Book Blitz: Warping Minds & Other Misdemeanors

August 13, 2020August 13, 2020 Dini @ dinipandareads8 Comments

Hi everyone, today I’m sharing a book blitz for Warping Minds & Other Misdemeanors by Annette Marie & Rob Jacobsen! This New Adult / Urban Fantasy sounds like it’d be such a fun read and I’m happy to be sharing it with you thanks to Xpresso Book Tours.

Goodreads: Warping Minds & Other Misdemeanors (The Guild Codex: Warped #1)
Publication Date: 07 August 2020
Publisher: Dark Owl Fantasy Inc.
Genre: New Adult, Urban Fantasy

My name is Kit Morris, and welcome to my warped life.

Picture the scene: Me, an average guy with psychic powers—not that my abilities are in any way average—just trying to scrape by in a harsh world. So maybe I’ve conned a few people, but did I really deserve to be thrown in MPD jail alongside magic-wielding serial killers?

According to Agent Lienna Shen, one-hundred-percent yes.

But her hardass attitude and “Arcana prodigy” status aren’t enough to bring down my former best friend, who slipped through the MPD’s fingers and is days away from unleashing untold horrors upon the city. Or he’s going to steal something. I don’t really know.

Whatever he’s up to, that’s why I’m sitting in an interrogation room with Lienna. And that’s why I just offered myself as her temporary new partner for the purposes of thwarting my ex-accomplice.

And that’s how I’m going to escape. I might even help with the case before I cut and run.

BUY IT: Amazon (US) | Amazon (UK) | Amazon (AU) | Amazon (CA)

#WWWWednesday: 12 August

August 12, 2020August 12, 2020 Dini @ dinipandareads23 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:

What did you read last?
What are you currently reading?
What will you read next?

Since last Wednesday I managed to finish 3.5 books (the .5 because I DNF’d one and so I won’t include that here). One of my goals for a while now is to allow myself to DNF and not feel guilty about it and although it’s really slow going, I think I’m doing a pretty good job this year since I’ve already allowed myself to DNF three books. Slow and steady, right?

With or Without You by Caroline Leavitt ★★★★½
I was pleasantly surprised by With or Without You especially because it’s the kind of book that I’d normally find myself disliking–not because it’s poorly written but because the characters are so flawed and I find it hard to connect to stories when I dislike characters. That (obviously) didn’t happen here though. This was a very bittersweet and deeply emotional book about love, loyalty, the choices we make in life and ultimately, about growth, change and finding yourself. Read my review!

A House is A Body by Shruti Swamy ★★★☆☆
I struggle with the way short stories are usually written but I continue to read them in the hopes I’ll find my “one” collection. While I enjoyed some of these stories, most of them mainly confused me and that impacted by overall view. Swamy’s writing is wonderful and she does an amazing job writing stories rooted in both fantasy and reality! I recommend it if you like diverse and fantastical short stories. Read my review!

The Black Kids by Christina Hammonds Reed ★★★★★
Although I initially struggled to connect with Ashley, I was able to empathise with her as I read on. She’s still a very unlikeable character but her growth in this book was so well done and I felt so proud of her in the end! This was a heavy book. It angered me, frustrated me, made me despair but I commend Hammonds Reed for ending this book in such a hopeful way. Although everything wasn’t okay, you felt like eventually, we’re going to get there. Read my review!

Blog Tour Review: The Black Kids by Christina Hammonds Reed

August 12, 2020August 12, 2020 Dini @ dinipandareads9 Comments

I’m so honoured and excited to share my review today as part of the book blog tour for The Black Kids by Christina Hammonds Reed. Special thanks to Shivani at Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing for reaching out and asking if I’d like to be part of their tour for this incredible book. Thanks to Netgalley and Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers for the e-ARC in exchange for an honest and unbiased review.

Goodreads: The Black Kids
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
Release Date: 04 August 2020
Genre: Young Adult Contemporary, Historical Fiction, Coming-of-Age
Panda Rating:

Perfect for fans of The Hate U Give, this unforgettable coming-of-age debut novel explores issues of race, class, and violence through the eyes of a wealthy black teenager whose family gets caught in the vortex of the 1992 Rodney King Riots.

Los Angeles, 1992
Ashley Bennett and her friends are living the charmed life. It’s the end of senior year and they’re spending more time at the beach than in the classroom. They can already feel the sunny days and endless possibilities of summer.

Everything changes one afternoon in April, when four LAPD officers are acquitted after beating a black man named Rodney King half to death. Suddenly, Ashley’s not just one of the girls. She’s one of the black kids.

As violent protests engulf LA and the city burns, Ashley tries to continue on as if life were normal. Even as her self-destructive sister gets dangerously involved in the riots. Even as the model black family façade her wealthy and prominent parents have built starts to crumble. Even as her best friends help spread a rumor that could completely derail the future of her classmate and fellow black kid, LaShawn Johnson.

With her world splintering around her, Ashley, along with the rest of LA, is left to question who is the us? And who is the them?

Buy: Publisher | Amazon (US) | Amazon (UK) | Book Depository

#TopTenTuesday: Books I Love But Never Reviewed

August 11, 2020July 18, 2022 Dini @ dinipandareads24 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 I loved but never reviewed.

Well, this is probably one of the easiest prompts for me because prior to the tail end of 2018 I never really wrote reviews for the books that I read (whether I loved or hated them) but I did (mostly) leave star ratings on Goodreads! Actually, I realise that plenty of the books that I rave about on my blog are books that I read pre-blogging/reviewing and I’m finding that a little frustrating because I know I loved these books but also my memory is horrible…But I digress!

So I’ve gone on Goodreads and taken a look at all the books I’ve rated five stars and randomly chose ten of them (in no discernible order). Although I’m not much of a re-reader except for some ‘staples’ (like Austen), I’m very tempted to read some of these again just so I can write reviews for them because they definitely deserve it!

The Nickel Boys
ADSOM
The Century Trilogy: Fall of Giants
Natchez Burning
Mistborn: The Final Empire

The Heart’s Invisible Furies
Neverwhere
Pachinko
All the Light We Cannot See
Lunar Chronicles: Cinder

#5OnMyTBR: Mystery

August 10, 2020August 10, 2020 Dini @ dinipandareads12 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: Mystery.

Sundays in Bed With… #MyWeeklyWrapUp

August 10, 2020August 9, 2020 Dini @ dinipandareads7 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!

It’s now going on 9PM on a Sunday and I’m wondering where my day went! Once I’m done writing this post I plan to get cozy in bed with Ignite the Sun. I’m reading this for my second TBR and Beyond Tours and I’ve got my tour date coming up at the end of next week, so be on the look out for my review then! I started reading this a bit the day before and what I’ve read so far isn’t anything ‘new’ exactly but it was entertaining enough to reel me in, so I’m excited to dive back into it!

Once upon a time, there was something called the sun… In a kingdom ruled by an evil witch, the sun is just part of a legend about light-filled days of old. Luckily for everybody in the kingdom, Siria Nightingale is headed to the heart of the darkness to try and restore the light–or she will lose everything trying.

Sixteen year-old Siria Nightingale has never seen the sun. The light is dangerous, according to Queen Iyzabel, an evil witch who has shrouded the kingdom in shadow. Siria has always hated the darkness and revels in the stories of the light-filled old days that she hears from her best friend and his grandfather. Besides them, nobody else understands her fascination with the sun, especially not her strict and demanding parents. Siria’s need to please them is greater even than her fear of the dark. So she heads to the royal city–the very center of the darkness–for a chance at a place in Queen Iyzabel’s court.

But what Siria discovers at the Choosing Ball sends her on a quest toward the last vestiges of the sun with a ragtag group of rebels who could help her bring back the Light … or doom the kingdom to shadow forever.

What are you currently reading?

Blog Tour Review: A House is a Body by Shruti Swamy

August 9, 2020August 9, 2020 Dini @ dinipandareads3 Comments

Today I’m back with another Algonquin book tour for A House is A Body by Shruti Swamy. Thanks to NetGalley and Algonquin Books for the e-ARC in exchange for an honest and unbiased review. This book is out 11 August 2020!

Goodreads: A House is a Body
Publisher: Algonquin Books
Release Date: 11 August 2020
Genre: Literary Fiction, Short Stories
Panda Rating:

In two-time O. Henry-prize winner Swamy’s debut collection of stories, dreams collide with reality, modernity collides with antiquity, myth with true identity, and women grapple with desire, with ego, with motherhood and mortality. In “Earthly Pleasures,” Radika, a young painter living alone in San Francisco, begins a secret romance with one of India’s biggest celebrities. In “A Simple Composition,” a husband’s moment of crisis leads to his wife’s discovery of a dark, ecstatic joy and the sense of a new beginning. In the title story, an exhausted mother watches, distracted and paralyzed, as a California wildfire approaches her home. With a knife blade’s edge and precision, the stories of A House Is a Body travel from India to America and back again to reveal the small moments of beauty, pain, and power that contain the world.

Buy: Amazon (US)

Top 5 Saturday: Underrated Books/Hidden Gems

August 8, 2020August 8, 2020 Dini @ dinipandareads27 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: underrated books/hidden gems.

The prompt this week is pretty straightforward so I don’t really have much to say to introduce the topic. While it’d be easier to share underrated books that I’ve already read, I thought it’d be interesting to do an underrated books list for five on my TBR. I took to Goodreads to help me come up with a random list. These are books that I’ve heard good things about but I haven’t seen a lot of hype for (or at least not to my knowledge). I’m quite excited to read it Without further ado, let’s get to it!

(book covers are linked to the Goodreads pages!)

Blog Tour Review: With or Without You by Caroline Leavitt

August 8, 2020August 7, 2020 Dini @ dinipandareads14 Comments

I’m back with another Algonquin blog tour and this time it’s for With or Without You by Caroline Leavitt. Thanks to NetGalley and Algonquin Books for the e-ARC in exchange for an honest and unbiased review.

Goodreads: With or Without You
Publisher: Algonquin Books
Release Date: 04 August 2020
Genre: Literary Fiction
Panda Rating:

A powerful story of love, identity, and the price of fitting in or speaking out.
After her father’s death, Ruth Robb and her family transplant themselves in the summer of 1958 from New York City to Atlanta—the land of debutantes, sweet tea, and the Ku Klux Klan. In her new hometown, Ruth quickly figures out she can be Jewish or she can be popular, but she can’t be both. Eager to fit in with the blond girls in the “pastel posse,” Ruth decides to hide her religion. Before she knows it, she is falling for the handsome and charming Davis and sipping Cokes with him and his friends at the all-white, all-Christian Club.

Does it matter that Ruth’s mother makes her attend services at the local synagogue every week? Not as long as nobody outside her family knows the truth. At temple Ruth meets Max, who is serious and intense about the fight for social justice, and now she is caught between two worlds, two religions, and two boys. But when a violent hate crime brings the different parts of Ruth’s life into sharp conflict, she will have to choose between all she’s come to love about her new life and standing up for what she believes.

First Lines Friday – 07 August

August 7, 2020August 7, 2020 Dini @ dinipandareads14 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:

“The gallows had been erected in the shadow of the clock tower, partly so that the spectators could witness the executions without the nuisance of sun in their eyes, and partly so that the Tribunal could keep its killings on precise schedule. Order in all things, that was the Tribunal’s motto.”