since page 20… I’ll find out if I’m correct shortly!

Soo good! Strong narrative voice (as always from Chang’s writing) but the little mysteries are engaging.