Book Haul - 29th April 2011

Hi guys!

Here is my book haul for this week... 



I hope you all have had a productive week reading and otherwise.

Best wishes

Debs

Book Review - A Girl's Guide To Falling in Love with a Zombie by Richard Denny

Rebecca Willis is a 17 year old survivor of a zombie pandemic who’s still in love with her high school crush Lance Tanner, who just happens to be be a zombie. But when things begin to threaten her ties with Lance she must choose over saving her own life & the lives of her friends or saving her zombie. (With a pop of comedy, horror, romance & suspense! Debut Author Richard Denney takes you to a new zombie-level with the first book in the two part series!) 

I absolutely loved this book.  It had a fantastic combination of comedy and romance that I really enjoyed...

For a more detailed review, please see below.




Best wishes 


Debs

Tea Time gets Royally Romantic Giveaway

Mills & Boon® celebrates Royal Wedding with limited edition mug and bespoke Royal Tea from specialist tea blenders Yumchaa.

Further to my last post, I am very pleased to say that I am announcing a giveaway of a bespoke mug and loose leaf tea to celebrate the royal wedding hosted by the wonderful chaps at Mills & Boon to celebrate the Royal Wedding.


To complement the Wills & Kate mug, Mills & Boon have commissioned innovative tea shop Yumchaa to blend an exclusive loose leaf tea called Mills & Boon Royal Tea. The tea has been blended with bespoke ingredients that reflect aspects of the royal engagement. Ingredients include: Black Kenyan Tea to celebrate the couple's Kenyan engagement, Blackberries from Kate's home town of Bucklebury, Blue Cornflowers to represent the royal family, Silver Candy Balls and Red Candy Hearts for love.

The Royal Wedding tea and mug will be available from www.millsandboon.co.uk and www.yumchaa.co.uk. The mug retails for £5.99 and the tea for £7. Yumchaa will also be selling the limited edition tea and mug for a period of 6 weeks on their market stalls across London. You can find their stalls at Camden Lock, Old Spitalfields Market, Partridges Market, Portobello Road, St James' Church and Brick Lane Sunday Upmarket. 

If you would like to enter this contest, all you have to so is post a comment under this post to say that you would like to enter. It is that simple... The only downfall is that you have to live in the UK to be able to enter...  Giveaway closes on 6th May 2011.








Best wishes and Good luck

Debs

Book Review – The Problem with Josephine by Lucy Ashford

The Problem with Josephine is set at the start of the 19th Century and retells the romance between Napoleon and Archduchess Marie-Louise of Austria: 

It's springtime in Paris and Emperor Napoleon is about to marry Archduchess Marie-Louise of Austria. All around the city Napoleon's courtiers are preparing for the spectacularly lavish wedding. Everything must be just right… Ordered to remove all portraits of Josephine, the Emperor's first wife, seamstress Sophie has to track down a talented artist called Jacques. He promises to carry out the commission, but only in return for a kiss for every hour he works… 

I was very kindly given an ebook of this story to read and I am so glad I did. The style of writing was easy to pick up on and I was completely immersed by the second sentence... .. This story has the great mix of romance and history.


I especially loved reading and following the relationship of Sophie and Jacques, which from start to finish had the right momentum and never disappointed.


If you love a bit of romance in your reading, I would recommend you give this a go....


 To purchase this book or another book by Lucy Ashford, please click here http://www.millsandboon.co.uk/books/authorzone.htm?author=Lucy%20Ashford&text=interview

Mills & Boon Royal Wedding Facts

There have been 225 Mills & Boon romances written with the theme of a Royal Wedding since 1981 - the year of the marriage of Prince Charles to Diana Spencer.

The most popular Royal Wedding Mills & Boon to date is The Prince's Waitress Wife by Sarah Morgan, published in 2008 and reissued 75 times worldwide; the prince hero was a rugby player.

Mills & Boon author Sharon Kendrick based her most recent novel The Royal Baby Revelation on the relationship between Prince William and Kate Middleton. Written before the engagement was announced, Sharon predicted William would propose with his mother's engagement ring.

Mills & Boon® 

Mills & Boon have 200 authors in the UK alone, publishing a wide variety of romantic fiction each month with a range of heroes from sexy vampires to scrummy sports stars. Mills & Boon sell 130 million titles worldwide each year, in 26 languages and 109 countries. In the UK, a Mills & Boon book is bought every 4 seconds.

Best wishes

Debs

 

Book Review - Losing It by Valerie Bertinelli

Number of Pages :  288

Publisher :  Free Press


My Review - 8 out of 10

Valerie Bertinelli, then: bubbly sitcom star and America's Sweetheart turned tabloid headline and rock star wife. Now: actress, single working mother of teenage rock star, and weight-loss inspiration to millions.

We all knew and loved Valerie Bertinelli years ago when she was girl-next-door cutie Barbara Cooper in the hit TV show One Day at a Time, and more recently when she starred in numerous TV movies and co-starred in Touched by an Angel. From wholesome prime time in America's living rooms, Valerie moved to late nights with the hardest-partying band of the decadent eighties when she became, at twenty, wife to rock guitarist Eddie Van Halen. Losing It is Valerie's frank account of her life backstage and in the spotlight: the ups and downs of teen stardom, her complicated marriage to a brilliant, tormented musical genius, the joys of motherhood, and her very public struggle with her weight.

Surprising, uplifting, and empowering, Losing It chronicles Valerie's journey as she finds new love, raises a terrific kid, and motivates other women to take back their lives.

This was a great book and definately very interesting to read about the highs and lows of her life although I had initially bought it thinking it was more about weight loss, which it does have in the book but this was definately more of a biography...

For a more detailed review, please see below.....



Best wishes  

Debs 

Book Review - The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary E Pearson

Number of Pages - 288

My Review - 10 out of 10

Seventeen-year-old Jenna Fox has just awoken from a year-long coma—so she’s been told—and she is still recovering from the terrible accident that caused it. But what happened before that? She’s been given home movies chronicling her entire life, which spark memories to surface. But are the memories really hers? And why won’t anyone in her family talk about the accident? Jenna is becoming more curious. But she is also afraid of what she might find out if she ever gets up the courage to ask her questions. What happened to Jenna Fox? And who is she really?

I absolutely loved this book.  It was a story that was completely different to what I have been reading and the writing was so easy to follow, I just couldn't put it down...  I also loved the way the chapters started as they were not they not like the usual chapter one, chapter two etc.

For a more detailed review, please see below - 





Best wishes


Debs

Double Book Review - Witch & Wizard (Book 1) and Witch & Wizard The Gift (Book 2) by James Patterson

Number of Pages - 368

Publisher - Grand Central Publishing

The world is changing: the government has seized control of every aspect of society, and now, kids are disappearing. For 15-year-old Wisty and her older brother Whit, life turns upside down when they are torn from their parents one night and slammed into a secret prison for no reason they can comprehend. The New Order, as it is known, is clearly trying to suppress Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Being a Normal Teenager. But while trapped in this totalitarian nightmare, Wisty and Whit discover they have incredible powers they'd never dreamed of. Can this newly minted witch and wizard master their skills in time to save themselves, their parents--and maybe the world? 

 
Number of Pages - 352

Publisher - Little Brown Company

When Whit & Wisty were imprisoned by the wicked forces of the totalitarian regime known as the New Order, they were barely able to escape with their lives. Now part of a hidden community of teens like themselves, Whit and Wisty have established themselves as leaders of the Resistance, willing to sacrifice anything to save kids kidnapped and brutally imprisoned by the New Order.

But the One has other plans in store for them: He needs Wisty, for she is "The One Who Has the Gift." While trying to figure out what that means, Whit and Wisty's suspenseful adventures through Overworld and Shadowland lead to a jaw-dropping climax and conclusion: the highly-anticipated fulfillment of the heart-pounding opening prologue of book one... The Execution of the Allgoods.

A good idea for a story and I did enjoy learning about the characters but, unfortunately for me, I felt that the story did not progress fast enough and by the end of the second book I did still did not fully understand the characters Whit and Wisty and what their powers were etc.

For a more details review please see below 

Best wishes

Debs

Book Haul - 23rd April 2011

Hi there!  

So it has been a really great week, the weather is finally nice and not only that but it is a bank holiday so even more chance to enjoy the wonderful weather!   So here is what I got this week:



Best wishes

Debs

What is your favourite paranormal YA series?

Well, I have to say that this is a very easy question or me to answer as I have only recently, within the past couple of years really got into paranormal/vampire/supernatural stories as well as young adult stories. Until about two years ago, the books that I was more likely to read were chick lit stories, Dan Brown novels and stories written by authors like Nicholas Sparks and Jodi Picoult. It was mainly main stream authors that I would pick up.

So, I have to confess that I have not read a lot of paranormal YA series. In fact, from looking at my book collection right now, there is only one complete series that I have read all the way through from start to finish. That series is the Wicked Lovely series by Melissa Marr, which completely rocked my book world at the start of this year. I absolutely loved this series and would recommend it to anyone.

As to the paranormal books that I have started but still waiting for more books to be released, those would have to be the Lauren Kate Fallen novels, the Hex Hall series by Rachel Hawkins, the Hollow trilogy by Jessica Verday and the Hush Hush series by Becca Fitzpatrick. I am not sure whether you would class all these as paranormal but each of them do certainly have paranormal elements to them.

So, if I were to pick now what my favourite paranormal YA series is, I would have to say the Wicked Lovely series, not because that is the only one that I have completed but because this one completely changed my way of thinking about those types of novels. The Wicked Lovely series is all about faeries and it was the first time that I had read a story with faeries in it. I certainly would not hesitate now in reading all about faeries in other stories.

If you have not read the Wicked Lovely series, I would definitely recommend it. Even if you have not read this sort of book before, it is certainly a great place to start.

So, how about you? What would be the series you would name as your favourite?

Best wishes

Debs

Book Haul for this week.......

Best wishes

Debs

Book Review - Sweethearts by Sara Zarr

Number of Pages - 217

Publisher -  Little Brown Books

My Review - 10 out of 10

 As children, Jennifer Harris and Cameron Quick were both social outcasts. They were also one another's only friend. So when Cameron disappears without warning, Jennifer thinks she's lost the only person who will ever understand her. Now in high school, Jennifer has been transformed. Known as Jenna, she's popular, happy, and dating, everything "Jennifer" couldn't be---but she still can't shake the memory of her long-lost friend.

When Cameron suddenly reappears, they are both confronted with memories of their shared past and the drastically different paths their lives have taken.

Well, this book completely blew me away.  There I sat down and thought I was going to be reading a nice little lovey dovey chick lit style of story but was completely surprised when I discovered the main theme of the story, which was completely not what I thought it was going to be....  I loved this book...



Best wishes

Debs

Book Review - The Girl with the Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier

Number of Pages - 256

Publisher - Harper

My Review - 10 out of 10


  A sumptuous new look for Tracy Chevalier's bestselling novel. Griet, the young daughter of a tilemaker in seventeeth century Holland, obtains her first job, as a servant in Vermeer's household. Tracy Chevalier shows us, through Griet's eyes, the complicated family, the society of the small town of Delft, and life with an obsessive genius. Griet loves being drawn into his artistic life, and leaving her former drudgery, but the cost to her own survival may be high. 

What a great and beautiful story.  This is one of the first historical fiction books I have read in a very long while.  I absolutely loved it and from page 1 I was immediately swept into this wonderful world and carried away by fantastic characters...



Best wishes


Debs

Book Review - Men at Work by Mike Gayle

Number of Pages - 96

Publisher - Hodder

My Review - 10 out of 10

Ian Greening loves his job at the Department of Work and Pensions. It might not be the best paid job in the world but it gives him lots of scope for fun. He loves his girlfriend, Emma, too. But when Emma is made redundant, and gets a temping job in Ian's office, he doesn't like it at all. Emma only knows Home Ian - and Work Ian is a different kettle of fish. Spending twenty-four hours a day together is too much of a good thing. But how can he tell her that without hurting her? Ian comes up with a plan to get things back the way they were. But it puts his relationship at risk and forces Ian to decide which really matters most: the job, or Emma. A sweet, funny novel about love and work.  


What a great book.  It had the great mix of funny and sad all wrapped up in a short story..... 



Best wishes

Debs

Book Review - At Home With Books by Estelle Ellis and Caroline Seebohm

Number of Pages - 256

Publisher - Clarkson Potter

My Review - 10 out of 10

Less a book about libraries, as its Dewey classification asserts, than an interior-design album, this lavish tome yet stresses the importance of books in the lives of even the rich and famous, even when they're not writers. Oh, some whose book troves appear do write for a living: for instance, poet Richard Howard, whose small New York apartment walls are near-totally covered with books. Others whose entire names are famous include designer Bill Blass and Rolling Stone Keith Richards, but of the rest, a few just have impressive surnames (Rothschild, Getty, Biddle), one has a title (the duke of Devonshire), and the remainder have monikers as discreet as their fortunes are large. A terrific browsing book, thanks to Christopher Simon Sykes' tasteful photos, helpfully concluded by a resource directory of tony rare-book dealers, book fairs, bookbinders, sources of library furnishings, etc

I absolutely loved this book from the first page to the last.  I enjoyed finding out more about books and people's libraries and even cured by nosy nature by being able to see other people's libraries too! 




Best wishes

Debs

Book Review - I am Number Four by Pittacus Lore

Number of Pages - 480

Publisher - HarperCollins

My Review - 10 out of 10

John Smith is not your average teenager. He regularly moves from small town to small town. He changes his name and identity. He does not put down roots. He cannot tell anyone who or what he really is. If he stops moving those who hunt him will find and kill him. But you can't run forever. So when he stops in Paradise, Ohio, John decides to try and settle down. To fit in. And for the first time he makes some real friends. People he cares about - and who care about him. Never in John's short life has there been space for friendship, or even love. But it's just a matter of time before John's secret is revealed. He was once one of nine. Three of them have been killed. John is Number Four. He knows that he is next.

I absolutely adored this book.  It is the first time I have read a book like this and normally this would not be one that I would have chosen but I have seen so many reviews and book hauls with this in, I just had to get in on the action and give it a go and boy was I glad I did.



Best wishes

Debs

Bookshelf Tour - My To Be Read Books

Hi there,

Hope you enjoy -

Part One



Part Two



Part Three



Best wishes

Debs



Best wishes

Debs

Book Haul

Hi guys,

I hope you are all having a fantastic weekend....   Here is my book haul for this week..... 

I am catching up with my reading and watching videos today so I am very much looking forward to seeing that you guys got/reviewed etc....

This is the long version -



This is the short version -




Best wishes

Debs

What Book World Would You Like to Be Part Of

Hi guys,

This was a fun topic video that I had posted on my Youtube channel and I thought it would be fun to share it with you guys as well



I am looking forward to hearing what world you would be a part of...

Best wishes

Debs

Bookshelf Tour - Part One

This is part one of my bookshelf tour where I show you my new bookcases and the books I have read shelves....  Part two will be my to be read shelves, which will be coming soon....

Charity Shop Book Haul.... I have been finding some really brilliant books lately.....