I've missed you.

Where have I been?

It has been a very long time since I have posted and for that I am sorry. “Where are the book reviews?” “How is the writing going?” “You’ve done nothing since October 20^th!!”

These are just some of the questions or accusations that I have received over the past month. The truth is I am talking a break from reviewing books for the time being. There are three main reasons for this:

1. I have been doing a second job since the beginning of October. On top of full time job and my family and my writing, the whole reviewing of books thing has been the least of my priorities. It makes me sad but something had to give and unfortunately it was this blog. Hopefully thing will pick up for me soon financially and so I can ditch the second job and afford myself more time to dedicate to hobbies.
2. This one might sound a little arrogant and it is not meant to be, but now I have three books out there on the market, I don’t feel as comfortable reviewing books as regularly as I do. I know how difficult the process is and although that shouldn’t make me any more or less lenient when it comes to my reviews, I just don’t feel at ease reviewing on the scale I was. You don’t see other authors being so vigorous with their reviews.
3. After four years of doing this and well over two hundred reviews, I felt my reviews had got a bit stale. I am not enjoying it as much as I used to. Increasingly, I found myself saying the same thing over and over, especially when it came to reviewing the 20^th book in a series!  I thought a bit of a break is in order.

That is not to say I have not been reading. I have still read many books in the last month, some I have loved, and others not so much:

Witch Hunt – Syd Moore

Micro Review – Enjoyable novel. The flashback sequences and the real life facts about the past were fascinating. Tried too hard to be eerie in places. My Rating: 8.2

The Ship of Magic – Robin Hobb

Micro Review – Fantastic start to a new series. Reminded me why I love Robin Hobb. Was unsure about the Serpents and the talking ships to begin with but it worked brilliantly. My Rating: 9.2

Duma Key – Stephen King

Micro Review – King doing what King does best. Nothing groundbreaking, but a great yarn. My Rating: 8.7

Cross my Heart – James Patterson

Micro Review – Great addition to the series. James Patterson seems to have made an effort to the multiple cartoonish killer syndrome and is now trying to make things a little more gritty and grounded. My Rating: 8.8

Enchantress – James Maxwell

Good start to a series if a little by the numbers. The battle scenes come across as heavily influenced by a gaming background but this is definitely a promising start to a series. My Rating: 8.4

I will put up another post regarding how the writing is going in the next week or so ago. In brief it is going well, although I did fail miserably and surprisingly at NaNoWriMo this year. I was massively disappointed about that.