The Map Shop

 The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien was originally published in 1937 by George Allen and Unwin. This is a classical children's fantasy novel that has received world wide acclaim, awarded the Best Juvenile Fiction prize from the New York Herald Tribunes and was nominated for the Carnegie Medal. There is also a three part movie directed by Peter Jackson (which I will mention later in this review) that has reinvigorated the public's interest in the book, if only to complain about the movies. For those who do not know, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again, follows the adventures of a well-to-do Hobbit named Bilbo Baggins who is tricked into hosting a meeting for some traveling dwarfs and is then hired to be a "burglar" for the party as they attempt to return to their homeland and steal back the treasures from the dragon, Smaug, who killed most of their people and stole their mountain many years ago. As they travel to the mountain, they encounter several different enemies ...

Hello travelers! I thought I would do another booktag this week. This version is from JessetheReader . I know it's a bit older but I'll be honest and say I've hit a bit of a slump and needed an easyish idea for this post. So I hope you enjoy getting to know far too much about me and i promise to have an actual review up next week. questions: 1) What fictional character has the best style? I'd have to choose between Kaz Brekker and Mia Corvere. Kaz because it's such a distinct look and Mia because she can go from feminine to bad ass in a matter of seconds. 2)Your book girlfriend/boyfriend/ fictional crush? I don't really have one. I remember being enamored with Gaara of the Sand from the Naruto manga when I was younger. 3)Ever loved a character but than started hating them? Harry Potter. I started reading the books when I was ten and Harry was great. Then the Order of the Phoenix came out and he turned into such a brat that I couldn't stand him any more. 4...

I must admit I have a bad habit of not finishing my writing projects. I've heard other writers call this problem the "shiny new idea syndrome" and I have to agree with that title. An idea will come to me, I get excited, I promise myself I'll actually finish this one, and then I start writing it. Sometimes I only get to the outlining stage, other times I'm a few drafts in, and then comes the shiny new story idea and I "give myself a break" from my current project to work on this. To give you a view of all the projects that are wrestling for my attention (and to shame myself into actually getting some of them done), I thought I'd share a list of my unfinished writing projects. Please note, I'm listing these in no particular order and some of these were stories I started back in middle school and I still like some of the ideas even if I'd have to do a complete overhaul of them while others I might have mentioned in other blog posts. I'll...

  Queen of Hearts by Colleen Oaks was published by HarperTeen originally as The Crown in 2014 and then under the current title in 2016. It won the Next Generation Indie Book Award for Young Readers in 2014 and is the first book in the Queen of Hearts Saga. This is a YA retelling/prequel to Alice in Wonderland with the Queen of Hearts (obviously) as the main character. Trigger warnings for abuse, implied torture, executions, and murder. Queen of Hearts takes place before the events of Alice in Wonderland while Dinah is the princess of Wonderland, awaiting the day she is coordinated and can take her mother's throne to rule over the kingdom, first with her father, and then with the boy she has loved since childhood. However, her life is thrown into chaos when the King of Hearts reveals the existence of an illegitimate daughter, one far more beautiful and charming than Dinah, to the royal court. Dinah is heartbroken that her father could be unfaithful to her mother who pass...

Greetings travelers! Another month has passed us by and I hope everyone is doing well in these trying times. I will be the first to admit that I did not get through all of the books that I had wanted to this past month. Thanks to the new schedules at work and doing Camp NaNoWriMo in April, i didn't have as much time to read as I thought I would have. In April, I started and finished: Out of the Silent Planet by C.S. Lewis Martin the Warrior by Brian Jacques In the House in the Dark of the Woods by Laird Hunt The Life-changing Manga of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie I ended up DNF'ing Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck. I'll admit it may have been because I was listening to the audiobook and the accents were very strong for the characters but I also felt a bit uncomfortable with how one of the characters was treated in the opening pages. It just rubbed me wrong at the time and I'm not sure I want to go back and tr...

  In the House in the Dark of the Woods by Laird Hunt was published by Little Brown and Company in 2018. This is a dark adult fairy tale with psychological and paranormal horror elements set in colonial New England. It is short but it is intense with witches, spirits, murder, betrayal, and self discovery. Trigger warnings for abuse and psychological elements. I would like to get my thoughts out of the way before going into detail about this book. I went into this story blind, randomly grabbing it off the library shelf on a whim after I read the opening words "Once upon a time there was and there wasn't a woman who went to the woods." I didn't read the description, I didn't look up anything about it. I just grabbed it and jumped right in. As I read, I enjoyed identifying the fairy tale elements that I have read before while also being pleased to find this was an original story and not a retelling of one I was already familiar with. I also liked how I w...