Book Review - Wrath Of The Storm by Jennifer A. Nielsen

   Okay, FIRST of all - I've been totally overwhelmed by your sweet comments on my blogoversary bash post! Y'all have even been linking to it on your own blogs? You guys are just the bestest, okay - it's official. *hugs and highfives for all*

   Alright, back to the reason for this post xD. I had made a firm decision not to read this series (book set in ancient Rome = not my thing). But then I found a eye-candy copy of the final book in the trilogy for a good price and ... eheh, needless to say, I bought it.

   And Wrath Of The Storm (the last book in the Mark Of The Thief trilogy) was AMAZING, I loved the entire series to death. How did I ever in a million years consider not reading it? #crimes

5 Stars

   Wonder of wonders, is that a five star rating I see?! Yes indeed, this is the first five star book I've reviewed! And Wrath Of The Storm deserved every single one of those beautiful stars. It was a perfect climax to the Mark Of The Thief Series, and I adored it to death.  

   - From The Back Cover -

A quest for freedom. The magic of the gods. A storm to destroy a world.

Trouble has a way of finding Nicolas Calva, and it’s not likely to leave him alone any time soon. With Caesar’s magic bulla, the Malice of Mars, and the possibility of a Jupiter Stone in play, all the powers of Rome are circling Nic. He’ll have to maneuver his way through scheming government officials and reawakened magical beasts to save the Empire. Can he manage to keep his friends and family safe, claim his own freedom once and for all, and rescue the Empire—before the magic gets the better of him?

With twists and turns on every page, critically acclaimed author Jennifer Nielsen weaves an epic, action-packed conclusion to her extraordinary Mark of the Thief trilogy.

   View Wrath Of The Storm On Amazon --- View Wrath Of The Storm On Goodreads

   - The characters. When it comes to the characters in Wrath Of The Storm - well, in the whole trilogy - Jennifer Nielson slayed. In The False Prince (another Nielson book/series that I highly enjoyed and recommend), I never could get myself to like a certain character by the name of Imogen, so I was a little unsure about how it would go with the Mark Of The Thief series? But I should not have worried! I absolutely loved all the characters that were supposed to be loved, and utterly hated all the characters that were supposed to be hated. It was lovely xD. And the main character is witty and epic and I just loved him, so the book gets extra epic-ness points.

   - The plot. I had to keep reading! I had to know how it would turn out! The stakes kept piling higher! I just couldn't stop! (literally - I read Wrath Of The Storm in a number of hours xD) The plot had the perfect pacing, and I LOVED it. It seemed almost impossible that anything was going to work out in Nic's favor, so I had to keep reading. There was no possible way on this good earth that I would have been able to stop! I adore the plot in this book. <3  

   - It was a wonderful climax. If it's a series, I'll ALWAYS be the pickiest about the last book. But I thought that Wrath Of The Storm was a wonderful climax for the series! (I mean, look at the cover. There is fire and lightening and explosions. Obviously this was a beautifully dramatic climax) Everything came together in this big, intense [will not say it because of spoilers, but it was epic], and I loved it. I was really hoping that the Mark Of The Thief trilogy would end well, and OH MY - it certainly did!     
 

   - ... did I dislike anything? *crickets* ... okay, so I feel like there should be SOMETHING for me to stick down in this section but NOPE (okay - so there was ONE smol thing, but it was at the end and it's a spoiler, so I shall refrain from mentioning it xD). The entire series was really clean, and I basically loved everything about it. And it was ESPECIALLY good because I went into it thinking I might dislike it, and then I ended up loving to death xD.

   [random aside: there was this fantasy book that I read when I was really young, and I COULD NOT remember the title of it for the life of me (and my goldfish memory will be the death of me, but I guess it was many years ago when I read that book?), and I really wanted to remember what it was, because I think it was among some of the first fantasy books I ever read. And as I was looking through other Jennifer Nielson books, it JUST SO HAPPENS that she was the one who wrote that book I was thinking of. I was very pleasantly surprised and will probably buy anything she writes xD]   

   But anyways - like I said, Mark Of The Thief is a very clean series, so I definitely recommend it! And Wrath Of The Storm is the first book that I've reviewed that has received five stars, so that should give you some extra incentive to start this trilogy xD. You won't regret it!  

~ Savannah Grace

have you read Wrath Of The Storm? 

what's your favorite Jennifer A. Nielson book?

 

In Which I Finally Tell You About My Snow White Retelling

   So I've been saying (... for a long time ...) that I would tell you guys a few things about my new Snow White retelling for the Rooglewood writing contest ... and ... here I am. Finally showed up. Properly terrified but still posting this?

   OKAY let's do this before I have too many second thoughts.

   Now, I won't be telling you guys MUCH (since this is a novella for a contest, after all - I don't want to give away too many things about it!) but I will give you guys a collage, temporary title, and a snippet.

   So.

   Y'all, meet my current work in progress, Asher Grey .

images not mine

 
   So ... well, secrets out now, huh? xD The main character's name is - go figure - Asher Grey, and this novella's (mostly) written all in first person. I'm having heaps of fun with it! The writing schedule for it is pretty tight, seeing as I have to submit the entire thing for the Rooglewood contest in DECEMBER. *is low-key stressed out*. But right now I'm working towards getting it spruced up for alphas, so ... I suppose I can share ONE snippet without too many fears, yes? (ignore the spoilers that I block out of the snippet. You don't need to know them yet xD)     

  I woke up with a start, and the entire forest felt like a prowling cat. Silent. Lethal. Waiting to strike. It was dark, and the stars floated in the sky like pin-pricks in black paper. My hand went for my knife.

  I should have called someone, but I didn’t. Instead, I laid there in the deep, deep black and wondered if [spoiler] could be hurt, before steeling my resolve and standing up, still clutching the hilt of my dagger.

  That was when a shard of moonlight tumbled through the canopy of dark leaves and landed on my hand. I blinked in surprise, then stretched out my fingers, watching the shadows warp. Suddenly, the light fell from my hand and landed on the ground.

  I moved to step on it, and the light shifted away from my foot. It moved north … and I followed it.

  It moved again.

  I glanced uncertainly from the strange, moving slash of moonlight to the east of the camp, where Falkor was probably still standing sentry. Could [spoiler] start seeing things? I looked back at the moonlight. Weighed my chances.

  And I decided to follow it.

  The gliding fingerprint of moon took me deeper into the birch trees than I probably should have gone, but I slashed marks into the trees I walked past with my knife so that I’d know the way back.

  The moonlight seemed to know exactly where it wanted to go – and for an inhuman thing, it certainly seemed to know what it was doing. I just didn’t know how long I wanted to follow it.

  I shot a look over my shoulder. We’d gone too far out for me to even catch a glimpse of the Camp anymore. I wasn’t sure if –

  And then I heard a scream.

  I knew that scream.

  I shot off so fast that the moonlight had to fight to stay ahead of me. I ran on the very edge of the path that it lit for me, my heartbeat pounding faster than my feet hit the ground.

  The scream rang out again, and the moonlight screeched to a halt and darted left. I dashed after it, ghostly birch-tree branches scraping across my arms. Blood ran in tiny rivulets where they cut me, but I kept running.

   *stops snippet at a very bad spot*  

   So hopefully you guys enjoyed getting a tiny little peek at my current project! I know this wasn't a huge amount of info about it - so maybe I'll share more in October! ;) I love Asher Grey to death, and I'm so excited to see where it goes from here. <3 <3 <3

~ Savannah Grace

   so, what say you? are you interested in Asher Grey?

A Blogoversary Bash (+ Writing Contest And Giveaway!)

   You can all see that I'm just ingenious when it comes to figuring out post titles.  

   ANYWAYS. September has finally decided to roll around (and yet I still feel like it should be July?), and now I get to give you guys this very exciting post!

   Want to guess what's so special about September? My birthday xD I started my blog last September (on the 12th, to be exact)! And while I always love blogoversary celebrations, I've always felt like they were a little short. Why limit the fun to one post? So I decided that I'm not containing the blogoversary fun to a single day - there's going to be epic stuff going on at Scattered Scribblings all month!

   So why is today's post special? Because the celebration starts today!   

   First of all - a giveaway! 

 

   Yup, yup - I'm hosting my first giveaway, and it's going to run all through the month of September (well - until the 26th ;))! What is the prize I'm giving away, you want to know? Well I'm glad you asked - it's a beautiful little copy of The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland In A Ship Of Her Own Making! *pauses for breath* I never can get over that title, but it's a cute book and I love it xD. (and - my apologizes - but the giveaway is for U.S. residents only)

   Second of all - a writing contest!

   You read that right xD. I'm hosting a writing contest! The rules are easy -

   - the word minimum is 500, and the maximum is 2,000

   - you must include the word ink somewhere in your entry 

-  the deadline for submitting your entry is September 26th
 

   Simple. And yes, there's a prize! A gorgeous HARDCOVER copy of Inkheart by Cornelia Funke ...

   The winning story will also be featured on my blog sometime this October ;).

   All you have to do is follow the above rules, and submit your entry through the form below!  I'll announce the winner on the 30th. If you have any questions about all of this, leave a comment, and I'll try to answer in a timely fashion :D. (also, while the contest is not for U.S. residents only, the prize is - so you can still enter the contest if you're an international follower of mine, but I just won't be able to send you a prize should you win) And if the contest does well enough, maybe I'll make this a tri-monthly part of Scattered Scribblings. It's a very heavy maybe, but we'll see!

 

   And that's not all that will be going on in September - but I'm afraid that I can't tell you about all of it, because that would be ruining half the fun! But I will tell you that there's going to a post done on Scattered Scribblings almost every other day this month ... and not all of them will be done by me ;). So make sure to be checking back so you don't miss a thing! 

   OKAY, I'm going to say too much if I stick around any longer. I'll see y'all soon - best of luck with the contest, my friends! September's going to be epic.

~ Savannah Grace 

   so, did I surprise you with this post? 
are you excited to see what other posts I have coming up in september?