Tag: Book Blogger

Top 5 Saturday: Feminist Themes

Dini @ dinipandareads8 Comments

Welcome back to another Top 5 Saturday! Just in case you don’t know Top 5 Saturday is a weekly meme created by Mandy @ Devouring Books and it’s where we list the top five books (they can be books on your TBR, favourite books, books you loved/hated) based on the week’s topic. You can see the upcoming schedule at the end of my post 🙂 This week’s topic is actually: feminist themes!

Saturday has come and gone and I’ve only just realised that I never finished my post 🙃 So, I’m going to keep it short and simple today. I think the topic speaks for itself! But really who doesn’t love a good empowering read about women rising up against the patriarchy or simply advocating for women everywhere by speaking up about experiences that we all face? All of these are on my TBR and I’m looking forward to reading them all, but especially Roxane Gay’s book and of course, Michelle Obama’s book 😍

(book covers are linked to the Goodreads pages!)

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First Lines Friday – 08 October

Dini @ dinipandareads11 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:

“Casia hated thunderstorms, because they reminded her of the night she had watched her mother kill her father.“

Do you recognize the book these first lines come from?

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Blog Tour Review: Children by Bjørn Larssen

Dini @ dinipandareads16 Comments

I’m back with another blog tour with The Storytellers on Tour for Children by Bjørn Larssen. Thanks to SoT for organising this tour and thanks to the author for the ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Be sure to click on the banner below to check out the rest of the bloggers on tour!

Goodreads: Children (The Ten Worlds #1)
Publication Date: 03 October 2020
Genre: Fantasy Retelling, Mythology
Panda Rating:

Magni never wanted to be like his father, a murderous, absent, cheating alcoholic: Thor – the feared and beloved God of thunder. When Thor destroys everything and everyone his son knows and loves, Magni vows to stop the violence. His dream is to bring peace and prosperity to the Nine Worlds, then settle down with the man he loves. But is it possible to remain good in a place this bad? How do you escape cruelty in a universe built on it, or the shadow of your father when everyone calls you by his name?

Maya knows she’s a failure and a disappointment to her foster-parents. How could a child raised by Freya and Freyr – Goddess of love and God of sex – have no interest in the greatest of pleasures? Obviously, it couldn’t be the torture they subjected her to, or treating her as a tool that might someday be useful. Maya, her rage at their games more powerful than she knows, wants freedom to pursue her own destiny. But how do you forge your own life away from your God-parents when you’re nothing more than human?

A retelling of the Norse myths unlike any other, Children will answer all the questions you never knew you had about the heathen Nine Worlds… before leading you into the Tenth

BUY NOW: Amazon (UK)

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Blog Tour Review: A Royal Christmas Quandry by Samantha Hastings

Dini @ dinipandareads8 Comments

I’m back with another blog tour today with Xpresso Tours for A Royal Christmas Quandry by Samantha Hastings. Thanks to Xpresso Tours for organising this blog tour and to Netgalley and the publisher for providing the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Be sure to click on the banner below to check out the other bloggers on tour!

Goodreads: A Royal Christmas Quandry
Publisher: Swoon Reads
Release Date: 06 October 2020
Genre: Young Adult Historical Fiction
Panda Rating:

When you spend Christmas in a castle, anything is possible.

1860. Lady Alexandrina Gailey is looking forward to a cozy holiday at Windsor Castle with her best friend, Princess Alice, and her long-time crush, Lord George Worthington. But Drina’s plans are all but dashed when Alice’s parents, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, declare that Alice must choose one of two royal princes to become engaged to before Christmas.

There’s just one problem: George, a junior member of the Foreign Office, has accidentally misplaced one of the princes.

Together, Drina and George scour the town of Windsor for the missing prince, desperately hoping to deliver him to the royal dinner party with the queen none the wiser. They might just need a royal Christmas miracle to pull it off.

BUY NOW: Amazon (US) | Barnes & Noble | iBooks | Kobo

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#WWWWednesday: 07 October

Dini @ dinipandareads10 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 Wednesday I’ve managed to read 7 books. Still going with lots of romance but also quite a bit of historical fiction, too!

Taken to Sasor (Xiveri Mates #3) by Elizabeth Stephens ★★½
This story was set apart from the world we’re introduced to in the first two books in the series and I’m sad to say that it’s my least favourite one. While I loved the heroine and the awesome side characters, I didn’t really care for the hero. The high point of this series continues to be the diversity and amazing world building–the intro to alien cultures, social norms, mythology/folklore is all so well done! I’ll be writing mini-reviews for the whole series once it’s finished.

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Blog Tour Review: A Bachelor’s Pledge by Penny Hampson

Dini @ dinipandareads7 Comments

I’m back with another blog tour today with Rachel’s Random Resources for A Bachelor’s Pledge by Penny Hampson. Thanks to Rachel for organising this tour, and to the author for providing the book in exchange for an honest review.

Be sure to click on the banner above to check out the other bloggers on tour!

🎉 Happy Pub Day!!! 🎉

Goodreads: A Bachelor’s Pledge
Release Date: 07 October 2020
Genre: Historical Romance, Mystery
Panda Rating:

The woman who haunts his dreams
Secret agent Phil Cullen is upset when he discovers that the young woman he rescued from Mrs Newbody’s establishment has absconded from his housekeeper’s care without a word. Thinking he has been deceived, he resolves to forget about her… something easier said than done.

The man she wants to forget
Sophia Turner is horrified when she is duped into entering a notorious house of ill-repute. Then a handsome stranger comes to her aid. Desperate that no one learns of this scandalous episode, Sophia flees to the one friend she knows she can trust. With luck, she will never see her mysterious rescuer again.

But fate has other plans…
Months later, Phil is on the trail of an elusive French agent and Sophia is a respectable lady’s companion when fate again intervenes, taking their lives on a collision course.

Traitors, spies, and shameful family secrets – will these bring Sophia and Phil together… or drive them apart?

BUY NOW: Amazon (US) | Amazon (UK)

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#TopTenTuesday: Books with Fall Colours/Vibes

Dini @ dinipandareads50 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: Book Covers with Fall Colours/Vibes (or spring if you live in the southern hemisphere)

Although I live in the tropics, I have lived in places where there were multiple seasons and unsurprisingly, autumn was my favourite! 🍂 I’ve always preferred cold weather to warm weather because I love bundling up under my doona and fluffy throws, and covering myself in oversized cardis/jumpers. At least when it’s cold you can wear multiple layers — when it’s hot you can’t exactly go around in the nude 😂 BUT I DIGRESS!!! 🤣

When I think of autumn I think red, yellow, orange, and black, falling leaves, spooky reads thanks to Halloween, but also cosy romances too! So today’s is going to be a mix of all those, and I realised I do have more spooky reads on my TBR than I expected. Look at me branching out of my comfort zone! 🎃

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#5OnMyTBR: Books with Magic

Dini @ dinipandareads26 Comments

Hello Mondays, welcome back to #5OnMyTBR, a meme created by the wonderful E @ The Local Bee Hunter’s Nook. This bookish meme gets us to dig even further into our TBRs by simply posting about five books on our TBR! You can learn more about it here or in the post announcing it. You can find the full list of prompts (past and future) at the end of this post!

This week’s prompt is: Magic

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Goodreads Monday – In a Holidaze by Christina Lauren

Dini @ dinipandareads11 Comments

Welcome back to Goodreads Monday! It’s been a very hot minute since I did one but I figured I might as well get back into it! This weekly meme was started by @Lauren’s Page Turners and it invites you to pick a book from your TBR and explain why you want to read it. Easy enough, right? Feel free to join in if you want to! I’ll be using a random number generator to pick my books from my insanely long GR Want-to-read list.

This week’s featured book is In a Holidaze by Christina Lauren. This is a contemporary romance that’s actually not out yet (Pub Date: 20 October 2020) but it has a 4.12 star rating on Goodreads (with almost 1k ratings and 800 reviews)!

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Sundays in Bed With… #MyWeeklyWrapUp

Dini @ dinipandareads16 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 been you’ve spent time curled up reading in bed with, or which book you wish you had time to read today!

I have plans to spend the rest of my Sunday in bed reading A Bachelor’s Pledge. This is a blog tour read for next week which I started on Friday but put on hold to finish another book. I’ve been wanting to read more regency romances so I’m glad that I picked this one up. The pace is a little slow right now but I am enjoying it and looking forward to seeing where things go for the MCs 😊

The woman who haunts his dreams
Secret agent Phil Cullen is upset when he discovers that the young woman he rescued from Mrs Newbody’s establishment has absconded from his housekeeper’s care without a word. Thinking he has been deceived, he resolves to forget about her… something easier said than done.

The man she wants to forget
Sophia Turner is horrified when she is duped into entering a notorious house of ill-repute. Then a handsome stranger comes to her aid. Desperate that no one learns of this scandalous episode, Sophia flees to the one friend she knows she can trust. With luck, she will never see her mysterious rescuer again.

But fate has other plans…
Months later, Phil is on the trail of an elusive French agent and Sophia is a respectable lady’s companion when fate again intervenes, taking their lives on a collision course. Traitors, spies, and shameful family secrets – will these bring Sophia and Phil together… or drive them apart?

What are you currently reading?

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