#WWWWednesday: 05 August

August 6, 2020August 9, 2021 Dini @ dinipandareads19 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’ve managed to finish a surprising five books!

The Hollow Gods (The Chaos Cycle Duology) by A.J. Vrana ★★★☆☆
As The Ultimate Chicken™ this book was completely out of my comfort zone but I was pleasantly surprised by it. Apparently all the horrifying things happen in small towns, right? The small town secrets and folklore were definitely terrifying in this one! If you like a dark fantasy with paranormal elements this will definitely be up your alley. Read my full review!

Frostheart (Frostheart #1) by Jamie Littler ★★★½
I absolutely loved that the whole story was illustrated because it helped bring this ice covered world to life. My heart really felt for Ash and his longing to find a place where he belonged and the people who would accept him in spite of his dangerous legacy. It was a heartwarming and sweet read full of adventure that I think many young readers will enjoy. Review coming soon!

A Wicked Magic by Sasha Laurens ★★★☆☆
This was very different to what I expected. Laurens does paint a very eerie small town atmosphere but it didn’t end up being as scary as I thought it’d be. It was also a much heavier read that covers intense and difficult topics that can be potentially triggering for many. Read my full review and see the full list of content warnings the author shared on her website!

The Good for Nothings by Danielle Banas ★★★★☆
To steal Emer’s term, this was a fantastic popcorn read. It was a space opera reminiscent of Guardians of the Galaxy, Aurora Rising and Illuminae Files (imho). I loved the awkward, quirky and dry banter between our found family crew and the story left me feeling extremely comforted. It was such a fun and fast-paced story 💙 Read my full review!

Always Only You (Bergman Brothers #2) by Chloe Liese ★★★★★
I absolutely adored this romance and it had me swooning through the whole read. Give me more empowering couples who aren’t afraid to be vulnerable and open with each other, who don’t suffer from the typical miscommunication issue in many romances and don’t devolve into immaturity. Frankie and Ren were the romance couple I didn’t know I needed. Read my full review!

Blog Tour: The Good for Nothings by Danielle Banas

August 5, 2020August 4, 2020 Dini @ dinipandareads9 Comments

Hello, friends! I’m so excited to participate in my first Xpresso Tours blog tour for The Good for Nothings by Danielle Banas. Special thanks to Xpresso Tours for including me on this tour, and thanks to Netgalley, Swoon Reads and the author providing the e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

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

Goodreads: The Good for Nothings
Publisher: Swoon Reads
Publication Date: 04 August 2020
Genre: Young Adult SFF
Panda Rating:

They’re only good at being bad.
Cora Saros is just trying her best to join the family business of theft and intergalactic smuggling. Unfortunately, she’s a total disaster. After landing herself in prison following an attempted heist gone very wrong, she strikes a bargain with the prison warden: He’ll expunge her record if she brings back a long-lost treasure rumored to grant immortality.

Cora is skeptical, but with no other way out of prison (and back in her family’s good graces), she has no choice but to assemble a crew from her collection of misfit cellmates—a disgraced warrior from an alien planet; a cocky pirate who claims to have the largest ship in the galaxy; and a glitch-prone robot with a penchant for baking—and take off after the fabled prize. But the ragtag group soon discovers that not only is the too-good-to-be-true treasure very real, but they’re also not the only crew on the hunt for it. And it’s definitely a prize worth killing for.

Whip-smart and utterly charming, this irreverent sci-fi adventure is perfect for fans of Guardians of the Galaxy, The Lunar Chronicles, and Firefly

Buy: Amazon (US) |Barnes & Noble | iBooks | Kobo | Google Play

#TopTenTuesday: Books with Colours in the Title

August 4, 2020August 4, 2020 Dini @ dinipandareads62 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 colours in the title.

I thought this prompt would be super easy but it turns out I was very wrong 😅 I wrote it while staring at the books on my shelf and I couldn’t see one read title that had a colour in it, and only one book title immediately came to mind for the prompt. Even digging deeper into my Goodreads read list didn’t give me as many results as I’d hoped to find! So to make it easier for myself, I’m going to split this list into read and to be read books with colours in the title because it turns out I’ve got a lot more on my ‘to-be-read’ list (*surprise surprise*) 😂

READ

Words in Deep Blue – absolutely crushed my feels & one of my 2020 faves so far!
Spinning Silver – loved Novik’s magical writing and this unique retelling
Scarlet – the second book in one of my all favourite YA SFF fairytale retellings 😍
The Golden Compass – a dark and fantastical adventure full of magic and wonder that i really enjoyed!
Red Queen – this first book was a total winner for me, but sadly the sequels were not!

TO-BE-READ

Jade City – definitely finishing it this year!
Gods of Jade and Shadow – hoping to read it this year coz i’ve only heard amazing things!
The Black Kids – just started this last night. it’s giving me a whole mix of feels…
The City of Brass – shame on me that this is still on my TBR pile! i need to get on it asap!
The Green Mile – the movie wrecked me but have always wanted to read the book too!

ARC Review: Always Only You by Chloe Liese

August 4, 2020November 24, 2020 Dini @ dinipandareads17 Comments

Thanks to author Chloe Liese for providing the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

Always Only You (Bergman Brothers #2)
Publication date: 04 August 2020
Genre: Contemporary Romance, Sports Romance

Panda Rating:

Amazon (US) | Amazon (UK)

Note: The quotes below are taken from an advanced/unfinished copy and are subject to change in the final version.

#5OnMyTBR: Long Books

August 3, 2020August 3, 2020 Dini @ dinipandareads29 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: Long.

Sundays in Bed With… #MyWeeklyWrapUp

August 2, 2020August 2, 2020 Dini @ dinipandareads14 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’ve spent a good chunk of my Sunday in bed with my eARC for Always Only You (Bergman Brothers #2) by Chloe Liese. After reading the first book in the series I couldn’t wait to get my hands on this one and I’m so lucky to have received an advanced copy from Chloe. I’m really enjoying it and I’m trying to pace myself but after starting it this morning I’m already at 60%, so I’ll easily be finishing it this evening! I am loving the Bergman brothers and their heroines so much–please give me more! 😍

Ren
The moment I met her, I knew Frankie Zeferino was someone worth waiting for. Deadpan delivery, secret heart of gold, and a rare one-dimpled smile that makes my knees weak, Frankie has been forbidden since the day she and I became coworkers, meaning waiting has been the name of my game—besides, hockey, that is. I’m a player on the team, she’s on staff, and as long as we work together, dating is off-limits. But patience has always been my virtue. Frankie won’t be here forever—she’s headed for bigger, better things. I just hope that when she leaves the team and I tell her how I feel, she won’t want to leave me behind, too.

Frankie
I’ve had a problem at work since the day Ren Bergman joined the team: a six foot three hunk of happy with a sunshine smile. I’m a grumbly grump and his ridiculously good nature drives me nuts, but even I can’t entirely ignore that hot tamale of a ginger with icy eyes, the perfect playoff beard, and a body built for sin that he’s annoyingly modest about. Before I got wise, I would have tripped over myself to get a guy like Ren, but with my diagnosis, I’ve learned what I am to most people in my life—a problem, not a person. Now, opening my heart to anyone, no matter how sweet, is the last thing I’m prepared to do.

Always Only You is an opposites-attract, forbidden love sports romance about a nerdy, late-blooming hockey star, and his tough cookie coworker who keeps both her soft side and her autism diagnosis* to herself. Complete with a meddling secretary, tantric yoga torture, and a scorching slow burn, this standalone is the second in a series of novels about a Swedish-American family of five brothers, two sisters, and their wild adventures as they each find happily ever after.

*This is an #OwnVoices story for its portrayal of autism by an autistic author.

What are you currently reading?

Blog Tour: A Wicked Magic by Sasha Laurens – Review & Favourite Quotes

August 2, 2020August 4, 2020 Dini @ dinipandareads9 Comments

Hello, friends! I’m so excited to be back with another blog tour and this time it’s with the lovely TBR & Beyond Tours for A Wicked Magic by Sasha Laurens. This is the tour company’s first blog tour and I’m so happy that I got to be part of it 😃 Thanks to ladies behind TBR & Beyond for organising this blog tour and to the author, Sasha Laurens, for providing the e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

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

Goodreads: A Wicked Magic
Publisher: Razorbill
Publication Date: 28 July 2020
Genre: Young Adult Fantasy, Paranormal
Panda Rating:

The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina meets The Craft when modern witches must save teens stolen by an ancient demon in this YA fantasy-thriller debut.

Dan and Liss are witches. The Black Book granted them that power. Harnessing that power feels good, especially when everything in their lives makes them feel powerless. During a spell gone wrong, Liss’s boyfriend is snatched away by an evil entity and presumed dead. Dan and Liss’s friendship dies that night, too. How can they practice magic after the darkness that they conjured?

Months later, Liss discovers that her boyfriend is alive, trapped underground in the grips of an ancient force. She must save him, and she needs Dan and the power of The Black Book to do so. Dan is quickly sucked back into Liss’s orbit and pushes away her best friend, Alexa. But Alexa has some big secrets she’s hiding and her own unique magical disaster to deal with. When another teenager disappears, the girls know it’s no coincidence. What greedy magic have they awakened? And what does it want with these teens it has stolen?

Set in the atmospheric wilds of California’s northern coast, Sasha Laurens’s thrilling debut novel is about the complications of friendship, how to take back power, and how to embrace the darkness that lives within us all.

Buy: Amazon (US) |Barnes & Noble | Book Depository

Top 5 Saturday: Enemies to Lovers…

August 1, 2020October 11, 2021 Dini @ dinipandareads28 Comments

If you’ve been following my blog for a while now, you might’ve noticed that I’ve been unexpectedly MIA for a while now. Life has been… Life? No excuses but if you want to read me waffle on about it, check out my smol life and reading update post. On that note, I’m looking forward to getting back into the groove and a perfect way to do this is to start doing my regularly weekly memes (that I’ve missed so much)! Glad to be back with…

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: enemies to lovers.

I used to be embarrassed to admit that I’m a big fat hopeless romantic but… I am indeed a big fat hopeless romantic. GIVE ME ALL THE LOVE and I will (probably) love it! I think I’ve only really taken the time to notice this year just how much romance I read and the enemies-to-lovers trope is one of my all time favourites! I mean, who doesn’t love the delicious tension that builds between two characters who, deep down, have all these feelings for each other that they don’t know what do with until one day it finally explodes? Not to mention all the hilarious, snarky banter that’s usually a staple in our protagonists’ exchanges? Just thinking about it gets me giddy with excitement and anticipation! Safe to say, I’ve read my share of enemies-to-lovers but I’ve still got plenty on my TBR! Here are five of them that I hope to read ASAP:

(book covers are linked to the Goodreads pages!)

Blog Tour Review: The Hollow Gods by A.J. Vrana

July 31, 2020 Dini @ dinipandareads7 Comments

I’m back with another blog tour and it’s my first one with The Storytellers on Tour for The Hollow Gods by A.J. Vrana. Thanks to the Timy & Justine for organising this tour and thanks to Parliament House Press and A.J. Vrana for the free copy 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: The Hollow Gods (The Chaos Cycle Duology #1)
Publisher: The Parliament House
Publication Date: 28 July 2020
Genre: Paranormal Horror, Fantasy, New Adult
Panda Rating:

A perfect story for contemporary fantasy readers who love their narratives razor-sharp and their secrets dark and deadly.

Black Hollow is a town with a dark secret.
For centuries, residents have foretold the return of the Dreamwalker—an ominous figure from local folklore said to lure young women into the woods and possess them. Yet the boundary between fact and fable is blurred by a troubling statistic: occasionally, women do go missing. And after they return, they almost always end up dead.

When Kai wakes up next to the lifeless body of a recently missing girl, his memory blank, he struggles to clear his already threadbare conscience.
Miya, a floundering university student, experiences signs that she may be the Dreamwalker’s next victim. Can she trust Kai as their paths collide, or does he herald her demise?
And after losing a young patient, crestfallen oncologist, Mason, embarks on a quest to debunk the town’s superstitions, only to find his sanity tested.

A maelstrom of ancient grudges, forgotten traumas, and deadly secrets loom in the foggy forests of Black Hollow. Can three unlikely heroes put aside their fears and unite to confront a centuries-old evil? Will they uncover the truth behind the fable, or will the cycle repeat?

Smol Life and Reading Update

July 30, 2020July 30, 2020 Dini @ dinipandareads11 Comments

*tentatively waving*

Hello!? …Is anybody out there? It’s me! Shocked? Same here. But… this panda still lives!!! 🐼

When July rolled in and I finally made my big move from Bali to the megacity, I certainly didn’t have any plans to pull a mini-hiatus or take a break from blogging but that’s what ended up happening anyway! Honestly, I don’t even really have a “good reason” why I haven’t been blogging, hopping or active on all platforms including Twitter over the last month. I initially thought I’d give myself a weekend or so to settle in and take a break from everything because I felt overwhelmed, but that ended up turning into another week and another week, until it’s almost been one month now and I’m definitely feeling some kind of guilty about it!

So I’m going to push myself to start blogging again from today onward–and it’s not that I no longer want to blog or engage with others because I really do! I’ve missed this community and all of the friends I’ve made on here so much and I’m so sorry that I’ve been MIA and haven’t been visiting or commenting at all. I think I’ve just allowed myself to get completely overwhelmed by everything (work, big life changing decisions, family issues etc.) and then I’ve wallowed in it. But I’m taking a stand against myself and saying: NO MORE! 😂