A Very Bookish Month - July 2014

• A Dawn Most Wicked - Susan Dennard
• Something Strange & Deadly - Susan Dennard
• A Darkness Strange & Lovely - Susan Dennard
• Death Note Vol 1 - Boredom
• Strange & Ever After - Susan Dennard
• Innocence - Dean Koontz
• Fangirl - Rainbow Rowell
• Second on the Right - Elizabeth Los
• Black Heart Blue - Louisa Reid
• Find Me - Romily Bernard
• Hounded - Kevin Hearne
• The Last Forever - Deb Caletti
• A Place For Us Pt 1 - Harriet Evans
• Far From You - Tess Sharpe
• Dark Heart Surrender - Lee Monroe

YA 11
Childrens 0
Adult 4

Own 6
Kindle 5
Library 4

Grand Total 15

Far From You | Fangirl | The Last Forever

Black Heart Blue | Strange & Ever After

I read fewer books this month but it was a good month, I couldn't decide between five books for Book of the Month so they're all favorites! Black Heart Blue and Far From You both broke my heart, as did The Last Forever and I was sad to see Susan Dennard's Strange & Deadly series come to a close.

• The Illusionists - Laure Eve
• Through the Woods - Emily Carroll
• The Kiss of Deception - Mary E Pearson
• Maskerade Special Edition - Terry Pratchett
• Lords & Ladies Special Edition - Terry Pratchett
• Witches Abroad Special Edition - Terry Pratchett
• The Book of Life - Deborah Harkness
• The Dead of Winter - Lee Collins
• The Six-Gun Tarot - R S Belcher
• Fangirl Limited Edition - Rainbow Rowell
• Half A King - Joe Abercrombie

Everything That Makes You was up first and luckily the wait was short thanks to HarperCollins, Patrick Rothfuss is keeping me waiting for The Doors of Stone so in the meantime I'll console myself with The Slow Regard of Silent Things and meeting him again in London next week!!! Last but not least I'm waiting on the first part of a new fantasy trilogy by Tom Fletcher (the author one, not the McFly singer/author one), Gleam, which is being to one of my favorites, Gormenghast.

In August I'll be reading these fantastic books!

Lock In | Of Metal & Wishes | Gates of Thread & Stone

YALC, LFCC, Rainbow Rowell at Waterstones Piccadilly, Meg Rosoff & Marcus Sedgwick at Waterstones Piccadilly... It was a busy month, all of these were within a week of each other and I still haven't recovered completely!

I had a pretty good time, there were a couple of things that pretty much ruined the 3 days at LFCC/YALC but I'm not going into detail about what they were. I met Joe Abercrombie, got strangled by Darren Shan, nearly knocked over by Lena Headey, spotted Hodor & Ser Loras, Colin Baker, R2D2 and the man inside the Darth Vader suit, walked past Stan Lee & George Romero, tried but failed to get a pic of John Hurt, Anthony Head & Paul McGann :( The panel I most wanted to see was Bring Me My Dragons which was on the Saturday as I've been looking forward to meeting Frances Hardinge for a long time. Unfortunately, although the panel was great, I had to leave before the signings as I was about to either pass out, have a full-blown panic attack or both!

The photos aren't great. There were people in the way, it was too sunny, I need a better camera and a myriad of other things!

I have completely lost track of all my challenge progress. I haven't really updated for Goodreads for nearly 2 months so need to do that and then hopefully I can work out how far behind I am! Proper challenge updates next month, I promise!

Reading RoundUp #31

It's Monday, What Are You Reading? is hosted by Sheila at Book Journey This is a great way to plan out your reading week and see what others are currently reading as well… you never know where that next “must read” book will come from!

My reading round-ups seem to be appearing monthly these days, you'd think this would mean more news but I'm not sure that's right! I've just spent nearly ten days away from home at my sister's where I got a pitiful amount of reading done but it was so nice to be able to spend extra time with Frem! Whilst in Reading I had a few trips up to London, I almost got to meet Sean Cummings (author of Poltergeeks & Student Bodies) but sadly didn't manage this due to time constraints and other plans. I did get to meet this author -

Patrick Ness is a genuinely nice chap, I had a great time and thoroughly enjoyed his talk and can't wait to see him again in a couple of weeks at another event. At the Patrick Ness signing I also spotted another familiar face, the lovely Laure Eve, who I've been semi-stalking on Twitter and her blog. Make sure you all buy her book, Fearsome Dreamer, due out next month and featuring on next week's WoW! Tomorrow night I'm off to Bath for an event at Toppings Bookshop arranged by SFX featuring Samantha Shannon, I can't wait to hear more about how she came up with The Bone Season and to finally pick a finished copy of the book.

Anyway, back to the books!

Read recently

Six Months Later

Broken

Frankenstein

The House of the Scorpion

The Fire Rose

Reading right now

Such Wicked Intent

The School for Good & Evil

Up next

Heartwood

Tainted

What have you been reading recently? Let me know! Oh and don't forget to enter my Off to Oz giveaway which finishes at midnight tomorrow, win a retelling of your choice!

Book Haul #42

Stacking the Shelves is a weekly event hosted on Tynga's Reviews and Letterbox Love is a UK edition hosted by Narratively Speaking. Here we can share what new books we've picked up this past week. There are also lots of other 'book haul' memes out there for you to choose from!

I had an amazing time in London/Reading, the Patrick Ness event was fantastic and I got to meet the very lovely Laure Eve (author of the soon-to-be-released Fearsome Dreamer), there was cake and prosecco with blue Curacao caviar! I didn't go mad buying books, just a few most of which I had to leave at my sister's as my suitcase was full and a gorgeous new Kindle Fire cover. I also got my dress for my oldest nephew's wedding in March next year, very vintage in grey, black & white! Competing for most exciting bookish thing last week was an email saying I'd been pre-approved for Bellman & Black by Diane Setterfield so after my WoW post about it you can imagine just how excited I was. I was just about to descend into Baker Street tube station when I got that email so my subsequent squeeing was witnessed by many!

Bought

Antigoddess - Kendare Blake

Briar Rose - Jana Oliver

Far Far Away - Tom McNeal

Netgalley

Bellman & Black - Diane Setterfield

Heartwood - Freya Robertson

Blog Tour

Very Superstitious - Shannon Delany et al

The One Where I Turn Into A Fangirl

So, this is where I was on Wednesday! And yes, those are Christmas trees on the table... Along with my very uninterested sister and two fractious toddlers I joined the queue of fans waiting to meet Joe Hill who is Stephen King's son for those who don't know and/or aren't fans. I've been a fan since 2007 when I read 20th Century Ghosts - a collection of short stories, and Heart-Shaped Box. I've also read Horns, which you should read soon if you haven't as they've made it into a movie starring Daniel Radcliffe and Juno Temple, and the first three Locke & Key graphic novels illustrated by Gabriel Rodriguez.

This event was for the release of NOS4R2 and Joe was doing a few events/signings around the UK, naturally I had to go as soon as I found out he was going to be in Reading! We were already in the bookstore as we had plans to buy books for the twins so lucky for me, I was third in the queue which was soon out the door. The lovely people who work there had this cookie made for Joe and he was kind enough to share it with everyone, he personally handed over chunks to F & E and automatically became their new best friend - although they're still not sure about the beard!

I got all my books signed, with an illustration in NOS4R2 and a little heart in Heart-Shaped Box but I wish I'd been able to get my graphic novels signed - unfortunately I couldn't carry any more but c'est la vie! Joe was absolutely lovely, really genuine, very sweet and one of the best author signings I've been to! I walked away with my author crush intact and I'd like to thank my sister for pointing out (in earshot of Joe) that I was a lovely shade of red and wasn't he cute!

If you follow Jon Weir on Twitter he took a picture of the queue which happens to feature the four of us quite prominently, I'm not linking the pic as it's awful but if you can find it that's your reward ;)

Roll on Friday June 14th for my next reading/talk/signing with the amazing Neil Gaiman!