ARC January 1st Book Review

For the first month of the Artful Readers Club I chose (or rather Hubby randomly chose) "Wicked Appetite" by Janet Evanovich.

What is it about?

A woman called Lizzy who lives in Salem and has a talent for baking - particularly cupcakes.

She meets Wulf and Diesel, cousins who are both looking for the SALIGIA. These are stones of power, each of which represents one of the seven deadly sins.

Wulf wants them as when they are combined hell on earth is supposedly unleashed... Diesel is trying to stop him, and enlists Lizzy's help.

What did I think?

I've read, and enjoyed, a few of Janet Evanovich's books from the Stephanie Plum bounty hunter series and the seven deadly sins plot of this book appealed to me.

I liked the characters, Diesel sounds very lovely! ;) However, the plot was very linear - no major twists and turns and no suspense. But... it was a very easy read (finished in one day) and quite enjoyable in a "turn your brain off" type of way.

I guess it passed the test as I read the second book in the series "Wicked Business" straight after...

My artwork...

I decided in the end to do a journal page. I bought an old hardback children's book recently at a charity shop to alter and this was my first page in it.

The main image I was left with after reading this book was "cupcakes"! So... that's what I went with.

I tried to do the background in "witchy" colours as the book is set in Salem and I bordered the page with the names of the deadly sins in latin. The quote is a quote from the book and the image is from The Octopode Factory. I decided after taking the photo that I'll add "ARC January" on there somewhere to remind me in the future why I did the page. 

My book for February is "77 Shadow Street" by Dean Koontz. I reckon that'll be a dark journal page!

Mandala Novice

I've been aware of Mandalas for a while but haven't really had a go at doing one myself. But... I saw this year long challenge here (via Darcy) which seemed like a nice way to start. The mandala has been drawn already so you just need to do a bit of colouring in - that, I can do!

Here is my image once I'd done my basic colouring...

But I then wanted to add a bit more to put my own touch on it so I added some doodles and went over some of the outlines so they stood out a bit more...

Really easy and I'm looking forward to the next one!

Artful Readers

This year I'm endeavouring to join in with Darcy's Artful Readers Club - a year long challenge, you can read all the details here.

My twelve books for the year are on the shelf in my sidebar. My book for January is "Wicked Appetite" by Janet Evanovich. I've read quite a few of her novels from the Stephanie Plum series but then I randomly came across this new series.

I'll confess that I started the book a couple of days ago to give me a head start but it was such an easy read that I finished it today - oops! But that gives me a month to do my review and art...the first link up date is the 25th January.