Tomb Trivia

HELLO!!! It feels like it's been ages since I posted any weird ramblings. I'm not going to include the book reviews that have been posted as they come via a link to Goodreads. If you're a bookworm, feel free to add me on Goodreads, I have discovered that the "Livvii's Quotes" bit on the right is a link to my profile there (who knew!?). Until recently, I was busy in the +Dead With Tequila  tomb trying to get everything done in time for us to reopen with all the awesome new stuff. But that's all done, and I've spent the last month doing all the marketing side of stuff, which always takes more time than you think. Thank you to all the awesome people that have been viewing the store and keeping us well over a thousand views a week. 

If you haven't taken a look in the store since we re-opened, then you're missing out, but you can easily fix that! (just click "Shop Dead With Tequila" in the bar at the top). If you have had a peruse at the store, what's your favourite thing? (I am genuinely interested). I'll also have you know that we are still not done with new items for the store. Yes, this does mean what you think it means; it means that there are even more new items that will eventually be coming your way. If you don't want to miss out on any new items that we add to the store, you can Watch the store and receive an email when anything new is added. You can do this by clicking "shop Dead With Tequila" and in the top right corner in the store front click "join Storenvy" then you can watch the store and never miss a thing!

Some boring  interesting facts from the Tomb:

• In making the new jewelry items so far for the re-opening we used upwards of 600 Jump Rings.
• Somewhere in the region of 2000 beads have been used on the new items so far.
• New items so far have used around 300 head pins
• The new necklaces and bracelets that have been made so far have used about 130 crimps.
• On new items alone, we used probably 150m of wax thread and 120m of organza ribbon on bracelets and necklaces.
• The new earrings made for the re-opening used up about 40m of chain.

Yes I did spend about three hours working this out. I was gonna do this really cool thing, and make some kind of infographic. R then pointed out (after I spent the 3 hours working it all out), that probably no one is going to care. I said "Well I spent three hours on this so I'm going to blog it whether anyone cares or not", R replied with "You are a silly bean."  For the record I am not a bean, but a flying donkey.

Now that the mad rush of photographing and uploading new items to Dead With Tequila is over, I really want to get back to working on my cartoon based collection that I started a while ago. Because we were trying to get everything else done before R went off to university, it got put one the back burner for a little while. The good news is, it now has a working title!!! Tomb Buddies. This may change between now and it being finished (god only know when that will be). There is  still so much to be done it's unreal, but it's going to be really cute, but keep the vibe of Dead With Tequila. It's a very monochromatic collection; very black and white. R has suggested having small hints of colour in there, but I'm not so sure. It's still early days yet, so I may change my mind on that one. Thinking about it now, they'd look great on t-shirts and bags. Of course there will be posters too. I also have a vague plan in mind about some book mark style thing with the characters, but that needs a bit of fine tuning yet. Perhaps when I've done a bit more to it all I'll share some "in progress" pics.   

I think that's everything for today. As usual, questions, comments, either below, or come find me on twitter. Failing that, carrier pigeons, magic carpets, unicorns and flying monkeys are also acceptable messenger services to be used.     

Review: Blue Moon

Blue Moon by Laurell K. Hamilton
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Wow...where do I begin??? This book was just jam packed with action, blood, gore, werewolves, power struggles (and I don't necessarily mean 2 people fighting for power) and bad guys.

Anita gets a phone call at 3 in the morning telling her that Richard is in jail, and being charged with rape. So Anita packs her bags and flies out of state to help get him out. But it was never going o be that easy was it? Due to vampire politics there is very little Jean-Claude in this book and a lot of Richard. Since Jean-Claude won't let Anita go save Richard alone, she ends up taking Jason, Asher, Damien and the wereleopards.

I suppose you could say that this book focuses on the relationship between Anita and Richard. This is where they can say all the things that they've been meaning/needing to say to each other and for lack out a better phrase, clear the air between them. It it also a chance to look deeper at Anita's role with in the pack as a human Lupa and highlights how much she still has to learn about their ways, as well as a place for her to learn more about being the equivalent of leader to the wereleopards. There are a lot of secrets revealed in this book that answer questions and raise new ones for Anita when it comes to trying to understand the powers and abilities she has gained through the bond with Jean-Claude and Richard. Anita also meets someone that can teach her to understand and control the new power that she has unlocked.

I liked how this book used the story line as a base to do some major character development. The plot of this book was in some ways secondary to the character development, and yet it didn't feel lost and forgotten about. if anything it acted as a reason to reveal things about the characters that we didn't previously know. Some of these things will, I suspect, will have a major affect on what happens in future books.

Loving this series. You should definitely give this series a read.

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Review: Burnt Offerings

Burnt Offerings by Laurell K. Hamilton
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Wow...There was a lot going on in this book.

So the blurb of this book talks about an arsonist burning down vampire owned businesses and it being down to Anita to stop the person that is doing it. Are there vampire businesses being burned down? Yes. Is it Arson? Yes. Is Anita called to help on the case? Yes. So what's the problem? you ask. I wouldn't go as far as to call it a problem but this, in my opinion really isn't central to 85% - 90% of the book. I would say a more accurate description would be: The vampire council is in town and causing havoc. Of course some cool writer person would say that in a lot more words, and make it sound all fancy if it was going to be the blurb for a book (obviously I'm not a cool writer person). The main focuses are definitely the fact that the vampire council is in town and what it means for the local vampires, lycanthropes and Anita; although the arson attacks are linked.

There are a whole host of new characters in this book. If you thought we had seen evil vampire so far this series, then think again as the bar has most definitely been raised. There are some new lycanthropes - mainly in the form of leopards/panthers. Some of these characters probably won't return because of either a) Their dead or b) There's not really anywhere for the character to go; not to say that they can't come back a lot further down the line. Some of the new lycanthrope characters could be very funny and could go a long way, so I look forward to seeing how they develop in later books. We also see a different side of Richard, not all of it good - lets just say he'snot so sweet when he's jealous.

Anita starts to gain more power through the bond between Jean-Claude, Richard and herself. This ends up effecting the way she is viewed within the pack, and as usual gets herself in more situations that she doesn't fully understand.

Overall this was a really good book. I think it's fair to say that the books are improving as the series goes along; you think you have just finished one really good book then the next one in the series somehow manages to top it. There was a lot of content to take in, and yet it wasn't so much that you started to loose track of things. I would recommend this book provided that you had read all of the books that came before it in the series.



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Review: The Killing Dance

The Killing Dance by Laurell K. Hamilton
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

There's nothing like being told an assassin is on the way to kill you to start the day off. Unfortunately, Anita is the target of said assassin, and it's down to Jean-Claude, Richard and Edward to help her live through the next few days.

In the beginning we are introduced to an old sick vampire that has come to get help from Anita; although she's not certain that she can help him. The way that things are set up, make you think that this is going to make up the majority of the story. It's not. But it is still relevant, and does link to the central plot of the story, just not in the way you think it will. (or maybe I should say, it didn't link in the way that I thought that it would). Anita leaves this meeting for a date with Richard; but it's when they arrive back at her apartment that everything hits the fan.

Cue assassination attempt number one. Attempt number two arrives while Anita is on her date with Jean-Claude. While hiding out, Jean-Claude, Richard and Anita test a theory about "magics"/powers and get a bit more than they bargained for. This leaves Anita with more questions about her abilities, which is sure to come into play in future books.

In this book characters were developed a lot more, and we got to sides of them that we hadn't seen before; The animal in Richard, and the human in Jean-Claude. It's action packed, with plenty of twists and turns.

Very much worth reading. (I suggest reading the books that came before, otherwise things may not make sense)




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Embrace the Donkey Life

So it was R's birthday last week and as she is at university now I didn't actually get to see her :( , but we did have this rather amusing conversation by text. This has now become an ongoing joke between us, and was to funny not to share. 

If you didn't think I was crazy before, you will now. This is also how most conversations go in the Dead With Tequila Tomb. 

(Orange = R , Brown = Me)

Yes. We are insane.

No. We are not sorry.

Review: Bloody Bones

Bloody Bones by Laurell K. Hamilton
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Fairies.

Nothing good every happens when fairies get involved, does it? Normally when I see that fairies are getting involved with story lines I back away slowly, because 9 times out of 10 the involvement of fairies is when a series starts to to take a turn for the worst, and things just get silly. So I was happy to see that the addition of Fae characters didn't distract to much from the normal feel of the series. In fact, the way that they had been incorporated worked really well and created some interesting twist that could continue to raise questions later on in the series.

Anita had to go out of town in this book to raise an entire cemetery of 200 year old corpses. There is a slight catch though; all of the graves are unmarked and the ground has been so disturbed that all of the bones are mixed up with no obvious way to tell who's bones are who's. Larry makes a return in this book, so we get to know him a bit better and see him grow as a person and have his morals challenged.

While out of town Anita and Larry are called to aid with a horrific murder, then later a second murder and kidnapping. Things quickly get out of hand, and the local cops stop listing to Anita. Out of options and needing to talk to the local master of the city, Anita calls Jean-Claude for his help. The relation ship between Jean-Claude and Anita develops more in this book because of the situations that they end up finding themselves in. We are also told about Jean-Claude past, and learn where he comes from. This isn't a huge chunk of the book or anything, but does come up in conversation between the characters. I though that was an interesting way of telling us about about a characters past. Most of the time authors like to do it as a kind of flash back and take up a chapter or 2 to tell us information that isn't necessarily vital to the story, just to give a history of a character; so I felt that this was very well done. It told us about his past while managing to stay in the present and keep it relevant to the current plot and events of the book.

We get to see more of Anita's power and abilities. Of course this gets her into all kinds of problematic situations. There's a lot of spilt blood, a few near death experiences, a vampire drunk on blood (this was rather amusing) and a lot of leather.

This was a really good book and worth reading if you've read the ones that come before. (I wouldn't suggest starting the series in the middle as it could be rather confusing)

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Review: The Lunatic Cafe

The Lunatic Cafe by Laurell K. Hamilton
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I really enjoyed this book. In previous books we have been introduced to the Vampire "community" and it's hierarchy, and now we are introduced to the Weres. This brings some interesting characters to the table that can develop over time.

In this book the story revolves around a bunch of missing werewolves, and Anita is tasked with finding them. There are a couple of twists and turns thrown in so it's not completely obvious as to who is responsible. We start to find out about different power struggles in the Were community and get an idea of how it can affect Anita solving the case at hand, as well as how it affects her relationship with Richard. This also gives more of an insight into Richards character, as we start to learn more about him and his position with in the pack.

On top of all this there's a few fights, frights, near death experiences and some other close calls.

A really good book that I just couldn't put down. I do suggest reading the series from the start just so that you understand who the character are and how they interact as well as to get a feel for the setting of the stories.


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