Hi! I’m Kristen, curator of this little bookish blog. I’m glad you are here and I hope you enjoy your visit. Please feel free to poke around and comment. I love discussion!
About me – I’m a medievalist by study, a geek by nature, and a hopeful bestselling author waiting to be discovered. My goal in life is to retire before I’m too old to enjoy traveling, and my ultimate plan is to buy a small home in England and another somewhere else in Europe and bounce between the two; then I would never have to come back to the US. I adore medieval holy women, even though I’m an atheist. I just think they’re fascinating. My favorites are Hildegard of Bingen, Julian of Norwich, and Margery Kempe.
I’m a sole parent and my daughter is amazing. She is the joy of my life. She has always read well above her grade level. She loves sci-fi, too, plays electric bass in a teen rock band. I think I’m doing something right.
As for my geek nature, all things revolve around Star Trek in my world. My first fanfiction was Trek. My first ‘ship was P/C. I even got accepted as one of the contributors to the Strange New Worlds 2016 (Star Trek) anthology! I also wrote an article about Star Trek: Discovery, mostly because I have a huge crush on Jason Isaacs. If you want, you can read it here: This Is Why Starfleet Needs Gabriel Lorca.
Since I was reared on sci-fi/fantasy, all other SFF fandoms are fair game as well. Firefly, Dr. Who, The X-Files, Battlestar Galactica, anything similar are beloved and food for discussion in my house.
I wrote my first book, a nonfiction about, well, The Two Isabellas of King John, published by Pen & Sword. Next will be a fiction novel. I love the writing process but have learned that I have more fun when I get to make things up.
In my professional life, I work at University of Phoenix in the College of General Studies, supervising a team of awesome entry-point class instructors. I also teach for UOPX, mostly fairy tales and folklore, literature of the fantastic (AKA, Sci-fi/fantasy), and early to Renaissance Brit Lit, with the occasional Shakespeare class thrown in for good measure. I write weird stories and submit them wherever I can, often under a pseudonym.
For my own reviews, my star rating is thus:
1 star = I absolutely hated it for some reason which I always explain in my review, assuming I didn’t DNF it. If I DNF a book, I either refrain from reviewing it or, depending on why I DNF it, I will say why. I will never, ever recommend one of these books.
2 star = I didn’t hate it but it was a solid meh for me at best. These are almost always books that I wouldn’t recommend and certainly wouldn’t read again.
3 star = I liked it or found it interesting/informative. I may not have found it to be a page turner, but I did want to finish it and see what happens. OR, it might be a real page turner story-wise but isn’t that well-written or has other issues, which I will explain in my review. The majority of my reviews are 3 stars, and it is not a bad rating in my world.
4 star = I loved it and/or found it impossible to put down. These books will have deeply developed characters and worldbuilding, beautiful writing that makes me want to highlight a lot, and/or are so much fun that I read it to the exclusion of doing anything else I’m supposed to be doing.
5 star = I fucking loved it. These books cover all the same things as in my 4-star ratings AND it created some kind of emotional response in me in one way or another. I will very likely proselytize to anyone within range about a book I rate as 5-stars. Very few books I read get a 5 star rating.
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