Favorite Books of 2016

    Okay, so this title may be a bit misleading because not all of these books came out in 2016. These are just the books I read in 2016.
    I used Goodreads to view my year in books. I read 18 books this year, but I'm going to talk about my top favorites.

• Princess of the Midnight Ball by Jessica Day George- A retelling of the Twelve Dancing Princesses, this book immediately grabbed my attention. It focuses primarily on the oldest princess, Rose, and Galen, a soldier returning from war who loves to knit. I read this right after I started crocheting, so I loved the fact that Galen was not afraid to be constantly seen with his knitting needles and yarn. This book stayed true to the original tale while not afraid to forge its own unique path as it tells its own tale. The rest of the series, Princess of Glass and Princess of the Silver Woods were retellings of Cinderella and Little Red Riding Hood. The first one was definitely my favorite, and I loved the third one as well. I didn't like the second one as much because the ending was super abrupt and I had to read it through a bunch of times before understanding what happened, but these are all books I would highly recommend for fairy tale lovers.

Favorite Movies of 2016

    2016 has been a big year for many reasons, whether good or bad. I've been through a lot of highs and lows, so I'm trying to focus on the highs because far too often the lows win out.
    So here are some of the lows because I need to get them out of the way-

• Somewhere around 60 celebrity deaths, including Alan Rickman and Carrie Fisher from two of the most popular movie franchises of all time.
• More than 20 major world-altering terrorist attacks, not to mention the daily attacks that happen that are too commonplace for the media to cover.
• The spike in police brutality and brutality against the police in the U.S.
• My uncle commit suicide this spring.
• I didn't finish editing Powerful in time to submit by the end of the year.

    So now I'm reminding myself of some of the highs because that certainly put a damper on things-

• I was published! It wasn't Powerful, but I still got to check that off my list!
• The Olympics are always a great way to lift spirits, and Michael Phelps's record number of medals and gold medals is certainly exciting. As is Brazil's participation 
• The Juno spacecraft reached Jupiter! Yay, Science!
• The Cubs won the World Series! I'm not a sports fan, but a lot of people can celebrate this.
• The U.S. held an election, and while the results may not be something to celebrate, democracy certainly is! And a record breaking number of Americans decided to participate.
• And exactly how many fan favorite tv shows (like Full House, the X-Files, etc.) were rebooted this year? I can't even find a number!

Christmas Party- Writing Tag!

    I was tagged by my friend Renée Harvey to play a Christmas game on my blog using characters from my WIP, Powerful to answer holiday questions. Let's go!

1. Who starts karaoke with Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, and who jumps in for the echo?

 

Navadira! And Luzigo jumps in to be the echo because he can't hear this song and not sing the echo thanks to his brothers.
2. Who’s threatening the kids with coal in their stocking?

Kylanore, mostly because she doesn't understand how this holiday thing works.

Three Collections for Christmas!

    Three groups of authors have banded together to put together three awesome Fantasy Story Collections, and now we're bringing them to you with a chance for you to win paperback copies as well as a $30 Amazon Shopping Spree!
    Read on to find out more about this anthology and enter the giveaway! The giveaway ends on the 28th, so enter now!

The Anthologies:

Blog World Tour- Shannon Donelson!

    It's that time again! Time for another guest! This months' guest is Shannon Donelson! 

    Shannon Donelson lives in a small city outside of Buffalo, NY. where they see snow 99% of the year with blistering humidity the other 1%. She lives with her husband, three daughters, two cats, two goldfish, one dog and a partridge in a pear tree. Shannon writes a lot of flash fiction, short stories and recently finished a novel from beginning to end. She loves reading and writing urban fantasy, epic fantasy, horror and crime/mystery. Her blog consists of book reviews, writing advice and some of her own short stories. She is excited to get the blog ball rolling with a new website and content. Add her on Twitter and say hello!