Tag: Scott Beckman

Posted in WWW Wednesday

WWW Wednesday (Sorta Kinda Maybe) – June 27, 2018

Posted on by Jess C.

Welcome to WWW Wednesday – June 27, 2018 (Sorta Kinda Maybe)!
img_1384-0WWW Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Taking on a World of Words.  All you need to do is answer the following three questions and link back to her, or you can put your answers in the comments on her blog!

The three WWW questions are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?
What should follow here are my answers to the above three questions.  These answers should be different than they were for my answers to the same questions last week (WWW Wednesday – June 20, 2018)….
giphyUnfortunately, my week has been filled with sick babies and a sick me which has kept my reading to nearly nothing (I’ve managed to write a total of 500ish words total on top of that).   The result? The below is a copy and paste from last week’s WWW Wednesday.  So sad…

So, here’s what I’m currently reading:

small Truth Seer coverTruth Seer, by Kay L. Moody
I am really enjoying Truth Seer!  I flew through the first 100 pages…no small feat when you’re caring for 6 month old twins, a two-year old, and a recent high school graduate, all while worrying about your 13 year old daughter that’s currently hopping about Europe! I can already tell I’ll be reading the entire series!
 
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Priceless, by Jen Barrick
I’ve been going through Priceless: Who I am When I feel… with my daughter and I’m not quite sure how I feel about it yet.  I love the idea behind this devotional and my daughter seems to be enjoying it. The problem may just be that it’s geared toward her age and understanding/dealing with the MANY emotions that come with being a teenage girl and holding those emotions and feelings up to God’s truths.  Maybe I just need to tap back into those emotions in order to get more out of it?  IDK… stay tuned, I’ll let you know how it goes…
22914448-_sx120_The Dead Key, by D.M. Pulley
I picked up The Dead Key at the West Virginia Writer’s Conference earlier this month.  It’s a fast paced mystery novel that I’ve been having a hard time putting down at night! For me, mysteries/suspense stories are either love it or hate it, with no in between, and this one is firmly in the love it category!
 
37795839-_sy180_Beneath the Same Heaven, by Anne Marie Ruff
I’m enjoying Beneath the Same Heaven, even though it’s a bit heavy on the romance side for me. Obviously, I knew it was a love story when I picked it out, but it’s the cross-cultural family dynamic that really pulled me in and got me interested in the novel.
 

I recently finished:

51ndubla9rl-_ac_us218_The Shield Breaker, by Scott Beckman
Just finished The Shield Breaker and I  can’t wait for the next book in this series to come out! There were a few more typos than I like to see as I was reading this one, but the story was so good that it really didn’t matter all that much (which isn’t normally the case).
 

What I’ll be reading next:

the_irrationalist_cover the_sun_king_by_allison_lee_palmer_200 cover132474-medium
What’s your WWW? Any thoughts on the books above? Leave a comment or send me a message through the Contact Me page!

Posted in book reviews

BOOK REVIEW: The Shield Breaker: Book One of the Enclave Series by Scott Beckman

Posted on by Jess C.
51ndubla9rl-_ac_us218_Title & Author:  The Shield Breaker: Book One of the Enclave Series, Scott Beckman
Publication Date & Publisher:  June 22, 2018, Scott Beckman
Genre: Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Teens & YA
My Rating: 4.0
Amazon Purchase Link: The Shield Breaker: Book One in the Enclave Saga

 

Description (from Goodreads):

Fifteen years ago, magic destroyed the world.
Cait Verlyn is one of a handful of survivors who make their home under the Shield; a protective spell cast by their leader, a powerful wizard named Vitoria. Cait dreams of leaving the Shield to explore the ruins and rebuild civilization, but it’s impossible without magic and she is forbidden to learn.
Then she meets a stranger – a wizard from outside the Shield – who offers to teach her magic, but only if Cait will help the stranger overthrow Vitoria and liberate the enclave. The war of wizards that brought the world crumbling down is not over, and Cait’s home under the Shield is the new battleground.
Magic offers salvation, but as the apocalypse has proven, it always comes at a terrible cost…
The Shield Breaker is a post-apocalyptic urban fantasy novel from the author of Pantheon, White Star Phase, and The Fox and The Blade. It is the first book in the Enclave Saga, and the gripping introduction to Cait Verlyn, the series’ conflicted young protagonist.

My review:

If you’re looking for a Teen/YA novel filled with magic, compelling characters, and a story with so many questions propelling the story forward that you don’t want to put the book down, then The Shield Breaker is one you definitely want to pick up!
The main character, Cait, seems to be the only person in the entire enclave (a safe space protected by a powerful wizard since the wizard war destroyed the world) questioning whether the shield that protects them from the dangers lurking outside their city is actually keeping the monsters out… or keeping everyone else in.  She feels like a prisoner, even though she was born in the Enclave.  She has an overprotective father that seems to disagree with everything about Cait – the way she thinks, the things she does, her desire to learn magic – it makes you question whether he even loves his daughter. You can’t help but feel for her and understand her desire to get away just because of this one relationship (which is more complicated than it seems at first).
The story really begins when Cait and her best friend find a hole in the shield, and Cait tries to get through… but something or someone was waiting and tries to pull her to the outside world.  She escapes, but the stranger leaves a magic book behind and suddenly Cait’s entire world becomes a lot bigger. She begins to question everything…who is Vitoria, really? Can she trust the strange wizard she met and her promises for something more than this life? Is magic really good? Is it really bad?
There are so many intriguing story lines in The Shield Breaker, that you continue to read it despite a few clunky sentences toward the beginning of the novel. As the book goes on, the sentence structure evens out and stops being an issue; however, there were some typos that stuck out to me.
I’d definitely recommend this  book to anyone who enjoys young adult fantasy with lots of twists!
Do you plan on reading or have you read The Shield Breaker? What do you think? What intrigue’s you about this book or are there similar books out there you’d recommend based on this one? Let me know!

Thank you to NetGalley and the author, Scott Beckman, for providing me with a copy of The Shield Breaker in exchange for an honest review.

 

Amazon Purchase Link: The Shield Breaker: Book One in the Enclave Saga