Making It Up

as we go along

It's where it is

Ancestral light by Elizabeth Bear

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Disclosure, this book was sent for review, and Amazon links are affiliate links.

I grew up reading science fiction. Ursula K Le Guin, Anne McCaffrey, James Blish, Asimov, Heinlein. My favourites were books where the characters were as important as the environment – I loved the Dorsai books and everything by Lois McMaster Bujold.

Over the years I’ve drifted away from SF to fantasy and YA, but I still like to dabble every now and then.

I confess the cover for Ancestral Light almost put me off it completely. But I’d expressed an interest and was on the blog tour and had my fingers crossed that I wasn’t going to be bored silly by some over populated space opera laced with science references I didn’t have a clue about.

Then I read this tweet

and suddenly I couldn’t wait to get stuck in.

I am *loving* it so far.

I’m not done yet – the stinky head cold I’m suffering with means my eyes get tired really quickly, and this is a big book. So I’m reading a lot slower than I usually like to when I’m enjoying something, but hey, that means I get to savour it right? I can already tell that I’m going to be wandering off and finding everything else Elizabeth Bear has ever written, so that’s a pretty good sign.

What has hooked me? First off it’s the main characters. I love their voices, interaction, back story. I’m invested and have been since the first chapter. Then I’m intrigued by the galaxy building, complete with the historical overview notes. I like the little unfamiliar words dropped in to reinforce the distance from day to day – not so much that they jar, but enough to differentiate.

The pacing is good. We’ve got a lot of background to fill in, but the story is flowing along well as we learn. And I’m not even a little bit bored. So yup, definitely sold on this one. Check it out if SFF with character and humour is your kind of thing.

And don’t forget to have a look at the other blogs on the tour.

The Everlasting Rose by Dhonielle Clayton

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Disclosure, this book was sent free for review, and amazon link is affiliate.

This is the second book in Dhonielle Clayton’s series that began last year with The Belles. (If you haven’t read the first book, I suggest you stop here and bob off and get it. Otherwise I’m likely to spoil you for the first book, and that would be a huge shame.)

The Belles set the scene for a version of New Orleans like nothing you’ve ever begun to imagine. The world building is multi layered, with a whole society brought together, including politics, magic and the central characters, the Belles who control magic that allows them to refashion humans from manner to looks. This talent is in high demand as the natural state of individuals, the Gris, is to have grey skin, wild hair and red eyes, and remaining that way is a short cut to madness.

It’s a strongly female led society with a queen, and a couple of princesses, one of whom is desperately ill. At the beginning of the first book we drop our teenage protagonists into the middle of all of this, and soon it becomes apparent that there’s a political power struggle going on in the palace.

In book two, the Belles are on the run.

I absolutely love the back cover of this book and the way it sets up the story.

Camellia and her sisters are Belles. Only they can make us beautiful.

All our lives, my sisters and I have served the people of Orleans.

For years, they’ve held their abilities against us. Not anymore.

Now the queen hunts us, because we know the truth about the rightful heir.

Camellia murdered our princess and fled with her sisters.

The princess is still alive, and we’ll help her take back the throne.

Together, we will return the Belles to their rightful place.

The queen wants us caged. But we will not go quietly.

Then they will give us what we deserve: beauty, everlasting.

We demand our freedom. No matter what the cost.

Beauty, obsession and magic, says the cover, and yes, all of those are involved. I love the character development particularly of Camellia, the lead character, but also in this book we get more of several of her sisters, and the rather marvellous Rémy and the growing relationship between him and the Belles.

Products from Amazon.co.uk

#Ad Foodsavvy – the products and the progress

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Disclosure: we were gifted these products, and some links are affiliate links.

We’re into week two of my Foodsavvy challenge with Hubbub UK and this week I’ve been getting to grips with a view of the products we’ve been gifted to help cut down on our food waste.

The first product would probably work better if I’d read the instructions properly. The Lakeland banana bag says it will keep bananas fresh for a fortnight, but you have to keep them in the fridge in it, and I missed out that bit. I’ll give it another go and get back to you on that. This will be a bit of a challenge for me anyway, in that we don’t have a huge amount of room in the fridge. Storage is a challenge when you’ve a family of 6.

Banana bag

Product 2, food huggers. I am loving these. Also Lakeland, they come in a pack of 4 of various sizes. My biggest tip in using them would be to think about which way you cut your veg in order for them to fit snugly in the huggers – eldest did herself half a pepper for sticks for her lunch, and we just about persuaded the hugger to hold it, but it wasn’t perfect. Used as a lid for the half mug of beans though one of them was absolutely ideal, and they kept the beans way better than either cling film or gravy tube lid has ever managed. Definitely a win on that one.

We were also sent various products from the Ikea 365+ range, including some glass containers with bamboo lids and a deeper one with a silicon lid. I like the fact that the deeper one still nested with the shallow ones for storage, and also that the lids are interchangeable between them. The silicon lid is fantastic, and really air tight, I forgot to take a picture of me lifting it up by the lid, but I’ll do that for the next blog post.

Ikea 365+ food storage with bamboo lid

The bamboo lids look fabulous, and are air tight (there’s a silicon seal) but be aware that they push into the bowl so slightly reduce the storage space available. They stack really well in the fridge though, and are great dimensions for leftovers, and you can see exactly what you’ve got in them.

I still need to get better though at communicating to the rest of the family what needs eating when. I’d love any tips you have for that. We cut down on our waste this week mainly by having two leftover nights instead of one, and also by having a breakthrough with crusts – four members of the family are now eating crusts, both ends of bread, and where Smallest was leaving the edges, she’s now been convinced that this was wasteful and is eating them. Small steps – Tigerboy is still leaving his, but that’s half the crusts being thrown out for the birds. (Sorry birds.)

Crusts before our campaign started

Have you had any hits with your food waste this week?

Newbury and Hobbes a tenth anniversary review/ introduction.

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Do you know when you get invited to look at a series of books, and you can’t imagine how you’ve somehow never come across them in the 10 years they’ve been out?

That’s me and the Newbury and Hobbes series. The fifth book published this week, 10 years after the first. I was fortunate to be sent the series so that I could do a catch up and intro, so that’s what you’re up for here.

I rather like the covers. (I don’t think I’ve got them in order though, shall we pretend it’s a quiz?)

Here’s a handy amazon affiliate link, although Amazon doesn’t seem to have caught up to the fact there are actually five books now. I’ll do you a separate link for book five.

Book 5 is definitely the Revenant’s Express, that much I do know.

Here’s your Amazon link.

Right, so now we’ve looked at the covers and worked out where you can buy them, what’s it all about?

Steampunk London, revenant plagues brought back from distant parts of empire, a duo of investigators, you’ve got it all. It slightly reminded me in style of the early Agatha Christie Tommy and Tuppence books, don’t know if anyone else remembers them. But the subject matter is very different, with magic and victorian technology all mixed up together.

I haven’t managed to work my way through the whole series yet, but they are fast paced reads, and unlike anything I’ve tried before. I’m not sure why, as a kind of crossover between detective stories and mashed up sff, they should really be right up my street.

Sir Maurice Newbury is a moonlighting academic who assists the police in their odder investigations at the direction of the Crown. Veronica Hobbes is his recently employed assistant, a practical younger woman with a pragmatic approach to her work. I confess she is my preferred character, any woman who kicks in doors while in Victorian lady get up is definitely my cup of Earl Grey but I’m also intrigued by the relationship developing between the pair, despite the years between them.

All in all, there’s plenty in the series to keep me reading for a while, and if it’s new to you too, do let me know how you get on.

#Ad Getting #FoodSavvy with HubbubUK.

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I hate waste, of any kind. Food waste is particularly galling. It’s money and resources down the drain, and given the current state of the planet, feels very wrong.

I was recently approached by HubbubUK, a charity creating environmental campaigns and working with my local council. They invited me, along with a number of other East Anglian bloggers/ social media folk to take part in a Food Savvy challenge to look at what we waste in terms of food and see what we could do to cut down. As part of this I’ll be testing out some products from a number of different companies, and keeping you all up to date with what I’m getting up to on social media. (I’ll be receiving the products for free, but the campaign isn’t otherwise compensated.)

Where do we start then? We’re a family of 6, two eldest children at college 2 or 2 1/2 days a week. I work part time in a charity shop, Tim works from home and the two youngest are home educated.

We try to sit down for a family meal in the evenings most days, although sometimes evening activities make that impossible. We’ve no particular dietary issues or preferences, although eldest has to keep her salt and fluids up (POTS) while Tim was briefly on blood pressure meds but succeeded in bringing that under control with lifestyle changes.

Several of the children are very picky, obviously in completely different directions, we’re on a very tight budget, and I cook from scratch where possible. (I’m particularly proud of my home made pizza, I even make my own dough. It’s also the only meal where no one turns their nose up!)

In terms of food storage, we’re tight on space. We’ve only a little freezer section under a fridge, and while I do meal plan and do a main shop weekly at Lidl, I end up topping up with frequent trips to the Coop and Tesco, both within walking distance.

(Note, this is not my family. It’s a Hubbub image 🙂 )

Hopefully that gives you some idea of our baseline, and this week I’m measuring our waste, so that we can see how much is actually being thrown out (granted usually into the compost bin but it’s still waste).

My thought is that my biggest risk areas seem to be bread, veg/fruit (carrots! How come carrots go off so quickly and meal leftovers. The problem with leftovers is that there’s rarely more than a portion, and then how do you spread that out between 6? I do a thing we refer to as eating the fridge, or fridge bottom feast every now and then, but we do end up with things that just don’t seem to fit in. Frustrating.

I’m hoping to cut down on waste, get a bit more inventive, and if at all possible cut my food budget. I currently spend around £70 a week on our main shop, and then probably 10-15 on top ups. (I’ll have a look at my receipts this week as well.)

What do you reckon to food waste – how does it all work in your home?

food waste infographic from Hubbub

In case you’re wondering how the others are getting on with the challenge, I found a couple of their posts, so here’s CassieFairy explaining why she’s getting involved, and Catherine talking about some of the products she will be using.