23 | May | 2018 | Brainfluff

Can’t-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted at Wishful Endings, to spotlight and discuss the books we’re excited about that we have yet to read. Generally they’re books that have yet to be released. It’s based on Waiting on Wednesday, hosted by the fabulous Jill at Breaking the Spine.

This week’s Can’t-Wait offering – Drop by Drop – Book 1 of the Step by Step trilogy by Morgan Llywelyn

#science fiction #apocalyptic #near future

In this first book in the Step By Step trilogy, global catastrophe occurs as all plastic mysteriously liquefies. All the small components making many technologies possible―Navigation systems, communications, medical equipment―fail.

In Sycamore River, citizens find their lives disrupted as everything they’ve depended on melts around them, with sometimes fatal results. All they can rely upon is themselves. And this is only the beginning . . .

I’ll be honest – it’s that cover that sold with one for me. I do enjoy the occasional apocalyptic adventure and this one sounded intriguingly different. The idea of all the plastics suddenly turning into a gooey mess makes me shudder… No hoover… no washing machine – and worst of all – no computer or phone! Though at least my collection of real books would be readable.

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Teaser Tuesday is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by The Purple Booker.
Anyone can play along! Just do the following:
• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

This is my choice of the day:

Gwithyas: Door to the Void by Isha Crowe
20% Old, yellow paper that crumbles, so I have to hold it carefully. The first words, in elaborate old-fashioned handwriting, are: ‘I will mourn you forever, my love.’
I put it aside. Too labour-intensive to read, and way too depressing. At the moment I don’t want to learn about the miserable fates of my pathetic ancestors. I feel bad enough as it is, and really don’t need to be reminded of how hopeless our situation is, how impossible it is that Mum will ever live in the nice, sunny house she so desires, that my sisters will ever go to school, that Dad will ever smile. Or that I will ever live the life of a normal boy.

BLURB: Zircon Gwithyas just wants to be a normal teenager, preferably one with a girlfriend. If you’re a spotty nerd with glasses as thick as jam jars, that isn’t easy.
It’s even harder when you live in a derelict manor on a haunted hill with a bunch of spooky eccentrics for a family, and the object of your affection is an irritable sword-wielding college student.
It becomes virtually impossible when you are dragged into a dark, chaotic semi-reality where your moderately-deceased ancestors expect you to save the world from a horde of grotesque demons with a fondness for torture…

This is a delightful, quirky read that I’m really enjoying. It reminds me more than a little of Matt Haig’s The Radleys as this teenage boy in the middle of paranormal mayhem is yearning for a normal existence. I have yet to discover if his dream comes true – I’m going to guess it probably doesn’t.