Friday Reads: Phoenix Overture by Jodi Meadows!!

Welcome back to Friday Reads! The first entry for this week will be an e-novella, that is 150 pages long, so it's not a short tiny story at all!


Phoenix Overture by Jodi Meadows

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Phoenix Overture is a look at the past, the very early past of the world we met in Incarnate, and we get to meet our dear Dossam in his first live, when he first discovers his love for music, when he first gets his nickname Sam... all before he started reincarnating for the next five thousand years, give or take!

As Jodi Meadows herself said, despite being a prequel it's better if you read Phoenix Overture right after you're done with Asunder, cause it gives answers to a lot of questions that are answered in Asunder, and expands in them a little bit, so you won't spoil the surprises.

It does give us some answers, about Janan, about who lives in Heart and how did they came to do so, and it also gives you a lot of perspective on the character and motivations of some characters we already know from Incarnate and Asunder. Some you start loving already and some you find even better reason to dislike them even more.

Sam's story is tough and heartbreaking, with some silver linings but with very hard choices to be made along the way.

And about the story of Heart and Range... we do get some answers but I think I have even more questions on the past and the how and the who/what that I had before! Hopefully I'll get more answers and less questions in Infinite!

A short, intense and quick read, very well deserved 4 stars!



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Friday Reads: Asunder by Jodi Meadows!

Due to a lot of technical difficulties and my super busy schedule of this past weeks, I'm only gonna have one entry on the Friday Reads, but a very worthy one! Another second book in a trilogy that doesn't have a middle syndrome!


Asunder by Jodi Meadows

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Wow, hats off to Jodi Meadows, if book 1 was great, Asunder has all the great and some more for good measure!

We are getting some answers finally, as Ana keeps going through her journey and more questions that only the inquisitiveness of the New Soul can raise. There are big issues dealt with in these books, the hate of those who are different, the dismissiveness of those who we consider inferior... all of that started in the first book, and it's taken into even higher stakes in here.

There's so much of Heart's story that we don't know about, and apparently not even their own inhabitants are aware of it! Anna discovers part of Janan's secrets, but still there's so much more to find out about, and the threat is bigger than ever!

And in the more personal level, Sam and Anna deal with more troubles in their relationship, dealing with their own issues and differences, and dealing with some external influences, all of it well wrapped in some amazing swooniness!

I just can't wait for book 3 and hopefully all the answers to the questions left and others that might come up in the last book itself!



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Sunday Shots: Cupcakes inspired by Incarnate and Asunder by Jodi Meadows!

Hey there guys!

Hope you're having a good Sunday! I'm back from work and I'm gonna spend what's left of my afternoon and evening being lazy and reading!

Today for Sunday Shots I'm gonna share the other half of the cupcakes I was so inspired to create on Thursday.

I got the idea of creating some cupcakes inspired by the New Soul series by Jodi Meadows, Incarnate & Asunder, and I was even more inspired and had more ideas right off the start for these than for the Defiance ones. I just had to look at the covers for a bit and check a few things to see if my memory of the scenes was right to start working on what I wanted for each cupcake!

Butterflies are an important part of the imaginery of the book, since they represent Anna, the main character, and her possible ephimeral lifetime compared to the others inhabitants of Heart.

 

I chose the cupcake liners cause I thought the fit the mood of the books' covers.

I managed to add different colours to the buttercream by using colorants in the piping bag, and the colours are also inspired on both books covers.

Cover colours piping, with a piano keyboard, since Dossam is a musician, and it's Anna's first instrument to try and love. I modelled the keyboard from scratch, so it was a bit of job, and it shows that is not as perfect as I would have liked.

Covered in white fondant, with white walls (I didn't have a brick rolling pin, so I used a basket weave I do have) and the red heart to represent the weird white walls with a heartbeat of Heart.

And the two roses, the blue (purple) one to represent the New Souls and the Phoenix (red) ones to represent the Old/Dark Souls. This is from book two.

All in all, it was quite a bit of work, but I did enjoy myself immensely making them! So much, that I'm already planning making more book inspired cupcakes!