January 9th, 2022.

Hello friend,

it's a bit late, but I still wish you a very happy new year! I hope 2022 is going to be a good one.

Book wise, for me it already is.

Current reads:

Ahsoka by E.K. Johnston (yeah, yeah, I know: I'm still reading it)

Books I recently read and recommend: At the end of 2021, I received a couple of ARCs and I read two of them last week. I will post my review of the first today and the second one next week, because they were both amazing and I think they deserve to be in the spotlight separately.

Without Disruption by Carrie French

BLURB (Goodreads): In pursuit of a different life, Harrison leaves everything behind – his family, his community, and even his own name. He can never go back.

Global society is united with a simple guarantee: everyone can achieve stable, lasting happiness for one hundred years in a curated lifestyle that brings them joy. Well… not unlimited joy, just mild contentment. No more, no less.

Every element of life is controlled by Vie – an AI system that is worshipped as divine. She guides members into ‘harmony’ with in-ear alerts, retina screens, and vast, immersive simulations.

Harrison is ambitious and impulsive with a curious habit of recalling hazy memories that never happened. The course of his life is punctuated with hasty decisions, emotional compromises, and genuine attempts to play by the rules.

He’s not only running out of options; he’s running out of time. Is Harrison’s will strong enough to break Vie’s authoritarian hold? Or will he finally learn to settle for mediocrity, just like everyone else?

The threat of ‘eviction’ is looming, and Harrison’s death day might come sooner than he thinks. REVIEW:

This was such an interesting and intriguing story, and it's one I won't easily forget. I really liked the world building and how life is so very different from what we know, but the story is still fairly easy to follow, both because the core principles are still the same and because everything was explained so well. Most of all, however, I love that through Harrison's story, you automatically start reflecting on your own life, and because of that it's like he's taking you on the journey with him.

There's only one thing that annoyed me a little bit, which was the excessive use of exclamation marks. I get that they were meant to show how the characters felt (either happy or angry), but it was a bit too much and one simply cannot shout a whisper. Apart from that, I really loved this story, and I most definitely recommend it! WIPs: Ailene (Ailene #1): second draft/editing process I'm almost done with my second draft. Next up I'll do another (quicker) round in which I check if there truly aren't any plotholes left, and then I'll look at each and every sentence very closely. Then it's time to hire an editor!

Digital Art

Something else I'm pretty excited about is the fact that I've started creating digital art and I'm actually really good at it (trust me, I don't usually say I'm good at things, so I must really mean it). I was thinking about creating drawings of the characters of my book and I actually already made one.

I also hope I'll be able to make the cover of Ailene myself, because wow, wouldn't that be something?!

You know what? I'll just share two of my drawings (the ones I'm most proud of):

This first one is of Ailene's protagonist, Hayden Navarro, but he turned out a bit young, so I'd say this is him in the prologue (where he's about 12 years old).

The second one is Star Wars' Poe Dameron. I'm still blown away by the result. Did I truly make this? Yes, yes, I did. (My hand still hurts a little, but it was worth it).

So, that's it for now. I'm thinking about making an Ailene character quiz (ghehe), so that's what I'm going to do now.

Have a great day and don’t forget to like this post (by clicking on the heart in the bottom right corner of this post), leave a comment below, and/or subscribe to my blog by entering your email address in the Subscribe Form at the bottom of the page.

Be kind & do good.

Love, Annabel