C.E. Clayton, official author website
  • Home
  • About the Author
    • C.E. Clayton
  • List of Works
    • Starfish Ink >
      • Eerden Novels
      • Eerden Novellas
    • The Monster of Selkirk Series
    • Freebies and collectors editions
    • Other Published Works
  • Requesting Book Reviews
  • Newsletter
    • Clayton's Super Friends

What I'm Reading


Want to get more reviews and bookish giveaways? Be sure to sign up for my Book Club!
Sign up for the Book Club now!

Where Acorns landed; Anne M. Curtis

6/9/2022

0 Comments

 
Picture
“Where Acorns Landed” is literary fantasy with an absurdist fiction flare. Meshing Celtic Mythology with Arthurian Legend, and sprinkled with supernatural elements, the reader follows Lowell and Brighid as they navigate loss, and new beginnings, all while clinging almost too tightly to a sense of normalcy. Under the guise of making a documentary, Lowell and Brighid are thrust together just in time to see their corner of the world succumb to a plethora of supernatural sightings. Neither Lowell nor Brighid know who is orchestrating their mystery project, one that seems impossibly linked to their lives, which gives this novel a dark, and sinister vibe to it that I rather enjoyed. Readers will be kept guessing and in the dark about what is happening and why all the way to the end—just like the main characters.


Read More
0 Comments

The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps; Kai Ashante Wilson

5/19/2022

0 Comments

 
Picture
I had to sit with this novella for a while after finishing; mainly to make sense of how I felt about it, or if I even understood it enough to form a valid rating. But ultimately, that was the problem I had with this story. The premise sounded great, but ultimately the quest isn’t all that inspiring, and many times I had to re-read sentences to understand what was happening, just for the author to have moved on to another topic in the next sentence, making for jumbled paragraphs and a reading experience where I never once felt really enmeshed in the story. And while the book deservedly gets praise for how it blends traditional epic fantasy prose with modern day vernacular, I personally found the shifts to be rather jarring. It’s clear that the author set out to craft a really vivid and rich world for the reader to get swept up in, only to make it really uninviting by burying it in a murky and obscure narrative.


Read More
0 Comments

Misericorde (Mercy Series, Book 1); Cynthia A. Morgan

4/15/2022

0 Comments

 
Picture
What happens to the world when only three of the four horsemen ride? “Misericorde” looks at that in great detail. Set in the future when all horsemen of the apocalypse—except Death—ride, the author presents a world that has fallen back into the Middle Ages. All technology is gone, there is no electricity, and people go back to living in castles in the few places where basic resources can still be found. There is a ruling class that lives in luxury, while all their servants are barely surviving. You never really meet this ruling class though, instead the reader is introduced to a servant, Lourdes, the brutal soldiers she’s tasked with serving, and an Archangel that is determined to find any human still capable of mercy in such a brutal world. This book has “Angelfall” vibes but written with literary prose full of feeling, with well crafted characters, but maybe just a tad too much description.


Read More
0 Comments

Sacred Mounds; Jim Metzner

3/30/2022

0 Comments

 
Picture
“Sacred Mounds” is a historical fantasy and magical realism tale full of prose and a dual timeline with its main characters living 400 years apart. What connects Lewis and Skyfisher? Not much, and that’s the point. Skyfisher is on a quest to save his people, and the world, through strengthening the connection his people have to these sacred mounds. In order to do that, he must inhabit the body of someone in the future in order to bring those memories, appreciation, and understanding of these mounds and Natchez people to a place where they are otherwise almost forgotten. But while Skyfisher is in the future, inhabiting Lewis’ body, Lewis’ consciousness is placed into Skyfisher. Now Lewis is in the body of a blind man, with a wife he can’t communicate to, on a mission he knows nothing about, but he has to complete it if he ever wants to return to his rightful time and body.


Read More
0 Comments

Sister Outsider; Audre Lorde

2/11/2022

0 Comments

 
Picture
This is my first foray into Lorde’s writing as I don’t typically read poetry. That being said, Lorde’s writing is gorgeous, visceral, and still holds so much truth even close to 40 years after “Sister Outsider” was originally published. That’s really why I wanted to read this, to better understand and educate myself on racism and sexism in a way that I, as a white woman, don’t experience and don’t see the way that black women do, or lesbian POC would experience. I learned so much from this collection of essays and interviews, both about feminism and racism. It took me much longer to get through this relatively short book because I often had to sit with what I just read, to really digest it and hear what Lorde had to say, which is written with incredible passion. But it also took me awhile to finish because the organization of the different essays wasn’t well thought out, and the different essays got a little repetitive.


Read More
0 Comments
<<Previous
Forward>>

    Click the book images to see them on Amazon!

    C.E.'s bookshelf: currently-reading

    The Night Bird
    The Night Bird
    by Brian Freeman
    tagged: currently-reading
    A Boy From the Chesapeake
    A Boy From the Chesapeake
    by Larry Roszkowiak
    tagged: book-review-requests and currently-reading
    The Mine
    The Mine
    by John A. Heldt
    tagged: book-review-requests and currently-reading
    September Sky
    September Sky
    by John A. Heldt
    tagged: book-review-requests and currently-reading
    Made Men: An Urban Fantasy Novel
    Made Men: An Urban Fantasy Novel
    by Seth Creamer
    tagged: book-review-requests and currently-reading

    goodreads.com

    RSS Feed

    Categories

    All
    Action
    Adventure
    Anthologies
    Christian
    Contemporary
    Crime Drama
    DNF
    Dystopian
    Fantasy
    Fiction
    Graphic Novel
    Historical Fiction
    Horror
    Humor
    Literature
    Magical Realism
    Memoir
    Middle Grade
    Mystery
    Mythology
    New Adult
    Non Fiction
    Non-Fiction
    Novella
    Paranormal
    Poetry
    Romance
    Science Ficton
    Short Stories
    Steampunk
    Thriller
    True Crime
    Urban Fantasy
    Western
    Young Adult
    Zombie

    Upcoming reviews

    The Squire's Tale
    Division of the Marked
    Night Watch
    Hatter
    The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making
    The Blade Itself
    Dealing with Dragons
    Harbinger
    Over Sea, Under Stone
    Neverwhere
    Demon's Prize
    Terra Obscura: Volume 1
    The Thousand Names
    The Name of the Wind
    The Thorn of Emberlain
    The Time Traveler's Wife
    Babayaga
    The Goldfinch
    Wake Up, Sir!
    Someone Could Get Hurt: A Memoir of Twenty-First-Century Parenthood

Support

Privacy Policy
© COPYRIGHT 2015. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
  • Home
  • About the Author
    • C.E. Clayton
  • List of Works
    • Starfish Ink >
      • Eerden Novels
      • Eerden Novellas
    • The Monster of Selkirk Series
    • Freebies and collectors editions
    • Other Published Works
  • Requesting Book Reviews
  • Newsletter
    • Clayton's Super Friends