Month: September 2021

Home Arcade Games!

This blog post has an affiliate link which if you use and make a purchase will supply me, the owner of Books-and-Games.com a percentage of sales which will go to continuing to pay for the use of this website.  You can find further information on my affiliate usage here: https://books-and-games.com/affiliate-disclosure/

So arcades and their games were a fairly big part of my life as a kid. There was an arcade in the local mall and I would stop in there any chance I got. My friends would play DDR but I, naturally, would be running off to shoot dinosaurs, criminals, or seeing if I could actually get Pac-Man or his Misses further than the first level. I’ve never been able to get very far in a Pac-Man game for some reason.

Anyway, with the slow extinction of arcades, and the world going upside down with COVID making it so no one really wants to go and touch the same controls as hundreds of other people, I was excited to find homearcadegames.com. Now admittedly, these home arcade games are on the expensive side, you there are payment options! I know I have a dream of picking up a totally awesome Jurassic Park game they sell.

Right now if you make a purchase from homearcadegames.com a portion of sales will go to books-and-games.com so I can keep providing honest reviews! Feel free to use this link to check out the Jurrassic Park game I mentioned and many more awesome home arcade games! Jurassic Park Pro Arcade Simulator Available Now!

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Bald is Beautiful: A Letter for a Fabulous Girl

Bald is Beautiful: A letter for a fabulous girl, is a lovely children’s picture book by Carola Schmidt. It is about a young girl, and making the best out of being bald because of cancer treatments. It aims heavily on making sure the girl knows she is beautiful despite her lack of hair, as well as pointing out fun ways to embrace her new look. Such as a hat and scarf shower to celebrate who she is despite the trouble she is going through.

This is a children’s book, so it is short and sweet. It is an adoring love letter to a little girl. The story is filled to the brim with love. Alongside the sweet story, the pictures are sweet and colorful, making following along with the story pleasant. Despite the difficult topic of the book, this story makes you feel good to read. It shows the desire to make the best out of a difficult situation. One leaves the book smiling despite the topic.

It is a brilliant book for children to read, particularly those who are going through, or know someone, going through difficulties with cancer.

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Biblio – Rare book!

This blog post has an affiliate link which if you use and make a purchase will supply me, the owner of Books-and-Games.com a percentage of sales which will go to continuing to pay for the use of this website.  You can find further information on my affiliate usage here: https://books-and-games.com/affiliate-disclosure/

Books are amazing, as I have probably said about a million times here on this blog. Some books are more amazing than others. Whether it is because they are classic stories the compete with the test of time, they are beautifully bound, have taught the world something, or any of the sundry other reasons, books are amazing. And if you are a fan of collecting lovely and rare books, like myself, you can look at Biblio.com!

Biblio is a great place to find rare books such as first editions, signed books, and even books from the 16th and 17th century! Real antique books! But don’t let the fancy prices get you down, Biblio also has discounted books for you to look at!

As usual, right now if you use my link to shop on Biblio.com you will also help support Books-and-Games.com so I can keep bringing you honest reviews! Feel free to click the link here to check out Biblio! Find beautiful, rare, and out-of-print books at Biblio.com.

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Blood Rebirth – Book Review

Blood Rebirth is the second novel in the Divine Series by S.M. McCoy. It picks up directly where Blood Cresent ends. Just like the first book, Blood Rebirth continues to follow Chrystal through her twisted and confusing life in the supernatural world. Though this time she has entered a school for other young supernatural people. Sadly, she gets about as much help there figuring out who she is as she did before. Though a few new friends pop up, the side characters from the first book also carry over.

Blood Rebirth does a good job of filling in the holes that Chrystal memory issues from the first book left hanging open. It also produces for us a collection of curious new creatures and issues for the main character. Some of Chrystals family issues can only be guessed at still however, though others are much more of a surprise, such as Chrystal’s father’s history, though I will not spoil that for you. I will leave it at. I was definitely surprised, and it was not a direction that I had expected.

The characters in Blood Rebirth remain interesting and well written, more so when you get to learn more about them. The various types of creatures in the supernatural world are better explained and more detail is given to the various family powers that the main character has inherited.

Blood Rebirth is a must read if you read the first book. It leaves you on a heavy cliff hanger through, and I am looking forward to reading the third book, Blood Queen, which I have access to thanks to Reedsy Discovery. I started it last night!

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Second Sale – Used books for sale

This blog post has an affiliate link which if you use and make a purchase will supply me, the owner of Books-and-Games.com a percentage of sales which will go to continuing to pay for the use of this website.  You can find further information on my affiliate usage here: https://books-and-games.com/affiliate-disclosure/

Let me start by stating that books are amazing. I absolutely love them and if I did not live in an apartment, I would probably have an entire room full of physical books. Sadly though, books take up space and aside from a favorite, they usually only get read once and then left on the shelf to collect dust and rot in unused book purgatory. However, there may be other people who would enjoy these no longer read tomes of excitement and knowledge. That is where placed like SecondSale comes in.

SecondSale sells used books. The prices start at $3.78. The site sells all the major genres, plus a variety of education and religious books. I was happy to see that they had pages dedicated to one of my favorite authors, J.R.R Tolkien and his various works, not just The Lord of the Rings.

If you’re looking to sell your stuff, you can also find the information on SecondSale how to do that!

Right now if you use my link to buy used books on SecondSale you can also support Books-and-Games.com and allow me to keep bringing you great reviews! Feel free to give this link a click and check it out! Second Sale

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RedShelf – Digital Textbooks that are helpful!

This blog post has an affiliate link which if you use and make a purchase will supply me, the owner of Books-and-Games.com a percentage of sales which will go to continuing to pay for the use of this website.  You can find further information on my affiliate usage here: https://books-and-games.com/affiliate-disclosure/

Let’s be honest. Textbooks are expensive. Really expensive. You use them for one semester, and can only hope to try to sell them back for less than half the price you spent on them. And of course, if you made any marks on the thing, you’re stuck with the thing taking up space or just chucking it in the trash. You can’t even give it away because another edition will probably replace the darn thing next year. In short, textbooks are a hassle.

You are not doomed to suffer this, however! As there is RedShelf! Honestly, I wish RedShelf had been a thing in the time long ago, when I was a college student! RedShelf not only offers textbooks, but they are very useful. You can highlight without ruining a book (its digital after all!) define words, create flashcards and even have the book read to you! This is only a few of the options RedShelf offers. They really have everything you need to get your study on!

Also, even if you aren’t a student, RedShelf offers a collection of fiction and non-fiction. I plan on checking out their collection the next time I have to do some research!

Right now if you use my link to RedShelf, not only will you secure yourself an excellent study habit, but you will also help support Books-and-Games.com to continue to bring you honest reviews. You can find my affiliate link here! RedShelf Homepage

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Blood Crescent – Book Review

Blood Crescent by S.M. McCoy is the first book in the Divine Series. It follows teenage Chrystal as she navigates the exceptionally confusing world of the supernatural. She spends her days dragged through life as she tries to deal with aspects beyond her control, such as prophecies, genetics, and the attentions of two very attractive vampires. Unfortunately, Chrystal is ill and seems to have sizeable gaps in her memory, making life even more confusing as she looses large portions of her history, only remembering bits here and there.

Blood Cresent is a great story, though the main characters memory loss leaves large gaps of questions, which can make the story feel confusing. However, given the story is told in a first person view, this simply allows the reader to feel the main characters obvious discomfort and confusion. This can leave the reader with a confused feeling as some scenes seem to have large holes due to the main character’s memory lapses, but with that in mind it makes for a fantastic reading experience.

The characters are interesting, but as the story is written from a first person perspective, we only see as much of the characters as Chrystal sees, and again with her memory issues, she only seems parts of these characters. This leaves some of the supporting characters seeming rather one sided and a bit dull. Over all though the bits that we are given about the various characters leave the reader wanting to know more about them.

Over all, Blood Crescent is worth picking up for fans of urban fantasy and paranormal romance. If you want your sexy vampire hit, this is a good book to pick up. I will start reading the second book in the series, Blood Rebirth, as soon as I finish posting this review.

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Bookroo.com – Book clubs for kids!

This blog post has an affiliate link which, if you use and make a purchase, will supply me, the owner of Books-and-Games.com a percentage of sales which will go to continuing to pay for the use of this website. You can find further information on my affiliate usage here: https://books-and-games.com/affiliate-disclosure/

So if you have read any of my reviews for books aimed at children, you know that I take children’s literature very seriously. I have a few reasons for this, but the main one is I grew up with dyslexia and hated reading. Even beyond kids with learning disabilities, it can be hard to help a child learn a love of reading. Let’s be honest, the required reading in school is not always the most entertaining. So that is where a book club like Bookroo can come in handy!

Bookroo offers book clubs for children ages 0 to 12! That means you can find entertaining stories to help grow your child’s love of reading from the time they are in the cradle till you’re crying because they got their first crush in school!

You can check out Bookroo today with this link and not only will you find some entertaining book clubs for children, you will also help support Books-and-Games.com so I can continue to bring you content! Check out the link below!

Join our Middle Grade Chapter Book Club now! Monthly, 3 month, and 6 month subscriptions available on bookroo.com!

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Grammarly – Helping you Proofread

This blog post has an affiliate link which if you use and make a purchase will supply me, the owner of Books-and-Games.com a percentage of sales that will go to continuing to pay for the use of this website. You can find further information on my affiliate usage here: https://books-and-games.com/affiliate-disclosure/

If you write a lot for a living, or just for fun, you probably find that you spend a lot of time editing your content. Which can be time-consuming and difficult at times. The English language is a tricky one, even for a native speaker. We do not remember all the rules we were taught back in school. And sometimes you never even think of the more complicated ideas. Like, the difference between a comma and an Oxford comma. Thankfully in today’s modern internet world, we have applications like Grammarly, which help you quickly and easily fix your writing.

Grammarly is more than a spellchecker, so do not let that fool you. It also displays how well you are doing right on your screen, telling you the correctness, clarity, engagement, and delivery of your writing making sure that beyond spelling correctly, your writing also makes sense. Now these are just the free features, the premium also offers you even more, such as punctuation in complex sentences and word choice suggestions!

I used Grammarly to write this affiliate post, and I strongly suggest people give Grammarly a try, and if you use my link here with this post, you can also help support Books-and-Games.com with your purchase. Check out Grammarly here: https://shareasale.com/r.cfm?b=864277&u=2915328&m=26748&urllink=&afftrack=

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The Provenance Book One of Astar’s Blade – A Review

The Provenance (Book One of Astar’s Blade) is a history of a fictional world. Particularly the area of the Mid-Run Valley and a few other locations within the world. This fictional history is told through two time lines, the present period of the world and the distance past of the world. The stories follow both the actions of the world’s deities and their children, and the life of a young man whose family is cursed with the vision of ghosts. 

As the story progresses, you learn about how the past worked to create the world that the rest of the story takes place it. You experience everything from flawed gods with an ancient Greek mythology feel to them, to a young man’s desperate climb of a mountain to learn what ghosts so desperately want him to know. Is he simply mad or is there really something waiting for him to learn?

The Provenance is a great story. It is not very often that an author offers such an in-depth history of the world they have built. Often you are merely given as much knowledge as a current plot requires you to know. Sneak peaks in to different aspects of the world the main character sits in. The Provenance, however, pours two histories at you which tie together in to a wonderful story line allowing you to learn much of the world. If other novels by Joe Lyon provide as much detail in to their stories as this one, I will be hooked to the series for life.

The story of The Provenance flows well until the end, where my one issue arises regarding this story. The ending seems far too sudden, as though it was thrown in rather quickly. Despite this single issue, reading about the journey that leads to this climax makes up for sudden ending, and also leaves one interested in future books of the series. There are some questions that I hope the other novels answer.

Fans of fantasy should pick up The Provenance and any other work by Joe Lyon they may get their hands on! 

You can find out more about The Provenance on Reedsy Discovery https://reedsy.com/discovery/book/the-provenance-joe-lyon#review

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