Four stories that inspired the TV series

by Edward McLachlan

age range: 3 to 5 years old

Every time Simon draws something with his chalks, his creation ends in the Land of Chalk Drawings. Simon discovers this fantastic land one morning on his way to school, when one stick boy he had drawn asks him to cross to the other side of the fence where his own drawings need some help. Once Simon is on the other side, the black and white picture turns colorful, and full of animals, trees, flowers, kids, a train, the sun, and even Simon's teacher.

This is the pattern in the stories. Simon draws in his board, and then he is called to fix some kind of problem or situation he has created with his new drawing. Unfinished drawings want to be completed. The drawings are being drilled non stop by Simon's soldiers. A dinosaur is terrifying everyone. Or the drawings are curious about this new object in the land, that happens to be the rocket Simon drew the night before. Simon always fix the problem using his chalk, and resume his way to school after having some fun in the Land of Chalk Drawings.

The drawings are cute and the stories are funny. I would recommend to read the stories as four different picture books, since the repetition of the pattern could weaken the effect. But I'm sure that reading them in different moments would make a entertaining reading.

I received this copy from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Mind of the Phoenix - Jamie McLachlan

Moira is nineteen and an em path . The world she lives in em paths are slaves. The Moira is bought by another em path who works for the elite and who makes her life hell.    An em path can sense emotions , read others thoughts, and see their memories. Moira has special powers but keeps them to herself. her life is worse now than before. Eventually she could take no more and killed her master and is sentenced to die. Detective Keenan Edwards is on the path of the Phoenix who is a serial killer. Moira is freed if she will help Keenan with this case. Moira can’t trust especially men for no one has ever cared for Moira in her lifetime. But through it all Moira and the detective are very attracted to each other. The case is murder/ suicide there are letters found leading to the suicides the author of these letters must be found.

I loved this story it was absolutely great and kept you riveted right to the story. You did not want to stop reading until the story had ended. Characters were awesome. Poor Moira i felt so bad for the way she had to live her life and the desperation she felt to kill her master as if she were a real person. But somehow she is still spunky and at times even makes me laugh while on this gruesome case. I did not like the detective at first as he was so mean to Moira as far as I am concerned she had already had enough of that but he did change as he got to know Moira. I hope there is a sequel I highly recommend

I received an ARC of this story for an honest review..

I have to say that I struggled through this book. I wanted to quit shortly after starting but I’ve had such bad luck with books so far this year that I felt the need to finally finish something – and it’s only a bit over six hours long.

I’ve been trying to come up with good things to say about Ten Little Lesbians but, honestly, I don’t think I can. I didn’t find a single character likable or complex. The narration didn’t help that at all. The narrator, who I’ve actually had some professional contact with and is a very nice and generous person, has a fantastic voice for broadcasting but the character voices were distracting to me. Some of the characters spoke with a very deep, slow, velvety voice and others sounded like either whiney teenagers or overly enthusiastic, overly cheerful neighbors. The use of crisp diction and pronunciation also made the dialogue feel unnatural.

Mixed in with the interpersonal drama and sex is a murder mystery. I can’t say that I was curious about who the killer was. I did, however, find myself wishing that I could pick the next victims. I particularly wanted Tish to meet her demise. She was skeevy, an incredibly immature nearly thirty-year-old, and after she made the comment “you’re really insightful for a blind person” or something like that, I wanted to punch her for being a moron. Honestly, I didn’t care even a tiny bit about any of the women in the story. Not one.

With regard to the quality of the audiobook, itself, there seems to be some editing issues. Over the past several years, I read almost solidly audiobooks and I’ve never come across one that had problems with the editing. But this one, this one has repeated lines (partial phrase at the beginning of a sentence repeated twice as if one of them was supposed to have been removed) and mid-chapter announcements (“Chapter two continued”) which happened several times. There was also the decision to have a woman singing a song spliced in which was super jarring. The sound quality of the recording was considerably different from the clear, deep narration which didn’t help. I skimmed the song which would play for a bit, then talking for a bit, then more song.

The author has several books published but this was my first read of her work. I don’t think I’ll be going back to read any of her previous releases. Sorry but there’s no way I would recommend this book to any of my friends. If I hadn’t gotten this for free from the publisher, I would have returned it for a refund hours before the end.

I'm struggling through this. Just over an hour to go and then I'll post a review. I'll be very happy to be done with this one.

I'm still really distracted by the narration. The voices just don't feel natural and the pronunciation is too perfect. I'm not sure if it's the writing or the presentation that's not allowing me to connect, or even like, any of the characters.