The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater

I'm on a roll, 2 books down and it's not even January yet. On the down side none of these books will count towards my 2016 reading goal and I still won't hit the goal of 15 books that I set for myself for 2015. On the bright side i've gotten to read 2 fantastic books.

Here's what I thought of The Scorpio Races:

The concept of the water horses in this book is so unique, unlike anything I have ever read before. I found it fascinating from the very beginning all the way up until the end. Since this book is YA you knew there was going to be some sort of romance in the book but it wasn't an in your face or over the top sort of romance so even if you would typically avoid a YA book because of the teenaged romance this book is still within your grasp. I did however really enjoy that you got snippets from both main characters so it gave the book a lot more depth and was well done.

I didn't give this book 5 stars for a few reasons.
1. It was slow in some spots which was annoying because those parts probably could have been left out and the plot still would have gotten along just fine.
2. There were several things about the water horses that were never explained, and I would have like some sort of explanation no matter how brief, about the ribbons and bells and "magic" involved in controlling the water horses. Also, for my own stupid curiosity since they talk about cross breeding the water horses with regular horses - what would such an offspring eat, would it eat grass and hay like a normal horse or meat like a water horse?

First book Read! (The Chimera Sequence by Elliott Garber)

Well I didn't think i'd finish a book so quickly with two little kids underfoot but turns out once you get really into a good book it can still be done. Of course being on winter break from school helps too. It felt so nice to be curled up with a good book (and a baby), I didn't realize quite how much I missed the delight of getting lost in a different world for a couple of hours.

I decided to start with The Chimera Sequnce by Elliott Garber and here's what I thought:

This is not the usual genre of book that I read, i'm more of a fantasy person but I had read the short story No Dog Left Behind that features the same main character so I was intrigued and I was definitely not left disappointed.

I was a little confused after the first chapter because I didn't really understand what was going on, but it was intriguing, so I continued on. Then after that second chapter I was hooked and couldn't put it down. I loved all the characters, and was disappointed on occasion when it would switch to a new point of view because I wanted to keep learning more about the previous character's predicament. But I knew that to keep the plot moving the book had to keep switching so you could find out more and how all the pieces fit together.

If I could I would give this book 4.5 stars, but since places like Goodreads and Amazon don't allow half ratings i'll stick with 4 stars. I would read more books about Cole McBride in the future, I think it's really different to have a veterinarian as the main character of a book, and this one was extremely well written.

Hello and Welcome to the New Dragon's Inkpot

Several Years ago I started "The Dragon's Inkpot" on wordpress and had a lot of fun doing it. But then life got in the way and I got really busy. I had a daughter and started Vet school at St. George's University in Grenada. I have since had a second daughter and finished my third term of vet school (only 3 more to go on the island, plus a year in the States and then i'm a vet, woohoo!).

 I realized today after looking at my Goodreads account and seeing that the only books I managed to read this year were the ones I edited for my husband (T.J. Lantz) who is a middle grade fantasy author. I would really like to change that and am hoping to use this blog as encouragement to find the time to do more reading for myself. Feel free to follow me and like my posts as a way to encourage me and help me find the time to read between playing with my beautiful girls and watching them grow into amazing little people, hanging with my husband and helping him achieve his dreams of becoming a bestselling author and studying to achieve the job of my dreams.

My first Dragon's Inkpot was primarily fantasy and scifi but i'm thinking of maybe expanding my horizons and branching out into some other genres for this blog. My reviews will be a mix of traditionally published as well as self-published books and my goal to start will be one post a month. That post might just be an update on where I am on a book rather than an actual review if I haven't had the chance to fully read a book, so there might be more than one post per book that I read.

 Happy Chanukah, Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and Happy New Year as I don't expect to have my first real post before the New Year.

 Maya