Thursday 27 February 2014

Leap Into Books Giveaway Hop

Welcome to the Leap Into Books Giveaway hosted by I'm A Reader Not A Writer and Jinky Is Reading!  Up for grabs is one YA or Adult book of your choice up to the value of $15 from the Book Depository providing you live in a country that they ship to - find the list of countries here. The hop runs from now through until midnight on March 7th.


a Rafflecopter giveaway

Check out the list below for lots more chances to win, thanks for entering and good luck!

Wednesday 26 February 2014

Waiting On Wednesday #65 - Under Nameless Stars

Waiting On Wednesday, where we put the spotlight on upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating, is hosted by Jill at Breaking The Spine.

This week's choice is -

Under Nameless Stars (Zenn Scarlett #2) - Christian Schoon
ISBN - 9781908844873
Publisher - Strange Chemistry
Expected release date - April 1st 2014
Find - Goodreads/Book Depository

If you haven't read Zenn Scarlett then be aware the following summary may well contain spoilers, proceed with caution!


'Zenn Scarlett’s novice year of exoveterinarian training on Mars isn’t quite going to plan…

After barely surviving a plot to destroy her school and its menagerie of alien patients, could things at the Ciscan cloister get any worse? Yes. Yes they could: Zenn’s absent father Warra Scarlett has suddenly ceased all communication with her. Desperate to learn what’s become of him, Zenn stows away aboard the Helen of Troy, a starliner powered by one of the immense, dimension-jumping beasts known as Indra.

With her is Liam Tucker, a towner boy who is either very fond of her, very dangerous to her, or both. On the verge of learning the truth about her dad, Zenn’s quest suddenly catapults her and Liam thousands of light years beyond known space, and into the dark heart of a monstrous conspiracy. Braving a gauntlet of lethal environments and unearthly life forms, her courage and exovet skills will now be tested as never before.

With the fate of entire worlds hanging in the balance, Zenn is racing headlong into trouble… again.'
- Goodreads


Just look at that cover! It goes perfectly with Zenn Scarlett and I can't wait to read it :)

Tuesday 25 February 2014

Top Ten Tuesday #42 - Favorite Childhood Books

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by the lovely people at The Broke and the Bookish. This week's topic is -

Top Ten Tuesday Rewind - pick from previous topics that you want to do again or may have missed! I've chosen to do

Top Ten Children's Books I Read

The Dark Is Rising - Susan Cooper

Chalet School - Elinor M Brent-Dyer

Anne of Green Gables - L M Montgomery

Chronicles of Narnia - C S Lewis

Matilda - Roald Dahl

A Wrinkle In Time - Madeleine L'Engle

Five Children & It - E. Nesbit

The Wizard of Oz - L Frank Baum

Alice In Wonderland - Lewis Carroll

The Box of Delights - John Masefield

Saturday 22 February 2014

Book Haul #65


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!

Ooooh, this has been a good week for books! But a bad week for Internet access, yet again I've spent the best part of two days without any Internet again thanks to my service provider. I've not even been able to pick up any of the local wi-fi hotspots for some reason so have had plenty of time to do other stuff like read! Luckily I drafted this on Tuesday so at least there's something on the blog this week, I've added this bit using my phone and it has taken a looooong time... On the bright side it was library week this week and I may have gone slightly overboard with my requests, and they all came in at the same time!

Bought

The Glass Casket | Grim | Banished
For Review

First 15 Lives of Harry August | Red Rising | The Three

Morningside Fall | Peacemaker | Moth & Spark
Library Haul

Days of the Deer | Moon's Artifice | Mother, Mother

Night Film | A Red Sun Also Rises | The Summoning

Emperor's Blades | Girl With All the Gifts | The Rabbit Back Literature Society

Blood Song | Dark Satanic Mills | Charm & Strange

Butterflies In November | Ancillary Justice | Cloud Hunters

Dream London | Queen of Dreams | Strange Affair of Spring-Heeled Jack
Drakenfeld | Snowblind | We Used To Be Kings

Wednesday 19 February 2014

Waiting On Wednesday #64 - Peacemaker

Waiting On Wednesday, where we put the spotlight on upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating, is hosted by Jill at Breaking The Spine.

This week's choice is -


Peacemaker - Marianne de Pierre's
ISBN - 9780857664181 (US) 9780857664174 (UK)
Publisher - Angry Robot
Expected release date - April 29th 2014 (US) May 1st 2014 (UK)
Find - Goodreads/Book Depository

'When an imaginary animal from her troubled teenage years reappears, Virgin takes it to mean one of two things: a breakdown (hers!) or a warning. Dead bodies start piling up around her, so she decides on the latter. Something terrible is about to happen in the park and Virgin and her new partner, U.S. Marshall Nate Sikkiller, are standing in its path...

Virgin Jackson is the senior ranger in Birrimun Park - the world's last natural landscape, overshadowed though it is by a sprawling coastal megacity. She maintains public safety and order in the park, but her bosses have brought out a hotshot cowboy to help her catch some drug runners who are affecting tourism. She senses the company is holding something back from her, and she's not keen on working with an outsider like Nate Sixkiller.'
- Goodreads


Two things want to make me read this book right now, that amazing cover by Joey HiFi is the first! The second is that I've read her Parrish Plessis series and loved them, I've also read her Night Creatures trilogy & loved those too. Therefore I'm hoping Peacemaker will fall into the same category and I'll be up all night trying to finish the whole book! I can't wait to get started on this one :)

Saturday 15 February 2014

Book Haul #64


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've not been home at all this week - cake club, the 3 year old's turning into 4 year olds, going to see Tinkerbell & the Pirate Fairy with the 4 year olds, decidedly fraught train journeys (four of them, one with my father...) - and yet I still appear to have managed to added books to my shelves! Not many admittedly but I'm pretty sure you should be able to go away for a week without buying books!  I'm not quite sure what happened there...







If this post looks a bit funny it's because I've written it on my Kindle for the first time!

Friday 14 February 2014

February New Release Giveaway Hop

Welcome to the February New Release Giveaway Hop hosted by Book Nerd! The hop runs from today through to midnight on February 28th 2014. Up for grabs is any new release this month up to the value of $20 from the Book Depository as long as they deliver to your country - find the list of countries here.

All you have to do is choose any new release published in February and leave me a comment stating what book you would like (you can change your mind later!) and a way of getting in touch with you if you are the lucky winner (either an email address or Twitter) - following the blog via GFC, email, Linky or Bloglovin', Goodreads or Twitter is not compulsory, just nice!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Check out the list below for all the other blogs taking part, thanks for entering and good luck!

Slumber - Tamara Blake

Slumber - Tamara Blake
Publisher - Diversion Books
Release date - July 16th 2013
Find - Goodreads

'Once upon a time, Ruby believed in magic…

When Ruby volunteers to take her mother's housecleaning shift at the Gothic Cottingley Heights mansion, she thinks it's going to be business as usual. Clean out the fridge, scrub toilets, nothing too unusual. But nothing could prepare her for the decadent squalor she finds within. Rich people with more money than sense trashing their beautiful clothes and home just because they can. After the handsome Tam discovers her cleaning up after him and his rich friends, Ruby has never felt more like a character from her sister’s book of fairy tales.

Tam sees beyond Ruby’s job and ratty clothes, and sweeps her off her feet, treating her like a real princess, but Ruby is sure this beautiful boy is too good to be true. And as one tragedy after another befalls Ruby and her family, Ruby painfully learns that magic is all too real, and it always comes with a price.'
- Goodreads


Slumber is one of the strangest - in a good way! - books I've read involving the Fae in a long time. Ruby lives with her mother and baby sister in a trailer after running away from her mom's abusive ex-boyfriend. They're poor, really poor. Ruby works, goes to high school and reads fairy tales to Shelly while her mom works all the hours possible. After finding her collapsed on the floor Ruby takes over one of her mom's cleaning jobs, Cottingley Heights, but Ruby has no idea how her life is about to change. After meeting the enigmatic Tam and his friends who live at Cottingley Ruby realizes that there is something different about them and she's right. Tam and his friends are fairies but not your pretty, sparkly winged full of joy type fairies... Tam, Violet and the rest are psychotic, drug addled, sex crazed fairies who like to play with people and think nothing of a hunt ending in murder. As Ruby slowly falls for Tam, her mother becomes seriously ill and the only obvious solution to avoid Shelly going into care is for her to live with a friend and for Ruby to stay at Cottingley. Slowly but surely she becomes immersed in the Fae world, not realizing that even a simple thing like drinking a cup of coffee is going to have far-reaching consequences.

Ruby is a great example of a strong female character, she puts her family first all the time and is quite willing to sacrifice herself if it means her sister & her mom will be okay. She doesn't fall head over heels in love with Tam, her feelings develop slowly and she is ultimately horrified to discover what Tam is, what she may become because of him. Tam was a difficult character to get to grips with, it was easy to like him at the beginning before you knew what was going on and how he was manipulating Ruby by offering her what he thought she wanted but then he also tried to warn Ruby about what was happening and told her to stay away. Good guy or bad guy, Tam is probably both but you can't say the same for the rest of the fairies whose main occupations seemed to be orgies, drug-taking and murder particularly Violet who is jealous of Ruby's relationship with Tam. Violet doesn't bat an eyelid at the prospect of murder to get what she wants. I thought all the characters were well written, the storyline was great but I wanted more, especially from that ending! I've been able to find no information on whether this is the start of a series and it needs to be, the way the last chapter just finished! Not even a proper epilogue and now I'm left hanging... Ms Blake, please write more tales of Ruby and/or Tam, I am desperate to know more.

Wednesday 12 February 2014

Waiting On Wednesday #63 - Cuckoo Song

Waiting On Wednesday, where we put the spotlight on upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating, is hosted by Jill at Breaking The Spine.

This week's choice is -

Cuckoo Song - Frances Hardinge
ISBN - 9780330519731
Publisher - Pan Macmillan
Expected release date - May 8th 2014
Find - Goodreads/Book Depository

'The first things to shift were the doll's eyes, the beautiful grey-green glass eyes. Slowly they swivelled, until their gaze was resting on Triss's face. Then the tiny mouth moved, opened to speak. 'What are you doing here?' It was uttered in tones of outrage and surprise, and in a voice as cold and musical as the clinking of cups. 'Who do you think you are? This is my family.' When Triss wakes up after an accident, she knows that something is very wrong. She is insatiably hungry; her sister seems scared of her and her parents whisper behind closed doors. She looks through her diary to try to remember, but the pages have been ripped out. Soon Triss discovers that what happened to her is more strange and terrible than she could ever have imagined, and that she is quite literally not herself. In a quest find the truth she must travel into the terrifying Underbelly of the city to meet a twisted architect who has dark designs on her family - before it's too late...' - Goodreads 

Frances Hardinge has written some amazing books and I'm a huge fan having read just about everything she's published! When I found out about her newest release I couldn't help but squee just a little bit... I love the sound of the plot and that cover is creepy!

Tuesday 11 February 2014

Top Ten Tuesday #41

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by the lovely people at The Broke and the Bookish. This week's topic is -

Top Ten Books That Will Make You Swoon

But as I'm not really the swooning type and as it is Valentines Day this week, I thought I'd share some of my favorite bookish couples! Actually, if most of the males in this list were mine I probably would swoon...

Top Ten Bookish Couples In Honor Of Valentines Day

Elizabeth & Darcy from Pride & Prejudice

Anne Shirley & Gilbert Blythe from Anne of Green Gables

Emma Woodhouse & George Knightley from Emma

Sookie & Eric Northman from the Sookie Stackhouse books

Scarlett O'Hara & Rhett Butler from Gone With The Wind

Rose & Dimitri from Vampire Academy

Zsadist & Bella from Lover Awakened

Eve Dallas & Roarke from the In Death books

Westley & Buttercup from The Princess Bride

 Jane Eyre & Mr Rochester from Jane Eyre
 
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