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Book Review: The Fast Little Fox (The Fast Little Fox & Friends book #1) by Jill Horton

This book was kindly sent to me to review. However, all opinions are my own and honest. This post also contains affiliate links.

Title: The Fast Little Fox (The Fast Little Fox & Friends book #1)
Author: Jill Horton
Genre: Children's picture book
Available on: Amazon.co.uk - Amazon.com in paperback and on kindle (Also free on Kindle Unlimited!)
Add it on Goodreads

The Fast Little Fox is an adorable children's book filled with cute and humorous pictures. We follow Freddy Fox who runs so quickly, he makes mistakes. He makes a friend who helps him learn and he makes up for his actions.

I thought that this was a wonderful children's book. It teaches lessons whilst also improving vocabulary. There are various animal characters for the children to learn about, each of their names beginning with the letter of what animal they are which can help to build associations for children.

This book is a great length for a story time tale and I can't wait to see the rest of the books that Jill Horton creates. I highly recommend this book if you have children or work with them!

My rating: 5/5 stars


What I'm Focusing on This Year

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Hi everyone! If you follow me on Twitter, you will probably know that I have been dealing with debilitating chronic symptoms for a while. So for 2022, I decided to try to focus on positive things that make me happy. I thought I'd share some of my goals and ideas for this year. I'd love to hear any goals or anything you're focusing on for 2022!

Reading

I love reading. I get so excited about finding new books and reading makes me feel so many emotions but most of all, I get happiness from reading. 

I set my Goodreads goal for 200 books this year. On average I'd say I usually read about 50 books a year. But this year I am reading a lot of short childrens books and graphic novels between other reads, particularly middle grade fantasy. This allows me to complete more books and have something nice to focus on. 

I don't know if I will reach this goal but it is nice to have something I can reach for when I feel well enough to read.

Games

I have been a gamer for almost my entire life. I don't play games as much as I used to, and that's ok but when I feel like playing, I want to be playing games that I enjoy and make me happy. Some of my favourite games from last year are Animal Crossing with the DLC and Pokemon Brilliant Diamond.

Colouring and jigsaw puzzles

I wanted to do something that I can do whilst watching book videos, a TV show I've seen before or listening to an audiobook. I love mindfulness colouring, I find it really relaxing and it quiets my mind and just makes me feel calmer. I also want to make some bookish jigsaw puzzles up and glue them so I can display them. I am currently colouring in my Pokemon colouring book and I am really enjoying it.

Blogging

I want to continue to promote indie books this year and talk about mental and physical health, subjects that I want to bring out into the open and raise visibility and awareness for. I would like to work with more guest writers to help share their experiences. I also plan to continue posting poems when I feel inspired to write them.

Ko-Fi

Ko-Fi started offering a monthly membership option which is essentially like Patreon. I created a members tier which includes shout-outs for my supporters at the end of every blog post, including their links and a Discord server to chat, have a book club and text reading sprints, among other things. I would really like to get more members for this. It would really help me personally but I also want to support others through messages, shout-outs and things like reading sprints. 

Be kind to myself

Feeling really unwell physically every day, as well as dealing with mental health issues is tough. I want to try to be kinder to myself and think more positively. Even though there are a lot of things I can't do right now, I can try to focus more on what I can do and how I can help people. 

I also want to thank everyone who has been there for me, if you are reading this. Kind messages help more than you would know and I am really grateful to know so many lovely people who brighten my days. 

Thank you to my Ko-Fi members!~
Jill Horton- check out her book! Amazon.com - Amazon.co.uk

Book Review: Shadowless by Randall McNally

This book was kindly sent to me to review. However, all opinions are my own and honest. This post also contains affiliate links.

Title: Shadowless
Author: Randall McNally
Genre: YA Fantasy

In Shadowless, there are children of deities. These children do not have shadows and become engaged in a battle to survive. We follow different perspectives as we discover this world and the dark motives of the deities.
 
This book has an amazing premise which I love. It had so many unique plot points which I feel would be great in a video game or even movie franchise. The end of the prologue instantly piqued my interest. There was a lot of description in this book, which was well done and if you like adult fantasy books, I think you would enjoy this read.

This book was really intriguing and well written but I do wish that there had been more of a goal to catapult the action for me personally. 

However, this book felt very reminiscent of some popular adult fantasy books and I believe there is a great audience for this out there who just need to discover this book!

My rating: 3.75/5 stars




Thank you to my Ko-Fi members!~
Jill Horton- check out her book! Amazon.com - Amazon.co.uk

Book Review: Little Wanderers: The Everlasting Seasons by I. K. Silver

This book was kindly sent to me to review. However, all opinions are my own and honest. This post also contains affiliate links.


Title: Little Wanderers: The Everlasting Seasons
Author: I. K. Silver
Genre: Middle Grade Fantasy
Buy links: Amazon.co.uk - Amazon.com

In this book we follow Snowy, a dwarf on a somewhat personal development journey. 

This was a really cute children's book that had some important lessons inside and showed great characteristics to teach children. I feel like this would be a great book to read to a child.

My rating: 3.75/5 stars




Thank you to my Ko-Fi members!~
Jill Horton- check out her book! Amazon.com - Amazon.co.uk

Indie Showcase #5 Science Fiction Books

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Authors work really hard, pouring all of themselves into creating their passion projects and achieving their dreams. One thing that I want to do is to help authors to reach a wider audience and make more sales. Something very important for all authors, is receiving reviews. Reviews on Goodreads, Amazon, Waterstones and other shop websites help authors to find even more readers. Sometimes authors will run deals such as offering their book for free or for a cheaper price so that readers can access their books and review them for others to find. In these indie showcase posts I am going to share some of these books. Please check out any books that you are interested in and leave reviews online! See other indie showcase posts on my book lists page.

Broken Bells (The Midnight Light Chronicles)

What guides our fate? Should we allow ourselves the dream of ever seizing control? Conspiracy. Vengeful aliens. A tyrant looking for redemption. Multiple timelines, one terrible secret!

Dasjenya hates his society’s powerful overlords. In an effort to prove the Aosha in no way merit the right to bombard whole civilizations out of existence, Dasjenya gathers a scientific mission and heads into our planet’s forbidden wastelands.

Strange voices chant warnings, reality shifts and falling meteoric debris obliterates every trace of the world he has ever known.

Flung into the past, he must now embrace a new role within an elite and thriving Aoshan culture. In fact, Dasjenya must now work alongside a younger version of the very Aoshan whose future autocratic ways forced his journey.

To save Earth, can Dasjenya—for all our sakes!—close the gap between who he has been and who he must be?

Part quest novel, part post-apocalyptic time-travel adventure and part love story set in humanity’s near future, this story of human courage will thrill readers who have enjoyed C.J. Cherryh’s Wave Without a Shore, Julian May’s The Many-Colored Land, or Sheri S. Tepper’s The Gate to Women’s Country.

From the author of Many Moons, Lesser Beings, and Cross the Sky.


Fifty years ago, Captain Nina Brooke hand-picked a crew from across the world to accompany her on the mission of a lifetime. Today, they’re all waking up. The Posterity is making her final approach to their new home planet, and the work is about to begin. Humanity wasn’t an endangered species when they set off on this mission, but it’s a darn sight closer to being one now. No pressure, then.

The new planet seems perfect; plenty of resources, good settlement locations, habitable climates. After what happened to Earth, Nina is conscious that they need to take better care of this one. It takes all sorts to make a world, and Nina’s got all sorts asleep in her cryobay; not only the people required to build it, but the ones to make it feel like home, too. After all, what good is saving humanity if you leave the best parts of it behind?

Some people find it easier than others to start new lives here on the other side of the galaxy, but then, it all depends on what they left behind. As Nina navigates relationships old and new, will she finally find the one thing she’s never had: a home?

The Awakening of Artemis

A stunning thriller set in a world where the elites make the rules and artificial intelligence enforces them, The Awakening of Artemis is a remarkable story of one woman’s personal journey with enough plot twists to keep readers guessing to the very end.

Set in 2049 America, it is the story of Diana Gutierrez-Adams, a U.S. Space Force officer and war hero. She is tasked with retrieving her cryogenically frozen grandfather from a remote region outside the “pods” where 90% of the population live. When she and her military unit are captured by a domestic militia, she is caught up in a conspiracy that reaches higher than anyone can imagine.

To evade a devious enemy who is one step ahead of them at every turn, Diana must outsmart a global monitoring system that tracks her every move. On a trail littered with the dystopian remains of middle-class America, she comes face-to-face with an artificial intelligence that threatens the future of all humankind.

Book Review: Childish Spirits by Rob Keeley

This book was kindly sent to me to review. However, all opinions are my own and honest. This post also contains affiliate links.


Title: Childish Spirits
Author: Rob Keeley
Genre: Middle Grade Mystery
Buy links: Amazon.co.uk - Amazon.com

This book follows two children who move into an old house and spooky things begin to happen which leads to the children meeting spirits and trying to solve a mystery.

Our two main characters, Ellie and Charlie, or 'Chas' were introduced well from the beginning, with personality and their own individual characteristics which made me more invested in what was going to happen to them.

The build-up and foreshadowing were excellently implemented and it made me keen to read on and find out what exactly was going to happen and what the cause of the strange occurrences was.

I do feel like I would have liked more information about the family's background in the first few chapters so I could see where they had come from and why they had moved to this place.

The sense of foreboding increased chapter by chapter as we found out more about a spirit living in the house. It was quite dark in places, with mentions of child death.

I also found the children's relationship with their dad a bit strange with conversations between them not feeling fully realistic. 

One of the spirits was actually quite creepy and this added to the dark atmosphere of the book. I enjoyed seeing Ellie and Charlie questioning the situation and delving more into the mystery and I wanted to know what had happened.

If you are looking for a quick contemporary mystery with spirits and that also deals with family relationships, I would recommend checking this book out.

My rating: 3/5 stars



Thank you to my Ko-Fi members!~
Jill Horton- check out her book! Amazon.com - Amazon.co.uk

Book Review: The Legend of Podkin One-Ear (The Five Realms #1) by Kieran Larwood

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Title: The Legend of Podkin One-Ear
Author: Kieran Larwood
Genre: Childrens Fantasy

The Witcher, The Name of the Wind and Game of Thrones meets rabbits.

In this book, the world is populated by rabbits who live in warrens with one person leading as the 'chieftain'. However, their peace is interrupted by an impossible enemy. We follow Podkin and his brother and sister through a tough journey filled with grief, hardships and love. 

This book is marketed as a children's book but let me tell you, I cried multiple times. This book represents grief, fear and hope so well. There are multiple quotes that had me sobbing. 

The characters felt so realistic and well-developed. The plot was incredible and I couldn't tell where it was going or what would happen. I loved how the book had little interludes where the person telling the story was asked questions and we found out more about the world and the lore. 

The illustrations sneaked in throughout were beautifully done, full of character and added to the story so well.

This book was such a lovely quick read. There was so much action which catapulted me through the story. There were paragraphs of description where needed which fleshed out the scenes but not too much as to lose my interest. There was always something happening or a goal to get to.

I absolutely loved this book. It was a perfect fantasy book filled with emotion and I can't wait to read the rest of the books in the series! I want everyone to read this book. If you like fantasy, read this!

My rating: 5/5 stars



Thank you to my Ko-Fi members!~
Jill Horton- check out her book! Amazon.com - Amazon.co.uk

Chronic Illness Guest Post by Tylluan Penry

I have lived with chronic illness for years now, but still it is not my friend. We tolerate each other and that is all. People often claim that all we need to defeat Covid is a ‘strong immune system.’ I could weep for them, I really could, because my problem is just that, I have a very strong immune system, it is doing its best to kill me. And the best treatment on offer is to suppress it, using the sort of drugs used to prevent transplants from being rejected.

The most interesting theory I can come up with for this state of affairs, is that stress has a lot to answer for. Almost everyone in a similar situation to myself has cited stress as a possible cause for the immune system going into overdrive. I can’t prove it of course and at the moment health professionals aren’t interested in exploring this idea. I’ve even suggested they should bottle whatever is wrong with me as a sort of ‘cure-all’ but I don’t think they will take me up on that.

There were clues that something was amiss long ago, but the most devastating and unexpected symptom was losing my sight. I’d driven about 50 miles to Hay on Wye, and suddenly, in a bookshop, I thought it looked very dark. It turned out that a wide horizontal band of vision in my left eye had disappeared. Just like that. Over the next few days it got worse and worse. It eventually returned, but with some colours, especially blue and yellow, so bleached that they were meaningless. I’d had optic neuritis, and I had more bouts of it in the ensuing years, each leaving its own, dirty, frightening mark.

Book Review: Kodi by Jared Cullum

This post contains affiliate links


Title: Kodi
Author: Jared Cullum
Genre: Graphic Novel

Kodi is a graphic novel about a girl who finds a bear and it is a story of love and friendship and just how far will one being go to find their friend?

Kodi is an absolutely adorable book. The story is told in beautiful watercolour pictures and the emotions of the characters really bounce off the page. It felt like I was reading a script for a children's animated film, reminiscent of some Disney classics. I laughed and I felt sad. This book made me feel so many emotions. 

I loved the plot of the story, as well as the characters who felt well-developed and realistic. The story had multiple levels to it and I feel that the author did this really well.

The only issue I had with this book is that I wish that we had been given more insight into Katya's home life and family situation. It is hinted at within the book but we are never really told what has happened. 

I would highly recommend everyone to read this book! It's a short read but one that will leave your heart feeling warmed and your mind grateful that you read it.

My rating: 5/5 stars



Thank you to my Ko-Fi members!~
Jill Horton- check out her book! Amazon.com - Amazon.co.uk

Book Spotlight: The Fast Little Fox (The Fast Little Fox & Friends book #1) by Jill Horton

AD, this post also contains affiliate links

Title: The Fast Little Fox (The Fast Little Fox & Friends book #1)
Author: Jill Horton
Genre: Children's picture book
Available on: Amazon.co.uk - Amazon.com in paperback and on kindle (Also free on Kindle Unlimited!)
Add it on Goodreads

Synopsis:

Have you ever wanted to go on an adventure through the forest? Follow the fast little fox as he discovers more than he can imagine along the way! What will he learn? Can he make it home in time for supper? Read on to find out!

Editorial review:

"Jill Horton's picture book story, The Fast Little Fox, is a sweet, charming story about a little fox with a little too much energy. Yes, Freddy has a lot to learn, and this story leads young readers through Freddy's riotous romp of discovery. The language is simple to appeal to young readers and the illustrations are spectacular and certainly help move the story along. Beautifully told and presented." -- Readers' Favorite

Author bio

Learn more about the author here: https://www.jill-horton.com

Jill is currently working on book 2 in the series, so stay tuned for updates on her social media/website!

You can also find Jill on:
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