June was a pretty great month all things considered. I was supposed to take this month easier and have a break, but ended up not doing that. Until I was forced to realised that I indeed needed a break and the last few days of the month was all about relaxing and doing anything other than reading. It was nice. It was my first month being only half employed at my workplace and OMG I LOVE working only 4 hours. The first two weeks made wonders to my mental health and I’m so happy I made this decision.
Of course we read a lot of great books in June and had a few fun projects going on, and SPFBO started unofficially too. I had some announcements regarding my new services and other things and I attended a concert too. My blog post about kids in Adult Fiction was book of the day over on Twitter and thanks to this and other things RockStarlit BookAsylum had the best month ever regarding viewing stats, so thank you everyone who checked out any of the posts or pages on this humble blog.
Now, let’s see everything from the start.
Book Reviews
In case you missed any of our reviews in June you can read them by clicking on the title! 🙂 Even though I managed to catch up to myself in May, I fell behind once again, and I owe you 2 more reviews. One will come in July, the other I hold off until August for a blog tour.
One Word Kill by Mark Lawrence – 4.75/5
After Jen, I also read One Word Kill, which I liked so much, that I immediately read the second book, Limited Wish, for which I still owe you all a review. I’ll get to it in July.
“Mark Lawrence squeezed a lot of emotions, an interesting plot, and great characters into 200 pages. Which just makes One Word Kill a perfect one setting read. Or two if you need to sleep like I did. It’s full of heart, adventure, music, friendship and just has this charm that you can’t shake off. It’s going to sneak under your skin and will make you root for Nick to come over everything that life had thrown at him, and to find his happiness.”
The Girl Who Could Move Sh*t With Her Mind by Jackson Ford – 3.75/5
Jen had an ARC review of this newly released book which got some hype this past few weeks. And most people quite liked it 🙂
“Also, bravo to the one reveal that surprised the heck out of me, and by doing so, also cleared up a couple of complaints story-wise that I was having. I had been leaning towards an idea of what I thought was up, but other than the person, I wasn’t even close. It’s hard to surprise me anymore and this earned itself all kinds of brownie points for doing just that.
Action packed and just as fun as the title suggests!”
Gedlund by William Ray – 3.75/5
We’ve got a review request for this one, and since Jen was interested in the sequel, she jumped on the opportunity.
“So as military fantasys go, I found a lot to like in this one. There’s a lot of battles which get progressively bigger until the finale. There are organising troops, gun use, and marching – some of my favorite parts were the parade row marching and just any of the scenes where they had to keep or use a tempo. I especially loved the use of sound combined with the visuals to bring the scenes alive.“
Ioth, City of Lights by D.P. Woolliscroft – 4.5/5
I owe a confession. I’ve read this book toward the end of the month, and by that time I was under a lot of pressure because I wanted to have my review in time for release and also I had another book to review a few days later I didn’t even started to read. I was also struggling with reading at this point and took a break in the last week of June. I’m saying this because most probably this affected my review. Plus the fact that this was my first review in a month despite the fact that I’ve read two other books…
“If you liked Kingshold, then you probably don’t need any more prompting to check out Ioth, City of Lights. While Kingshold was something fresh in Fantasy, Ioth, City of Lights is rather a classical epic fantasy with a solid world building, a large set of interesting characters, political intrigue and plenty of action. While it has its own story arc, it leaves plenty of room for the next adventure. I’m pretty sure Woolliscroft has quite a few things waiting for us in the future.“
The Written by Ben Galley – 4.5/5
My first ever participation in a blog tour. This one was organised by Dave at TheWriteReads on Twitter. This was, however my 4th Ben Galley book, and most probably not the last one either.
“The Written is a character driven epic fantasy which features magic, swordplay, dragons, mythical monsters, betrayal and badass tattoos. If you haven’t tried Ben Galley yet, this is a good place to start, and if you did, well, then you know what you can expect. An exhilarating ride from start to finish.“
SPFBO
Introducing Team RockStarlit BookAsylum + Cover Contest
As I said above, things started happening regarding SPFBO. Entry opened at June 15th for the 5th edition and the 300 spots filled up in a bit more than 2 days. Once that was done, Mark allocated all 300 books to the blogs, and Team RockStarlit BookAsylum got all of its titles! There wasn’t really anything left to do but finally announce my awesome team, explain our process and pick our 3 favourite covers for the Cover Contest. I’m really happy that Jen, Belle and Nick agreed to take on this journey with me!
Meet Team RockStarlit BookAsylum and take a look at our favourite covers
Other Posts
The Questioning
My anniversary celebration event was pretty fun and people seemed to like it, so I decided to make into a monthly feature, just in a smaller scale: 1 blogger and author a month.
Blogger Edition: Justine Bergman
Editorial Services
As you might know already, from June 1st I decided to be only half employed, which means I work 4 hours every day then I have the rest of the day to myself. One of the reasons I decided to do this was to be able to make a step toward doing what I love to do for a living. And so, introduced my editorial services. Please take a look at my page and contact me if I can be any help of you. The prices listed will go up after September, so now is the time to book me 🙂 I still have a few spots for September and the rest of the year.
Due to the fact that I still work, and now I started freelancing, I had to make a decision which wasn’t easy. Sadly there isn’t enough time in the day to do everything and I honestly need to balance things out. I know I promised reviews to a lot of people and will try to deliver, but it will take a lot more time than I anticipated back when I opened the blog for review requests. I’m really sorry about this. I’ll still be able to read 2-3 books probably and keep reviews coming, but they will be less and I will make ARCs a priority for the next few months. Also with being a judge for SPFBO will take a considerable part of my reading time for a few months, along with my travels in August and October. I will try my best, but to be honest, I need a break and to get rid of pessure I put on myself. I want to mix in a couple of joy reads – books I bought but didn’t have the chance to read because I tried to be the responsible blogger. Sadly, I can’t be anymore.
Read about my services and how to contact me
Pride Month
To celebrate Pride Month Jen and me wanted to give you a few book recommendations, but thought the boring listing type of post wouldn’t do. So we drew inspiration from the rainbow itself and tried to match the covers and the colors. With more or less success.
Music Musings
Music Monday
If you missed any of them, give them a listen and read my personal notes/thoughts/ramblings regarding them 🙂
- June 3rd: Irene Cara: What a Feeling
- June 10th: Halestorm: Amen
- June 17th: Aerosmith: Dream On
- June 24th: Jess Glynne: I’ll Be There
Music Diggin’ Friday
Back in April I had a post about 10 books which featured music I recommended reading. It all started because I asked the people of Twitter to recommend me such books. And they delivered! So I picked 10 from that thread and shared them in the second post:
I think that’s it for June. I hope to see you all in July!
Good luck with your editorial service and happy reading in July!
Thank you 🙂
It sounds like you are shaping your life into something that really suits you. I wish you all the best with your editorial service and hope you can still find time for relaxing and joy reading as well. 🙂
At least I’m trying to do that 🙂 So far looks like it will work out, but it’s early to say. I will make more effort to balance things between relaxing and reading and work. Thanks for your kind words! 🙂