Who doesn’t like Dippin’ Dots!? But where can you find them? They are a specialty product and I had a hankering for them last week. Paul and I found a nice gas station equipped with some lovely pouches of the treat. Here’s a Dippin’ Dots locator.
Book Review: Bread for Pharaoh by Jason Black
Bread for Pharaoh by Jason Black
A Middle Grade Historical Fiction Novel published by Elder Road LLC (12/02/13)
Summary:
“Have I started to forget that she is a noble? Or was I forgetting that I am just a peasant?” (Page 45).
San is the baker’s son and in Egyptian times that means he is the boy who delivers the bread and is destined to become the baker when his father retires. You would think delivering bread would be boring, but for San, he steps into the middle of a plot to kill high members of the nobility. San is intrigued by more than just plots, he discovers Aja, a girl who wants a friend as much as he does. Together they will have to uncover evil plots and figure out if they can remain friends from different classes of Egyptian society.
Keywords:
Egypt, Ruler, Pharaoh, Pyramids, Bread Maker, Messenger, Running, Evil Plots, Power Hungry, Sphinx, Stone Work, Cruel, Priest, High Priest, Family, Friendship, Playing, Children
My Review:
Bread for Pharaoh was a fun and imaginative book that I enjoyed reading. San was a fun character with personality. He was a protagonist that grabbed life and made it what he wanted. Though he came from the peasant class, he didn’t let that stop him from making a friend in the nobility, going out of his way to help those around him and in different classes, taking risks, pretending to be above his station to accomplish his goals, and being an all-around active protagonist. I was pleased to read about him as a character and was extra pleased that though he was a boy, his character and Aja’s could have been gender reversed in the same story. Neither character was ultimately defined by their class or their gender and this makes for a worthwhile read, especially for young impressionable readers.
This book excelled in its simplicity. The setting was simple and geographically enclosed, though the reader got an understanding of Egypt in that time period. The cast of characters wasn’t too large. The events weren’t too out of the ordinary, though exciting enough to keep the reader’s interest. Overall it was a well-done story.
This novel was published by Elder Road LLC on December 2nd, 2013 and is available on Amazon here.
TL;DR Star Rating: 4.00
Links for more information:
Book Review: All Is Silence: Desert Lands Book I (Deserted Lands 1) by Robert L. Slater
All Is Silence: Desert Lands Book I (Deserted Lands 1) by Robert L. Slater
A New Adult Dystopian Novel published by Rocket Tears Press (01/05/14)
Summary:
“Back then she had been afraid of the future. Now she feared the present.” (Page. 254).
Almost everyone dies from a disease, but Lizzy, who is suicidal and is now more lonely than ever, has ironically, survived. After puttering around her neighborhood for days, she puts a message out for people to come find her and lo and behold they do. She even finds the number to her long lost father and gives him a ring. Is the world as empty as she thought or will the remaining survivors surprise her?
Keywords:
Apocalypse, Dog-Man, Death, Friends, Future, Survival, Father, Disease, Technology Still Works, Travel, Fighting, Guns, Weather, Empty Houses, Empty Neighborhood, Loneliness, Repopulation
My Review:
I love end of the world survival stories and this one was an easy read that showed another possibility to the dystopian literature. Like a combination of the Road by Cormac McCarthy and The Blackout by Stephanie Erickson, All is Silence follows a troubled girl who has been left behind by most of the world and clings to the few people left that she knows. When she finds that her estranged father is alive, she drops everything she has left to meet up with him, along with her old friends and a few new ones she finds during her journey.
This novel should have started at part two. Part one was all about Lizzie and her suicidal past. I think being a survivor during the apocalypse is enough to make any normal teen angsty and to give her a troubled past was not necessary. She was not very likable in part one. I was also confused as to how old she was. She didn’t graduate high school but her actions in her back story made me think she was an adult (sex and bad decisions), but her actions in the present day were not always smart and made me think she was a young teenager who is not worldly wise.
Some of the characters were one dimensional. Unlike Lizzie who has a long way to rise to meet the occasion, which she does now and then when she has to, her father and her friends are simple characters. Her father, especially, was disappointing as an adult. He acted like a child, with simple emotions.
Finally, stop using elevators! Every time (and there were quite a few) that characters got into elevators I would get so stressed out. At some point technology would start to break down entirely and elevators would stop working. Who in their right mind would get into one after 99% of the population has died and it’s been weeks since normal economy and production etc??
I thought the addition of the dog man to the traveling group was really cool and I really liked the aspect he brought to the end of the world.
This novel was published by Rocket Tears Press on January 5th, 2014 and is available on Amazon here.
TL;DR Star Rating: 3.50
Links for more information:
2015 Physical Activity – Dance/Volleyball/Biking
How do you work out?
This year I did volleyball, pole dancing classes, a hip hop class, a hooping class, a Bollywood class, an Aerial class, multiple Thriller workshops to learn the dance, belly dancing classes, and stretch and flex classes. I also did an afternoon ropes course.
I took the dBMEDx team to Bellevue downtown drop-in volleyball. I went to two miscellaneous volleyball drop ins and 18 Bellevue downtown park drop ins.
I tried out a belly dancing 6 class series in Bothell, see our performance piece here
I went to 5 Thriller 1.5 hour workshops in preparation for Thrill the World Remdond.
Paul and I did the ropes course in Woodinville for a couple of hours and went out on his boat multiple times this past summer (not much of a workout, I know)
We even went ‘clubbing’ where I danced the night away for an hour and a half or so. (Have I mentioned that dancing is great exercise?)
I tried out a hooping class, an aerial dance class, a hip hop class, and a bollywood class and didn’t get much satisfaction out of any of them for various reasons.
And then I found Spinderella… I took 25 pole classes and 2 stretch & flex classes this past year at the studio. I love all my instructors, especially the owner, who is fabulous in so many ways.
Contest Closed! Congrats to Sarah A. for reading and reviewing The Hunted (The Marian) (Volume 2) by Taylor Hohulin
Rafflecopter contest to win $50 Amazon gift card ended with 2015!
Thanks to all you readers out there who bought/read/reviewed some great Indie books and I look forward to supporting more great Indie authors this year!
What was this contest about? See details here.
NYE 2015 – Suite Lounge, Bellevue, Star Wars, Maggiano’s, Snowflake Lane, XO
What an end to 2015! Check out the dress my mother got for me for Christmas. I got Paul a matching bow tie. I love bow ties. We won tickets from Seattle Pipeline for general admission to Suite lounge in Bellevue for New Year’s Eve ($80 value!) but since it was “standing only” we decided to save Suite Lounge for the last hour of 2015. We went to Maggiano’s in Bellevue for lasagna first and then headed to -finally- see the VII Star Wars in 3D! I can’t wait to make my Rey costume and debut it at the roller derby this month! Suite lounge was crowded when we got there around 11 PM and we counted off to the new year in style!
Christmas Traditions – the Barnard Family
What are your Holiday Traditions?
Mine involve: special dip cake (family recipe) Christmas morning breakfast, opening stockings all at once, special method of opening presents (youngest family member picks the first to give to the person it’s to and then that person opens the present and then picks another present for a different family member to open and so on), the Christmas feast…
My Christmas outfit and our tree at my grandparent’s house.
Traditional Barnard Dip Cake recipe for Christmas morning
Opening presents and my stocking haul (check out my donut!)
After Christmas presents and breakfast walk
Our feast! Green bean casserole, cauliflower, Brussel sprouts, chicken Wellington, and grandma’s salads. For dessert Debbie and I went to the internet to make no bake Nutella cheseecake
Book Review: Bento Box (The Gray Hat series) (Volume 1) by Tina Shelton
Bento Box (The Gray Hat series) (Volume 1) by Tina Shelton
A Sci-Fi Thriller published by Barely Salvageable Press (07/01/15)
Summary:
“How do you catch someone who’s riding inside of someone else?” (Kindle Location 2644).
Carnelia is stuck working for future Seattle’s version of the mafia. Her boss has the goods on her, literally. He has her body and she has to get it back when a job she’s forced to do for him goes South. She’s a body jumper, stealing people’s bodies to do all sorts of criminal/sordid things with them. But her last body jump isn’t going so well and now her new skin is under attack and she only has so long in this new body before her boss does something to her original body or the tech prohibits her from jumping back.
Keywords:
Body Jumper, Tech, Bad Boss, Cops, Crime, Evil, Power, Mind, Soul, Out of Body, Seattle, Running for Your Life, Mind Control, Thief, Mirror, Struggles, Mafia, Thugs, Escape
My Review:
I was overjoyed to find that this book was set in my ‘hometown’ Seattle, but this is a Seattle in 2291. It is a Seattle that’s twisted and yet still familiar. The tech is out of this world, or at least out of body. In a bit of irony/hilarity, the rain is no more a problem, read the book to find out why.
Everything about this story was well done, well written, down to the names of the characters and the small details about future Seattle.
The level of sci fi detail was a total mind spin – like Inception but instead of dreaming, the characters are body jumping. What a fun and thoroughly detailed concept brought to life by Tina Shelton. I really enjoyed it.
Shelton even delves into the particulars of what it would be like for a petite woman to jump into a 7’2″ man’s body, but never takes this too far.
This novel was published by Barely Salvageable Press July 1st, 2015 and is available on Amazon here.
TL;DR Star Rating:4.75
Links for more information:
2015 in Blogging review
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2015 annual report for this blog, here are some highlights
Book Review: The Corsican by Tina Shelton
The Corsican by Tina Shelton
A Sci-Fi Thriller published by Amazon Digital Services (04/02/14)
Summary:
“You’re not on Kalix any more, and those people have no further hold on you, except what you allow them.” (Page. 50).
It will take much more than simply grabbing and running to free these slaves from captivity. Their parents paid for their passage and the older kids will finally be able to hope for a future, but from the beginning of the rescue, things didn’t go as planned. Complications will arise from without and within the Corsican is it plods along to the planet Caserne, where slavery is illegal. The Corsican and her crew will have less than eighteen months to ready the kids for a new life and to battle their way to freedom from those who would keep them from it.
Keywords:
Slaves, Freedom, Pirates, Ship, Space, Journey, Revenge, Friendship, Loyalty, Pilot, Fighting, Training, Enemies, Technology, Leadership, Skills
My Review:
The Corsican is an enclosed world with lots of older kids who must learn to live together and learn together. There is a larger world out there that is trying to shut them down. This setup reminds me a lot of Ender’s Game, but Tina Shelton’s world has much more going on and the relationships she builds are more interesting and more varied than Card’s.
Shelton builds a story of change and forgiveness. Of friendships and loyalty. Of action and adventure. Of learning and growing. Of figuring out who they are and what they stand by. Of letting go of the past and embracing a free future full of possibilities. Of finding out what they’re good at. Of forming allegiances and seeking out revenge. Of petty complaints and drama. There is almost no end to what is going on in this story.
Everyone has their own story. In the large cast of characters, everyone has a backstory. Every character is fleshed out and different. Blaise is the noble who has a foot in both worlds and wants to be accepted for who he is but has a hard time of letting go of the prejudices he learned in his past. There is so much to learn within the story of Blaise and how he grows and develops. Violet is a mod with strength and speed, taught to be meek and doubtful of doing anything with her strengths. She could kick anyone’s butt but has learned to not stand up for herself. Rix has a unique ability with machines and putting her neck out for others. Tristan and Payet both have secret abilities that set them apart from the others. Then there’s Jestyn and Jack and the Corsican’s pilot and the mysterious Syrah. Tina Shelton gives us so many wonderful characters to root for.
This is a science fiction novel for anyone. It has fighting and revenge. Drama and peace negotiating among teenagers. You might even learn something about yourself, or at least how to handle stubborn, obnoxious, and at times pretentious kids.
This novel was published by Amazon Digital Services April 2nd, 2014 and is available on Amazon here.
TL;DR Star Rating:5.00
Links for more information:
Rachel Author Barnard 