Trey Stone's Blog, page 8

One Great Reason You Should Read Books On Your Phone

If you’re anything like me, you probably have a phone.

Of course you do. Everyone does.

But if you’re like me, it’s probably a smart phone. A little rectangular brick of plastic and electronics that has access to almost all the information in the world and can beam it straight into your face with the click of a button. It’s quite incredible.

It can also be quite exhausting. I have at least 6 different apps where I communicate with people, either through text, voice or video, I have 5 different email accounts that I need to monitor for different reasons, and I a gazilion other apps that keep sending me notifications. Of course, I can (and have) turned off many of them , but when you have friends all over the world, you kind of have to pay attention if you want to stay in touch.

On top of all that I pay my bill on my phone, check the weather, do my taxes, keep up with my team at work, try to learn a language, take pictures, book flights, keep tickets and boarding cards, buy my train tickets, and even charge my car.

There’s a lot of stuff happening on that little brick – and we haven’t even covered all the mindless scrolling and staring that I do just for fun.

So, when I find myself staring into that unholy abyss, for the 9th straight hour of the day, wondering what it was I was supposed to remember to do, and feeling like it’s all a bit much and getting to me — I open a book.

Suddenly, that black screen is just a story.

People used to raise their eyebrows at me for reading on my phone. “Real books are so much better,” they’d say. Or, “Ever heard of a Kindle?” More often than not, they’d assume I was playing a game.

But I love reading books on my phone. It means I literally always have my book with me. I can read it on the train, in line at the store, during my break at work, on the toilet… I can read whenever I want!

And the best thing about it is that I can make that little black rectangle be something else than just a source of stress and headaches. I can close all the little programs that ru(i)n my life, and just read a story for a while. And that feels like an antidote.

… And no, my eyes don’t get sore. Just turn the brightness down, and use a red light filter.

As always, I’d absolutely love it if you checked out my books. You can find them all right here.

And if you’re into books, subscribe to my newsletter, and I’ll make sure you get all the best news first!

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Book Review: Breaking Bones by Robert White

This, was, great!

I hadn’t heard about Robert White or any of his books before I came across this on Audible. I don’t know if it was a sale or if it was just my credits piling up, but for some reason this book intrigued me and I jumped at the chance. Who doesn’t love a good gnarly crime thriller now and then?

And oh boy is it gnarly. It’s dark, gritty, violent, graphic and evil, and it’s exactly what you expect from a proper British crime thriller. I’m sure if you went to Merriam-Webster for the definition on gnarly, British crime this book would show up.

It follows a trio of friends, Tony, Eddie and Frankie – the inseparable school yard bullies who grow up to become the local gangsters – The Three Dogs. They’re clever, violent and ruthless, and they’ll do anything to get out on top.

The story is told from the perspective of a police officer who deals with the Three Dogs, but who also knew them from when they were little. This gives a unique insight into their early days and the way they grew up. It’s told from a sort of general, wide-arching overview, and to begin with you don’t really see where the story is going. It’s just a group of kids, you know, and we don’t really get where it’s going from the start. It’s different.

But when a girl gets between Frankie and Jamie, a young royal marine and his crazy, Australian partner, things really kick off – and it’s fantastic!

This book really surprised me. It’s a fast-paced gut punch that won’t leave you hanging for even a second. It’s dark and violent, but at times lovely and heartfelt. I can see myself reading more of Robert White.

But! – it is very graphic. So let that be a warning to you if you don’t like violence. These lads are proper gangster and they know it.

Have you ever read Robert White or is he on your radar? Let me know what you think in the comments!

Oh – and if you like fast-paced, hard-hitting crime thrillers like this, please do check out my books! The Columbus Archives in particular will be right up your alley. You can find all my books here!

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New Release – The Hunt is out!

I’m very excited to share the news that the Lost Boys Press anthology I wrote for – Empire of Beasts – and my short story The Hunt is out today!

Empire of Beasts is an “anthology of the unhuman” and it’s full of excellent fantasy stories.

The half-human inhabitants of the Amalgamal hurtle through space on a multi-generational journey to an unknown destination. 

The whales below the sea slip through rifts in time to sing new things into creation. 

A family of bears journey from their mountain home to burn a wooden effigy of their lost son. 

A party of predators ventures into the hills, shrugging off the cold and their own fears, to negotiate the return of The Hunt.

These are just a few of the adventures that await you in the empire of the beasts, if you are brave enough to go looking.

You seriously don’t want to miss this one. Head over to the Lost Boys Shop and pick it up today!

Oh, and if you’re interested in my other books and stories, you can find them all here. I appreciate the support immensely.

Subscribers to my mailing list receive a special offer code for this book, and though it has already gone out, it’s available until December 8. Subscribe today and shoot me a message at treystoneauthor@gmail.com and I’ll make sure you get one too!

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Book Review: Death Note by Tsugumi Ohba

Perhaps the best story ever written!

It started at some point in the mid-2000s, when a friend of mine first introduced me to anime. Sure, I’d seen a few shows when I was younger, like Pokémon and Digimon, but I’d never really understood or properly grasped the concept until then. I think the show my friend tried to make me watch was Fullmetal Alchemist (which I ended up watching and loving(!) a little bit later), but after never really getting into it, he came up to me at school one day with this other show I needed to watch:

“Go home and watch Death Note. You’ve never seen anything like it – I promise!”

Sure enough, I did as he said, and I’ve never regretted it since. I don’t know how many times I’ve seen the anime, but it’s a lot. It’s an absolutely amazing show, even if you don’t particularly like anime at all. There are also a few of the live-action adaptions, including a Netflix movie from a few years ago, but none of them quite live up to the anime.

But now I’ve finally read the manga as well! (Manga, if you’re not aware, are Japanese cartoons.)

Let’s take a step back. If you’ve never heard of Death Note before, you’re probably wondering what it’s all about. Well, it’s in the name, really. It’s about a Death Note and the boy who finds it.

In the world Death Note is set in, there exists a supernatural realm where Shinigami reside – Gods of Death. They all own death notes and they use them to end the lives of humans (when it is their time) for the simple reason that they need to do this to no die themselves.

Well, one day, the shinigami Ryuk finds himself particularly bored, and he drops his death note into the world of humans.

A high school student by the name of Light Yagami picks it up, opens it up, and starts reading the rules.

“The human whose name is written in this notebook, shall die.”

The first and most basic rule of the death note. There are many others, which I won’t spoil in this review, but Light Yagami can’t help himself and decides to test the notebook. He writes the name of a criminal he sees on the news, a man who’s holding a bunch of people hostage, and wouldn’t you know… suddenly all the hostages are free and the man is dead.

Light Yagami suddenly finds himself holding an incredible amount of power in his hands – and with it, the ability to rid the world of criminals and evil.

What follows is a most excellent story full of mind games, mysteries and thrills, as the world tries to figure out how all of these people are ending up dead. All the while, Light grows more cunning and sinister.

The anime is fantastic. It’s dark and serious, yet it has enough of that anime charm you come to expect from an anime. It’s a fantastic place to start, even if you don’t particularly like anime, and it’s much better than any of the movie adaptions.

The manga however, is better. The first thing I noticed was that some things happened out of order from the way I remembered them. So you kind of see the consequences of things before you understand how they come to pass. Considering it’s been a while since I last saw the show, that was an excellent way to re-experience it all.

Also, it’s just so much more fleshed out. There’s a lot of internal dialogue and thought processes that’s been cut out of the show – because it just doesn’t make sense to hear what everyone’s thinking all the time (and to be fair, occasionally, it’s a little over the top) – but it gives you so much more insight into the characters.

If you feel like you need more Death Note in your life – which you probably, definitely do – or if you feel like you want to try and read a manga, but don’t know where to start, I highly recommend Death Note. I got the all-in-one edition and it’s only about 2400 pages. No sweat!

As always – I’d love it if you checked out my books! Every little ounce of support is very much appreciated. You have no idea how much it means!

Oh, and subscribe to my mailing list!

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Manga & Anime Review: Death Note by Tsugumi Ohba

Perhaps the best story ever written!

It started at some point in the mid-2000s, when a friend of mine first introduced me to anime. Sure, I’d seen a few shows when I was younger, like Pokémon and Digimon, but I’d never really understood or properly grasped the concept until then. I think the show my friend tried to make me watch was Fullmetal Alchemist (which I ended up watching and loving(!) a little bit later), but after never really getting into it, he came up to me at school one day with this other show I needed to watch:

“Go home and watch Death Note. You’ve never seen anything like it – I promise!”

Sure enough, I did as he said, and I’ve never regretted it since. I don’t know how many times I’ve seen the anime, but it’s a lot. It’s an absolutely amazing show, even if you don’t particularly like anime at all. There are also a few of the live-action adaptions, including a Netflix movie from a few years ago, but none of them quite live up to the anime.

But now I’ve finally read the manga as well! (Manga, if you’re not aware, are Japanese cartoons.)

Let’s take a step back. If you’ve never heard of Death Note before, you’re probably wondering what it’s all about. Well, it’s in the name, really. It’s about a Death Note and the boy who finds it.

In the world Death Note is set in, there exists a supernatural realm where Shinigami reside – Gods of Death. They all own death notes and they use them to end the lives of humans (when it is their time) for the simple reason that they need to do this to no die themselves.

Well, one day, the shinigami Ryuk finds himself particularly bored, and he drops his death note into the world of humans.

A high school student by the name of Light Yagami picks it up, opens it up, and starts reading the rules.

“The human whose name is written in this notebook, shall die.”

The first and most basic rule of the death note. There are many others, which I won’t spoil in this review, but Light Yagami can’t help himself and decides to test the notebook. He writes the name of a criminal he sees on the news, a man who’s holding a bunch of people hostage, and wouldn’t you know… suddenly all the hostages are free and the man is dead.

Light Yagami suddenly finds himself holding an incredible amount of power in his hands – and with it, the ability to rid the world of criminals and evil.

What follows is a most excellent story full of mind games, mysteries and thrills, as the world tries to figure out how all of these people are ending up dead. All the while, Light grows more cunning and sinister.

The anime is fantastic. It’s dark and serious, yet it has enough of that anime charm you come to expect from an anime. It’s a fantastic place to start, even if you don’t particularly like anime, and it’s much better than any of the movie adaptions.

The manga however, is better. The first thing I noticed was that some things happened out of order from the way I remembered them. So you kind of see the consequences of things before you understand how they come to pass. Considering it’s been a while since I last saw the show, that was an excellent way to re-experience it all.

Also, it’s just so much more fleshed out. There’s a lot of internal dialogue and thought processes that’s been cut out of the show – because it just doesn’t make sense to hear what everyone’s thinking all the time (and to be fair, occasionally, it’s a little over the top) – but it gives you so much more insight into the characters.

If you feel like you need more Death Note in your life – which you probably, definitely do – or if you feel like you want to try and read a manga, but don’t know where to start, I highly recommend Death Note. I got the all-in-one edition and it’s only about 2400 pages. No sweat!

As always – I’d love it if you checked out my books! Every little ounce of support is very much appreciated. You have no idea how much it means!

Oh, and subscribe to my mailing list!

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Book Review: Gideon The Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

I finally got around to reading it!

Back in 2019-2020 this book was the only one anyone ever read, by the sounds of it. Everywhere you turned people were talking about Tamsyn Muir and how amazing her scifi-fantasy debut was! And it is! I knew already then that I wanted to read it, and finally I found myself at that spot in my To-Be-Read Pile.

Gideon the Ninth follows the story of – you guessed it! – Gideon, the Ninth. She is so called because she comes from the ninth house, on the ninth planet in Muir’s sci-fi/fantasy universe. And what a universe it is! It’s a dark and dreary world, full of necromancers, skeletons, bones, blood magic, sword fighting and mysterious tombs. Its awesome straight out of the gate!

We follow Gideon as she is tricked into becoming the cavalier of the heir of the Ninth house, the necromancer Harrowhaw Nonagesimus, and they travel to the first house to compete at becoming a lictor for the emperor. Of course, so does a pair of necromancers and cavaliers from all the other planets, the second to the eigth, and thus, our story beings.

Gideon must deal with being a good cavalier (something she isn’t, for reasons I won’t spoil), while also trying to get a long with Harrowhawk to be able to solve the challenges of the first house. Of course – not everything is as it seems.

All in all, I liked the book, I really did, but it still wasn’t without issues. Gideon is a very snarky lady, and I mean very snarky – so much so that at times it becomes exhausting to listen to. And when the narrator half of the time is snarky as well, it often times pulled me out of the story.

Also – I struggled to get the world. Don’t get me wrong, it’s awesome. It’s dark and terrible and full of skeletal monsters and it’s right up my alley – but they have space ships that seem to quite easily jump between planets, they carry swords and wear skeletal facepaint, yet they have… electric lights and rotating toothbrushes? Is this a sci-fi thing, a dark medieval fantasy thing, or a modern thing? Sure, it can be all those things, but at the same time, I kept getting caught up in understanding the world.

Another thing – and this is not a critique of the book itself – but it’s a horrible book to read as an audibook. Every single character has insane names to begin with, and many of them have as many as three nicknames. Gideon is for example called both Gideon, Griddle, and Nav, for some reason, and it confused me a lot in the beginning. I had to Google the characters multiple times to manage to follow along.

But it’s a cool book, it’s fun and it’s different, and I can understand that it took the world by storm. Personally, I’d love it if it was darker and at times more serious, but that’s probably on me.

As always – I’d love it if you checked out my books! Fast-paced crime and psychological thrills for all!

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Writing A Book In Two Weeks – Looking At It Two Years Later

Two and a half years ago – because the world was closed down and I had nowhere to go – I sat down to write a book.

Two weeks later, I had a finished draft.

Since then, I haven’t even looked at that draft, not even once. Not until now, when I suddenly found myself having time to sit down and read through it, before I start editing and revising, and I figured this could be a good lesson and an opportunity to evaluate myself.

Back then, I seem to be pretty happy with the results. You can read all about here, but the gist of it seems to be that I was happy with the experience, that it wasn’t half as bad as I thought it would be, and that I surprised myself. You see, I usually don’t write enough when I draft, and I often flesh out scenes in the later editing phase. You’d think it’d be difficult for me to write such a huge amount in such a short time, but apparently I managed.

I also didn’t use to plan my books. Now, that has changed over the course of the last two and a half years, but back then I would just sit down and write whatever came to my head, in the moment, starting out with a very basic idea and see where it took me.

So – now that I’ve picked up the book again and finally started going through it, how do I think it went?

Well, I’m only about 20% in, but so far, I’m impressed. The plot seems driven and strong, and the characters are surprisingly nuanced. Most of the scenes also appear to be unusually fleshed out and detailed. Maybe I’ve been underestimating myself before?

But the spelling mistakes… Oh wow. Deliberately writing as fast as you can does something weird to your brain. There are so many crazy spelling mistakes, so many missing words and wrong uses of words, it’s hilarious. It looks like I could have been drunk the entire time (which I’m fairly certain I wasn’t!)

I’ll come back to this post and update as I go through more of the book, but so far, I’m impressed with past Me!

17 Years

We’ve known each other since we were little. Been to school together, celebrated birthdays and played together.

It wasn’t until high school, when we found each other again, that we decided to try and be together.

That was 17 years ago, yesterday.

Since then, we’ve lived eight different places together. In two different countries.

We’ve been east, we’ve been west. We’ve seen more of the world than I could ever imagine. We spent five years abroad, and two years on an Arctic island.

We spent five years apart, chasing dreams, degrees and futures. We cherished the ups, and fought against the lows.It was hard, at times, but always worth it.

We’ve built homes together. Raised nephews and spoiled nieces.

We’ve had successes. We’ve failed.

And I can’t wait to do it all over again.

To the next 17 years.

Book Review: The Sunlit Man by Brandon Sanderson

There we have it! The fourth and last book in Brandon Sanderson’s secret four-books-a-year kickstarter project – and what a book it is!

I think I’ve mentioned in every review of the three other kickstarter projects so far, that I was not well-versed in Sanderson’s writing and his many, many universes. I’d read Skyward (my first of his books) and the first in the Mistborn series. Other than that, I’d heard things about him here and there, and I knew he was a force to be reckoned with, but my knowledge stopped there.

Then I read Tress and the Emerald Sea. A fantastic sci-fi/fantasy adventure, one that I look forward to reading again and I was immediately hooked in. This kickstarter that I’d signed up for on a whim seemed to deliver excellent book and I couldn’t wait for the next one.

Unfortunately, the next one was a bit of a let down. The Frugal Wizard’s Handbook for Surviving Medieval England was good, don’t get me wrong, but it was a very different vibe from Tress and just didn’t pull me in with that same amazing world-building and story telling that I loved in Tress.

So far, the kickstarter was 50/50 for me.

Then came Yumi and the Nightmare Painter, and we were immediately back on solid gold. A fantastic book and an amazing story. Loved every single page of this one, and my hopes for the fourth and last book were higher than ever.

Then, came The Sunlit Man, and it’s probably the best one of them all.

And amazing story, of a man who runs from his past, from an old life full of mystery and darkness, only to land on a planet where people run from the sun every other day, for fear of burning to death. Where people are sacrificed to the land, to serve as fuel, and where they live in constant shadow. Of course, our protagonist gets caught up in helping the locals – to be fair, being on the run doesn’t seem so bad when you’re only ever hours away from dying a horrible death – and so our adventure starts.

It’s fantastic book, full of action, intrigue, mysteries, incredible world building, and very, very sad fates. I loved it, and it makes me want to pick up more Sanderson books and delve deeper into the Cosmere.

Reading these four mystery books have been great. I’ve loved waiting for each and every one of them, looking forward to what the next one will hold, hoping it will be as great as the last. Even if I was a little let down by number two, the three other more than made up for it and I’d recommend each and every one of these to everyone who loves reading.

What about you? Did you pick up The Sunlit Man in the end? Have you read any of the other mystery books from Sanderson this year? If not, what have you been reading? Let me know in the comments!

And as always, if you love reading and if you’re interested in finding your next favorite thriller, I would absolutely love it if you gave my books a chance. They can all be found right here, and as an indie author, I appreciate every single one of my readers.

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She Made It

She made it to 90.

There was war, when she was little. She told me they were nice to her, those that came. They had families too, and they just wanted to go home.

She told me about my great grandfather. He was clever, and he invented things.

She told me about my grandfather too. I don’t remember how she met him, my namesake, but they made a home and had a family together. Five of them; and suddenly they were seven in that house. My father was almost the eldest, and like me, they named him too was after his grandfather.

She taught, all her life. Even long after she finished working, when I knew her, she never stopped teaching. She loved to teach things, and we all loved learning.

She lost him far too early, my grandfather. I wish I could have met him. She was alone after that, for forty years, but that never stopped her. She had her family, and it grew.

She did the most incredible things. She moved halfway around the world, a grown woman, all alone, just to teach. And she did it twice. She saw the most amazing places, told the most wonderful stories.

She inspired us all. She taught us to wonder, to be curious about the world, and to follow our dreams. Most of all, she taught us to live. That’s what she did best.

She made it to 90, after all.