My Book Haul/In My Mail Box

This is a weekly meme started by Story Siren where bloggers can share what goodies they've picked up this week - If you get a chance head over to The Story Siren and check out what everyone is up to!

I'm still being good so I've only added one book to my TBR bookcase this week. I won it at Housewife Blue and Chihuahua Stories and the lovely Jackie sent over this week (Thanks!). It looks like a great read - and I have to say I love the cover!

Bloodthirsty - Flynn Meaney

Publisher: Brown Books

Some vampires are good. Some are evil. Some are faking it to get girls. Awkward and allergic to the sun, sixteen-year-old Finbar Frame never gets the girl. But when he notices that all the female students at his school are obsessed with a vampire romance novel called Bloodthirsty, Finbar decides to boldly go where no sane guy has gone before--he becomes a vampire, minus the whole blood sucking part. With his brooding nature and weirdly pale skin, it's surprisingly easy for Finbar to pretend to be paranormal. But, when he meets the one girl who just might like him for who he really is, he discovers that his life as a pseudo-vampire is more complicated than he expected.

So what have you picked up this week? :)

On My Wishlist #13

This is a meme from Book Chick City. There are so many books out there that I want to read that this is the only way I can keep track!

The heavenly theme continues this week with books based on a Gods theme...

Amercian Gods - Neil Gaiman

Publisher: UK - Headline (September 2005)

After three years in prison, Shadow has done his time. But as the time until his release ticks away, he can feel a storm brewing. Two days before he gets out, his wife Laura dies in a mysterious car crash, in adulterous circumstances. Dazed, Shadow travels home, only to encounter the bizarre Mr Wednesday claiming to be a refugee from a distant war, a former god and the king of America. Together they embark on a very strange journey across the States, along the way solving the murders which have occurred every winter in one small American town. But the storm is about to break...

I've been eyeing this book up for months, possibly years. It made such a big splash when it was first released but I some how missed it. Since then, I occasionally pick it up in the book stores but never quite made it to the till with it. One day I will read it!

The Broken Kingdoms (Inheritance Trilogy 2) - N.K. Jemisin

Publisher: UK - Orbit (November 2010)

In the city of Shadow, beneath the World Tree, alleyways shimmer with magic and godlings live hidden among mortalkind. Oree Shoth, a blind artist, takes in a homeless man who glows like a living sun to her strange sight. However, this act of kindness is to engulf Oree in a nightmarish conspiracy. Someone, somehow, is murdering godlings, leaving their desecrated bodies all over the city. Oree's peculiar guest is at the heart of it, his presence putting her in mortal danger - but is it him the killers want, or Oree? And is the earthly power of the Arameri king their ultimate goal, or have they set their sights on the Lord of Night himself?

I really enjoyed The Hundred-Thousand Kingdoms, the first of teh Inheritance Trilogy earlier this year, so I'm looking forward to getting this, the next in the trilogy!

Goddess of Legend - PC Cast

Publisher: UK - Piatkus (January 2010)

Isabel, a world-weary photojournalist, is grounded back home in Oklahoma, when her car plummets off a bridge into a lake. Struggling on the edge between life and death, she's miraculously saved by the Water Goddess, but with one tiny caveat: Isabel must travel to another time to seduce the legendary Lancelot du Lac away from Queen Guinevere. Simple. After all, the handsome knight is a dream for any woman in any century. Unfortunately Isabel is the one who's seduced - by the soulful eyes of the wise and soft-spoken King Arthur. But for Isabel, a deal is a deal. Now, the King watches as fate takes from him the mysterious beauty he has come to worship, knowing all too well that any interference on his part could destroy the kingdom he loves.

PC Cast is an author I've been exploring this year - love some books, not keen on others. So I'm curious to try her Goddess summoning series which is being released in the UK in the next few months!

Aphrodite's Workshop for Reluctant Lovers - Marika Cobbold

Publisher: UK - Bloomsbury (February 2010)

Rebecca Finch is a highly successful romantic novelist who has fallen out of love with love. When she heads off for a weekend in Paris and doesn't care that she has absent-mindedly left her boyfriend on the platform in Waterloo, things look bad. But when her god-daughter, struck with pre-wedding jitters, asks Rebecca if marriage is a good idea, and she can't think of a single reason to reply 'yes', she realises it's serious. The 'High Priestess of Romance' is having a crisis of faith. On Mount Olympus, things aren't any easier. Aphrodite is stressed because divorce rates are rocketing and nobody is taking her seriously any more, and Eros, going through a difficult phase, seems to be carelessly shooting arrows without even a thought for the basic compatibility of his victims. So with even her favourite earth-bound acolyte, Rebecca Finch, showing signs of disillusionment, Aphrodite resolves to take drastic action.

This seems like a fun read - I haven't read any chick-lit for a while so I'm looking forward to some lighter reads!

So what are you wishing for this week? :)

Book Blogger Hop #8

The Book Blogger Hop is hosted by Jennifer at Crazy for Books  and is a place just for book bloggers and readers to connect and share our love of the written word! 

"If you find a book that looks interesting but is part of a series, do you always start with the first title?"

 

If I know it is part of a series, then I will check out the first of the series before reading the book that initially caught my eye. I tend to hate starting in the middle of a series - you tend to miss a lot of character development, even if the best books are later in the series.

 

There have been occasions though when I've read books that are part of a series without reading the first book. One of my favourite series is  the Obernewtyn series by Isobelle Carmody and I actually started reading the series (many years ago! When will the final books come out?!) with the second book, The Farseekers and loved it!

So it can work - perhaps I should try it more often...?

The Xmas Factor Review

The Xmas Factor
- Annie Sanders

Publisher: UK - Orion

Meet two women with two totally different approaches to the festive season. First there's Beth - it's only September and already she has performance anxiety. Not surprising when she has agreed to lay on the annual Christmas Eve village bash - the piece de resistance of her husband's former wife - not to mention having to host Christmas for his difficult offspring. New to this frenzied build-up to the festivities, Beth begins to lose sight of what it all means. To her the Christmas lights are looking more like the headlamps of an oncoming train. Then there's Carol, glamorous magazine editor, who put her aspirational Christmas issue to bed sometime in July and is so involved in finding a scoop to save her ailing magazine that she fails to notice the impending festive rush. Panicked and wracked with guilt, she determines to make it a picture perfect time for her little boy and, opting for convenience, books a lovely-sounding cottage in a quaint village. But even the best laid plans have a habit of unravelling - and no plan at all is a recipe for disaster. So when these two Christmasses collide, it looks like it's going to be anything but goodwill toward men...

I've had this book sitting on the shelves since Christmas - a present from last year that I haven't got round to reading yet. I haven't really been focusing on the festive season coming up and I thought this would a good read to try and get me in the mood for mince pies and it does exactly I needed it to. It's light hearted fun with all the fun and stress of Christmas included particularly the pressure put in women at this time of year. It's not a serious book and not one that will stay with me for long, but it let me clear my head out without thinking too hard.

This is a an easy read and while there's no major laugh out loud scenes, it was mildly amusing and fun. I loved the way the characters are put under pressure to have the perfect Christmas - don't we all feel that way each year? When making homemade cranberry sauce seems like most important thing in the world and the presents aren't wrapped until they're covered in tape and bows. However, I was genuinely hoping it would all work out for Beth and Carol - and was happy with the ending which painted a scene that wouldn't be out of place in a Richard Curtis film!
Recommended for fans of Jane Green and Sophie Kinsella. 6 out of 10.

Ops! Accidental purchase...

Some of you may be aware that about a month ago I received a Kindle for my birthday from my friends. I've been really enjoying the experience of reading with an e-reader (as well as the envious glances from other people while I'm on the train!), but this weekend I discovered the first drawback to it - the accidental purchase...

It was I suppose, my own fault in a way. I was with some friends in the pub and raving about how great the Kindle is. I was waving it about and singing the praises of 3G..."Look I can buy a book, while I'm sat on the train or in a coffee shop - no waiting." I was proving my point by connecting to the kindle store and picking a book on the top sellers, more or less at random, "See, if I wanted I could just click here and it would be sent to me within 60 seconds...ops..". Yes, I pressed the wrong button and bought a book completely at random.

Um...

I have since discovered there is a section where if you do buy a book my mistake, it will be taken off your kindle and your money refunded. But I only discovered this afterwards.

The good news is that the book I bought, while not one I would have chosen, it might be a different read for me. It's an autobiographical story by one of the most popular entertainers in Britain - The Fry Chronicles by Stephen Fry.

So the moral of the story - be careful what you press on your kindle when showing off!

Out of interest - has anyone else bought a book by mistake?

Fallen Review

Fallen
- Lauren Kate

Publisher: Kindle

What if the person you were meant to be with could never be yours? 17-year-old Lucinda falls in love with a gorgeous, intelligent boy, Daniel, at her new school, the grim, foreboding Sword & Cross . .

I was really looking forward to Fallen – I’ve seen so many positive reviews and thought it would make a nice change from teenaged vampires. Sadly,  I was wrong. The story is as similar as many of the other teenage love stories out there – Luce is torn between two good-looking boys – one who is alternatively hot and cold to her but that she is attracted to and one who is always nice but doesn’t get her heart racing as much. Once this is has been set up, however, for large portions of book nothing much happens. She goes to classes. Has various encounters with the two guys but nothing really occurs. Then suddenly in the final quarter of the book things really change with a number of revelations about most of the characters we’ve met so far (making most of what we’ve learnt so far irrelevant and silly) and then there’s a huge battle where nothing is resolved.

The sudden change in where story was jarring to me and didn’t really make me feel for the characters at all – in fact the only character I liked was Penn and she didn’t feature heavily. I suppose I’m the wrong age group for this type of story – as much as I love YA – and there are some fab books out there (Try Fire by Kristin Cashore) this one left me a little cold. I don’t really buy into love at first sight in teenage books – I’m always tempted to say it’s hormones! (Yes, I am a horribly jaded adult now!) - so I guess the romance of it all passed me by. Still I went through it fairly quickly and the 'twist' when it came was fairly innovative and different.  

Even if I’d missed the much published release of the sequel – Torment – I could tell there was another book planned as nothing was really resolved. There was no stand alone story in this book that was tied up – actually the book opens wider at the end and leaves you guessing what will happen next. There are loads of questions that need answering but I’m not sure I care enough to pick up the next book.

Recommended for fans of LJ Smith's Vampire Diaries books & Christopher Pike. 5 out of 10

My Book Haul/In My Mail Box

This is a weekly meme started by Story Siren where bloggers can share what goodies they've picked up this week - If you get a chance head over to The Story Siren and check out what everyone is up to!

I've been trying to be good recently - firstly as I've been busy decorating my new flat and secondly as I have 80 books waiting to be read so in theory I shouldn't be buying any new books. (I say in theory as I'll always be tempted by any special offers and I have some book tokens waiting to be use!). The past two weeks I've been very good and haven't bought anything...but I have recieved a couple of nice suprises in the post!

This is a book I won from Jackie at Literary Escapism and looks like a lovely fun romantic read -

Serpent Moon - CT Adams & Cathy Clamp

Eric Thompson’s wolf howl can ruin electronics and send aircraft tumbling from the sky.  Considered dangerous even by his fellow Sazi, Eric has become a lone wolf, living in self-imposed isolation.  Yet when the very foundations of Sazi life come under attack, Eric knows he must defend his fellow shapeshifters at any cost.

Attacked by a band of vicious Sazi, Holly Sanchez should have died.  Instead, she survives, emerging as a powerful Sazi healer. Sent to return Eric to the Sazi world he rejected, Holly finds herself by his side as the lone wolf tracks the monster that is killing the Sazi.  Holly soon realizes she must make a choice—between a Sazi life with Eric, and life as a “normal” human being.  But first, she must survive long enough to make that choice—and she must save her people, and the world, from evil.

And my lovely, lovely friend sent me a book to cheer me up when the boiler at my new place packed in last weekend. It turned up on Thursday, which turned out to be a great day with an unexpected book and my first Eggnog latte of the season!

The Cardinal's Blades - Pierre Pevel

Paris, 1633. Louis XIII reigns over France . . . and Cardinal Richelieu governs the country. One of the most dangerous and most powerful men in Europe, Richelieu keeps a constant, sharp eye on the enemies of the Crown to avoid their assassination attempts, thwart their spies and avert their warmongering. But he's up against people who will stop at nothing to achieve their goals, even going so far as to forge alliances with France's oldest and deadliest enemies. Spain, and the Court of Dragons. The nobility keep tiny dragonnets as pets; royal couriers ride tame wyverns, and lethal man-shaped scaled dracs ropam the country. But the power rising from the Court of Dragons is anything but mundane; the Black Claw sect draws on dragons as they once were: ancient, terrible, utterly merciless . . . and poised to move against France. Faced with the growing threat from Spain, Richelieu summons Captain la Fargue, an exceptional swordsman, devoted officer and brilliant leader. If he's to turn aside the Black Claw's schemes, La Fargue and his legenday company of swashbucklers and rogues must be persuaded to once again risk their lives, fortunes and reputations for Richelieu, and for France. It's the biggest challenge yet for The Cardinal's Blades - and they'll need to be sharp . . .

So that's what I've received this week - what have you recieved this week? :)