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Tag: Inkyard Press

Book Review: Every Time You Go Away

November 11, 2023 / / 0 Comments

 

Every Time You Go Away

– Abigail Johnson –

Inkyard Press

Published 5 December 2023

♥♥♥♥♥

 

Abigail Johnson writes the most beautiful stories of resilient characters.  She’s one of my favourite authors. And I’ve always wondered if she would ever write a story with a wheelchair using character, being a wheelchair user herself. She is very clear, this is not autobiographical, but she brings the same depth, heart and beautiful writing style to this story as she has done with all her previous books. I loved every page of Every Time You Go Away.

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Book Review: You Can Go Your Own Way

October 2, 2021 / / 0 Comments

 

You Can Go Your Own Way

– Eric Smith –

Inkyard Press

Published 2 November 2021

♥♥♥/♥

 

You Can Go Your Own Way is a cute YA romance, sure to be enjoyed by readers who love a simple storyline and ex-best-friends to enemies to lovers storyline.

In my head I have named this book the Pinball Book. Sorry, but it’s kind of stuck. Adam helps his mother run the family pinball arcade. It was his father’s passion and since his father’s death, Adam has done everything he can to keep that dream alive. Even alienating his once best friend. But he can’t help it if Whitney – or at least her dad – is the enemy. Whitney’s father wants to buy the arcade and add it to his growing eSports cafe locations. Whitney and Adam each run the social media accounts for their family businesses and online it is war. When a snowstorm throws the two together again, they rekindle their friendship and possibly something more.

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Book Review: The Right Side of Reckless

June 26, 2021 / / 0 Comments

The Right Side of Reckless – Whitney D. Grandison –  Inkyard Press – Published 13 July 2021

♥♥♥/♥

 

Synopsis

They were supposed to ignore each other and respect that fine line between them…

Guillermo Lozano is getting a fresh start. New town, new school, and no more reckless behavior. He’s done his time, and now he needs to right his wrongs. But when his work at the local community center throws him into the path of the one girl who is off-limits, friendship sparks…and maybe more.

Regan London needs a fresh perspective. The pressure to stay in her “perfect” relationship and be the good girl all the time has worn her down. But when the walls start to cave in and she finds unexpected understanding from the boy her parents warned about, she can’t ignore her feelings anymore.

The disapproval is instant. Being together might just get Guillermo sent away. But when it comes to the heart, sometimes you have to break the rules and be a little bit reckless…

My thoughts

I wrote two different reviews for this book. One when I was only a quarter of the way through the story and the other one after I had finished reading the book. One review was entirely disparaging and the other was far more positive. I’m going to give a review that sits somewhere in between. I was ready to give up on this book at the quarter mark. I am glad I didn’t as my feelings changed widely between the first and last portion of this book.

When I started this book, after reading just a few chapters I wished I had done some more research before requesting and reading this book. I judged it on its cover and synopsis alone, which sounded great, but as soon as I started reading I knew I wasn’t going to enjoy this book. Or at least, that’s what I thought to begin with. The characters seemed two dimensional. The writing needed a really good edit and everything is told instead of shown. I wasn’t even a quarter into the book and I was already sick of Regan putting up with rubbish from her boyfriend and Guillermo reads like a bad boy who isn’t actually bad, he just went along with his friends who did the bad stuff and now he is being misjudged and he’s actually a good guy, so he just needs to prove it, so no character development needed. At this point I jumped online to do a bit of research about the publisher and author and found that reviewers suggested that the author’s first book suffered from all the same points. The author is also a Wattpad star and while I love that people are getting published in this way, it doesn’t mean these stories should be published without some really thorough editing. I’m going to give some passages to my writing class so they can practice editing and rewriting to show not tell. It should be pretty easy for them to spot the areas that need improvement.

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Book Review: Every Other Weekend

December 3, 2019 / / 0 Comments

Every Other Weekend – Abigail Johnson – Inkyard Press – Published 7 January 2020

♥♥♥♥♥

 

Synopsis

Adam Moynihan’s life used to be awesome. Straight As, close friends and a home life so perfect that it could have been a TV show straight out of the 50s. Then his oldest brother died. Now his fun-loving mom cries constantly, he and his remaining brother can’t talk without fighting, and the father he always admired proved himself a coward by moving out when they needed him most.

Jolene Timber’s life is nothing like the movies she loves—not the happy ones anyway. As an aspiring director, she should know, because she’s been reimagining her life as a film ever since she was a kid. With her divorced parents at each other’s throats and using her as a pawn, no amount of mental reediting will give her the love she’s starving for.

Forced to spend every other weekend in the same apartment building, the boy who thinks forgiveness makes him weak and the girl who thinks love is for fools begin an unlikely friendship. The weekends he dreaded and she endured soon become the best part of their lives. But when one’s life begins to mend while the other’s spirals out of control, they realize that falling in love while surrounded by its demise means nothing is ever guaranteed.

My thoughts

It is no secret that Abigail Johnson is one of my all-time favourite authors. And she did not disappoint with her newest release, Every Other Weekend. So many teens are impacted by their parents’ divorces, so I know this will be a relatable novel for many young people. Johnson captures all the devastation, hope, guilt and grief involved in family breakdown. All too real emotions, push and pull romance, heartbreaking family circumstances and authentic voices, this book will be another YA contemporary favourite.

Adam and Jolene. Two teens forced to spend every other weekend at a rundown apartment block due to their parents’ separations. But their family situations couldn’t be more different. Adam knows it won’t be long until his family is back together, if only Adam’s father would realise he should be there for his mother as they all grieve the death of Adam’s eldest brother. Jolene knows her parents are never getting back together and quite frankly she’s okay with that. She hates the melodrama her mother puts on every time she leaves for a weekend stay at her father’s empty apartment – empty except for her father’s way-too-young girlfriend. Adam and Jolene forge a strong friendship over the weekends they share. But will that friendship last if their family circumstances change?

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Book Review: Day Zero

October 25, 2019 / / 0 Comments

Day Zero – Kelly deVos – Day Zero Duology #1 – Inkyard Press – Published 12 November 2019

♥♥♥♥

 

Synopsis

Seventeen-year-old coder Jinx Marshall grew up spending weekends drilling with her paranoid dad for a doomsday she’s sure will never come. She’s an expert on self-heating meal rations, Krav Maga and extracting water from a barrel cactus. Now that her parents are divorced, she’s ready to relax. Her big plans include making it to level 99 in her favorite MMORPG and spending the weekend with her new hunky stepbrother, Toby.

But all that disaster training comes in handy when an explosion traps her in a burning building. Stuck leading her headstrong stepsister, MacKenna, and her precocious little brother, Charles, to safety, Jinx gets them out alive only to discover the explosion is part of a pattern of violence erupting all over the country. Even worse, Jinx’s dad stands accused of triggering the chaos.

In a desperate attempt to evade paramilitary forces and vigilantes, Jinx and her siblings find Toby and make a break for Mexico. With seemingly the whole world working against them, they’ve got to get along and search for the truth about the attacks—and about each other. But if they can survive, will there be anything left worth surviving for?

My thoughts

Okay, you had me at Krav Maga, and prepping. If I’m going to read a doomsday book, having a character who knows that they are up against is my kind of book. Day Zero has all the destruction, terror and political unrest you would expect from a book about the end of civilisation as we know it. Along with lots of action and tension, Day Zero plunges readers into a world that is scarily similar to our own, as political fractions rip society apart.

Jinx doesn’t much care for politics, history or who won the recent election. She’d rather focus on her upcoming campaign in her favourite computer game. But then she, her younger brother and her step-sister are caught up in one of five building explosions that kills thousands and sends the population into a terror-driven run on the banks. When her step-father is arrested for the explosions and her mother taken as part of the investigation, Jinx knows their only chance of survival is finding her father, a doomsday survivalist expert, a computer genius and best friend of the man who is currently trying to hunt her down.

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Book Review: Even If I Fall

December 30, 2018 / / 0 Comments

Even If I Fall – Abigail Johnson – Inkyard Press – Published 8 January 2019

♥♥♥♥♥

 

Synopsis

A year ago, Brooke Covington lost everything when her beloved older brother, Jason, confessed to the murder of his best friend, Calvin. Brooke and her family became social pariahs, broken and unable to console one another. Brooke’s only solace remains the ice-skating rink, where she works but no longer lets herself dream about a future skating professionally.

When Brooke encounters Calvin’s younger brother, Heath, on the side of the road and offers him a ride, everything changes. She needs someone to talk to…and so does Heath. No one else understands what it’s like. Her brother, alive but gone; his brother, dead but everywhere. Soon, they’re meeting in secret, despite knowing that both families would be horrified if they found out. In the place of his anger and her guilt, something frighteningly tender begins to develop, drawing them ever closer together.

But when a new secret comes out about the murder, Brooke has to choose whose pain she’s willing to live with—her family’s or Heath’s. Because she can’t heal one without hurting the other.

My thoughts

I absolutely love picking up books by Abigail Johnson because I know that I will adore them. They put your through an emotional wringer but they never disappoint. Such is true of her latest title, Even If I Fall. Stunning and heartfelt writing combine with an incredible story of loss, anger, guilt and family breakdown. A story about things you can’t explain much less come to terms with. A story of hope and love, friendship and support. Even If I Fall will entrance readers; perfect for fans of emotional contemporary YA fiction.

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