Category: book review

September 28, 2017

Sharkpedia #DKWildLife

Come on everyone – grab your scuba gear and get on the boat-we’ve got sharks to find with Sharkpedia, 2nd Edition!

About Sharkpedia

A visual and comprehensive research manual and guide that will take kids from tropical paradise to the cold, dark depths, in search of the wildest, weirdest, and most wonderful sharks in the ocean with a bonus that the book is now refreshed with a new look.

Kids can go on an around-the-world adventure to track the sea’s most extraordinary predators with Sharkpedia, 2nd Edition. From the huge and harmless whale shark to the puny pygmy shark, these fascinating fish come in many shapes and sizes, and this guide will take kids from tropical paradise to the cold, dark depths of the ocean.

Who gulps up tiny plankton? Who snatches unsuspecting seals mid-swim?

Kids can see for themselves from the portholes of our trusty vessel or, if they dare, from behind the bars of a shark cage.

Our Thoughts

We have HUGE shark fans in our home. We never miss Shark Week every year and we love watching any and all documentaries on sharks on television. Sharkpedia is definitely a must have library book addition for all shark lovers in your home.

Sharkpedia reads almost like a cross between an encyclopedia and a scrapbook. The beginning of the book gives an introduction to sharks (history, fears, etc) and then dives right into the background on a large group of sharks. The book wraps up with research on shark attacks and media news.

While a hard covered book on the outside, each page is soft. The book itself is letter paper sized with excellent sized photographs. This book is definitely suited to the older child or a younger child with great reading skills. I loved how the way the book was illustrated and designed. The darker colours (especially the cover) really suits the story line of this book. Our favourite areas of this book was definitely the individual shark pages (I loved the leopard shark) as we learned so much about different types of sharks, a lot of them we had never known about before.

This is a great book for both the shark and animal fans in your home!

You can purchase a copy of Sharkpedia on DK Canada.

Rating: 5/5

Disclosure: I received a copy of this book in order to facilitate this review. All opinions expressed are my own.

September 28, 2017

Bugs, Bees, and Other Buzzy Creatures #DKWildLife

Get ready to learn all about the insect world with fun activities and amazing facts in Bugs, Bees, and Other Buzzy Creatures.

About Bugs, Bees, and Other Buzzy Creatures

What’s the buzz? Learn all about the insect world with fun activities and amazing facts in Bugs, Bees, and Other Buzzy Creatures.

Discover why bees buzz and why ladybugs are red as you complete different fun craft activities. Each page has clear, engaging photographs with clear text and simple step-by-step instructions for young readers to follow along with as they complete each DIY craft.

Filled with bees, bugs, worms, and more, this book is the perfect spring and summertime companion for children.

Our Thoughts

Bugs, Bees and other Buzzy Creatures is the perfect introduction to the world of insects for preschoolers and young school age children.

This hard covered book is bright and bold, perfect for drawing in young readers and keeping their attention. The words are easy to read out loud and well suited for this age group with regards to comprehension. I loved how each section of the book had information about a certain insect and the following pages had a craft to follow-up and reinforce the learning that they just did.

The crafts were fun and easy to do, you will have most of the supplies around your home already. My two favourite crafts are a toss-up between the honey cookies and dragon-fly clips!

You can purchase a copy of this book on DK Canada.

Rating: 5/5

Disclosure: I received a copy of this book in order to facilitate this review. All opinions expressed are my own.

September 25, 2017

Easy Pumpkin Carving: Spooktacular Patterns, Tips and Ideas Book Review

With Halloween right around the corner (yay – my favourite holiday of the year!), many of us are already starting to think about picking up our pumpkins and how to create the perfect pumpkin carving design.

About Easy Pumpkin Carving

Carve the perfect Halloween masterpiece! Whether you’re a first-time pumpkin carver or an experienced pro, create the best jack-o-lantern on the block with this handy guide.

Impress those trick-or-treaters with clever, easy-to-carve pumpkin ideas. Easy Pumpkin Carving offers tips and tricks for fang-tastic pumpkin carving with techniques that go way beyond traditional methods. Create luminary pumpkins and etched pumpkins, combine multiple pumpkins in creative ways, or embellish pumpkins without even touching a knife.

With inspirational color photos and a dozen ready-to-use pumpkin carving patterns, you’re sure to have a spooktacular Halloween with this book.

My Thoughts

I love Halloween – it has always been my favourite holiday. Our family usually goes all out with decorations including lights and sounds (courtesy of my husband!). The only area that we need some serious improvement on is our pumpkin carving skills.

We always have great expectations and try so hard with the pumpkins but they never turn out quite as imagined on paper. We usually carve out too much in one area, it is lopsided or the carvings just don’t even look remotely close to the plan.

This book starts out that basics from the types of pumpkins and how to choose the best kind for carving to the tools you will need (a regular cutting knife or box knife isn’t going to cut it) as well as some extra tools and techniques that will help you out during the carving process.

The book contains five different techniques from traditional carving to luminaries to etching and embellishing. Each technique has the special tools and tips that you will need to pull off the carving style. Each technique also comes with several pages of photographs of the style to give you plenty of ideas when you plan out your own pumpkin. Colleen includes some amazing photographs of pumpkin styles to help decorate your home – I have so many favourites that I won’t be able to choose just one this year! I am going to go with a combination of embellished black pumpkins and a traditional with etched designs in it.

Colleen also includes a great range of carving patterns at the end of the book that you can use when carving out your own pumpkin. She makes it even easier as she includes what type and size of pumpkin to use each design on (as I learned not all designs are good on all pumpkins!) as well as an interesting fact.

You can purchase a copy of this book on Amazon.

Rating:

About the Author

Colleen Dorsey is a writer specializing in the craft and hobby industry, and an editor at Design Originals and Fox Chapel Publishing. Colleen has edited books on many topics, including foam and paper crafts, jewelry making, and children’s crafts. She graduated from Johns Hopkins University with a degree in creative writing, and in her spare time she enjoys writing fiction, making jewelry, and upcycling findings into crafty new items.

Book Excerpt

“Carving Tips

Actually carving your pumpkin is simple enough. Here are some tips to make carving easy and effective:
Saw steadily with a continuous up and down motion, and don’t press too hard or try to go too fast.
When you’re finished cutting out a standalone piece (like an eye), pop it out of the pumpkin wall with your finger, not your carving tool.
To cut clean, sharp corners, remove and reinsert the carving tool.
Carve starting from the inside of the design and working your way outward.
Resist the urge to put your free hand inside the pumpkin while carving. Only do so if you can clearly see where all of your hand is.
If you accidentally break off a part of your carving as you work, such as a protruding tooth, stick it back on with a toothpick!

Preserve Your Pumpkin!

Keep your carved pumpkin cool and out of the direct sunlight (you can even put it in the fridge). You can also coat the interior and all cut edges with petroleum jelly to help lock in the pumpkin’s natural moisture, or purchase special preservative sprays for pumpkins. ” – Pumpkin Carving

Disclosure: I received a digital copy of this book in order to facilitate this review. All opinions expressed are my own.

September 25, 2017

Venetian Blood Book Review

A captivating tapestry of murder, betrayal, and family, Venetian Blood is the story of one woman’s brave quest for the truth—before it’s too late.

About Venetian Blood

Struggling to forget a crumbling marriage, forty-year-old Anna Lucia Lottol comes to Venice to visit an old friend—but instead of finding solace, she is dragged into a police station and accused of murdering a money laundering count with whom she had a brief affair. In the days that follow, Anna, an US Treasury officer with brains and athleticism, fights to clear her name in a seductive city of watery illusions. But as she tries to pry clues from a cast of uncooperative characters who implausibly deny what she sees and hears, she begins to question whether they are hiding something…or she is losing touch with reality. Racing to unlock secrets, she succeeds instead in unleashing a powerful foe bent on destroying her. Will she save herself and vanquish her enemies, including her darkest fears?

My Thoughts

I visited Venice in my mid-teens and I fell in love (and not just because my family on my Dad’s side come from there!). There is an air of mystery and history on every street mixed in with romance. It just has a special quality about it that I just can’t quite put into words. I was so excited to read this novel based in Venice and it did not disappoint me at all. She captured the mystery of Venice into her story that is full of its own mystery and history.

We have Anna who is trapped in a scandal of murder and an affair. This is in the backdrop of an even greater scheme of lies, money laundry, secrets and murder. She is trying desperately to clear her own name plus work an active case. No one in the city wants to quite help her as they try to protect their own citizens and the secrets that they hold.

I loved every moment of this well written novel. It pulls you in and leaves you craving more. It is very well written and suits the tone of the novel and setting. It is an exciting and suspenseful novel from start to finish – I could not put it down in fear I would miss what was coming next! I have to admit, I never saw the ending coming. It was an incredible and well-played out. Venetian Blood is a definite must read novel.

You can purchase a copy of this book on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Rating: 5/5

About the Author

Christine Evelyn Volker became intrigued by foreign cultures at an early age, which propelled her to study Spanish, German, and Italian. After pursuing an MLS and an MBA, she was drawn to international banking and became a senior vice president at a global financial institution. Her career brought her to Italy, where she immersed herself in the language and made frequent visits to Venice. A native New Yorker, she resides with her husband in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, where she heads a local library non-profit organization and writes about environmental sustainability. She is currently at work on her second international mystery, this one set in the rainforest of Peru.

The Giveaway!

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Disclosure: I received a digital copy of this book in order to facilitate this review. All opinions expressed are my own.

September 21, 2017

The Pretender: A Blackguard in Disguise Book Review

From the moment they met, Tillie and Noah wanted to spend the rest of their lives together, but a deliberate omission will keep them apart—and that same omission will be responsible for the escape of a murderer, and a bride’s deception.

About The Pretender: A Blackguard in Disguise

Set in South Dakota in 1975, where eighteen-year-olds could order 3.2 beer in a bar, and loaded guns were kept under the counter.

Frankie Valli sang “My Eyes Adored You,” and American soldiers returning from Vietnam struggled with their new reality.

It’s within this tumultuous season of American history that Tillie Caselli meets Noah Hansen, and they are never the same again. Their lives were mysteriously intertwined—and had been for many years—yet they had no idea.

My Thoughts

This is a powerful story of love, hope, lies, regret and fate. In our story, Tillie is a young woman who has spent her life focusing on her art and yearning for the day she would find her knight. She was always taught the difference between a blackguard, the type of man who would use a woman and leave her, and a true knight, the man who you want to marry.

Noah has always been viewed as the rebel in the family. He drinks, goes to work but wastes his money and still lives with his brother despite his advanced age. He is hurting on the inside and uses his actions to display how he feels. His behaviour is so bad that he has friends of friends praying for him to come right – including Tillie’s Mother who has never met him.

In a twist of fate, Tillie and Noah meet. While Tillie is cautious at first, she sees the real Noah. The Noah that he tries so hard to hide from others. Noah is in love with Tillie from the moment he meets her. She makes him want to be and do better and push himself to become the man his family knew he could be. They have a short romance before Tillie leaves with a promise to return so that they can be married.

In a cruel twist of fate, Tillie believes that Noah is not the man she thought he was. The two are torn apart but never speak about what happened. They lose contact but never stop yearning for each other. Both become lost, heart sore and shadows of their former selves. The people who should be there for them, hide information from them thinking it will help heal them.

This was a beautiful story that I could not put down. My heart was just so sore for this couple! Their lives were ruined and futures changed in one second due to a simple misconception and later when others refused to tell the truth. As we watch the story unfold, you can see how a simple lie can destroy a person. This is a definite must read novel – I loved every moment of it! I felt like the ending is leading into a second book and I really hope that she does continue this story.

You can find more reviews on the Litfuse blog tour page.

Rating: 5/5

About the Author

Born and raised in South Dakota, Ta`Mara loves to write about the Great Plains and the beauty and people of Italia. While her husband and children manage their two pizza ristoranti, Ta`Mara works full-time on The Caselli Family Series, and ministers to women. It is Ta`Mara s prayer that as the readers explore the truths in these volumes, they will come away with a new perspective on love, forgiveness, obedience, and God’s plan for marriage.

Disclosure: I received a digital copy of this book in order to facilitate this review. All opinions expressed are my own.