Tag: Book Blogger

#FirstLinesFriday: 25 March 2022

Dini @ dinipandareads16 Comments

Happy Friday book lovers! We’re back with another First Lines Friday, a weekly feature for book lovers hosted by Wandering Words. What if instead of judging a book by its cover, its author or its prestige, we judged it by its opening lines? Here are the rules:

  • Pick a book off your shelf (it could be your current read or on your TBR) and open to the first page
  • Copy the first few lines, but don’t give anything else about the book away just yet – you need to hook the reader first
  • Finally… reveal the book!

First lines:

“They say you can spot a true shénnóng-shi by their hands—palms colored by the stain of the earth, fingertips scarred from thorns, a permanent crust of soil and blood darkening the crescents of their nails.
I used to look at my hands with pride.
Now, all I can think is, These are the hands that buried my mother.“

Do you recognise the book these first lines come from?

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ARC Review: One-Timer by Teagan Hunter

Dini @ dinipandareads16 Comments

🎉 HAPPY RELEASE DAY! 🎉

Special thanks to Valentine PR for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Goodreads: One-Timer (Carolina Comets #3)
Publication Date: 24 March 2022
Genre: Sports Romance, Romantic Comedy
Panda Rating:

(3.75 pandas)

“I’m pregnant.”

That’s what my teammate’s sister-in-law told me after our one-night stand.

I didn’t expect to see Hollis again, let alone end up raising a child with her.

We set some ground rules–we’ll raise the baby together, but that’s it.
No relationship, no future, and definitely no kissing.

But the more time we spend together, the harder it is to keep track of where the lines were once drawn.

I’m known for my one-timer on and off the ice, but this game with Hollis just got a lot more complicated…

  Download today or read for FREE with Kindle Unlimited!

Amazon US
Amazon Worldwide
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Cover Reveal: Those Three Little Words by Meghan Quinn

Dini @ dinipandareads6 Comments

Hellow, friends (especially my fellow romance readers)! I’m excited to be sharing the cover reveal for Meghan Quinn’s upcoming release: Those Three Little Words! Quinn is one of those authors that writes hilarious and fabulous banter while also turning the heat up high. 🥵 I always get excited when I learn she’s releasing another new book!

THOSE THREE LITTLE WORDS by Meghan Quinn
Release Date: 05 April 2022
Genre: Contemporary Romance

PREORDER IS AVAILABLE!!!

gET YOUR COPY!
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#WWWWednesday: 23 March 2022

Dini @ dinipandareads29 Comments

Hello, hello and welcome back to another episode of WWW Wednesday, a weekly meme hosted by Sam @ Taking On A World of Words, which means I’ll be answering these questions:

  1. What did you read last?
  2. What are you currently reading?
  3. What will you read next?

Since last week I’ve read four books. This past week has been hellacious and all I’ve wanted to do is take my sleep-deprived and anxious self and retreat into a cave and never come out. When I’m not playing my new Breath of the Wild save (what’s more de-stressing than slaying Lynels?) romances have been my go-to and even then my anxious mood has made it hard to fully get into the stories…

The Raven Boys (The Raven Cycle #1) by Maggie Stiefvater ★★★½
I buddy read this with Leslie and I’m glad that I finally read it. It’s very hyped and I can see why but it took a bit of time to warm up to it. It was also very different to what I expected which was both awesome but very much threw me off 😂 We’ll read the next book in May and I can’t wait!

Things We Never Got Over by Lucy Score ★★★★☆
This was my first book by Lucy Score and I loved it! This had so many tropes including hate-to-love, grumpy/sunshine, single parent with a dash of fake-dating and forced proximity, and all set in an awesome small town. I want more stories set in Knockemout, please!

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#TopTenTuesday: Books with Adjectives in the Title!

Dini @ dinipandareads26 Comments

So, we’re back with another Top Ten Tuesday, a weekly meme hosted by Jana @ That Artsy Reader Girl.

This week’s prompt is: Books with an Adjective in the Title (Submitted by Nicole @ How to Train a Book Dragon)

This was a fun little prompt to test my knowledge of grammar! 😂 I decided to focus today’s list on the books that are just waiting to be read on my Kindle and I was honestly surprised by how far down my list I had to go to find ten titles but we finally got there in the end! To start, let’s take a look at what the definition of an adjective is:

An adjective is a word that modifies a noun or a pronoun. In general, the purpose of an adjective is to describe a noun or pronoun and provide more information about it. Adjectives provide answers to questions such as “What kind?” “Which one?” and “Whose is it?”

Thesaurus.com
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Blog Tour Spotlight: Letter to a Stranger by Colleen Kinder

Dini @ dinipandareads3 Comments

Hi, friends! I’m excited to be shining a spotlight on Letters to a Stranger: Essays to the Ones Who Haunt Us by Colleen Kinder on the blog today!

When I first heard about this book, it absolutely delighted the part of me that often thinks about all the people, significant or seemingly insignificant, that I’ve met in life. I think it’s such a romantic notion and I love the idea of writing a letter to whichever person has (un)knowingly left a mark on your person. I haven’t heard of any of the featured authors in this book but I’m excited to dive into it. This seems like a collection of essays that is best taken in over an extended period of time by consuming maybe one or two stories a day to really be able to savour the experience!

Special thanks to Algonquin Books for having me on tour and for providing an ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Goodreads: Letter to a Stranger: Essays to the Ones Who Haunt Us
Publisher: Algonquin Books
Publication Date: 22 March 2022
Genre: Non-Fiction

Sixty-five extraordinary writers grapple with this mystery: How can an ephemeral encounter with a stranger leave such an eternal mark?

When Colleen Kinder put out a call for authors to write a letter to a stranger about an unforgettable encounter, she opened  the floodgates. The responses—intimate and addictive, all written in the second person—began pouring in. These short, insightful essays by a  remarkable cast of writers, including Elizabeth Kolbert, Pico Iyer, Lauren Groff, Gregory Pardlo, Faith Adiele, Maggie Shipstead, Lia Purpura, Kiki Petrosino, and Jamil Jan Kochai, are organized around such themes as Gratitude, Wonder, and Farewell and guide us both across the globe and through the mysteries of human connection. Addressed to a first responder after a storm, a gambler encountered on jury duty, a waiter in  Istanbul, a taxi driver in Paris, a roomful of travelers watching reality TV in La Paz, and dozens of others, the pieces are replete with observations about how to live and what we seek, and how a stranger’s loaded glance, shared smile, or question posed can alter the course of our lives. 

Moving and unforgettable, Letter to a Stranger is an irresistible read for the literary traveler and the perfect gift for anyone who is haunted by a person they met once and will remember forever.

buy a copy
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Sundays in Bed With… #MyWeeklyWrapUp

Dini @ dinipandareads20 Comments

We’re back with another Sundays in Bed With… meme! This meme dares to ask you what book has been in your bed this morning and is hosted by Midnight Book Girl. Come share what book you’ve spent time curled up reading in bed with, or which book you wish you had time to read today!

I’ll be spending the rest of my Sunday night in bed with my ARC for One Timer by Teagan Hunter. I just finished book two in the Carolina Comets series last week and absolutely loved it and Hunter’s romcoms never fail to make me laugh so I’m excited to dive in! 😍

What are you currently reading?

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Let’s Talk Bookish: Buying Secondhand Books

Dini @ dinipandareads23 Comments

Let’s Talk Bookish is a weekly meme, hosted by Rukky @Eternity Books  & Dani @ Literary Lion, where we get to discuss certain topics, share our opinions, and spread the love by visiting each other’s posts! You can check out these pages for March 2022 prompts & a full list of the past prompts!

Now without further ado… The topic asks us about:

BUYING SECONDHAND BOOKS

(SUGGESTED BY HASINI @ BIBLIOSINI)
Prompts: Do you buy secondhand books? Why or why not? What are the benefits of buying secondhand? What are the cons of secondhand books? What do you recommend people do to better support secondhand bookstores?

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Blog Tour Review: Anything But Fine by Tobias Madden

Dini @ dinipandareads14 Comments

Hello, friends! Today is my stop on the TBR & Beyond Tours for Anything But Fine by Tobias Madden and I’m excited to share my review and a journal spread I made with some thoughts I had and some images that came to mind while I was reading! 🩰

Special thanks to Page Street Kids for providing an ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review!

Click here or on the banner above to check out the rest of the amazing bloggers on tour!

Goodreads: Anything But Fine
Publisher: Page Street Kids
Publication Date: 29 March 2022
Genre: Young Adult Contemporary

Panda Rating:

(3.5 pandas)

All it takes is one missed step for your life to change forever.

Luca Mason knows exactly who he is and what he wants: In six months, he’s going to be accepted into the Australian Ballet School, leave his fancy private high school, and live his life as a star of the stage—at least that’s the plan until he falls down a flight of stairs and breaks his foot in a way he can never recover from.

With his dancing dreams dead on their feet, Luca loses his performing arts scholarship and transfers to the local public school, leaving behind all his ballet friends and his whole future on stage.

The only bright side is that he strikes up unlikely friendships with the nicest (and nerdiest) girl at his new school, Amina, and the gorgeous, popular, and (reportedly) straight school captain, Jordan Tanaka-Jones.

As Luca’s bond with Jordan grows stronger, he starts to wonder: who is he without ballet? And is he setting himself up for another heartbreak?

PRE-ORDER A COPY:

AMAZON
B&N
BOOK DEPOSITORY
INDIGO
INDIEBOUND
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#WWWWednesday: 16 March 2022

Dini @ dinipandareads21 Comments

Hello, hello and welcome back to another episode of WWW Wednesday, a weekly meme hosted by Sam @ Taking On A World of Words, which means I’ll be answering these questions:

  1. What did you read last?
  2. What are you currently reading?
  3. What will you read next?

Is it just me or are the days FLYING by?! Since last week I’ve read five books. Unsurprisingly, most of my reads were romances cos it seems to be the only genre I can happily read in my weird mood that I can’t shake. I admit it’s a little frustrating when I want to read the other books on my TBR and yet nothing else seems to catch! 😂

We Hunt the Flame (Sands of Arawiya #1) by Hafsah Faizal ★★★★½
This was a buddy read with Leslie @ Book Are the New Black & Julie @ One Book More! A good chunk of the beginning was quite a struggle to get through but we all ended up really enjoying the book and came up with some wild and exciting theories for book two! I’m so excited to read the sequel with them next month 😍

(ARC) Anything But Fine by Tobias Madden ★★★½
This was a well-written and engaging YA contemporary debut that sent me running down memory lane as I used to live in Australia and I’m familiar with many of the places mentioned in the book. It was fab! My blog tour review + journal spread is going up tomorrow! 😃

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