The Kingmakers by Clay and Susan Griffiths

The Kingmakers by Clay and Susan Griffiths
Release Date: September 4, 2012
Publisher: Pyr
Source: Publisher in exchange for an honest review

The Kingmakers is in the middle of a blog tour! I'm not participating in this tour, but I think you should check out every stop on this tour! There are some great prizes.

Kingmakers Blog Tour

Summary

A war to the death.

Empress Adele has launched a grand crusade against the vampire clans of the north. Prince Gareth, the vampire lord of Scotland, serves the Equatorian cause, fighting in the bloody trenches of France in his guise as the dashing Greyfriar. But the human armies are pinned down, battered by harsh weather and merciless attacks from vampire packs.

To even the odds, Adele unleashes the power of her geomancy, a fear- some weapon capable of slaughtering vampires in vast numbers. However, the power she expends threatens her own life even as she questions the morality of such a weapon.

As the war turns ever bloodier and Adele is threatened by betrayal, Gareth faces a terrible choice. Their only hope is a desperate strike against the lord of the vampire clans—Gareth's brother, Cesare. It is a gamble that could win the war or signal the final days of the Greyfriar.

The Vampire Empire trilogy rushes to a heart-wrenching conclusion of honor and love, hatred and vengeance, sacrifice and loss.(courtesy of Amazon)

Review

Horror of horrors! The Vampire Empire series is over! At least it ends with a bang. The Kingmakers is a fabulous conclusion to one of my favorite series.

More Harry Potter Questions to Ponder

I finished with my fifth annual Harry Potter re-read very late Friday night (stayed up until 4 AM!), but Hogwarts, Harry, Hallows, and Horcruxes are still at the top of my mind.

On a side note, I am listening to The Casual Vacancy currently. It actually took me a few minutes to remember that Harry Potter and The Casual Vacancy were written by the same person. Not because they're so different (although they are extremely, extremely different), but because I'd forgotten that anyone wrote Harry Potter. It feels so real when I'm reading it that I forget that it's just words on paper.

Here are a few more questions to ponder for this week:

*These questions are much more in depth than last week. Also, they contain a lot of spoilers for the series, but I'm assuming everyone who is reading this has read the whole series.

If you missed last week's post, check out the first set of Harry Potter Questions to Ponder!

1. Dumbledore did, in a way, raise Harry up like a pig for slaughter. But in the end, how much do you think Dumbledore cared about Harry?

Manga Mondays #125: Skip Beat vol. 26 - Yoshiki Nakamura

Manga Mondays Meme!

I've been doing Manga Mondays every week since I started my blog 2 years ago. It's always been a personal feature, but now I'm going to try turning it into a meme. There are quite a few people who do Manga Mondays. I don't claim by any means that I owned or created the idea of Manga Mondays - it's an obvious choice given the alliteration. I think a meme would be a good way for everyone to publicize their own Manga Mondays and get a little more publicity.

The linky will be below my review.

Skip Beat! vol. 26 by Yoshiki Nakamura

Summary

Kyoko Mogami followed her true love Sho to Tokyo to support him while he made it big as an idol. But he's casting her out now that he's famous! Kyoko won't suffer in silence--she's going to get her sweet revenge by beating Sho in show biz!

Kyoko thinks she's survived Valentine's Day, but that's just the kind of attitude that gets her in trouble with the president of LME. Lory is very disappointed in the girls of the Love Me Section and sets up special new assignments to teach them the power of love. But will the president's strange methods have any affect on the troubled souls of Chiori, Moko and Kyoko?(courtesy of the back cover and Goodreads)

Review

*Warning: Potential spoilers. My manga reviews tend to be more of a summary than a review. I find it hard to review manga in the same way I do regular books.

Love Me has returned. We haven't seen much of Kyoko in her Love Me section role lately because she's been so busy acting. She gets a "dangerous" assignment from the President: she has to pick up a thug from the train station. Who is this yakuza (mafia) like figure who dresses in black, has long hair, and muscles that can attack virtually on their own? It is Cain Heel...who is really Ren Tsuruga! We were introduced to the idea that Ren would be playing sexy, evil villain a few volumes ago and now he appears.

Bookish Recap

I'm joining Tynga's Reviews' meme Stacking the Shelves and The Story Siren's In My Mailbox meme today. Thanks for hosting Tynga and Kristi!

My first Bookish Recap in 2 months! Excited to get back into it.

On the Blog This Week

Manga Mondays:

Skip Beat vol. 25 by Yoshiki Nakamura

Reviews:

Tokyo Heist by Diana Renn

Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein

Wordpress Switch-over

Part 2: To Wordpress or Not to Wordpress

To Wordpress or Not to Wordpress: Bloggers Speak!

Harry Potter 

Harry Potter Questions to Ponder

Books I Read This Week

Feature and Follow Friday #119

Welcome to the Feature & Follow

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Gain new followers and make new friends with the Book Blogger Feature & Follow! If this is your first time here, welcome! You are about to make some new friends and gain new followers -- but you have to know -- the point of this hop is to follow other bloggers also. I follow you, you follow me.

The Feature & Follow is hosted by TWO hosts, Parajunkee of Parajunkee's View and Alison of Alison Can Read. Each host will have their own Feature Blog and this way it'll allow us to show off more new blogs!

How does this work? First you leave your name here on this post, (using the linky tools -- keep scrolling!) then you create a post on your own blog that links back to this post (easiest way is to just grab the code under the #FF picture and put it in your post) and then you visit as many blogs as you can and tell them "hi" in their comments (on the post that has the #FF image). You follow them, they follow you. Win. Win. Just make sure to follow back if someone follows you!

What sets this Hop apart from others, is our Feature. Each week we will showcase a Featured Blogger, from all different genres and areas. Who is our Feature today? Find out below. Just remember it is required, if you participate, to follow our Features and you must follow the hosts (Parajunkee & Alison Can Read) as a courtesy. How do you follow someone? Well, if you have a preference, state it in your #FF post. A lot of blogs are transitioning to Wordpress in which they do not have the luxury of GFC, so an RSS subscription is appreciated or if you choose an email subscription. If you don't have GFC please state in your post how you would like to be followed.

Tokyo Heist by Diana Renn

Tokyo Heist by Diana Renn
Release Date: June 14, 2012
Publisher: Viking Juvenile
Source: Library

Summary

When sixteen-year-old Violet agrees to spend the summer with her father, an up-and-coming artist in Seattle, she has no idea what she's walking into. Her father's newest clients, the Yamada family, are the victims of a high-profile art robbery: van Gogh sketches have been stolen from their home, and, until they can produce the corresponding painting, everyone's lives are in danger--including Violet's and her father's.

Violet's search for the missing van Gogh takes her from the Seattle Art Museum, to the yakuza-infested streets of Tokyo, to a secluded inn in Kyoto. As the mystery thickens, Violet's not sure whom she can trust. But she knows one thing: she has to solve the mystery--before it's too late.(courtesy of Goodreads)

Review

If you love manga and enjoy fun, twisting mysteries, Tokyo Heist is the book for you. If you prefer realistic plots with complex, believable characters, Tokyo Heist is probably not the book for you. Tokyo Heist is a flawed novel, but has enough going for it that I enjoyed flipping through it.

Part Two: To Wordpress or Not to Wordpress

More and more bloggers are abandoning the Google ship in favor of the foreign waters of Wordpress. I'm considering taking the plunge. In fact, I'm pretty sure I'm going to do it.

Switching to Wordpress is a big step for any blogger to take. There's a risk that your content will get lost in the shuffle and most importantly, that your readers might get lost. But there are so many potential benefits - better SEO, more plug-ins, etc. I've been weighing the risks versus benefits for a long time. Danny of Bewitched Bookworms is the main person who swayed my opinion. When I visited her in August, we spent several hours staring at her Wordpress account as she showed me all the cool things she could do with it and how much it had helped her blog (although I think Danny, Pushy, and Heather's hard work helped more than anything).

I'm guessing I'm not alone in thinking about a Wordpress switch. Lots of blogs have fabulous posts about the pro's and con's of Wordpress and great technical information about switching. I wanted to collate the opinions of numerous bloggers who've already made the switch, so you can read multiple opinions in one post.

Thank you to all the bloggers who took the time to answer my Wordpress switch-over questions! There were so many of you that I am splitting this post into two.  Last week I featured the experiences of Rebecca of Kindle Fever, Mariya of Mystifying Paranormal Reviews, and Anna of Anna Reads.

This week, we'll be hearing from Danny of Bewitched Bookworms, Jenn of The Bawdy Book Blog, and Missie of The Unread Reader. Pay attention to Missie's responses. She is the only person I've spoken with who's had a bad experience with Wordpress. I'm going to bold her responses. I think it's important to consider the negative.