Today I’m going to have some fun and do an Easter book tag I found on The Calico Books.  I’ve got a review for a blog tour coming up on Easter Sunday (I didn’t realise the date before agreeing) and so I can’t post anything special on Easter so I thought I’d start early and post this today instead.  I love this tag because it’s just so sweet!  I hope you like my answers and have a lovely Easter weekend, and Good Friday today. 🙂

Easter Egg – Name a book that feels like a hidden gem!

The Hand, The Eye and The Heart by Zoë Marriott got some bad press when it came out, or certainly I saw some bad opinions circulating on twitter at the time and I felt so bad for the author as I felt what happened was very unfair.  The book is inspired by the story of Mulan, Zhilan’s father is called up to battle but Zhilan decides to goes in his place assuming the identity of a boy, Zhi.  The story is detailed and a lot happens, too much to go into any sort of detail about it, but I just love how things go, the surprises and the twists and reveals!  It really felt like a brilliant and epic read and one I’d recommend.

It felt like a gem especially among the bad comments the author and book got on release.  They were unfair comments suggesting that because the author wasn’t Chinese she couldn’t write about that culture which I personally think is not true as anyone can write on any culture as long as it’s done with sensitivity and respect.   It’s not known as #ownvoices but it’s still okay if done well and well researched (do you agree?).  The book really is a gem and one that will satisfy anyone so please do check it out if you like a good historical, slightly fantasy style story based on Mulan and with a great main character who also struggles with their identity of both being a girl or boy.

Bloom – A debut novel you loved!

A book I only read quite recently, KID: A History of the Future by Sebastian de Souza is just amazing and it’s now become my favourite book so far of 2021!  It’s a science fiction dystopian ya book that’s set only a little into the future, the year 2078 where most of humanity lives plugged into a virtual reality called Perspecta.  Kid and his friends don’t live in Perspecta though, they are Offliners who live in the real world, a world that’s been savaged and devastated by environmental problems.

When Kid uses the iPhone that’s left to him by his father, he mamages to communicate with the past, to 2021 and a girl called Izzy.  Kid hopes that his connection to Izzy is a chance to save the future of humanity but not everything goes according to plan.  I just love how amazing this book was!  It’s over 600 pages in length and this is only the first in a series! 😀

Chocolate Bunny – A book so good you didn’t want it to end!

I kind of want to say book series rather than just book and it has to be the Lady helen series of books starting with The Dark Days Club by Alison Goodman.  This historical fantasy series was just so engrossing and detailed that I just couldn’t stop reading it from the first pages!  The story is a sort of Buffy crossed with Pride and Prejudice as it’s set in the Regency period with Lady Helen soon realising that she is a Reclaimer, a person who deals with Deceivers who are like demons in the world.  The descriptions of the deceivers and how grusome and dark getting rid of them is made me really feel for some of the characters.

It’s such a brilliant series the further it goes along.  There’s so much that happens in the story and the last book’s ending was just so amazing, such surprise at what was revealed but with the perfect ending that just made me so happy to read it and want to re-read it all over again!

Cheep, Cheep! – A book you bought for super cheap!

There are so many cheap books I’ve bought that to single one out is hard.  I think some of the best cheap books I’ve bought, collectively, in the past, which are especially good for people who are struggling with finances at the moment, are the Wordsworth Classics.  They are literally just £2.50 (up from £2 from a few years ago) which is really amazing and very cheap considering you don’t just get plain text but some notes included too.  Any book in the classics range is this low price no matter its size and it’s how I began my new love of the Classics, by buying a basket full of the books from my local book shop some years back.  I may not have gotten into reading them without trying out a cheap classic first. 🙂

Jelly Bean – A book you thought was just so sweet!

This has got to be the book I read recently called The Elephant in the Room by Holly Goldberg Sloan.  In this lovely story we follow Sila whose mum has had to go back to Turkey to deal with immigration problems.  When she goes with her mechanic dad go to fix an old man’s car, she befriends the man who soon learns of Sila’s love of elephants.  When an opportunity arrives to purchase an elephant from a circus he does and Sila soon meets and starts to help take care of Veda, the elephant, in her new home.

This story is really beautiful as it follows the different characters involved.  Soon we learn more about the old man Gio, and even have chapters that are from the point of view of the elephant Veda and a rogue ex-circus bear!  The story is very funny in parts but also very beautiful and it has such a happy and wonderful ending with something really magical and so sweet happening right at the end with the elephant, that it really made me cry happy tears to read this!

Church – A book that changed your life!

Wow, that’s a hard one, I’m not sure that any one book has changed my life.  Maybe a bunch of books over the years have changed my life but I really can’t think of one specific book right now that’s responsible for something like that.  I’m sure there is something I just really have gone blank, such a responsibility to put on one book!😅

Easter Basket – A book filled with so many surprises!

I think any book by Karen M McManus is brilliant but her latest The Cousins has got to be the best.  I just love the setting for this story, three cousins who barely know each other are all invited to stay for the summer at their grandmother’s resort, the same grandmother who disinherited her children, the cousins parents.  The cousins are determined to discover the hidden secrets behind their family, but their grandmother isn’t so willing to share the truth.  I just love the plot of this one, it’s got such twisty ends to every chapter, keeping you guessing throughout and I just love how something new is revealed all the time throwing you all over the place trying desperately to guess at what is really the truth!  I think the small island setting made me enjoy this all the more too! 🙂

 

I hope you enjoyed my answers and I tag anyone who’d love to do this one.  Jsut tag the original creator Theresa @ The Calico Books as well as me (if you’d like me to see your answers) if you decide to do this, or leave me your answers to these questions in the comments below, I’d love to hear what you’d answer to this fun tag! 🙂

Did you like this tag?  Do you celebrate Easter?  What would your answers to this tag be?  Let me know what you think in the comments below 🙂

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