Kings of Leon O2 Arena London, 12th June 2013

Did I mention it was my birthday last week? Despite the fact that a certain American diner decided to keep taunting me with emails reminding me of my age in big bold letters, I refused to let the day go by without celebrating in the best way possible and what better way could there be than with 20,000 people and four guys from Nashville?

As if they KNEW it was my birthday, Kings of Leon scheduled two gigs at the O2 arena during my birthday week and lets face it, it would have been rude of me not to turn up to my own party, right?

It’s been a while since we saw their faces on our shores, particularly after the troubles that followed the release of difficult ‘beachy’ fifth album Come Around Sundown and so this long-awaited tour was bound to be met with some trepidation and anxiety. We’re fans. We want the show to be amazing. We want all our favourite songs. And we want a gig that we know we will be talking about forever.

And I’m so damn pleased to say this gig did all that and so much more.

The break has done the boys the world of good. They looked happy….yes, happy! And we had smiles throughout. They looked refreshed, sounded INCREDIBLE and the energy was just off the scale. I was fortunate enough to go to the Radio One Rivoli Ballroom gig and I have to say, as awesome as it was, I always felt it would ruin any future gigs for me. After all, what could possibly top seeing your favourite band – a stadium/arena band no less – in an 800 capacity venue with just 300 people in attendance?

Well, I have to say Wednesday’s gig at the O2 was pretty damn amazing competition. The set list was stunning – we got Milk, Cold Desert, Molly’s Chambers, Crawl, the obligatory SoF and two new songs from the yet-to-be-released album, to name but a few! Apparently the set list on the Thursday gig was even better….I was more than a little jealous that the Thursday crowd got Arizona, Trani and Holy Roller Novocaine but there’s no way I’m complaining about the Wednesday tunes!

The crowd was totally fired up and finding ourselves just a couple of rows back from the barrier on Matty’s side, we had one hell of a party. I can’t remember dancing so much at a gig (barring Kasabian at Wembley Stadium) and I think I smiled more than the band did. With a raucous encore of Closer, Use Somebody and Black Thumbnail, we left the arena with literally no voices, very sore feet and on a buzz that would last for days.

If this gig is anything to go by….our boys are definitely back….not that they ever left us mind you, but they’ve definitely left thousands of fans chomping at the bit for the new album and fingers crossed for a showcase tour before Christmas

**********

If you want to follow the band’s progress on this tour and the summer festival dates, please check out @KoLFanblog on twitter, Facebook and http://www.KoLFanBlog.com as the girls continue to keep us all updated on all the dates and latest KoL news

Review Time! Blood Roses by Lindsay J. Pryor

Afternoon bloggers, writers, friends and weirdo’s,

You may recall, a couple of months ago I blogged about the release of Lindsay J. Pryor’s new book, Blood Roses, second novel of the fabulous Blackthorn series. I also promised a review but in true Cinnamon style, I left everyone hanging as usual but in my defence I had a good reason or a half-baked excuse, whichever way you like to look at it. Work was crazy stressful and I also knew I had to put what little time I had into finishing Blood Wars, book three in my Dark Sanctuary series.

But as you know, Blood Wars has reached it’s grand finale very recently and so I can now get back to back-flipping, cartwheeling and body popping around the room in honour of an amazing writer and her wonderful book.

It’s no secret that I am a huge fan of Lindsay and her Blackthorn series. In a world where everyone wants their vampires to sparkle and be, well, just howdy-doody piano playing perfection, the Blackthorn series grabs hold of contemporary vampire portrayal by the balls, rips out its throat and hangs it from the highest building. So let that be a lesson to you all, okay?

There’s no doubt the Blackthorn vampires are sexy, but they’re eternally dark, often cruel and more dangerous than a pit full of angry vipers. You think you’d survive a night in the polluted, sweat-drenched, vampire infested Blackthorn? Leila, Lindsay’s new feisty flame-haired heroine, knows the dangers of Blackthorn only too well and also knows that the likelihood of getting out of there alive is no mean feat, but with her beloved sister Alisha apparently in the clutches of some vamps, Leila has no choice but to venture into the one place she knows she shouldn’t go.

Leila is no ordinary Summerton gal, in fact shes’s not even an ordinary witch, she’s a serryn and that makes her potentially as dangerous to vampires as they are to her, so it’s no wonder that Caleb Dehain isn’t about to let her leave town anytime soon.

Discovered and captured by one very dangerous, dark and most-certainly brooding vampire, Leila soon finds herself embroiled in the midst of Prophecy and in a fight to prove to Caleb that she isn’t the killer he believes her to be. A growing and unwanted attraction to her captor soon means Leila is fighting for so much more than her very precious soul; she’s fighting to keep hold of her heart too and it’s not a battle that she seems likely to win.

One thing that struck me about Blood Roses is that whilst most of the book is set in the confines of Caleb’s lair, rather than restrict the action, this works wonders in building up the hot and heavy sexual tension between our two main protagonists as there really is nowhere for Leila to run to. As the reader, you can almost feel the panic and desperation growing within Leila every minute she is forced to remain in Caleb’s company, not to mention the burning attraction they are both feeling. I could literally feel the hairs on my neck prickling throughout as the fear, panic and tension emanates from each page, until the point where I was almost climbing the walls with them.

Secondly, and what I’m starting to see is one of Lindsay’s great skills as a writer, is that there is nothing predictable about Blood Roses, unlike some contemporary vampire novels where you can guess the plot way before you’ve reached the end. You’re never quite sure who to trust, who to believe in, whether good will out, or whether the characters will force the plot down some dark path. It’s always suspenseful, always exciting and always keeps you guessing right up until the very end and to me, that’s what’s so very special about the Blackthorn series.

There’s always that concern with the second book that it might not match up to the success of the first, but there’s no worries about that with Blood Roses. Lindsay introduces us to new characters, throws us into a new adventure, and gets the reader enthralled in a new story that keeps us just as hooked as Blood Shadows did.

Feisty heroines, dark and sexy anti-heroes and a world we just can’t help getting lost in, Blood Roses has it all. Five out of five!!!

This is ….. The End

Afternoon bloggers, friends, weirdo’s and aliens.

So….the big news (well big to me anyway) is that yesterday I finally finished Blood Wars, Book Three in the Dark Sanctuary series and posted the final chapters to Wattpad.

There won’t be another book in the series, this is the final one. I should feel elated, right? I mean, I finished writing a novel after all. Months of work. Months of trying to catch some time to finish another chapter. To finish it is an achievement, surely? Yet, I feel…..well, slightly numb.

Is that normal? I never felt like this after the first two were finished but maybe that’s because I always knew there was going to be another book and I didn’t have to say goodbye to my characters just yet. I never intended to write a fourth in the series. Don’t get me wrong, whilst a big part of me could just keep writing Michael and Sarah’s story forever, I never wanted it to become strained and I was worried that is what it would become if I carried on.

But what will I do without Michael, Sarah and the rest of the gang in my life? Just over four years ago, I sat down and started writing the story of a young woman who had locked herself away in a little grey cottage out in the Bedfordshire countryside, hiding from a life-time of horrors that stalked her every move and I never expected to become so immersed in her world. But I guess that is what happens when you’re a writer. These characters might be fictional, but when you spend so much time thinking about how they look, the way they talk, the way in which they move, how they would react in each situation, they are not so much words on a page, but living, breathing people. And it’s incredibly difficult to say goodbye.

But goodbye it is and apart from thanking Sarah and Michael themselves for captivating me enough to want to keep writing their story, I have to say thank you to the real-life people who have helped and supported me along the way. I do feel that this is the part where Louis Walsh pops up and says ‘You’ve been on an incredible journey…blah..blah…blah’ but oh well….here goes anyway *cue Leona Lewis music*

My husband and son – for putting up with my own self-imposed exile in order to write these books. I have a habit of shutting myself off to write, to the exclusion of those around me and I’m not sure I would want to live with a writer, so god knows how you put up with it. I love you.

My family – for not hysterically laughing at me when I finally revealed that I liked to write. And for reading something which maybe isn’t your usual cup of tea just because your daughter/sister happened to write it.

To the ones whose fault it is I continued to write Dark Sanctuary – Hayley Gillam, Karen Cross and Chrissie Thompson; the first ones to read any of my stuff. I blame you all equally

My friends who have dutifully read the series, probably out of obligation, but hey, thanks anyway . You’re all amazing but a special shout out goes to Karen C, Donna, Kelly, Kazbah, Nadia, Dawn-Marie, Kathy, Jacqui and my trusted beta reader Alison (who is way more talented than I could ever hope to be).

Divas Daily Bookblog – thank you to Tina and Jules for being the first to write reviews of Dark Sanctuary and Lost Creatures. You guys are just awesome!

My Wattpad family – I couldn’t possibly name you all but I hope you know who you are. Many of you have been reading the series since I first started posting the first book and your support, comments and votes for an unpublished writer constantly amazes me. I never thought one person would read it, let alone all of you, so thank you – you rock!

Anyway….I think that’s enough sentimental crap for one day.

Time to start writing something new…….;-)

Linz xxx

PS. If you haven’t read Dark Sanctuary, please shimmy, shake or body-pop your way along to Wattpad.

http://www.wattpad.com/story/2108497-dark-sanctuary-book-one-in-the-dark-sanctuary

Dark Sanctuary is on Facebook!

Evening friends, bloggers, writers and Kermit the Frog.

Just a short post to let you all know that I’ve created a Facebook page for my Dark Sanctuary series.

If you are a DS fan, please feel free to come along and give it the big thumbs up, or even if you haven’t read the series but have been following my WordPress posts, please come along also and show your support, I would love to see you all there.

https://www.facebook.com/TheDarkSanctuarySeries

Have a wonderful weekend all, it’s our penultimate bank holiday of the year in the UK so I will be spending it lazing on the sofa, flicking through endless TV channels of nothing and eating my weight in indoor picnic buffet food. It’s a tough life, eh?

Linz xxxxx

RIP Ray Manzarek

Evening readers, bloggers, friends and weirdos,

Today in the UK, we have witnessed (courtesy of many at-the-ready camera phones) just how crazy, screwed up and evil our world can be and as is duly the case these days after an event such as the Woolwich attack, our social media sites explode with hatred and bigotry, with people fighting between themselves instead of respecting the fact that someone has lost their life and somewhere right now, a family are in mourning.

And so I’m seeking safe haven somewhere other than Twitter and Facebook. Tumblr was a good bet. Still a million pictures of doughnuts, kittens and quotes about love. Wattpad was also a good option. Just a gazillion great reads that help you escape from reality. And then I remembered WordPress, a place I should definitely visit more often.

And so I’m here to pay respects and show love for another loss suffered earlier this week, albeit from very different circumstances, and I’m sorry for not commenting sooner on the passing of dear Ray Manzarek.

I, like many others, am exceptionally guilty of waxing lyrical about Jim Morrison and rarely mentioning the other three members of The Doors, all fundamental to creating some of my favourite songs of all time. And there’s no doubt that without Ray’s vision, The Doors would never have existed.

Recently my husband and I watched a documentary, which I think was on Sky Arts, all about The Doors and I don’t know how old the docu was, but in it we saw a tanned, good-looking white-haired Ray talking about his experiences of The Doors during Jim’s lifetime. I recall us laughing (although in a good-natured way) at the way Ray spoke….like a true product of sixties America, all like-wow-man narrative and I could clearly picture Jim and Ray during that first instrumental meeting discussing poetry, Dylan, music. And we can all go on about Jim until the cows come home (and I will always) but without Ray there was no band. Without Ray, maybe Jim would never have become a rock star. Who knows?

Ad so, albeit a bit delayed, I say thank you to Ray. For the passion, the vision and the awesome keyboard playing!!!

RIP you wonderful man xx

Happy Star Wars Day!!!

Today is International Star Wars Day and time for me to release my inner nerd!

Sorry I couldn’t resist posting this but yes, I admit, I’m a Star Wars fan. Not only do I love the films and characters, but Star Wars just brings back memories of my childhood that will always stay with me. Usually those memories include my big brother as he is a massive fan, so to him, I dedicate this post.

For me it conjures up memories of Christmas as you could guarantee one of the films was always on TV on Christmas Day. Also my brother and I would always laugh at the part in the bar, in Star Wars IV: A New Hope (although back then it was just Star Wars lol) when the band was playing, because our dad was in a band and we used to giggle and name each weird alien creature after members of our day’s band (sorry dad).

It also reminds me of how my brother had all these Star Wars figures and he used to spend literally forever setting up these camps using MY Ladybird books, stacking up this pyramid tower and placing each figure inside his/her own ‘tent’. I always wanted to play soooooo bad, but he’d never let me so usually I’d go in and kick the side of the pyramid so it would all collapse. Evil, right? Ha!

Anyway, whatever memories it conjures, I’ll always love Star Wars and now I have a son of my own, I get to release my inner nerd without fear of being pointed out and shamed for my total geekiness. And geekiness isn’t even a word, so that makes me an even bigger geek.

Live long and prosper. Shit, wrong film.

May the Fourth be with you. Always.

Dark Sanctuary – New Cover!

Evening friends, readers, bloggers and weirdos.

I’ve been playing around with the cover of Dark Sanctuary again – I think I’ve changed it about four times now, but hoping I might stick with this one for a while

I’ve tried to resist this contemporary love for book covers with character’s faces on, always preferring my reader to imagine the characters for themselves rather than me force-feeding an image into their head, but I appreciate it seems to work, particularly with YA fiction.

So I’ve relented and have gone with a Sarah theme on all the covers, after all it is HER story so it kind of makes sense.

I’m also hoping it might revive some love for the first book on Wattpad; with the rankings being confusing as ever, Dark Sanctuary had held strong in the top 100 for some time and now doesn’t even rank at all. So if you like the cover and you have a small passion for all things vampire, please do go check it out and vote/comment if you can

Thank you,

Love as always,
Linz xx