About me!
Hello there – welcome to my virtual world of books! Hope you’re sitting comfortably, then I’ll begin by giving you a little information about me and why I’ve started this. OK, so I must be mad, bad or just sad . . . but I honestly don’t think so as I’m generally quite a cheerful person! I’ve been challenged by my daughter to have a go at keeping this up to date, so watch out world! I’m an ex primary teacher who loves reading and likes encouraging others to do so, too. It works sometimes -my daughter is also a keen reader – you can check out what she’s reading here – so I must have been doing something right some of the time!
I like lots of different genres of books, science fiction, fantasy, historical, adventures, crime, mysteries . . . as well as children’s books. I also like straight forward romances, though I’ll be quite honest and say I don’t like ones that go into what I think is too much detail about sexual relations – a great story shouldn’t need to become pornographic to be worth reading IMHO. I’ve also now joined Book Sirens, so if you’re interested in how they rate my reading, you can see it here:
I know many stories can actually fit into lots of different genre, mainly depending on the attitude of the reader to them. Well, this is my blog of books I’ve read, so I’m sorry but I’ll just have to hope you’ll agree with how I categorise them! I may change my mind as I play with this, so any constructive comments or advice is welcome – even if I then choose to continue to go my own way!
My daughter introduced me to NetGalley and so I’m now also able to get to read some books sometimes before they are actually officially published – I’ll let you know what I think of them here, too! Six of the badges above this paragraph are from NetGalley, the first acknowledges that I read books from them, the second that I usually have provided feedback reviews on at least 80% of the books that I’ve received from there and the third means that at least three times publishers have added my reviews to their NetGalley title details page (actually that’s happened more than two hundred times now) and the next one shows that at least four publishers auto approve any books I request from them (luckily more than ten different publishers do this for me). I’ve actually been given three other badges for joining in challenges and one which acknowledges that I’ve now reviewed more than 500 books on NetGalley – I’ve actually reviewed more than 2,000 but they don’t do any other badges for that many!
I’ve also been contacted by eleven year old Charlie J. Ross who has volunteered to do some guest reviews of books he likes – so watch please welcome him on board and look out for his blogs about books in amongst the posts. You’ll be able to identify them easily because I’ll make sure to tag his name in any he contributes!
I’ve also agreed to take part in some blog tours, so watch out for them- they often include competitions and offers, so check them out. Some of them also include links to other blogs so you may find other sites to visit, too.
Feel free to read any of my reviews, like any that you enjoy, comment if you’d like and feel free to follow if you enjoy them 🙂 I hope you’ll be inspired to read some of the books and maybe you’ll be able to recommend others for me to read? Just remember that, like you, I also have a life away from this virtual world, so have lots of other things to do as well so cannot spend all my time reading!
You’ll notice that I use a rating to summarise what I think about the books. If I only give
1/5 – I really didn’t like it
2/5 – not really my cup of tea!
3/5 – okay, I did like it 🙂
4/5 – I loved it 🙂
5/5 – exceptional – go get it!
Enjoy your lives both virtual and real! I wish you good health, great happiness and love,
Elaine
Follow @bicted
splashesintobooks 
I love your amazing site and plan to spend more time enjoying all the wonderful books here. Thank you for your honest review of my book, “The Dance of The Snow Tractors.” It is the first of a number of books that I based on real life stories and memories. I met Shannon Wilvers (the artist) at a comic convention in Ottawa. She is a young student of legendary comic artist Goef Isherwood and agreed to bring my stories to life. I am forever grateful to her. She is presently finishing up our second book, “Why We Walk.” When it is ready, you will be one of the first to know.
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Thank you for your kind words! I look forward to discovering more of your books in future.
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