The Leaves are a Changing!

September Reading Wrap-Up:

As the leaves start to change to beautiful hues of red, orange, and yellow. All I can think about is curling up in my cozy bed or on the couch by a crackling fire, drinking hot chocolate with mini marshmallows, with the perfect book in hand. Autumn to me is the perfect season to read, because as the weather starts to have that biting chill, what else would you want to be doing? Even though we're still getting that Indian summer here in the Bay, and the weather won't begin to drastically change, until mid-end of October. That hasn't stopped me from reading, so without further ado, here is my September Reading Wrap-Up. I have read a total of four books, which is a pretty good reading month for me, as I am a slower reader than most.

**Right now I am currently reading 1984 by George Orwell, but I don't know if I'll finish that by the end of the month. So, I'll save that for October's Wrap-Up.

Trapped In Silver by Emily Sowden

*August 31st- September 7th, 2017

During the first week of September, I joined a read-along with OfTomes Publishing, an independent Publishing Company based in the UK. One of my favorite booktubers to watch is Benjamin Alderson or BenjaminofTomes, and is the CEO of OfTomes Publishing. He began a read-along for his company, and so I signed up to join it. Each month we would get a free digital copy, of whichever one of his published books he chose for that month, in return for an honest review. For September, we read Trapped In Silver by Emily Sowden. I already posted a synopsis and review on Goodreads, my blog, and Amazon. So, I won't go into to much detail of what this book is about. But, if you are interested in reading this book, you can certainly check out my blog post for that review.

Trapped In Silver is the first novel of the Eldryn Chronicles, the second book is set to come out next year. In this Fantasy novel, we follow Ava, who is basically in charge of taking care of her family farm, whenever her father goes away. Her father has been away for quite some time now, and she gets very worried. But she knows that she still has to keep things running on her farm, which also means selling some farm products in her town. It is not common for females to be doing that sort of thing, so she poses as a male named Cedar. One night after getting some drinks with her adopted brother Roan, she gets attacked by a group of Berserkers. For some reason these Berserkers, or animalistic men who are essentially worse than Demons, are after Ava specifically. That night a Demon named Ethan saves her, and she is then thrust into a world of Demons, Shapeshifters, and Witches, which she only thought existed in the stories her mother used to tell her.

I ended up giving this book a 3.5 out of 5 stars, because while Ava was a very sassy and funny protagonist. The story kind of dragged on in the beginning, and took me a while for me to actually be interested in the main plot-line. I also didn't really connect with a lot of the characters or the romance, which I explain in full detail in my review. But I did love the world Ava lived in, and thought it was very different than other Fantasy novels that I've read in the past. I was getting a lot of Red Riding Hood (live-action movie remake) vibes, when reading the story. There were a lot of interesting parts to the book, that I really enjoyed, but I just had a difficult time connecting with the characters. Which were the main reasons why I gave it a 3.5 out of 5 stars. I am interested in reading the second book, Lost In Darkness, to see how Emily Sowden's writing grows, and to hopefully get some more character development. While I did have some small issues with this book, I still had a lot of fun joining the read-along, and can't wait until October's read-along with OfTomes Publishing.

Veronica Mars: The Thousand Dollar Tan-Line and Mr. Kiss and Tell by Rob Thomas and Jennifer Graham.

*September 8th- September 14th, 2017 & September 20th- September 27th, 2017, Respectively.

The next book I picked up was Veronica Mars: The Thousand Dollar Tan-Line by Rob Thomas and Jennifer Graham, which is the book adaptation of the Veronica Mars Television Series and movie. I read the second book of this adaption, titled Mr. Kiss and Tell, at the end of the month. But I wanted to put these two books together, since they are a part of the same series.

So, Veronica Mars: The Thousand Dollar Tan-Line, takes place shortly after the events of the fan-funded movie. For those who don't know anything about the Veronica Mars TV series; it essentially follows young sarcastic and sassy teen Veronica Mars, and her years at Neptune High and Hearst College. She is a receptionist at her father's, Keith Mars, Private Investigation Firm, who used to be a Detective of Neptune PD. Veronica uses the skills she's taken from her father's P.I. firm, to solve cases at her school. Each season follows one major case, while she still solves smaller cases for each episode. The fan-funded movie, which I helped put in money for, follows Veronica Mars ten years after graduating High School. She's graduated from Hearst College and Columbia Law School, and was supposed to start working at a big-time Law Firm in New York. But dropped everything to solve a mystery, and help her father out, back at Neptune. Private Investigating is in her roots, and she couldn't walk away from that.

In the Thousand Dollar Tan-Line, Veronica Mars is hired by a very high-profile client. The client's daughter was left missing after spending Spring Break in Neptune with her close friends. The last her friend's saw her, was at a party talking to some guy. Veronica Mars does everything in her power to find the girl, but the case gets even more difficult when someone from her past is involved. As another girl goes missing, while Veronica Mars investigates this case. Mr. Kiss and Tell, follows a few months after The Thousand Dollar Tan-Line, when someone else from her past is found raped and left for dead. At the same time her close friend Weevil Navarro awaits the results of his conviction, which is where we start off in the novel.

I ended up giving The Thousand Dollar Tan-Line a 4.5 out of 5 stars, and Mr. Kiss and Tell, a 4 out of 5 stars. It was so great getting back into this series that I love so much, and have re-watched many times before. Veronica Mars is one of my favorite Television characters, because she is so relatable and extremely sarcastic. I loved the mystery in the first novel, and how it stayed true to what we originally fell in love with on the show. There were so many twists and turns, in the first book, to where I didn't even know how it was going to end. When in the second book, I found the mystery kind of predictable. I loved all the cameos of characters from the show that we got, from; Dick Casablancas, Weevil, Mac, Wallace, and even Leo.

I was disappointed in the lack of Logan we got in the first book, but was happy that we got more of him in the second novel. Logan is Veronica's boyfriend, who she started dating in the later years of High School. He used to date her best friend Lily Kane, who was front and center of the major case in the first season. But they ended up together, which was very hard to believe would ever happen, since they hated each other in the beginning.

Even to this day, they have a very flawed relationship. But. I did enjoy the fact that Graham and Thomas stayed true to their relationship in the novels, instead of hiding their flaws. Which tends to happen in many romantic-centered books. All in all, I enjoyed both books very much, I was very happy about getting back into this universe. It almost makes me want to re-watch the series and movie. Speaking of which, if you are interested in reading these books, I would definitely watch the TV series and movie first. While the author's give you some background in the characters, and how they are related to Veronica's life in some way. You might get a little confused as to who some of the cameos are. But I would definitely recommend anything Veronica Mars related, because it's such a brilliant Universe.

The War of The Worlds by H.G. Wells

*September 17th-September 19th, 2017

In between reading The Thousand Dollar Tan-Line and Mr. Kiss and Tell, I finished reading The War of the Worlds. I've been wanting to read this book for quite some time now, because the movie adaption is one of my favorite all-time movies. I had downloaded the ecopy, for free, a while ago, and just thought why not finish it now. So that I don't keep putting it off, like I have done in the past. I am very proud of myself for finally reading this classic Sci-Fi novel, especially since it's so important to the genre of Sci-Fi.

The War of the Worlds tells the story of an un-named Professor, who tries to survive during an invasion of Aliens, in Victorian-Age London. He is involved first-hand in figuring out what these Aliens are, and why they decided to invade Earth. The first half of the novel, basically follows the main protagonist' survival alongside his brother. While the second part goes into more detail of the Aliens physical appearances, how they live and breath, and eventually why they didn't survive on Earth.

The War of the Worlds novel was vastly different than the movie, in fact there were only a few similarities. From how the Aliens looked physically, and what ended up being their demise. And how the story was more so about the protagonist's survival throughout the invasion, instead of it being about the overthrow of the Aliens. I went into this book knowing that it wasn't going to be the same as the movie, so I wasn't as disappointed as most fans of the movie would be. I knew how important this book was to the start-up of Science Fiction, as H.G. Wells was one of the first author's to bring about the discussion of Aliens. No one never believed or wrote about Aliens, because there wasn't any sort of advanced technology of that time, to write about. So when H.G. Wells wrote this book, a hysteria almost broke out, because many people thought this event was actually taking place. Since no one has written anything along those lines, and because H.G. Well's description was so believable. So in that sense, The War of the Worlds was a very important and interesting book to read.

I would definitely recommend The War of the Worlds, to people who are interested in Science-Fiction, since this novel was basically the start-up of the Science-Fiction genre. But as far as the book goes, it was a bit dry. If you are one who loves action in your science fiction novels, than I would definitely just watch the movie. I actually loved the second part more than the first part, because the description of the Aliens were so detailed. I could understand why people back in that time, would think that this event actually happened. I ended up giving this book a four out of five stars, because it is such an important book in history, but the writing was pretty dry in my opinion.

Thank you,

... to all of those who have been supporting my blog! I know it's been a few weeks since I posted anything last, but I've been suffering from writer's block. Mostly due from being stressed out about finding work. But, writing this blog is something that I am very passionate about right now, and so I will definitely be getting back to my regular two posts' a week. Especially now that more shows will be premiering in the next couple of weeks! I hope you all enjoy this edition of The CW Torch, and future posts to come! Keep Calm and Happy Fall!

TTFN,

Chynna Williams from The CW Torch!

#Fall #VeronicaMars #TheWaroftheWorlds