Reviews from a Bookworm

My Weekly Recap: The GIANT Haul Edition

I had told myself that I was going to try my hardest to get back on top of things blog wise. I have kind of failed as of late. (And by kind of failed, I mean epically failed!) But my job is taking up all my time and by the time I get home I just have 0 energy to do anything!

A lot of awesome things have happened since my last recap post. I got to attend the Hot Key Blogger Brunch and had a wonderful time. I came home with so many amazing books that I am slowly making my way through. I also went to the filming of QI. I got to be in the same room as Stephen Fry! It was incredible and I really hope to get the chance to go again very soon.

But the most awesome thing that happened was that I got to go and meet Sarah J Maas. I fangirled like an absolute crazy person but I couldn't help myself. I adore her and her books! They are next to HP for me and she's next to J.K. Rowling. Thanks to my sister and some wonderful people in the queue I actually managed to get all 10 of my books signed!!! I looked crazy next to everyone else. I literally had to bring a suitcase with me to carry my hardback and paperback copies to the event. Maas was absolutely hilarious and so friendly. I'm still fangirling right now.

Not blogging has helped me with my reading though, I've gone from being about 8 books behind on my challenge to being 11 books ahead. I just haven't stopped reading and I have read some awesome books. I've also read more New Adult thanks to some recommendations by Brittany, and I adored them.

My new job as a manager means more pay, which meant that I went a little bit crazy when I got my first pay check. I BOUGHT ALL THE BOOKS!!! And then I bought new bookshelves. And new shoes. And went out a lot. And just spent obscene amounts of money on far too many things. I WILL BE BETTER NEXT MONTH! I bought enough books to last me till the end of the year and then got all the review books in one go. I'm going to be SUPER busy reading wise.

This isn't all of them, but I can't be bothered to hunt all the books down now to take a picture of them all.

Get ready.... there's 85 books!

On the 18th of April, I was lucky enough to be invited along to the Hot Key Books Blogger Brunch. There was absolutely no way that I was going to miss that! It was based at their offices and luckily that's only a twenty five minute train journey from my house, but I'd probably have gone even if it was the other side of the country. I adore Hot Key Books and they publish some amazing books, I couldn't wait to go and find out what they had coming up in 2015.

Photo by Zarina

I arrived nice and early and got to mingle with a few bloggers. I was attending by myself so felt a tiny bit shy and nervous*, but tried my best to make conversation with the lovely bloggers there. It was nice to meet so many wonderful people, especially when we all share a love of books. I tried to take some pictures of the event but I've been having a lot of issues with my camera recently, so most of mine came out really blurry. Luckily the wonderful Zarina over at Page to Stage Reviews has been kind enough to let me use a few of the ones she took at the event! Thank you, Zarina, you're a life saver!

*And by a little bit, I mean cripplingly shy! I am far too socially awkward and fail at small talk.

Then we got taken through from reception into the main office, where we were presented with yummy breakfast food and drink. Here we had time to mingle and talk to everyone, have some munchies before heading into the boardroom. I have to say it, the Hot Key offices are absolutely stunning and I never wanted to leave. The walls were covered in gorgeous posters of some of their book covers, then they had shelves filled with wonderful books that I've either read and loved, or I am desperate to read.

Photo by Zarina

First up was James Dawson, who had a lot of wonderful things to say about blogger. He was there to talk about his new book All of the Above, which is due out 3rd September. His titles before this have all had a horror element to them, but this book moves away from that. It's a teen love story that sees a seventeen-year-old girl move from Bradford to Devon, where she has the chance to start over. She falls in love with a guy named Nico. But then has to deal with the fact she starting to fall in love with the charismatic Penny. It's a mix of prose and poetry and it sounds awesome!

Title: The Three
Author: Sarah Lotz
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
Buy this book: Amazon (US) / Amazon (UK) / Book Depository

Four simultaneous plane crashes. Three child survivors. A religious fanatic who insists the three are harbingers of the apocalypse. What if he's right?The world is stunned when four commuter planes crash within hours of each other on different continents. Facing global panic, officials are under pressure to find the causes. With terrorist attacks and environmental factors ruled out, there doesn't appear to be a correlation between the crashes, except that in three of the four air disasters a child survivor is found in the wreckage. Dubbed 'The Three' by the international press, the children all exhibit disturbing behavioural problems, presumably caused by the horror they lived through and the unrelenting press attention. This attention becomes more than just intrusive when a rapture cult led by a charismatic evangelical minister insists that the survivors are three of the four harbingers of the apocalypse. The Three are forced to go into hiding, but as the children's behaviour becomes increasingly disturbing, even their guardians begin to question their miraculous survival...

I really had no idea what to expect from The Three when I started it. There was a small part of me that was a little nervous that it was going to be a really creepy read and that I might wimp out when reading it. It turned out that it wasn't creepy at all, even if it was probably trying to be. It's told completely through interviews, phone conversations, messages and media reports that slowly unravel the story of Black Thursday and what happens to the three children who survive.

Black Thursday took place on the 12th January 2012, four commercial planes crash around the world, killing almost everyone involved. However three children survive, from three separate crashes and these children become known as The Three in the press. Mystery surrounds the children as more information comes out about the crashes, and conspiracy theories start to gain more and more support as time goes on.

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted at The Broke & The Bookish.

This weeks topic is:

All time favourite authors...

How unfair is this weeks topic. And how can I suddenly declare my all time favourite authors when it's likely to change so much as the years go on! This topic actually made me realise that I really don't have that many auto-buy authors. I have authors who I have loved and appreciated, but sometimes based only on one book, I feel like I can't really declare someone an all time favourite author if I haven't read more than one book of theirs. What if its a fluke? Or the only book of theirs that I end up liking?

J. K. Rowling, Sarah J. Maas, Colleen Hoover, David Clement-Davies & Suzanne Collins

There was never going to be anyone but JK topping my list. The woman wrote Harry Potter and that basically means that she is the Queen of all things. I bow down to her awesomeness and will forever be desperate for more HP books.
Sarah J. Maas is an author who I adore and can't wait to meet next month.... I AM DYING! I want to get all of my beautiful books signed by her and I can't wait. I am desperate for this. Her Throne of Glass series amazes me and the wait between books is starting to feel like it's actually killing me. I recently reviewed A Court of Thorns and Roses by her and it didn't disappoint either.
Colleen is an author I love for many reasons, not just her writing. Her books have never disappointed me and so I preorder a book as soon as she announces it. I don't care what it's about, I am reading it and I will love it. I also love her because she's absolutely hilarious, seriously, you need her social media posts in your life. She's also one of the nicest and most generous authors and that gets her many bonus points.
David Clement-Davies is a very underrated author and I will always love him. I've also realised he's the only male author on my list. I first read The Sight and Fire Bringer by him when I was a child but I still reread those books now, they're beyond amazing.
Suzanne Collins is an easy choice because she gave me The Hunger Games... and then nothing else. I know she had the other series aimed at younger readers, but I need more of her YA in my life.

Abigail Haas, Jodi Picoult, Sally Green, Malorie Blackman & Jennifer Niven

Haas is a genius, both Dangerous Boys and Dangerous Girls blew me away. She needs to keep releasing books.... I NEED MORE! Jodi Picoult is an auto-buy author for me, I own every book she's ever written. I have to admit that I've not been a big fan of her last few books, but I will still be reading everything she releases. Sally Green, I only read her books last month but I am already obsessed and in awe of that woman and her talent.

The Disney Princess Book Tag

Top Ten Tuesday: Characters I'd Like To Check In With

A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas: Spoiler Free Review

Films for Thoughts on Thursday: Insurgent Movie Review

My Weekly Recap: 18/04/15

I'm celebrating my return to the blogging world and Instagram with a giveaway. You can get entries by entering through the rafflecopter on here and then get extra entries if you repost on Instagram. Your Instagram entries will count on the rafflecopter and then on Instagram too!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

My Weekly Recap: 18/04/15

It's nice to finally be back to blogging after taking so long off, even though I didn't manage to get anything scheduled like I'd originally hoped. This is going to be a rather big catch up on everything I have been up to since my break.

I started my new job as a library supervisor, that's right... I am in charge of other human beings. It's been rather hard going from my old job to this one, just because I'm going in knowing nothing about their systems and everything. It sucks going from being one of the most knowledgeable people somewhere to having to constantly ask how to do everything. But I'm really enjoying it and it helps that all the people there are wonderful, wickedly smart and welcoming.

I went to a wonderful event at Waterstones Piccadilly where I got to meet David Levithan, Sally Green and Jennifer Niven. It was such a nice event and all three authors were absolutely lovely. I had been beyond excited to meet Niven because I adored All the Bright Places and she had seemed like such a lovely person in all the correspondence we'd had online. She was as nice as I'd imagined, as well as being beyond beautiful. Sally Green was an author whose first book I'd owned for ages but never read, but did before going to the event. I became obsessed and Half Bad and Half Wild are two of my top reads of the year so far. David Levithan was absolutely hilarious, especially when he performed scenes from his musical book and actually sung for us all. Genius! I got to get lots of pretty books signed too.

Then I had a lovely day in London last Sunday to go meet Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton and Jodi Meadows. It was an event organised by them, through Jodi's publishers Harper. They are visiting Europe for two weeks and wanted a very informal meet with readers. It was in an adorable coffee shop and I took my best friend along with me. They were all hilarious, incredibly friendly, down to earth and so enthusiastic about their books and the book they are working on together. IT SOUNDS AMAZING! It's called The Lady Jane and you want that book on your TBR. I'll be doing a proper feature on it soon because I am beyond excited for it. There was only my friend, myself, two other readers, the three authors and the publicist. It was very relaxed and such a fun afternoon of just drinking, chatting and discussing books. Not only did I get given a beautiful tote bag filled with books, but the publicist also settled our bill before she left... Neither of which I was expecting but was so grateful for. Such a fun day!

And I am even more excited because when this goes up no the blog I should be at or on my way to the Hot Key Books blogger event! Where I will get to meet lots of other wonderful bloggers, but I will also get to meet some Hot Key authors like James Dawson, hear about what Hot Key has coming this year and get a lovely goodie bag. I have had a very book event filled few weeks and I am loving every minute of it!

I also read The Duff, which I really enjoyed even though it was nothing like what I was expecting. Reading the book made me realise that I still really wanted to see the movie but it was going to be nothing like the book. I was right, but thankfully I still absolutely loved the movie. It's very different but both were amazing and I loved both. Highly recommend both to you all!

Now I have far too many books to show in this haul.... OOOPS! But it's been a few weeks so they have slowly started to pile up. Bear with me!

I'm linking up with Tynga's Stacking the Shelves and the Caffeinated Book Reviewers The Sunday Post.

Half Wild x2 by Sally Green

All the Bright Places x2 by Jennifer Niven

Hold Me Closer by David Levithan

Naomi & Ely's No Kiss List by David Levithan

Boy Meets Boy by David Levithan

These are the books I bought for the event at Piccadilly. I already owned copies of Half Wild and All the Bright Places, but both were ARCs and I wanted finished copies. I bought both a hardback and paperback finished copy of Half Wild because I have the same, both signed, but Sally Green. Plus I wanted to get a copy of All the Bright Places signed for my sister for her birthday. All these pretties are now SIGNED!

Everneath by Brodi Ashton

I got this for the author event and had it signed whilst I was there. Brodi gets extra points for being willing to drink Prosecco with me at 2 in the afternoon.