A review of Harry Potter 2

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

JK Rowling

“‘There is a plot, Harry Potter. A plot to make most terrible things happen at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry this year.'”

Harry Potter’s summer has included the worst birthday ever, doomy warnings from a house-elf called Dobby, and rescue from the Dursleys by his friend Ron Weasley in a magical flying car! Back at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry for his second year, Harry hears strange whispers echo through empty corridors – and then the attacks start. Students are found as though turned to stone … Dobby’s sinister predictions seem to be coming true.

---

The Chamber of Secrets continues from the events in The Philosopher’s Stone and delves deeper into the magical world of Hogwarts. We get to know more about Harry and his friends, and meet some new characters, some friendly and others not, all interesting.

Once again J K Rowling has brought to life a magical world I would love to be a part of. The characters feel and act like real people, with hopes and fears, strengths and weaknesses, friends and rivals. There is danger for Harry and his friends, and danger leads to injuries, but that’s to the good because it would have made it hard to accept what happens if nobody got hurt.

The writing remains as good as in the first book, and though I know, intellectually, magic doesn’t exist, I really wish it did and that I could do my time at school over again so I could attend Hogwarts.

USA Today bestselling author Rainy Kaye

As part of my ongoing effort to be more inclusive on this blog, and not restrict it solely to the genres I am personally interested in (romance readers and others are people too and shouldn’t be ignored), I am today showcasing Rainy Kaye, USA Today bestselling author of paranormal romance and her book Summoned, the first in the summoned series

Rainy Kaye is an aspiring overlord. In the meantime, she’s a USA Today Bestselling author who writes paranormal novels.

She is represented by Rossano Trentin of TZLA, and has been traditionally published by Bastei Lübbe. Her works include the Summoned series, The Deepest Black, and The Withering. She has also co-authored several novels.

Her lair is located somewhere in Phoenix, Arizona, which she shares with a variety of furry creatures. You can follow them on Instagram and find out more about the author on Twitter –  Facebook – and her site

SUMMONED

Twenty-three year old Dimitri has to do what he is told – literally. Controlled by a paranormal bond, he is forced to use his wits to fulfill unlimited deadly wishes made by multimillionaire Karl Walker. Dimitri has no idea how his family line became trapped in the genie bond. He just knows resisting has never ended well.

When he meets Syd – assertive, sexy, intelligent Syd – he becomes determined to make her his own. Except Karl has ensured Dimitri can’t tell anyone about the bond, and Syd isn’t the type to tolerate secrets.

Then Karl starts sending him away on back-to-back wishes. Unable to balance love and lies, Dimitri sets out to uncover Karl’s ultimate plan and put it to an end. But doing so forces him to confront the one wish he never saw coming – the wish that will destroy him.

A dark twist on genie folklore, SUMMONED follows a reluctant criminal as he unravels the mystery of the paranormal bond controlling him.

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | iTunes

 

Bargains, bargains, bargains

You like a bargain, don’t you? Of course you do, who doesn’t.

Well, for all of you out there who like a bargain, or better yet, something free, the writer’s group I am part of on Goodreads has a big event this weekend with lots of books listed as free or at reduced prices in a variety of genres. If you’d like to fill up your kindle with some new reading material, here’s the place you need to go  http://events.supportindieauthors.com/event.php

There’s some great reads here, and some great authors to support, so please dig into your pockets, you won’t have to find much, and you’ll be hard-pressed to get a better return on your investment.

My first release

I debated with myself over how I was going to handle releasing my titles, when they were ready, and finally came to the conclusion that I would go with Amazon and the kdp select program.

I realise that in the future it may be a good idea for me to spread my wings a little further and to have my titles available on multiple ebook platforms, but right now I feel kdp select, despite the exclusivity it requires, offers me the best chance of getting noticed at this, the beginning of my writing career.

To that end I have released a short story, Exposed, ahead of my first full novel, which should be out in January. I would like to simply give away this short, so that people can get a sense of my writing and hopefully encourage them to buy my novel when it’s released, but that isn’t possible on kdp – I have to price it at 99c, which is the lowest I can, and make it available for free for 5 days during the next 90.

---

Exposed

Alex R Carver

Some secrets should remain hidden.

All Julian wanted was as normal a life as was possible, when Adam and Harry come into the petrol station looking for trouble, though, their actions threaten to expose his secret, a secret that would make him a wanted man – wanted by lots of people for lots of reasons. Now he has to leave behind the life he’s been building and start over again, but before he does that he wants to make Adam and Harry pay.

This is a short story of approx 8,000 words

If you like the sound of it then make sure to follow this link Amazon get it for free today and tomorrow

The Dark Place

DeeJayBee (Wattpad user name)

Following the death of her mother 11-year-old Tamicka Moon and her father move from Canada to Eastlake in England, where they both struggle to come to terms with their grief. Jack Moon becomes engrossed in writing about Munford House, the estate where they are staying, while Tamicka is left to explore the house that no-one in Eastlake, save the housekeeper, Mrs Hughes, will go near.

Why won’t anyone go near the house, though, and who is the spirit that offers to make everything better for Tamicka – friend or something else? When Tamicka befriends a local girl, Penny, the spirit warns her she can’t be trusted, and that seems to be true when Penny’s friends play a cruel trick on her; is the spirit telling her the truth, or even everything, however?

---

I’m sure some of you will be a little confused by the two sets of star ratings I’ve given this book, so I’ll explain.

First off, this is a 4* book, the story is a good one, with plenty of twists, a nice Gothic touch on occasions, some good characterisation, with people you’re interested in and whom you want to see either prosper or get their just desserts. The writing is nice and tight, without a lot of padding (this is something I’m guilty of in my writing and seeing who short and sharp the writing is here has helped me to work on my own books to pare the padding) which keeps you close to the action at all times. The dialogue is good as well, it fits the characters.

There’s a short epilogue which ties a few things up, with one thing that wasn’t a surprise and another that really was – I didn’t see it coming at all – and I think it’s good that you get an, albeit brief, idea of what’s happened to the characters after.

The reason there is a second rating to this book is because it’s a first draft. DeeJayBee has released her book on Wattpad, as I am in the process of doing, to get feedback and generate some interest. Because it’s a first draft there are typos that might put people off, and a few areas where a tweak might be needed, and I have deducted .5* for that. Once the edited and polished version is available this will be a 4* all the way, and I look forward to it being sorted and released for Kindle and other devices because I think it will do quite well.

If this sounds like your kind of thing, then you can start reading it here (by the way, this is a former winner of Wattpad’s Best Wattpad Reads in Paranormal so it’s not just me that thinks it’s good.)

 

Guilty Pleasures

It’s the end of a busy day, and there’s just time for me to post up a new review before I head off to bed, so here it is.

Laurell K Hamilton

In a world where vampires and other paranormal creatures are openly acknowledged, and in some cases have legal rights and responsibilities, Anita Blake is an animator – she raises the dead for a living. When she’s not doing that she’s a consultant to the police on paranormal incidents, if someone gets attacked and the attacker isn’t human she gets asked to identify the creature and to help deal with it; she’s also the legal executioner of vampires that have gone rogue.

In the first book in this series Anita Blake is called in to help the police with a series of murders. The city’s vampire leader wants her help as well because some of the victims are vampires, and when the killer isn’t found quickly enough Anita finds herself caught between an impatient and angry master vampire and a killer with the strength to rip a person’s heart out.

This book is never going to be considered a masterpiece, or be considered a classic work of literature, but I found it a very enjoyable read. As a fan of mythology and the paranormal, I’m always interested by books about vampires, and in this case the vampires are characters in their own right with enough ambiguity about them to make it tough to say they are all evil and should be killed.

That’s the problem Anita has, she doesn’t really like vampires but the more she deals with them the more she realises that in many ways they’re as human as anyone else – not necessarily good but not necessarily evil either.

What really makes this book enjoyable is the character of Anita Blake; she’s small, has a bit of an attitude problem, and won’t back away from a fight – I like her.