Bookmarked... #21

The return of the (mostly) weekly post letting you all know what I'm reading and have lined up for the week! It's my own version of Sheila at Book Journey's It's Monday What Are You Reading (now hosted by Kathryn at Book Date) and I have her permission to rename it for my own nefarious reasons...

Yet again more than a month has passed between my Bookmarked... posts. I can't seem to get organised these days but there's always hope! I've read some good books recently and LFCC & YALC has been and gone. I am definitely going to write a post about that this year, especially as I've read on quite a few blogs things that resonated with me hugely! On to the books! I've read some great books recently, reviews of which are in the making - I promise...

Finished

The Apprentice Witch - James Nicol

Blackfin Sky - Kat Ellis

The Creeper Man - Dawn Kurtagich

Hold Still - Nina LaCour

The King Of Rats - Melinda Salisbury

Lying About Last Summer - Sue Wallman

Natural Causes - James Oswald

Something Wicked - Kerry Wilkinson

Under Rose-Tainted Skies - Louise Gornall

Currently Reading

Lydia - Natasha Farrant

The Nowhere Emporium - Ross MacKenzie

Rat Queens Vol. 2 - Kurtis J Wiebe, Roc Upchurch, Stjepan Šejić

This Savage Song - Victoria Schwab

Put On Hold

A Gathering Of Shadows - V E Schwab

This decision was not made lightly and was made in accordance with advice from the author herself! Basically Victoria (I've met her 4 times now, I feel like I can call her that...) noticed what page I was on when she was signing my copy of AGoS on Friday, said that I was about to read her most favorite part of the book and that I might be better off waiting to finish it when A Conjuring Of Light is not SIX. MONTHS. AWAY.

Up Next

No idea... Any suggestions?

Bookmarked... #14

The return of the (mostly) weekly post letting you all know what I'm reading and have lined up for the week! It's my own version of Sheila at Book Journey's It's Monday What Are You Reading (now hosted by Kathryn at Book Date) and I have her permission to rename it for my own nefarious reasons...

I spent last week finishing off the Skulduggery Pleasant series. I'm not going to lie, it was emotional and I'm in absolute awe of Derek Landy. Luckily I have his new book to start, Demon Road, so may well pick that up this week. I'm reading Cinder again... I read it back in April 2014 and despite now owning Scarlet, Cress and Winter, still haven't got round to reading them so that's the goal for February plus it will add to my Retelling Challenge total.

Finished

 Armageddon Outta Here

The Last Stand Of Dead Men

The Dying Of The Light

Enchanted

Marked

The Sleeping Prince

White Bones

Currently Reading

Cinder

Blog Tour Review: The Sleeping Prince - Melinda Salisbury

Return to the darkly beautiful world of The Sin Eater's Daughter with a sequel that will leave you awed, terrified . . . and desperate for more.

Ever since her brother Lief disappeared, Errin's life has gone from bad to worse. Not only must she care for her sick mother, she has to scrape together rent money by selling illegal herbal cures. But none of that compares to the threat of the vengeful Sleeping Prince whom the Queen just awoke from his enchanted sleep.

When her village is evacuated as part of the war against the Sleeping Prince, Errin is left desperate and homeless. The only person she can turn to is the mysterious Silas, a young man who buys deadly poisons from Errin, but won't reveal why he needs them. Silas promises to help her, but when he vanishes, Errin must journey across a kingdom on the brink of war to seek another way to save her mother and herself. But what she finds shatters everything she believed about her world, and with the Sleeping Prince drawing nearer, Errin must make a heartbreaking choice that could affect the whole kingdom.

Desperate for more is quite apt! I read The Sleeping Prince in one sitting and now I feel strangely bereft. Having read and enjoyed The Sin Eater's Daughter I wasn't sure what to expect from The Sleeping Prince, I certainly wasn't expecting to love it as much as I did. Rather than being a straight sequel it's a sort of companion/sequel hybrid so much of the action/storyline takes place at the same time as Twylla's story, coming together later in the book and then tying the two together.

We're introduced to new characters, Errin (Lief's sister) and a mysterious hooded stranger named Silas Kolby and of course the Sleeping Prince, Aurek. I found it much easier to warm to these characters than I did Twylla and Lief although I happily admit to being a Merek fan and wanting more of him. Errin is so different to Twylla, she's independent from the start, headstrong, loyal, stubborn and a dozen other things all of which get her into trouble. Silas is, well, Silas. He's nothing like Merek or Lief, he's mysterious and obviously very attached to Errin in ways which are difficult to read. It's so hard to gush about this book without being completely spoilery!!!

I loved the mythology of this book too, it was fascinating to hear more about the story of the Sleeping Prince, Aurek and his sister Aurelia and the origins of his myth. There was alchemy, healing, golems. mystery, romance, action which all created a fantastic second novel by Salisbury. The writing seemed much more mature and so detailed, especially the parts about the alchemists and the religions of the world, about the fairy tales and myths. It all felt so real and the characters were so well developed. I literally could not put the book down until it was finished. 

With The Sleeping Prince we now have a much more solid setting, everything felt so authentic and rose off the page to completely entrance the reader and immerse you in Errin's world. I was for the most part completely spellbound! The only things I hated? There were a couple of events that I can't mention for fear of spoilers but one of them completely broke me. The other thing tied into this and was that ending... What a cliffhanger! I'm now off to stalk Melinda on Twitter and anywhere else she goes to ensure that she is writing my third book :)

Title: The Sleeping Prince (The Sin-Eater’s Daughter #2)

Author: Melinda Salisbury

Release Date: 4th February 2016

Genre: YA Fantasy

Publisher: Scholastic

Format: Paperback and Ebook

Find: Goodreads | Amazon UK | Book Depository

About Melinda Salisbury  

When not working on her next novel, Melinda Salisbury is busy reading and traveling, both of which are now more addictions than hobbies.

Website | Twitter | Goodreads 

Follow The Tour

Monday 1st February

Music, Books and Tea

Tuesday 2nd February

Tales of Yesterday

Wednesday 3rd February

The Bibliophile Chronicles

Thursday 4th February

Jess Hearts Books

Uncorked Thoughts

Friday 5th February

Maia and a Little Moore

Saturday 6th February

Bookish Outsider

Sunday 7th February

The Book Moo

Monday 8th February

Mia in Narnia

Tuesday 9th February

So Many Books, So Little Time

Wednesday 10th February

Emma’s Bookery

Thursday 11th February

The Books Bandit

Friday 12th February

Big Book Little Book

Saturday 13th February

The Reading Fangirl

Sunday 14th February

Literary-ly Obsessed

 

The Sin Eater's Daughter - Melinda Salisbury

I am the perfect weapon.
I kill with a single touch.

Twylla is blessed. The Gods have chosen her to marry a prince, and rule the kingdom. But the favour of the Gods has it's price. A deadly poison infuses her skin. Those who anger the queen must die under Twylla's fatal touch.

Only Lief, an outspoken new guard, can see past Twylla's chilling role to the girls she truly is.

Yet in a court as dangerous as the queen's, some truths should not be told...

When I first read about The Sin Eater's Daughter I was hooked, wanted to read it right then. When the cover was released I wanted to read it even more, I pre-ordered a copy which I don't normally do if I have a review copy until I've long since read the book and fallen in love. And then it sat on my shelves, unread but for the first chapter until I got an email asking if I'd like to sign up for the blog tour for the next book in the series, The Sleeping Prince, and the first thing I did was pull this one off the shelf and start reading, again...

Twylla is apparently the living embodiment of the daughter of the gods, possessed with the power to kill at a single touch. Dosed with poison on a regular basis she is used as the kingdom's executioner and everyone lives in fear of her, actively avoiding her lest she should accidentally touch them. Life goes on as usual until her favorite bodyguard falls ill and she is left alone with Lief, a new guard. Engaged to Prince Merek, the evil queen's only child (because every story has to have an evil queen) Twylla soon discovers that things aren't actually as they seem and she is just one pawn in a very large game.

Most of The Sin Eater's Daughter, in my opinion anyway, is laying the ground for what's to come in The Sleeping Prince. I was fascinated by the Lormerian fairy tale about him and by the use of fairy tales in general, this is what kept me reading the book. There's not much action but I can't help but think that a lot of the little details in this one could prove to be important in book two. As for the characters I'm still not sure whether I actually liked any of them very much. Twylla seemed to be quite two dimensional and 'woe is me' a lot, she definitely improved a lot after the discovery of her real situation actually is - trying to say more without being spoilery is difficult! The evil queen was excellent, probably more psychotic than evil actually but then anyone who comes from a background that incestuous, even if they are royalty, probably isn't sane any more.

It was maybe slightly too heavy on the romance for me, I though there was going to be the inevitable love triangle at several points which is usually a big no-no for me so I was ever hopeful that this wasn't going to be the center-point of the story all the way through. It was and it wasn't, although there are two choices in her life she's never 'in love' with them both at the same time and Merek & Lief both seem to want different things from her as well. As I said, there may not be much action but there's plenty of detail - too much for a lot of people I've heard - but this is the sort of fantasy I like, detail orientated and (hopefully) providing a good building block for the books to come. I liked Melinda's writing, it was rich and descriptive and her invented fairy tales were fantastic, I would read a book of those if she was ever to write them! I think what mostly kept The Sin Eater's Daughter at four clocks for me is the fact I don't have to wait to read book two because after that ending, which seemed a little disconnected but still almost cliffhanger-ish, I wouldn't have wanted to wait a year to read The Sleeping Prince!

The Sin Eater's Daughter - Melinda Salisbury 

ISBN - 9781407147635

Publisher - Scholastic 

Release date - February 5 2015

Find - Goodreads | Book Depository

Book Haul #120, Or The One Where I Nearly Gave In...

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!

As the title suggests I nearly gave in, after a whole month of buying no books, and splurged madly! I had some birthday money left over and burning a hole in my pocket and naturally the first thing I normally buy is books. It was so hard to resist but I did and instead put it in my Comic Con fund! I did get some review titles this week, both electronic and physical copies all of which I can't wait to read and sated my need for all the shiny, pretty, new books...

Don't forget to enter my birthday giveaway, open until midnight tomorrow so go here to check it out!

Bone By Bone

Crush

The Sleeping Prince

Swan Boy

Arena

Devil & The Bluebird

Jonathan Dark Or The Evidence Of Ghosts

Kingfisher

Bookmarked... #12

The return of the (mostly) weekly post letting you all know what I'm reading and have lined up for the week! It's my own version of Sheila at Book Journey's It's Monday What Are You Reading (now hosted by Kathryn at Book Date) and I have her permission to rename it for my own nefarious reasons...

Bout of Books may be long over now but I kept up the reading last week and managed to finish six books, although The Robber Bridegroom is in a book with just 64 pages... January is always a good month for reading for me, I haven't had time to get disillusioned by the stacks and stacks of books around me so hopefully I'll get ahead on my Goodreads challenge enough that I don't need to worry about it.

This week has started off well too. I currently have bookmarks (real & electronic) in four books all of which enjoying. My enjoyment of short stories continues so I'm loving Best of Apex magazine and Hawley Book of the Dead is one of those books that seems to appear to be a book written just for you because you can't find anything wrong with it! No idea what's up next but it's not as if I'll run out of books to choose from. I'm on a blog tour for the next book in Melinda Salisbury's series, The Sleeping Prince, so thought I better reread The Sin Eater's Daughter now rather than waiting to the last minute.

Finished Last Week

And Then There Were None

Blue Diablo

I Know Who Did It

Return To The Secret Garden

The Robber Bridegroom

Skulduggery Pleasant: Kingdom Of The Wicked

Currently Reading

Best of Apex Magazine

The Hawley Book Of The Dead

Luna: New Moon

The Sin Eater's Daughter

Top Ten Tuesday #90 - Books I Plan To Have In My Book Bag On Vacation!

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

Top Ten Books I Plan To Have In My Beach Bag This Summer

I've changed this slightly as I'm on vacation right now, hopefully with a bag of really great books, some great weather and getting some quality reading time in! This is pretty much what I'm going to try and squeeze in my bag, whether I get to read them all is another matter! I've picked a mix of new and old with a few re-reads thrown in and a couple of titles to finish off too.

Book Haul #96

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!

Well, we're 10 days into 2015 and I haven't bought a single book - not one! This is a major accomplishment for me as I'm always seeing something but I haven't slipped once, probably to do more with the fact that I've been so busy actually reading I haven't had time to browse! All review books this week except one which was a (very) late arriving preorder which now makes me sad to even think about reading it. I've had some amazing review books this week, lots of excited squealing around the house from me for most and a weird celebratory dance for one or two...

PreOrder

Princess of Thorns

Review

Marly's Ghost | Shadow Study | The Sin Eater's Daughter

Seeker | The Ship | Simon Vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda

The Blondes | The Doll Collection | The Dress Shop of Dreams

Top Ten Tuesday #77 - Most Anticipated Debut Novels For 2015

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

Top Ten Eleven Most Anticipated Debut Novels For 2015

I don't often pay attention to whether a book is written by a debut author or not but this year it seems there are lots of debuts I want to read, and want to read now!

The Sacred Lies of Minnow Bly | The Dreamsnatcher | Zeroboxer

The Ship | Vendetta | The Girl On The Train

Red Queen | The Sin Eater's Daughter | A Wicked Thing

The Wrath & The Dawn | The Dead House

Waiting on Wednesday #95 - The Sin Eater's Daughter

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 -

The Sin Eater's Daughter - Melinda Salisbury

ISBN - 9780545810623

Publisher - Scholastic

Expected release date - February 24 2015

Find - Goodreads | Book Depository

A startling, seductive, deliciously dark debut that will shatter your definition of YA fantasy.
 
Sixteen-year-old Twylla lives in the castle. But although she's engaged to the prince, no one speaks to her. No one even looks at her. Because Twylla isn't a member of the court. She's the executioner.

As the goddess-embodied, Twylla kills with a single touch. So each week, she's taken to the prison and forced to lay her hands on those accused of treason. No one will ever love her. Who could care for a girl with murder in her veins? Even the prince, whose royal blood supposedly makes him immune to her touch, avoids her.

But then a new guard arrives, a boy whose playful smile belies his deadly swordsmanship. And unlike the others, he's able to look past Twylla's executioner robes and see the girl, not the goddess. Yet a treasonous romance is the least of Twylla's problems. The queen has a plan to destroy her enemies-a plan that requires an unthinkable sacrifice. Will Twylla do what it takes to protect her kingdom? Or will she abandon her duty in favor of a doomed love?

How fabulous does that sound? Scholastic have published some amazing books recently and this one continues that trend. I cannot wait to get my grubby hands on a copy of The Sin Eater's Daughter!