Book Haul #130, Or The One Where I Only Buy One Book Again...

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!


A quick haul post from me this week as I'm not at home and doing this on a Kindle... More fabulous review books and just one book purchased! Shirley Jackson's Let Me Tell You has been on my wishlist since before it was published and I finally gave in and bought a copy this week. I've already started it and it's reminding me of how much I love her work, time for another Jackson reread methinks!

Review

Bought

Top Ten Tuesday #97 - Auto-Buy Authors

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by the wonderful gals cover at The Broke & The Bookish. This week's topic is -

Top Ten Of Your Auto-Buy Authors

I managed to stick to ten authors this week as my list turned out to be quite selective, I'm absolutely certain that there are no surprises for any regular Bookish visitors. I'm sure my list of auto-buy authors used to be huge, if I saw they had a book coming out I ordered it. I have obviously learnt how to restrain myself though!

What authors are on your list?

Book Haul #106, Or The One Where I Burnt My Foot...

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!

I'm a day behind this week thanks to the saga of the foot! It started with a blister and ended with a two inch burn caused by antiseptic cream... Turns out I've developed an allergy to Germolene antiseptic cream so instead of helping the blister I got (after wearing old shoes!) I now have a hideously huge burn and can't wear anything on my feet for at least another four days. And the pain is unbelievable!

Obviously I need to cheer myself up so I did indeed go book buying mad. Well, a little bit mad! I decided to treat myself to a few of the new Penguin 80th Little Black Classics (if you could say ten is a few) and I bought two of the UK World Book Day books that I wanted.

Bought

Skin Game

Goth Girl & the Pirate Queen | Killing the Dead

The Tinder Box - Hans Christian Andersen

The Gate of the Hundred Sorrows - Rudyard Kipling

The Tell-Tale Heart - Edgar Allan Poe

The Beautifull Cassandra - Jane Austen

The Figure in the Carpet - Henry James

Goblin Market - Christina Rosetti

Sindbad the Sailor - Anon

The Night is Darkening Around Me - Emily Bronte

The Robber Bridegroom - The Brothers Grimm

Circe and the Cyclops - Homer

For Review

Midnight Crossroad

Blog Tours

Chantress Fury | Cold Burn of Magic

Top Ten Tuesday #83 - Books You Would Classify As ALL TIME FAVORITE BOOKS

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by the fabulous gals cover at The Broke & The Bookish. This week's topic is -

Top Ten Books You Would Classify As ALL TIME FAVORITE BOOKS (from the past 3 years!?)

Seriously? Who are you trying to kid? Ten books from the last three years? Or even five years? I can think of fifty from the last year... And what to include? Re-reads? All the books in a series or just one? I really don't know what this list will feature but I suspect I will cheat and completely forget how to count to ten.

Book Haul #98 - The Library/Birthday Edition

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!

It's my birthday! And I've received no books :( I've not bought any books either so... Thankfully it was library day this week so I have a nice shiny stack of library books and a couple of review titles I've been wanting to read :) I got quite a bit of birthday money but instead of splurging I'm using some to renew my passport, can't believe how expensive it is! Off out for lunch later, and a special birthday dinner tonight - one where I don't have to clean up afterwards!

Review 

The Girl in the Red Coat - Kate Hamer

No Man's World - Pat Kelleher

The Last Leaves Falling - Sarah Benwell

Library Haul

Angels of Destruction - Keith Donohue

Deep Blue - Jennifer Donnelly

The Ghosts of Heaven - Marcus Sedgwick

Hard Magic - Laura Anne Gilman

The Secrets of Life & Death - Rebecca Alexander

Tribute - Ellen Renner

The Evolution of Mara Dyer - Michelle Hodkin

The Retribution of Mara Dyer - Michelle Hodkin

Circus of the Unseen - Joanne Owen

Rooftoppers - Katherine Rundell

Florence & Giles - John Harding

The Last Wild - Piers Torday

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!

Top Ten Tuesday #45 - Books On My Spring TBR List

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

 Top Ten Books On My Spring 2014 TBR List

I saw this topic and thought it would be an easy one. But then I started thinking and I realized I haven't even thought about what I'll be reading in the near future! For me this is unusual as I do like to have a vague idea of what's coming up and what I have to look forward to. I'm sure once I see other people's lists I'll be kicking myself for not thinking of most of the books listed.

Cuckoo Song | Dreams of Gods & Monsters

First Fifteen Lives of Harry North | Dark Days | Feather Bound

The King | A Love Like Blood

Banished | Half Bad | Red Rising

Book Haul #68

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!

I think I've finally managed to cut down on how much I spend on books and the amount of books I buy! Whether it lasts a long time or not I don't know but here's hoping... I bought a couple of books this week and a couple of Kindle deals. I was very restrained, I even deleted some bookish sale emails without looking, unbelievable as it may seem! What made my week though was getting Marcus Sedgwick's first adult novel, A Love Like Blood. There was much squealing that day!

Bought

Good Omens (Collectors Edition) | Crave | The Essence | The Offering

Kindle

Malice | Memory's Wake | Storm and Stone

Review

Harvester | A Love Like Blood

Midwinterblood - Marcus Sedgwick

Midwinterblood - Marcus Sedgwick @Twitter
ISBN - 9781780620206
Publisher - Indigo
Release date - May 3rd 2012
Find - Book Depository/Goodreads

Warning: This review may contain vague spoilers!

'Have you ever had the feeling that you've lived another life? Been somewhere that has felt totally familiar, even though you've never been there before, or felt that you know someone well, even though you are meeting them for the first time? It happens. In 2073 on the remote and secretive island of Blessed, where rumour has it that no one ages and no children are born, a visiting journalist, Eric Seven, and a young local woman known as Merle are ritually slain. Their deaths echo a moment ten centuries before, when, in the dark of the moon, a king was slain, tragically torn from his queen. Their souls search to be reunited, and as mother and son, artist and child, forbidden lovers, victims of a vampire they come close to finding what they've lost. In a novel comprising seven parts, each influenced by a moon - the flower moon, the harvest moon, the hunter's moon, the blood moon - this is the story of Eric and Merle whose souls have been searching for each other since their untimely parting.' - Goodreads

Deliciously creepy, two words that are overused - especially by me - but these words describe Marcus Sedgwick's Midwinterblood perfectly. The writing is sublime, unique and oh so beautiful. Somehow, Sedgwick has managed to write almost the perfect book for me! A blending of folklore and mythology, horror, fantasy, mystery and a dash of science fiction. One of the seven stories - The Painter - even has a dash of fairy tale to it. The main consistent theme throughout though is romance and how two souls are bound together through time.

Eric and Merle, the main characters of the story and how their love connects them together over centuries against the backdrop of Blessed Island with echoes of The Wicker Man, a closed off community and an outsider who actually turns out to be a huge part of the island's island's of life. Eric Seven comes to the island in June 2073, month of the Flower Moon, having never been there before. He's a journalist and is investigating why there are no more children on the island. On meeting Merle he is struck by the knowledge that he knows her although he has never seen her before in his life.

From here on in the tale cycles back through seven different incarnations of Eric and Merle - as lovers, as husband and wife, brother and sister, mother and son and always on the island. The only exception to this is the story set in World War II, The Airman (in August 1944, the Grain Moon) when Eric is an islander but Merle is the daughter of the man he reluctantly rescues. I love how each of the seven tales are are linked to the different moons from the farmer's almanac, this has always fascinated me so it was great to see this used in each of the different chapters.

Midwinterblood is classed as YA but it has more than enough adult issues to ensure that anyone would enjoy it without finding the book too simplistic. The writing is unsettling and disquieting, the horror is never obvious - just understated - but it's enough to send a shiver down your spine. Ultimately Midwinterblood is about reincarnation, eternal love and even acceptance. This is evident in the epilogue which swings all the way back through to 2073 where Eric and Merle's reaches its tragic, inescapable conclusion, showing that not even true love guarantees a happy ever after. This is one book that will stay with me for some time to come and reinforces my love of Marcus Sedgwick's writing. I've now read seven of his books and each one has been better than the last!

Reading RoundUp #22

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!

You can tell I spent the whole week at my sister's house, I got so little reading done and it was a complete fail on Bout Of Books 7.0. For the next one I'm locking myself in the house and making no plans! I've also been really lax in keeping my book journal so I've lost track of what I've started and what I've finished. Another reason why I shouldn't spend so much time at my sister's without my journal, or my books...

Finished

Life After Life -Kate Atkinson

Me Before You - Jojo Moyes

Witchstruck - Victoria Lamb

Midwinterblood - Marcus Sedgwick

Chantress - Amy Butler Greenfield

Dead Ever After - Charlaine Harris

Still reading

Wickedness - Deborah White

A Clash Of Kings - George R R Martin

Started

Undone - Cat Clarke

I think that's everything I've started and/or finished, I'm sure at the end of the year when I'm updating my Goodreads I'll more than likely think of quite a few that I've missed over the year. In other exciting bookish news, last Sunday I went to a book signing for the first time since a certain Jasper Fforde last year and got to meet the lovely Raymond E Feist! He was very nice and signed my copy of Faerie Tale and of course, Magician's End, which is the whole reason he was touring the UK. I've got two more really exciting signings/talks coming up over the next month, one by a strange chap by the name of Neil Gaiman! Squeeeeeeeeeeeeee!