Weekly Recap: Where I Basically Recap A Whole Month & Haul ALL The Books

I AM BACK! Yes, finally, it is happening. I have been absent from the blog for the longest time, what feels like months. It was more like a month to two, but it felt like almost a lifetime.
In that time I have:

•  Missed my actual blogoversary, so I celebrated it this week instead. I am doing a giveaway to celebrate as well, so be sure to enter!
• Had two weeks off work! HALLELUJAH! It was glorious, I got to do all the reading, all the sleeping and all the Netflix binging. 
• I devoured enough books to complete my Goodreads challenge of 100 books. I'm now at 116. Go me!
• I went to awesome book events. I got to meet Jennifer Donnelly, who is a sweetheart; Julie Mayhew who was as wonderful as the last time, and Leigh Bardugo who is fucking hilarious! I adored her. 
• Got my outfit together for a Disney Halloween Party. I am going as human Ariel and I am far too excited! You can probably expect lots of pictures next week, where I show off my adorably terrible, but cheaply put together costume.
• Acquired far too many books! So many that I am splitting the haul. I am also running out of shelf space... And I have seven bookshelves.
• I started a Book Tube channel and posted a few videos! I have actually had a lot of fun doing these, even if they take a lot of time. 
• I got sick... SUPER SICK! And I felt like I was dying. But I am all better now! Hurray for me!

Eva Ibbotson: Queen of YA Historical Romance

Title: The Morning Gift
Author: Eva Ibbotson
Publisher: Macmillan's Children's Books
Buy This Book: Amazon (UK) / Amazon (US) / Book Depository

Twenty-year-old Ruth Berger is desperate. The daughter of a Jewish-Austrian professor, she was supposed to have escaped Vienna before the Nazis marched into the city. Yet the plan went completely wrong, and while her family and fiancé are waiting for her in safety, Ruth is stuck in Vienna with no way to escape. Then she encounters her father’s younger college professor, the dashing British paleontologist Quin Sommerville. Together, they strike a bargain: a marriage of convenience, to be annulled as soon as they return to safety. But dissolving the marriage proves to be more difficult than either of them thought—not the least because of the undeniable attraction Quin and Ruth share. To make matters worse, Ruth is enrolled in Quin’s university, in his very classes. Can their secret survive, or will circumstances destroy their love?

Her books feel almost magical.

I did not know what to expect from Eva Ibbotson's books. I had seen them a lot whilst working in libraries, but had never picked them up and did not know anything about the author herself. I had assumed she was a young writer, not a woman who died in 2010, at the age of eighty-five, with such a rich history behind her. Having now finished five of her books, I can now say that I completely understand why she is an author who is held in such high regard. She weaves history and romance together so effortlessly, and they all have such a magical feel about them. I finish them with a smile on my face, and a warmth in my heart that is so hard to truly explain.

Blogoversary Celebration & Giveaway!

I have been blogging for TWO YEARS! Which feels rather amazing to me. I know I have been absent from the blog for quite some time now, but I plan to come back with a vengeance, starting with a blogoversary celebration!

My first blogoversary came round so quickly, it hardly felt like it had been a year at all. Two years feels so different, it feels like I have been blogging for so much longer than that now. Now blogging can be so much fun, but it can also be a lot of work. It's the wonderful community that makes blogging worthwhile, and what makes me keep writing posts. I have got to know so many amazing bloggers and they have made blogging a million times easier for me.

My Weekly Book Haul: 26/09/2015

It feels nice to finally be back on the blog, after I took some unplanned weeks away. I'd been struggling really badly with insomnia, caused by a medication I am currently taking. It is horrible! I thought I'd suffered from it before, but clearly I had absolutely no idea what I was talking about before. It has been really hard and I had started to feel like a bit of a zombie. But I am finally getting used to the medication, which means the insomnia is getting better. So I hope to get back to blogging now.

I've been feeling the urge more and more to do book review/discussion videos, as well as tag videos. I love discussing books and I just find it easier talking about them, rather than trying to get my thoughts typed up. But editing videos is actually hard as hell. How do people do it?!?! But it is also so fun to film them and do them. Then it is just hard to watch them. It's very cringe worthy. But it is A LOT of fun, so I will definitely be continuing doing them from now on.

In my break I managed to complete my reading goal for the year, I have now read over 100 books and I am really happy. I have also become a little bit (seriously!) addicted to this show my sister showed me, called Switched at Birth. I am now addicted. I've watched almost 40 episodes in 4 days. I can't stop. My Daphne and Wilke feels are far too real.

My haul this week is rather huge, but that is because I won an amazing giveaway that Maximum Pop Books was running on Twitter. I retweeted a picture of this massive pile of books... AND ACTUALLY WON! I couldn't believe it, especially when hundreds of people had retweeted it. I even decided to post an unboxing haul when it arrived.

Living Dead Girl by Elizabeth Scott  The Martian by Andy Weir
Flawed by Kate Avelynn

I absolutely had to buy myself The Martian. I need to hurry up and devour that book before the movie comes out, as I am rather desperate to see it.

Flesh and Blood by Simon Cheshire | Dark Room by Tom Becker | Trial by Fire by Josephine Angelini | Firewalker by Josephine Angelini | Suicide Notes for Beautiful Girls by Lynn Weingarten | I'll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson | What We Left Behind by Robin Talley | Fans of the Impossible Life by Kate Scelsa | Black Cairn Point by Claire McFall | Trouble is a Friend of Mine by Stephanie Tromley | Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard | Demon Road by Derek Landy | The School of Good and Evil by Soman Chainani | The Monkey's Secret by Gennifer Choldenko | The Self-Esteem Teams Guide to Sex Drugs & WTFs by The Self-Esteem Team | Wannabe by Tessa Clayton | Survivor by Tom Hoyle | Concentr8 by William Sutcliffe | Zayn: A New Direction by Sarah Oliver | Being Conchita by Conchita Wurst | Unbecoming by Jenny Downham | The Invasion of the Tearling by Erika Johanssen | Wolf Wilder by Katherine Rundell |

HOW AMAZING WAS THAT WIN!?!? SOOOO MANY BOOKS!!! I admit that I actually have quite a lot of these, so any I already have will probably be given away at some point. 

The Light That Gets Lost by Natasha Carthew | When I Was Me by Hilary Freeman |
Cloud 9 by Alex Campbell | A Song for Summer by Eva Ibbotson | Magic Flutes by Eva Ibbotson |
The Morning Gift by Eva Ibbotson | A Company of Swans by Eva Ibbotson | The Secret Countess by Eva Ibbotson |

I also want to show off the incredibly cool book necklace that Cait from Paper Fury sent me! She not only sent me this beautiful ACOTAR one, she also sent me a Half Bad/Half Wild one that you can flip. I LOVE THEM!!! She does these, as well as so many other amazing things, over on her Etsy store.

Films for Thoughts on Thursday: The Scorch Trials

Films for Thoughts on Thursday: The Scorch Trials

This is a weekly meme that I am hosting here at Reviews from a Bookworm. To take part all you have to do is share a movie review once a week, link back to Reviews from a Bookworm and add your link to the linky tool.

This weeks movie review will be for:

The Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials

I went to see The Scorch Trials last week, and I am happy that I can say I really enjoyed it. I was excited, but also very nervous, about seeing it. I had really enjoyed the first film, but I was scared because I didn't want this to be a disastrous sequel like Insurgent was. But it wasn't. It was really good and I can't wait for the final movie...