I am a mum of one, my little girl (affectionately referred to as Monkey) was born Oct '09 so she keeps me pretty busy. I also work a couple of days a week and try and find time to fit in reading amongst everything else going on. I live in Devon, England, right on the coast.
I've always been a keen reader, but the arrival of Monkey had brought my reading to a virtual standstill. That was until my birthday when I was given a Kindle e-reader as a gift. Since then I've rediscovered my love of reading and wanted to start a blog to keep track of what I'm reading, and to share info on good books. From now on I expect 99% of the books I read to be electronic. I'm using Amazon's kindle store to try and get myself out of the rut I found myself in. There are some great bargains and loads of authors I haven't heard of before so it's going well so far.
I enjoy a wide range of genres, but particularly like comedies, crime thrillers, and real stories or fiction about historical events in other countries.
Within a month or so of starting my blog I was amazed I was being offered copies of books for review by authors. I do not accept any payment and any reviews posted are my honest opinion of the book. The way the book was acquired will not affect my reviews, which I hope readers will find balanced.
To provide an "at a glance" guide to my opinion on the books I've decided to start using a star rating system. The ratings I use are broadly similar to the ones on Goodread.com but here's some guidance.
1* - I didn't like it - due to a combination of a writing style I disliked, a poor plot, lots of typos and errors, characters with no depth, not my usual genre, or other issues mentioned in the review.
2* - It was ok - some of the above applicable but with at least something to redeem it.
3* - I liked it - possibly a well written example of a book that is not one of my usual genres so I can't find myself raving about it, or a genre I enjoy with some of the problems mentioned above.
4* - I really liked it - an enjoyable read but just missing something, or suffering from a lack of proper editing that otherwise would have made it a 5* read.
5* - I loved it - a brilliant book that for me has it all.
The review will hopefully make it clear where a book had fallen down and why it has received the rating I have given it.
At the moment I am not accepting new review requests. I have so many demands on my time that it's becoming increasingly difficult to keep up with demand. I am going to spend some time catching up on my TBR pile and will let people know when I am taking requests again. Thanks for all the interest!
So, that's a bit about me, I hope you enjoy my blog.
TC
