Book Review: The Lines We Leave Behind by Eliza Graham

 

Goodreads Summary: England, 1947: A young woman finds herself under close observation in an insane asylum, charged with a violent crime she has no memory of committing. As she tries to make sense of her recent past, she recalls very little.
But she still remembers wartime in Yugoslavia. There she and her lover risked everything to carry out dangerous work resisting the Germans—a heroic campaign in which many brave comrades were lost. After that, the trail disappears into confusion. How did she come to be trapped in a living nightmare?

As she struggles to piece together the missing years of her life, she will have to confront the harrowing experiences of her special-operations work and peacetime marriage. Only then can she hope to regain the vital memories that will uncover the truth: is she really a violent criminal…or was she betrayed?

Goodreads Rating: 3.96 stars with 9,800 ratings

Genre Listing: Historical Fiction, World War II, War, Mystery

Goodreads/Storygraph Challenge: 10/30 books

2025 Reading Challenge: #14 Read the book that's been on your TBR the longest (Find the entire challenge here)

Book Review:

Hello, Readers! I hope everyone is doing well on this frigid Tuesday. I don't have any significant life updates, which is nice. I started reading The Lines We Leave Behind by Eliza Graham to knock out #14 on the reading challenge. It was a Kindle First Read book that I've had forever. I finally finished it last night. 

I'm glad I'm done reading this story. It was a struggle for me. The story follows Maud in a psychiatric hospital after serving in WWII on secret missions. The premise is that she's supposed to remember a crime she committed, but she can't. She goes through and tells her Psychiatrist about her war service as a way to try and remember what happened. The first part of the book was a little hard to get into. The story bounces between her life as Maud and her secret identity, Amber. It wasn't initially clear that she was both Maud and Amber, making it hard to connect with her as a character. Toward the story's beginning, it seems like she understood it was just a persona, but at the end, it feels more like a dissociative identity. It just didn't feel very consistent. 

Once she gets back from her missions, the story moves really quickly. There were some twists and turns I wasn't expecting, which was nice and kept my momentum going for reading it. Without those, I don't know that I would have finished this book. It wasn't holding my interest very well. There was a lot about her treatment and miraculous recoveries that weren't believable or seemed like they didn't fit with the story's time period. For example, her initial Psychiatrist's treatment plan just seemed too modern for the era. I'm not an expert, however, so my limited knowledge could make me feel that way. 

Overall, I mostly wished the book was over. I couldn't connect with the story at all, and I only got through it because it fit #14 on the Reading Challenge. If you want to try it, it also works for the memory prompt. 

Book Review: Mistborn: The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson

 

Goodreads Summary: What if the whole world were a dead, blasted wasteland?

Mistborn
For a thousand years, the ash fell, and no flowers bloomed. For a thousand years, the Skaa slaved in misery and lived in fear. For a thousand years the Lord Ruler, the "Sliver of Infinity," reigned with absolute power and ultimate terror, divinely invincible. Then, when hope was so long lost that not even its memory remained, a terribly scarred, heartbroken half-Skaa rediscovered it in the depths of the Lord Ruler's most hellish prison. Kelsier "snapped" and found in himself the powers of a Mistborn. A brilliant thief and natural leader, he turned his talents to the ultimate caper, with the Lord Ruler himself as the mark.

Kelsier recruited the underworld's elite, the smartest and most trustworthy allomancers, each of whom shares one of his many powers, and all of whom relish a high-stakes challenge. Then Kelsier reveals his ultimate dream, not just the greatest heist in history, but the downfall of the divine despot.

But even with the best criminal crew ever assembled, Kel's plan looks more like the ultimate long shot, until luck brings a ragged girl named Vin into his life. Like him, she's a half-Skaa orphan, but she's lived a much harsher life. Vin has learned to expect betrayal from everyone she meets. She will have to learn trust if Kel is to help her master powers of which she never dreamed.

Brandon Sanderson, fantasy's newest master tale-spinner and author of the acclaimed debut Elantris, dares to turn a genre on its head by asking a simple question: What if the prophesied hero failed to defeat the Dark Lord? The answer will be found in the Mistborn Trilogy, a saga of surprises that begins with the book in your hands. Fantasy will never be the same again.

Goodreads Ratings: 4.49 stars with over 820,000 ratings

Genre Listing: Fantasy, Fiction, High Fantasy, Epic Fantasy, Magic

Goodreads/ Storygraph Challenge: 9/30 books

2025 Reading Challenge: #6 Read a book recommended to you by a friend or Social Media (Find the entire challenge here)

Book Review: 

Hello, Readers! As always, I hope everyone is doing well. As I write this post, I am curled up in a blanket, watching the snow and cuddling with the dog. It's pretty cozy, as seen in the picture below. 

Anyway, on to talking about Mistborn. I've heard great things about Mistborn for a few years now. Per my typical ways, I'm slow to get around to things. However, when I saw it on Audible, it felt like time to start it. I'm happy that I did. Mistborn: The Final Empire hooked me from the start, and I had difficulty pausing the audiobook to do other things. I was supposed to be studying today, but I played video games and worked on a puzzle because I didn't want to pause the book. 

I really liked Vin as the main character. The girl who stays in the shadows but ultimately just wants to be accepted really appealed to me. I liked how she had two personas and that she had trouble discerning which was the real her. I felt like she sort of grew to become both. I enjoyed many of the characters and thought their set-up for the roles they were to fulfill was interesting. I really liked the role of the Keeper. I'd read an entire story on the keepers if it was available. 

Overall, the story was exciting, and there wasn't a dull moment. I loved the magic system that Brandon Sanderson created. The way each metal had a balance was fascinating. I'm curious how it evolves in the rest of the series. I don't have anything bad to say about the book. The audiobook narrator did a great job telling the story and keeping me engaged with the different voices. I'd highly recommend MistBorn: The Final Empire for anyone who likes high fantasy. 

Book Review: The Clockwork Chimera series by Scott Baron

 

Goodreads Summary: As if nearly blowing up on her way to Earth wasn't bad enough, Daisy had a whole mess of other trouble on her plate. Big trouble. And she was going to clean it off if it was the last thing she'd do... which it was looking like it very well might be.
Daisy had a simple rule for space travel. Don't blow up. So far she'd been managing to abide by that, but something was very much not right.

With the powerful AI supercomputer guiding the craft beginning to show some disconcerting quirks of its own, and its unsettling cyborg assistant nosing into her affairs, Daisy's unease was rapidly growing, as was her bigotry toward artificially intelligent beings. Add to the mix a crew of mechanically-enhanced humans, any one of whom she suspected might not be what they seemed, and Daisy found herself with a sense of pending dread tickling the periphery of her mind.

Something was very much not right––she could feel it in her bones. The tricky part now was going to be overcoming her biases and figuring out what the threat was, before it could manifest from a mere sinking feeling in her gut into a potentially deadly reality.

Only things were far different and far worse than she could ever have imagined, forcing her to repeatedly adjust and overcome a reality that turned out to be far from what it had originally seemed.

The complete series set of all five of the Clockwork Chimera books:

1. Daisy's Run
2. Pushing Daisy
3. Daisy's Gambit
4. Chasing Daisy
5. Daisy's War

A space opera adventure featuring damaged spaceships, rogue artificial intelligence, homicidal cyborgs, mechanically-enhanced humans, genetic engineering, nanotech, and, of course, bloodthirsty aliens.

Genre Listing: Science Fiction, Space Opera

Goodreads Rating: 4.53 stars with 400 ratings

Goodreads/Storygraph Challenge: 8/30 books
2025 Reading Challenge: See the whole challenge here

7 Read a book with a person's name in the title - Pushing Daisy by Scott Baron

8 Read a book that takes place in the future- Daisy's War by Scott Baron 34 Read a book that has a war or battle in it - Daisy's Gambit by Scott Baron

44 Read a book that references a TV show or movie - Daisy's Run by Scott Baron

55 Read a book that involves amnesia or memory manipulation- Chasing Daisy by Scott Baron

Social Media Update:

I deactivated my Twitter/X account because, well (gestures vaguely at the world). I do, however, have a Bluesky account.

It'll be a little more of a personal/blog combo than just strictly for the blog. You can find me at: https://bsky.app/profile/linzthebookworm.bsky.social. 

All of my other Socials are the same.

Book Review: 

Hello, Readers! I hope everyone is doing well. It's been a busy few weeks, but no significant life updates. I'm super thankful for audiobooks right now. I'm back on-site for work after nearly 5 years of working from home. I have a relatively long commute, so audiobooks have been necessary. The omnibus for The Clockwork Chimera was helpful during this drive time since it had five books. 

Because I listened to these non-stop, I decided to do an overall review of the entire series instead of each individual book. I took some notes on each book, but they'd have a lot of spoilers. Overall, I really enjoyed the series. Surprisingly, Science Fiction is not a genre I've read much. I definitely haven't read much in the way of "Space Opera" stories, but I enjoyed this quite a bit. I was unable to guess what would happen next because the series hit so many different Science Fiction tropes in each of the five books. I can't go into the specific tropes because it will give much of the story away if I do. It was really well done, however, and not overwhelming. The only downside was that some trickier Science Fiction aspects were hard to grasp. 

Along with the various tropes, there were many movie and TV references. It was like a Nerdy Pop Culture Easter Egg hung. I loved it. I felt like this every time I picked up on one:

I was happy to see some character growth in Daisy. She is unlikeable in the first couple of books because she is incredibly prejudiced against Cyborgs. The story was interesting and continued, but initially, it was hard to root for Daisy. Aside from that, each book has some great characters that were a lot of fun to read. Freya and George were my favorite characters. 

I appreciated that the series came full circle and had a happy ending (sorry, spoiler). It ended really sweetly, and while I guessed a lot of it, I was still pleased. Honestly, right now, we need more stories that make us go, "Aww." 

I highly recommend it to anyone who wants a fun Science Fiction escape. The audiobooks were well done, and I really enjoyed how the narrator told the story. Oh, and for those of us doing the challenge - the first or second books also work for the reluctant hero category.

My Ratings for each of the books are as follows:

Daisy's Run - 4 stars

Pushing Daisy- 4 stars

Daisy's Gambit - 3 stars

Chasing Daisy - 3 stars

Daisy's War - 4 stars

The average is 3.6 stars, so I will give the series 4 stars/moons. 

Book Review: Blood & Steel by Helen Scheuerer

 

Goodreads Summary: With her death foretold, Althea Zoltaire only has three years to become what she's always dreamed of being: a warrior legend.
Women are forbidden to wield blades, so she has trained in secret her entire life. Now racing against the clock, she fights to secure her place in the elite guild charged with the protection of the five kingdoms.

The sparring and hazing of the new trainees border on deadly, but even more dangerous is her growing attraction to Wilder Hawthorne, her unwilling warrior chaperone.

All around them, schemes are afoot and darkness looms.

Will Althea pass the perilous initiation test and take her place as a champion of Thezmarr – or will the invading evil snatch away her dream before it starts?
Goodreads Ratings: 4.21 stars with over 46,000 ratings

Genre Listing:  Fantasy, Romance, Fantasy Romance, Magic, Fiction, High Fantasy, Adult, New Adult

Goodreads/Story Graph Challenge: 3/30

2025 Reading Challenge: #46 Read a Fantasy novel (See the entire challenge here) 

Book Review:

Hello, Readers! I hope everyone is doing well on this frigid January evening. I just finished the audiobook Blood & Steel by Helen Scheuerer and wanted a quick review while it was fresh in my mind. One of my goals for 2025 is to get back in the habit of reviewing each book. We'll see how it goes. As I mentioned in my 2024 overview, I suspect a lot of my books in 2025 will be audiobooks. I think this will add to my review content, as I can comment on narrators and delivery. 

I got Blood & Steel in my audible library early last year. However, because I was binging the Wandering Inn series, I didn't have the opportunity to listen to it. I'm really loving the increase in fantasy novels with strong female main characters lately. Blood & Steel follows twenty-four-year-old Alchemist Althea, who desperately wants to be a warrior. Of course, there's a prophecy, and it scares the men in the society, so women aren't allowed to wield blades. Althea really spoke to me as a main character. I really appreciated the grit and determination that she showed in the story. I find a strong-willed, stubborn female character relatable, and Althea was no exception.

Plot-wise, the storyline was predictable. It wasn't bad, and in fact, I really enjoyed it. I just wasn't ever surprised when listening to it. There were points when listening to it that I guessed what was going to be said next, almost verbatim. There was a lot of repetition in the dialogue. The story was enjoyable, but it didn't stand out from any other fantasy I've read. For the Romantacy smut readers, I'd rate it 1/2 of a chili pepper. There was some sexual tension, but aside from one scene, nothing particularly spicy. 

The narration was decent. It's mainly a female narrator, though a male narrator also has a few chapters. My only real issue with the narration was that the female narrator had an American accent but was using the word 'arse.' It's not a big deal, but it kept taking me out of the story at first because it didn't fit with the voice. 

2024 End of Year Wrap Up

 

Hello, Readers! I hope everyone had a safe and Happy New Year. I feel obligated to say something about 2024, but I'm unsure what to say. It was a hectic year for me. A lot happened. I went to my first JordanCon, got a dog, finalized my divorce, worked more hours than I care to admit, and started school for my second Master's degree. Somewhere in there, I found time to read and/or listen to 25 books. 

This year was definitely the year of audiobooks for me. 18/25 books were audiobooks. I suspect this will be the case for 2025 as well. I'm returning to work on-site and will have a long commute, so I plan to sign up for a library membership and borrow many audiobooks. Because I got sucked into The Wandering Inn series by Pirateaba, and its spinoff series, a lot of my books didn't fit the challenge this year. I'm going to try and do better with the challenge this year. I may plan it out more than usual, but that will require time I just don't have right now. 

The books I read that I couldn't fit into the challenge prompts were:

The Witch of Webs by Pirateaba
GraveSong by Pirateaba
Hell's Warden by Pirateaba
The Empress of Beasts by Pirateaba

Here's what I ended up with for the challenge at the end of the year:

If you're interested in the 2025 Reading Challenge, it's up and can be found here.

Level 1: Book of the Month Club

1 Read a book you got for free

2 Read a book by an author you've previously read- The Last Light by Pirateaba

3 Read a book that is under 400 pages - Fairy GodMurder by Sarah J. Solver 

4 Read a book published in 2014 (10 years ago)

5 Reread a book you have recommended to someone else- The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan

6 Read a retelling of a fairy tale or a classic novel - Hooked by Emily McIntire

7 Read a book that is a comedy or satire

8 Read a book that's been on your "shelf" for over a year - A Killer's Mind by Mike Omer

9 Read a book with a color in the title - The Golden Enclaves by Naomi Novik

10 Read a book from the Los Angeles Public Library's staff recommendations // https://www.lapl.org/books-emedia/lapl-reads/staff-recommendations

11 Read a caper story (heist, thievery, etc.)

12 Free Space! Pick any book - The Rains of Liscor by Pirateaba

Level 2: Casual Reader Club

13 Read book 1 of a Duology

14 Read book 2 of a Duology

15 Read a book about faeries - A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas

16 Read a book you meant to read for last year's challenge

17 Read a book with three or more colors on the cover

18 Read a book by an author who shares a first or last name with a family member - Deadbeat Druid by David R. Slayton

19 Read a book published by Simon & Schuster or one of its imprints

20 Read a book with the word "Dark" in the title

21 Read a book published in 2004 (20 years ago)

22 Read a book with a Gothic theme

23 Read a book on a banned book list

24 Free Space! Pick any book- The Blood of Liscor by Pirateaba

Level 3: Dedicated Reader Club

25 Read an Enemies to Lovers story - Pestilence by Laura Thalassa

26 Read a Lovers to Enemies (or Friends to Enemies) story

27 Read a book that starts with the letter "S."

28 Read a book from Refinery29's "The Ultimate Book Bucket List: The 75 Best Books Of All Time"// https://www.refinery29.com/en-au/best-books-of-all-time

29 Read a book with a grey cover

30 Read a book by an author you think has an interesting name - Winter Solstice by Pirateaba

31 Read a Historical Fiction novel- Jane Seymour by Alison Weir

32 Read a book with the name of a place in the title - The General of Izril by Pirateaba

33 Read a book about a veterinarian (or someone who works with animals)

34 Read the first book in a series you've wanted to start

35 Read a book that was published before you were born

36 Free Space! Pick any book- The Tears of Liscor by Pirateaba

Level 4: Speed Reader Club

37 A book by Eleanor Hibbert under any of her pseudonyms // https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleanor_Alice_Burford

38 Read a Memoir

39 Read a book that is referenced in a film or TV show

40 Read a book with a skull on the cover

41 Read a book with the word "Truth" in the title

42 Read a book that involves gamer/fandom/geek culture- Flowers of Esthelm by Pirateaba

43 Read a book with a Scientist as the main character

44 Read a book that takes place in a cold climate- The Tsarina's Daughter by Carolly Erickson

45 Read a book that has double letters in the title - The Book Eaters by Sunyi Dean

46 Read a book by two or more authors 

47 Read a book involving or inspired by Egyptian mythology

48 Free Space! Pick any book- The Titan of Belaros by Pirateaba

Level 5: Overachiever Club

49 Read a book with a Unicorn in it- Fae and Fare by Pirateaba

50 Read a book that takes place during the 18th century (1701-1800)

51 Read a book by Jonathan Coe

52 Read a book with over 700 pages

53 A book with a title that has 5 words

54 Read a non-fiction book

55 Read a book with a picture of food or drink on the cover

56 Read a book by an author with Fred in their name

57 Read a book that takes place in South America

58 Read a book you previously started but left unfinished

59 Rickrolled! Read a book with one (or more) of the following words in the title: Never Going To Give You Up

60 Free Space! Pick any book- The Wind Runner by Pirateaba