I have been following ZeZee’s blog for a while now and what keeps me coming back is the look, content, and her insightful reviews.  I have in fact bought a couple of books featured on ZeZee’s blog, which is the greatest compliment one blogger can give to another. If you haven’t checked out her blog, well what are you waiting for!!

ZeZee With Books

How did she answer my questions? Let’s find out!

Blogging is universal and even though we inhabit the same community, we don’t always live in the same country. What country do you live in?

I’m in the U.S. Right now, it’s my favorite season – summer – but not my favorite weather – hot, very humid, and sticky.

What is the view outside your front door?

Wide-sweeping manicured green lawns bordered by a bounty of blossoming flowers that lead up to brick-front, colonial-style houses that line streets of my neighborhood. It’s a beautiful scene to look at in the spring and autumn when the leaves start to change. Other than the nature outside my front door, it’s a pretty boring area ‘cause it’s the ‘burbs.

Most blogs have a quirky name and a fun story of origin. Please share the story behind your blogs name?

Erm…(a pause while I look at the blog posts where I talk about my blog’s name because I forgot why I named it so).

So…I don’t why I called myself Zezee. It’s not my real name. When I started blogging, I named my blog Zezee’s Link because I didn’t know then what my blog would be about. I just wanted to join the blogging community and share my thoughts on stuff. When I realized that my posts mostly focus on book-related topics, I decided to change my blog name to Zezee with Books.

…yeeaahh…still don’t know why I call myself Zezee on here other than I think the name sounds cool. It makes me think of zing-zing and zip and zoom-zoom!

Describe where you write your blog. 

I write in the most comfortable place — my bed. I wish I had a writing desk so I could write there. I think it would give me more structure and help me to focus better. I daydream a lot when writing in bed and easily get distracted by things – Facebook, Instagram, the funny patterns on my sheets.

Yup! I shall include a pic for this one. It’s the head of my bedstead that I lean against as I write. I use my pillows as back cushions.

Most of us have a stack of books sitting next to our couch or bed waiting to be read. What books are in your stack?

Well, I would have taken a pic but we recently completed a home-improvement project – changed carpets – so my room is a mess at the moment and my nightstand looks alien to me at the moment for all the random shit that’s on it, so instead here’s a pic of books I’m currently/recently completed and would have placed on my nightstand if I had access to it. That’s:

The Shape of Water by Guillermo del Toro and Daniel Kraus

Fool’s Fate by Robin Hobb

City of Saints & Thieves by Natalie C. Anderson

The Hazel Wood by Melissa Albert

The Shape of Water by Guillermo del Toro

It is 1962, and Elisa Esposito—mute her whole life, orphaned as a child—is struggling with her humdrum existence as a janitor working the graveyard shift at Baltimore’s Occam Aerospace Research Center. Were it not for Zelda, a protective coworker, and Giles, her loving neighbor, she doesn’t know how she’d make it through the day.

Then, one fateful night, she sees something she was never meant to see, the Center’s most sensitive asset ever: an amphibious man, captured in the Amazon, to be studied for Cold War advancements. The creature is terrifying but also magnificent, capable of language and of understanding emotions…and Elisa can’t keep away. Using sign language, the two learn to communicate. Soon, affection turns into love, and the creature becomes Elisa’s sole reason to live.

But outside forces are pressing in. Richard Strickland, the obsessed soldier who tracked the asset through the Amazon, wants nothing more than to dissect it before the Russians get a chance to steal it. Elisa has no choice but to risk everything to save her beloved. With the help of Zelda and Giles, Elisa hatches a plan to break out the creature. But Strickland is on to them. And the Russians are, indeed, coming.

Developed from the ground up as a bold two-tiered release—one story interpreted by two artists in the independent mediums of literature and film—The Shape of Water is unlike anything you’ve ever read or seen.

Fool’s Fate by Robin Hobb

FitzChivalry Farseer has become firmly ensconced in the queen’s court. Along with his mentor, Chade, and the simpleminded yet strongly Skilled Thick, Fitz strives to aid Prince Dutiful on a quest that could secure peace with the Outislands—and win Dutiful the hand of the Narcheska Elliania.

The Narcheska has set the prince an unfathomable task: to behead a dragon trapped in ice on the isle of Aslevjal. Yet not all the clans of the Outislands support their effort. Are there darker forces at work behind Elliania’s demand? Knowing that the Fool has foretold he will die on the island of ice, Fitz plots to leave his dearest friend behind. But fate cannot so easily be defied.

The City of Saints and Thieves by Natalie C. Anderson

In the shadows of Sangui City, there lives a girl who doesn’t exist. After fleeing the Congo as refugees, Tina and her mother arrived in Kenya looking for the chance to build a new life and home. Her mother quickly found work as a maid for a prominent family, headed by Roland Greyhill, one of the city’s most respected business leaders. But Tina soon learns that the Greyhill fortune was made from a life of corruption and crime. So when her mother is found shot to death in Mr. Greyhill’s personal study, she knows exactly who’s behind it.

With revenge always on her mind, Tina spends the next four years surviving on the streets alone, working as a master thief for the Goondas, Sangui City’s local gang. It’s a job for the Goondas that finally brings Tina back to the Greyhill estate, giving her the chance for vengeance she’s been waiting for. But as soon as she steps inside the lavish home, she’s overtaken by the pain of old wounds and the pull of past friendships, setting into motion a dangerous cascade of events that could, at any moment, cost Tina her life. But finally uncovering the incredible truth about who killed her mother—and why—keeps her holding on in this fast-paced nail-biting thriller.

If you have had a bad day and want to spend an hour reading a book, what is your go-to genre or favorite book that will lift your mood?

Fantasy and most likely I’d reread a Harry Potter book. Fantasy provides a distraction from whatever is stressing me out and Harry Potter books always perk me up (the first to the fourth books).

When you aren’t blogging, how do you spend your time? Work, Play, School?

I’m either working or watching TV or at the movies or hanging out with family and friends or walking around the city checking out art museums or architecture or some random artsy event or, sometimes, a party.

What is your favorite blog post you’ve ever written? 

Oh, wow! Well. That’s a hard question that made my mind immediately go blank. Umm…well, my favorite posts are usually my Weekend Reads posts, which are discussion posts that include the books I’m currently reading. So of the Weekend Reads posts, I think my favorite is… “On Writing,” which is about my struggle to write, and (I couldn’t choose just one now that my brain has started working) “Hooked on Comics,” where I discuss my love of comics.

Have you ever met one of your favorite authors? If so, what did you say to them? Looking back, what do you wish you had said instead?

Well, I’m not one to try to meet authors because I’m a bit shy and don’t know what I’d say to my favorite author and am scared that I might embarrass myself by saying something rude, but I did meet Marlon James once and was over the moon that I got to meet him and get my book, A Brief History of Seven Killings signed (haven’t read it yet).

What did I say to him? Umm… I think it was “MARLON! Mi love yuh Book of Night Women and mi mek mi madda read it and she did love it too, but she tink it too violent and it mek her cry!” Then he said something along the lines of “ Well, she probably shouldn’t read this one.”

Marlon James is a Jamaican author. He won the 2015 Man Booker Prize with A Brief History of Seven Killings which is a fictional account of the attempt to assassinate Bob Marley.

 If you could sit down with an author for a slice of cake and a question, who is the author, what kind of cake would you serve, and what is the first question you’d ask?

At this exact the moment, the author I most want to sit down with is Robin Hobb. We will eat whatever cake she likes and I would ask her a bunch of questions about Fitz and the Fool and the world her Realm of the Elderlings series is set in and cross my fingers that she will answer them all. I’m totally hooked on her fantasy novels at the moment.

Oh my gosh ZeZee your answer on the question about meeting an author in person was hysterical! Then I got to what the book was about and I felt horrible for laughing! That does sound a bit serious… You and I share a love for Fantasy novels! I have not read Robin Hobb, but I think I may need to go on that fantasy journey!

I really enjoyed reading her answers, didn’t you? Which was your favorite?

Have you read any of these books? I’d love to know your opinion!

Thanks for reading Blogger to Blogger!

Deb