For some reason that I cannot explain I just find it easier to read on an ereader. I love my Kobo reader. I think when I die, please God many years from now, it should take pride of place in my coffin. While it takes me very little time at all to read a book on the reader it seems to take me an eternity to read when its an actual book. I hadn’t read a book in years when I started to read on an app on my phone. From that day I never looked back. I started a book yesterday and i have only read 55 pages. If I was reading this on my Kobo I have no doubt that it would be finished my now. I am however vowing to have it read by tomorrow evening.

The next review to come your way is Sarah Harte’s Thick and Thin. I promise not to take too long over it! There are way too many books out there to be taking my time over one!

Carmel Harrington set a challenge with one of her latest blog posts. Write a piece of ‘Flash Fiction’, 500-100 words. She asked me to think of giving it a shot. So I thought, sure why the hell not. So I did. I wrote all about The Camels Back. The what? I hear you say, but no you read it right, The Camels Back. So to know what on earth I am on about you will just have to read it all for yourself. Be easy on me it was my first (and possibly last) attempt at fiction. Mind you judging by the night I just had I’m not so sure at all it was fiction. But that my friends is another story entirely.

And here is it: http://carmelharrington.com/2013/05/13/flash-fiction-feature-the-camels-back-by-tanya-farrell/

After hearing so much sad news this weekend, and again this morning i was just thinking about how lucky we are. Really we are. Yes we all have our problems – be it financial, work, domestic or otherwise, but for the most part we will get over it. We always find a way to make those ends meet, the work day will eventually be over and whatever it is that’s bothering us at home will usually sort itself out. Sometimes we just need to take a step back and smell the roses, because they are there you know. You may have to do a little searching to find them but if you spend long enough and look hard enough it’s a sure thing that they are there. Take pleasure in the small things, because they are what it is all about! Make time to do whatever it is you are into. For me it’s read a book (or two), for my husband – well he likes to enjoy a game of pitch and putt. So whether you want to read a book, play a sport, water you flowers or tinker with a car, remember to do it. As that great quote goes “I don’t regret the things I have done, I regret the things I didn’t do when I had the chance.”

I am of course not talking in the literal sense, more the ‘literary’ sense. Being in the ‘Sunny South East’ here in Ireland doesn’t mean a thing, today is May 9th, the 9th day of Summer – I am sure in school we had flash cards with a huge yellow sun in the sky, little kids sitting on the beach in shorts and t-shirts, with ice cream dripping of their cones. While in reality here I am sitting on my couch wrapped up in a blanket, debating lighting the fire, with the rain hammering off the windows and wind howling down my chimney. So as you can imagine any sizzling that’s going to be done here, will be because I am living vicariously (and happy to do so) through the characters in the many books I am going to read.

That is right folks, the temporary lull due to the dreaded exams is soon to be over. It was so hard not to pick up a book in the last few weeks, while I was struggling to come to terms with having to study for those inevitable end of year exams. Who thought going back to college when you have three small kids (and a mountain of books to read) was a good idea? The good news is that the last exam has come and gone, and with only one more presentation left to do I am almost free for the summer. I have even started reading, thank you Lord! I started Colleen Hoover’s This Girl, which is the much-anticipated third book in the Slammed series, and if you haven’t read the first two they really are a must – they are butterflyingly awesome. This third book is told from Will’s point of view, it’s always nice to know what is going on in a mans head!

The last few books I did manage to sneak in I enjoyed immensely and I do plan to review and do an interview with the authors very soon. I will compile questions over this coming weekend. They were Amanda Heath’s Norma Jean and Lauren Blakely’s Caught up in Us Series – Caught up in Us and Caught Up in Him, and I absolutely cannot wait on the next installment from Lauren when she releases Trophy Husband later this month, I intend to be one of the first to make that purchase.

That is only one of the many books that are going to make my summer sizzle, I am also waiting on Sylvia Day’ third book in the Bared to you series (me and every other woman) Entwined with you, due out next month, Colleen Hoover’s Losing Hope, the sequel to the amazing Hopeless. Ella Frank is teasing us with the wait for Edible, the third book in the sexy Exquisite series. I am chomping a the bit for Abbi Glines next books, the second in the Twisted Perfection series and Forever Too Far, the third in the Too Far series. I am sure I am leaving some out here! I am definitely hoping Abel, the fourth book in Elizabeth Reyes’ 5th Street series will be keeping me company over the summer, though I am not sure when it is due out. I would also love to read the new book from Carmel Harrington who had fantastic success with her Debut Novel Beyond Grace’s Rainbow, I hear the second book is tipped to be even better. I know – I didn’t think it was possible either!

Lets just hope for some literal sizzling days too so the kids can go out to play and leave mammy to her reading 😉

Fifty Shades of Grey. What can I say that hasn’t been said already?

These three books set about my own personal reading revolution. I have said before that after having my children I just didn’t have the time to read. Three children under the age of three – hell I didn’t have time to wash my face and couldn’t even have a toilet break on my own! (That’s still debatable today!)

Then came summer 2012, all my friends were reading Fifty Shades of Grey, I didn’t have time to. I had no interest in reading it, sure its just pure filth and I certainly couldn’t be reading it while looking after my children. Then we had all the subtle and not so subtle jokes that if you weren’t ‘in the know’ well, you just weren’t in the know. Anyone who knows me knows that when I get past my initial shyness (ahem!) I am a small bit of a (huge) chatterbox, my daddy says why use ten words when a hundred will do lol. So my friend says ‘Get the e-Book’. So off Tanya goes and gets the Kobo app for Smartphone. And I got the first book Fifty Shades of Grey. Well I was hooked, right from the very first chapter. What was that about not being able to read it around the children? Scratch it. It was June 2012, and I read it while sitting in the garden while the children played or while sitting looking out the window at them playing. I then read Fifty Shades of Darker and Fifty Shades of Freed, and I read them twice in 8 days. What did i think of them? Well, I hate to repeat myself but in this instance I don’t mind – I read them twice in 8 days!

Then there was all the talk about the FSoG movie and everywhere you looked there were gossip columns and online tabloids reporting that this celebrity or that was taking the role of Christian Grey, when in reality a director hadn’t even been secured. We all joined in with these posts, Shared the Status updates of the ‘breaking news’ and cringed or jumped for joy about the latest suggestion. Always the excitement is over Christian, some about Elliot and Ethan. Never much on Ana, Kate or Mia – I mean who cares? I know I wont be looking at them. That was 2012 though. The movie isn’t out until 2014. So many times I have heard people say its going to be too late, this leads me to wonder – Is time running out for the Fifty Shades of Grey Movie?

Will people still be interested in Christian and Ana next year? Will the shock factor and the excitement factor that hit us all last year still be around? Will there be a different sensation this year that will knock Christian and Ana off their pedestal. Will we have moved on?

I know that since I read the trilogy a whole new world of books opened up to me. I was addicted. Not just to the theme and the amount of sex in it – cos let’s be honest, that was exhausting. There is only so much sex two people can have. I was hooked on this new Genre of books. Certainly new to me at the very least. I went on to read the Crossfire Series by Sylvia Day, The Sinners on Tour Series by Olivia Cunning and many more besides. It also led me to the New Adult Genre, which I must say I am really enjoying and have spent a lot of my free time – and time that’s not meant to be free reading. With so many of these books out there, and many of which were there before FSoG, though I am sure they have benefited from the hype, is there enough interest still out there for the movie or has all the hype faded?

I think the best way to answer this is to swing by and take a look at the New York Times Best Sellers. Fifty Shades of Grey is at No. 15 in the Combined Print and EBook Fiction Charts. That is across ALL genre! This is after 55 weeks in the charts. That is is nothing short of phenomenal. Fifty Shades of Freed is No. 22 and Fifty Shades of Darker is No. 23. It tells me that while there may not be article after article about the sensation that is FSoG and it may not be all over Facebook or Twitter every time you log in, the interest is still there. I can imagine it being like Sex and The City, the Cinema’s will sell out. I think that it will be the most hotly (emphasis on the HOT) anticipated movie of next year! I just hope they can do it justice!