Book Haul #119, Or The One Where I Have A Birthday Giveaway...

Stacking the Shelves is a weekly event hosted on Tynga's Reviews where we can share what new books we've picked up this past week be they bought, borrowed or downloaded. There are also lots of other 'book haul' memes out there for you to choose from!

Before we get down to the business of books, scroll down to the bottom and you'll see there's a giveaway! In honor of my birthday tomorrow and open internationally as long as the Book Depository ships to you (check here!) you may choose a book of your choice up to the value of $20. All you need to do is fill in the rafflecopter! The giveaway will close at midnight on January 31 so you have 8 days to enter.

Back to the books and it's been another good week in terms of books in, only two review books and one book bought... I know, I know! I said I wasn't buying any books but this one is different because it's my bestest book buddy's second novel and she's amazing and everyone needs to check it out :) Also amazing is the cover for Ali Shaw's new book, The Trees. I loved The Girl With Glass Feet so can't wait to get stuck into this one. In other news my replacement Kindle Fire still isn't here and Amazon are now saying end of February/beginning of March. Grrrr...

Bought

White Lies - Zoe Markham

For Review

The Trees - Ali Shaw

Masks And Shadows - Stephanie Burgis

Birthday Giveaway

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Book Haul #108, Or The One Where I Develop Vertigo...

Stacking the Shelves is a weekly event hosted on Tynga's Reviews where we can share what new books we've picked up this past week be they bought, borrowed or downloaded. There are also lots of other 'book haul' memes out there for you to choose from!

Yes, you read that correctly. I have vertigo, quite badly in fact, thanks to a pesky ear infection and it's all I can do remain upright for long enough to do anything! The one bright point is that I can genuinely do nothing but read so there's always a silver lining :)

I've been really good this week and bought one book. And if that book hadn't been written by one of my dearest, oldest friends then I would have been purchase free. I've been waiting for this girl to get published for a long time though so absolutely had to buy a copy of Under My Skin. I've already finished it and I can highly recommend it if you're a fan of anything Gothic, YA, horror or Frankenstein. There will be a review appearing just as soon I can sit still without the world turning and/or wanting to be sick!

Bought

For Review

Ghosts of Heaven

The Singular & Extraordinary Tale of Mirror & Goliath

The Dragons of Heaven

The Memory Hit

13 Days of Midnight

Special Cover Reveal - Under My Skin by Zoe Markham

A special cover reveal today for someone that I've known personally for over 15 years and I am so excited for you all to see this! Here is the cover for Under My Skin!

Under My Skin - Zoe Markham

Publisher - Carina

Release date - March 31 2015

Find - Goodreads | Amazon UK | Amazon US

Inside we are all monsters...

Chloe was once a normal girl. Until the night of the car crash that nearly claimed her life. Now Chloe's mother is dead, her father is a shell of the man he used to be and the secrets that had so carefully kept their family together are falling apart.

A new start is all Chloe and her father can hope for, but when you think you're no longer human how can you ever start pretending?

A contemporary reworking of a British horror classic, Under My Skin follows seventeen-year-old Chloe into an isolated world of darkness and pain, as she struggles to understand what it really means to be alive.

Set against the familiar backdrop of everyday, normal teenage worries, Chloe's world has become anything but...

Under My Skin is available to pre-order now!

The Boy in the Cemetery - Sebastian Gregory

The Boy in the Cemetery - Sebastian Gregory

Publisher - Carina

Release date - October 29 2014

Find - Goodreads

This is the story of a girl who didn’t want to live...

Carrie Anne is desperately unhappy. Tangled in a web of abuse, she seeks solace in the cemetery that backs onto her garden. But something creeps between the gravestones. Carrie Anne is not alone

...and a boy who cannot die.

The cemetery is home to a boy. He has guarded these forgotten bones since meeting a gruesome end two hundred years ago. Neither dead nor alive, he has been watching for a long time. And now, he finally has the visitor he’s been waiting for...

Before I say anything about The Boy in the Cemetery I think it's important to point out that this book is about a main character who is abused, mentally & physically by her parents. If that is any way hard for you to read about (the abuse is off-page for the most part but talked about) then I would suggest avoiding The Boy in the Cemetery.

The story of Boy starts off badly and doesn't get much better, losing first his mother whom he regards as an angel and then his abusive father after a grave-robbing incident gone wrong, Boy finds a new home in a cemetery. He never leaves... Fast forward 200 years and Carrie Anne arrives, withdrawn and quiet, drawn to the very cemetery where Boy has been standing guard for the last two centuries and you could say all hell breaks loose!

The Boy in the Cemetery intrigued me as soon as I read the synopsis, it's the sort of book that makes you feel like you're watching a Tim Burton movie. The overall tone of the whole book is so very dark but there are moments of hope and some touching interactions between Boy and Carrie Anne that lighten the book. What really made the book for me though was Sebastian Gregory's writing. It was beautiful, lyrical and descriptive to the point I could 'see' everything. It's rare that I get so immersed in a book (and a short one at that, Boy in the Cemetery is a scant 120 pages) that by the the time I turn the last page I feel like I've lived through the book

There's a deep seated need for revenge on Boy's part and meeting Carrie Anne gives him the perfect canvas to do so. Without giving spoilers away let's just say that everyone who wrongs Carrie Anne is punished in one fashion or another without a second thought. The only thing that took me completely by surprise was the ending, I was not expecting what happened at all. Looking back now though it was probably the only realistic ending for both Boy & Carrie Anne, obviously the law in the 21st century is far more efficient than it was in Boy's time (except it would appear, in Carrie Anne's case, serious child abuse and the fact that the family were able to move away without any consequence). I feel sad that there was no happy ending, no fairy godmother to wave a magic wand. maybe it was inevitable that things would end this way, from the moment Boy became more in the cemetery centuries ago.

Thank you to Carina, via Netgalley, for providing me with a copy of The Boy in the Cemetery!