Author Archives: lydias

About lydias

I'm a sci-fi writer who loves lifting weights and hates eating Brussels sprouts.

August 7, 2024 · 1:00 am

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: Funniest Advice I’ve Received

Click here to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and here to see the full list of topics for the year.

The word advice is written in block letters with chalk on a chalkboard. I began working on this post in March and will slowly add to it until the publication date arrives.

Sometimes advice is funny because it’s horribly wrong and should never be followed by anyone.

In other cases it’s amusing because of how it makes you see the world or the way it plays with our expectations of what might happen among many other reasons.

I tried to come up with a mix of these types for my replies.

Piece of Advice #1

“Stop taking your antibiotics once you’re feeling better! That way you’ll still have some antibiotics to take the next time you’re sick.”

This is something a relative who does not understand science, medicine, public health, or how antibiotics work said a few years ago. Please do NOT follow her advice. The last thing we need in 2024 or beyond are more antibiotic-resistant superbugs getting passed around and causing life-threatening illnesses.

Piece of Advice #2

“Never do anything you wouldn’t want to explain to the paramedics.”

And, honestly, I think this is an excellent litmus test to apply when deciding whether to take a specific risk.

Piece of Advice #3

”Leave Canada geese alone.”

I had multiple Canadians tell me this when I first moved up here, and it’s something everyone should listen to. Yes, they’re beautiful birds, but they can also be quite territorial and aggressive, especially during breeding season. It’s best to give them a wide berth and admire them from afar.

10 Comments

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Tagged as Advice, Humour, Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge

August 6, 2024 · 1:00 am

Top Ten Tuesday: Ten Favorite Books from Ten Series

Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

Thank you to A Hot Cup of Pleasure for submitting this theme!

Here are ten of my favourite books from series I’ve read. I had to dig deeply to come up with a sufficient number of answers because I almost never read series these days and only read them occasionally when I was younger.

That is to say, most of these titles were published many years ago.

For the sheer fun of it, I will include a brief, spoiler-free description of why I picked each one in this post.

1. The Giver (The Giver, #1) by Lois Lowry

Why: The world-building left readers plenty of room to come up with our own theories about what happened next.

2. The Girl with All the Gifts (The Girl With All the Gifts, #1) by M.R. Carey

Why: There is a fantastic twist in this book that takes a little while to fully reveal itself to the readers.

3. Flowers in the Attic (Dollanganger, #1) by V.C. Andrews

Why: This series begins with a wild premise that I will allow other readers to discover for themselves. I thought it worked best when it was first introduced because of how unusual it was.

4. The Magician’s Nephew by C.S. Lewis

Why: There are a lot of Easter eggs here about things that were discussed in books #1-5 – especially The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe – so that is why I strongly recommend reading this series in publication order instead of chronologically. You need that previous knowledge to fully understand why certain scenes are so thrilling. This is my favourite Narnia story because of its beautiful descriptions of how Narnia was created and how many different ways characters could find themselves in that magical land.

5. The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien

Why: It worked perfectly nicely as a standalone story, but it also sets up and foreshadows so many important elements of the Lord of the Rings trilogies. I also thought the pacing in this one was much stronger than later instalments in this series.

6. Dead Until Dark (Sookie Stackhouse, #1) by Charlaine Harris

Why: Look, I adored Sookie and though this was a fun universe…but she also tended to make the same mistakes over and over again. This became repetitive later on, but it was endearing when I first met her. If you’re in the market for vampire romance novels, the first few books in this universe are the best ones.

7. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

Why: It was such a zany introduction to these characters!

8. Anne of the Island by L.M. Montgomery

Why: This was a period of Anne’s life when so many of her dreams began coming true. I loved seeing her finally have the chance to attend college and enjoy her youth.

I’d say eight answers is pretty good considering my strong preference for standalone novels!

54 Comments

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Tagged as Top Ten Tuesday

August 1, 2024 · 1:00 am

A Review of Among Mirages

Title: Among Mirages

Author: Billie Dean Shoemate III

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: October 8, 2020

Genres: Paranormal, Contemporary, Historical

Length: 33 pages

Source: I receive a free copy from the author.

Rating: 4 Stars

Blurb:

The crew of the ship tell preposterous stories. Stories of dry land, of other ships that sail the ocean. Of vast cities populated by people. Odd visions. Blasphemies that would get a person tossed into the ocean. Still . . . those on the crew talk in hushed tones. Something about the ocean is haunted, and it has something to do with this ship in particular.

Billie Dean Shoemate III puts a new twist on an age-old story. The story of a ship that, when the reader figures it out, has been terrifying sailors for centuries. ‘Among Mirages’ will breathe new life into a tale that has always been told by seafaring people . . . and always will be.

Content Warning: Religion (an amalgamation of various types of Christianity).

Review:

Certainty isn’t everything.

I loved Martin, the doubtful narrator of this piece. Honestly, I would have had the exact same questions about where the ship came from and why they kept seeing things their captain insisted did not exist if I were in his shoes. The tension between observable facts and religious certainties in this universe was handled beautifully. Regardless of your thoughts on religion in general, there is a lot of food for thought here for anyone who has ever found an inconsistency in their own belief structure and puzzled over it.

This was inspired by a popular nautical legend that I wish had been shared in more detail in the last few scenes. I ended up looking it up online as I was only vaguely familiar with the stories associated with it and did not know in advance that this was going to be the theme. The storytelling would have been tighter in my opinion if a few sentences explaining this legend had been included for the sake of other readers like me, but I do look forward to hearing dissenting opinions from people who were similarly unaware of this legend and did not have my same experience here. Writing reviews is subjective, after all. What didn’t quite work for me might be perfect for someone else!

The twist at the end was excellent. I enjoyed going back and taking note of clues that were shared earlier on in the timeline I hadn’t exactly known how to fit together earlier, especially when it came to the purpose of this ship. It’s difficult to go into much detail without sharing spoilers, although I appreciated the way the author talked around the subject until it was time for the big reveal…much as I am attempting to do now! This isn’t an easy thing to accomplish, but it sure makes for an entertaining reading experience when it’s done as smoothly as it was here.

Among Mirages made me wish for a sequel.

4 Comments

Filed under Science Fiction and Fantasy

Tagged as 2020s, Billie Dean Shoemate III, Book Reviews, Contemporary, Historical, Nautical, Paranormal, Self-Published, Short Story

July 31, 2024 · 1:54 pm

Summer 2024 Author Promo Opportunity at Long and Short Reviews

Happy 17th birthday to Long and Short Reviews!

As they do every year, they are once again throwing a gigantic birthday bash on their site from August 19 to 23 of this year.

This celebration includes a wide variety of genres:

Romance
Erotic Romance
YA, Middle Grade, and Children’s Fiction
Mystery/Suspense
Science Fiction and Fantasy
Horror
Mainstream Fiction
Non-fiction (memoirs, self-help, poetry, ect. )

If you’re an author, Long and Short Reviews would love to promote your book during this virtual party. Simply complete this form and they will get back to you about the payment process and when your post will be published. As of the time this post was written, there were still spaces available: https://form.jotform.com/41804468836160

The deadline for enrolment to participate is August 12, but I obviously can’t guarantee there will still be spots open if you wait until the last minute. Sometimes it fills up early!

If you’re a reader, get ready to discover all sorts of new books and authors. I’ve found some fantastic ones there over the years and can’t wait to see what they have in store for us this time. There are also a ton of prizes to be won for folks who enter the drawings, including two $100 gift cards to Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or another online bookseller of your choice.

The official Long and Short Reviews website has a page with all of the other details you’ll need to check this event out as well as another link to their submission form if you’d prefer to click through there instead.

This has been one of my highlights of the summer for many years now, so I hope to see all of my readers over there in a few weeks when it begins.

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: Would I Stay in a Haunted House? Why or Why Not?

Hosted by Long and Short Reviews.

Click here to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and here to see the full list of topics for the year.

A black-and-white photo of a cobweb-covered staircase in an old house. On vthe right you see the stairs up to the landing. To the left you see the railing for the next flight of stairs up to the next floor, but you cannot see the stairs themselves due to how the staircase curves after the landing. I have already stayed in a haunted house! One of my relatives owns a townhouse that used to have shadow people in it a few decades ago.

The shadow people were never dangerous or violent. From what I’ve been told, you’d simply see them out of the corner of your eye or maybe catch a quick glimpse of a dark shadow walking across the room and then disappearing into a wall.

Sightings of these creatures stopped after a cleansing ritual was done many years ago.

While I did hear someone walking up the stairs there a couple of times when nobody was actually using the stairs, it was probably just the the sound of neighbours walking up their own stairs that echoed through their shared walls.

To make things more interesting, would I stay in a house with a more active supernatural presence?

Some places might have reputations as being haunted when they actually have raccoons or other creatures scurrying around in their attics and knocking stuff over or some other rational explanation for occasionally odd events. I’d stay there once all of the furry little intruders had been taken somewhere else, the squeaky hinges had been fixed, and all sources of cold drafts wafting through the house had been repaired.

Other houses might be haunted by mischievous spirits who open kitchen cabinets at night but otherwise keep to themselves. I might be willing to stay there if that was the extent of their shenanigans. Honestly, sometimes I leave kitchen cabinet doors open by accident, too, so the ghosts would be in good company (and/or would be annoyed that this human is stealing their thunder).

If we’re talking about a genuinely haunted house that has any history of entities causing harm to the living, no thank you. I am not at all interested in fighting over real estate with anyone, supernatural or otherwise. There are plenty of other places in the world to live.

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Tagged as Haunted House, Hauntings, Paranormal, Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge

July 30, 2024 · 1:00 am

Top Ten Tuesday: Books I Wish Had Fewer Pages

Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

Several hardcover books have been opened and left in an overgrown grassy field. Their pages are spreading open as the sun shines down upon this scene. One of the interesting ways my reading habits have changed since I was a kid or a teenager is that I’m much less interesting in reading long books these days. If something is more than 200 to maybe 250 pages, it generally needs to be a story I think will be a five-star read for me in order for me to finish it.

I’m glad I read much longer books when I was younger and had more time for such doorstoppers as some of them did have excellent storylines, but I can also see the value in trimming down side quests and lengthy descriptive passages in order to make the reading experience a faster one.

Here are some books that I think would have been better if they were shorter. Some of them are classics as books from roughly 100+ years ago were often more verbose than what is published today due to how English has evolved since then.

1. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien (as well as the sequels, of course!)

2. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

3. The Pillars of the Earth (Kingsbridge, #1) by Ken Follett

4. The Stand by Stephen King

5. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

6. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

7. The House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne

8. Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel

9. Paradise Lost by John Milton

10. The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson

48 Comments

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Tagged as Top Ten Tuesday

July 25, 2024 · 1:00 am

The Other Side of the Coin: A Review of A Fairy Tale Murder

Title: A Fairy Tale Murder

Author: Dulcinea Norton-Smith

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: May 11, 2011

Genres: Fantasy, Historical, Retelling

Length: 14 pages

Source: I received a free copy from the author.

Rating: 3 Stars

Blurb:

Kids are always good and witches are always bad right? Wrong you idiot! Step inside A Fairy Tale Murder and discover the grisly truth.

Content Warning: Child neglect and abandonment. I will not go into any detail about this in my review.

Review:

So much depends on how you define the phrase happily ever after.

I strongly recommend going into this without reading any spoilers about it ahead of time. This is one of those cases when the plot twists work best, at least in my opinion, if the reader hasn’t been tipped off about them in advance and is hopefully surprised by everything they are about to read. What I can say is that I enjoyed looking at a famous fairy tale from a new perspective. Character development wasn’t something that most of those stories spent a lot of time thinking about, so there is a lot of room to explain why certain characters from them behaved the way they did and how their choices could be interpreted in many different ways if you finally have all of the information instead of only some of it. Kudos to the author for using this approach to breathe fresh life into something so well known.

As much as I liked the premise, I struggled with the plot holes. There were multiple instances of characters either not communicating with each other or not thinking through the rational consequences of their actions. It was understandable when the kids did it as they were traumatized and their brains were still developing, but seeing adults do the same thing so often was hard to figure out. If only a few more scenes had been included to help explain why the characters consistently made decisions that that they should have thought twice about. I so desperately wanted to give this one a higher rating!

Dympna was such an interesting protagonist. It made me smile to read about the details of her life that might have been exaggerated just a little in order to make this feel more magical. Then again, maybe everything happened exactly as she recounted and she was simply someone who broke all sorts of rules about what life in the Middle Ages was like! There is definitely something to be said for leaving such things up to the reader’s imagination and not giving us strict input about how we should interpret them.

A Fairy Tale Murder was a creative look at an old classic. Now I must end this review before I accidentally give any clues as to which one I’m talking about!

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: A Sport I Want to Try

Hosted by Long and Short Reviews.

Click here to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and here to see the full list of topics for the year.

Aerial shot of a black woman paddle boarding on a pink and white paddle board in a green-blue sea. This means that she is standing up on a surfboard-like item and holding a paddle as she looks straight ahead. The water is rippling slightly in the wind and looks gorgeous. The woman has a confident pose and seems to be having a great time. Paddle boarding sounds like a fantastic sport to me.

I will share two pictures of people who are using paddle boards in today’s post in case anyone reading this has never seen one or needs a visual representation of what they look like.

Why am I interested in paddle boarding?

I love spending time on or near the water on nice days. It’s relaxing to hear waves lapping against the shore or the cry of sea birds in the distance. Since everything is powered by your own muscles, there won’t be any motors drowning out peaceful nature noises.

This sport doesn’t involve any running or trying to catch or throw balls. Those things also make it appealing to me as I tend to prefer forms of exercise that let you work at your own pace and don’t involve getting hit by anything.

No uniform seems to be required. You can wear a bathing suit or shorts and a t-shirt depending on your preferences and what the weather is like. I appreciate having the option of choosing my own wardrobe for such things as the air could be hot and still on land but much cooler and active further out on Lake Ontario. The wind blowing over all of that water can make such a huge difference in temperature, especially if a storm is coming.

The big paddle is cool, too. I have enjoyed canoeing the past, so that makes me think I might like using something similar to a large oar while standing up.

There is also the fact that paddle boarding can allow you to explore shallow waters that boats cannot enter. This means that you can see places that are usually much less accessible to human visitors, and you can do it without damaging any sensitive things like rare plants or the nests of various creatures so long as you stay on the paddle board.

These are some of many reasons why this sport appeals to me. If any of you have tried it, I’d love to hear what you thought of it!

12 Comments

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Tagged as Fitness, Sports, Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge

July 23, 2024 · 1:00 am

Top Ten Tuesday: Debut Novels I Enjoyed

Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

A photo looking down at a pair of black and white running shoes. The person’s feet (and shoes) are standing on a grey surface where the word “start” has been written in chalk. This is such a fun topic! I had to do a lot of searching online to find enough books I’d read to fit it, so I’m hoping the lists I found online were all accurate.

All of these were good reads, and I’d recommend them to anyone who finds their blurbs interesting. As is typical for me, the links in this post are to the Goodreads pages of the books I include. As isn’t typical for me, I have more than ten answers this time!

1.The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

2.The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

3.Watership Down (Watership Down, #1) by Richard Adams

4. Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

5. Still Alice by Lisa Genova

6. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

7. The Martian by Andy Weir

8. Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson

9. The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey

10. The Sparrow (The Sparrow, #1) by Mary Doria Russell

11. Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (The Wicked Years, #1) by Gregory Maguire

12. Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist

13. Allegedly by Tiffany D. Jackson

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Tagged as Debut, Top Ten Tuesday

July 18, 2024 · 1:00 am

Supernatural Business: A Review of Iago Wick and the Vampire Queen

Title: Iago Wick and the Vampire Queen (Lovelace & Wick #1.5) by Jennifer Rainey

Author: Jennifer Rainey

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: August 30, 2017

Genres: Fantasy, Paranormal, Historical, LGBTQ

Length: 79 pages

Source: I received a free copy from the author.

Rating: 3 Stars

Blurb:

As a demon, Iago Wick has made quite a career out of conjuring mischief and mayhem in the name of Hell, but this time, perhaps he’s gone a bit too far.

After deliberately foiling the plans of a spoiled vampire—all in the name of fun, really!—Iago discovers that the vampire in question is no ordinary bloodsucker. She’s the newly-appointed matriarch of one of the oldest vampire families in America, and she’s very angry.

Soon, Iago is caught in a war with the vampires and their cyborg servants. Will he settle his score with the clan of bloodsuckers or will Iago find himself at the mercy of the Vampire Queen? What precisely is the matter with those strange cybernetic servants, anyway? And most importantly, will Iago ever get the smell of garlic out of his clothes?

“Iago Wick and the Vampire Queen” is a 17,000-word short story prequel to The Lovelace & Wick Series.

Content Warning: Murder and kidnapping. I will not mention these topics in my review.

Review:

Supernatural business is nothing to mess around with.

I enjoyed the quiet and unassuming small town setting. Honestly, the residents of Marlowe probably wouldn’t have believed what was going on behind closed doors in their sleepy community even if one of the main characters had decided to reveal their true identities to everyone. Peaceful places are a good option for hiding in plain sight, and I liked the way the author showed the many ways in which awful deeds can done right under the noses of people who think they know all of the local gossip already.

This novella had a dry sense of humor that I struggled to connect with due to the terrible things that were simultaneously happening to so many of the human characters. I’d read about either one of these things on their own, but the combination of them simply didn’t work for me as a reader. It felt a little too flippant to move between an edgy joke and another description of the ways in which vampires harm the humans around them. This is a subjective piece of criticism, of course, and I’m sure there are a lot of readers out there who love this sort of dark writing style. I’m simply not one of them, and I found myself wishing I could stick to the more lighthearted elements of the plot and skip over the rest.

With that being said, Iago’s personality was such an interesting one. There was a strong, sharp sense of danger surrounding him due to the fact that he’s (obviously) a demon and therefore not exactly the most wholesome fellow around. He had his own moral code that often didn’t match up to what a human might consider a reasonable or kind thing to do, but I did admire the way he stuck to it no matter who or what might have tempted him to break the rules of hell just once.

Iago Wick and the Vampire Queen was a playful read.

4 Comments

Filed under Science Fiction and Fantasy

Tagged as 2010s, Book Reviews, Fantasy, Historical, Jennifer Rainey, LGBT, Novella, Paranormal, Self-Published, Vampire

Author Archives: lydias

About lydias

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: Funniest Advice I’ve Received

Piece of Advice #1

Piece of Advice #2

Piece of Advice #3

Top Ten Tuesday: Ten Favorite Books from Ten Series

A Review of Among Mirages

Summer 2024 Author Promo Opportunity at Long and Short Reviews

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: Would I Stay in a Haunted House? Why or Why Not?

Top Ten Tuesday: Books I Wish Had Fewer Pages

The Other Side of the Coin: A Review of A Fairy Tale Murder

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: A Sport I Want to Try

Top Ten Tuesday: Debut Novels I Enjoyed

Supernatural Business: A Review of Iago Wick and the Vampire Queen

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