Prompts to do with seasons are always a bit tough for me since I live in the tropics and it’s basically summer the year round 😂 But I can get on board with the idea of summer! Thinking of books that give off summer vibes obviously means a lot of cover judging, right? I mean, what catches my eye when I think of summer vibes are bright and vivid splashes of colour leaning towards pinks, yellows and blues. Maybe some flowers, palm trees, beaches (this is sounding cliche, isn’t it? LOL)… In terms of the plot, I think lighter and maybe even shorter reads would do the trick. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with more serious topics being discussed of course but just thinking of that blazing sun slowing down my brain waves definitely has me thinking the lighter the better!
So after a little bit of digging through my TBR and this slightly long-winded post introduction 😂 I’ve come up with this list of 10 books on my TBR that give off summer vibes:
Welcome back to Goodreads Monday! 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 Romanov by Nadine Brandes. This is a standalone Young Adult Historical Fiction/Fantasy re-telling about the famous Romanov family. This was released in May 2019 and currently has a 3.80 rating on Goodreads!
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!
We’re already half-way through Sunday and I’ve not touched a book all day, but I hope to spend the latter half of my Sunday diving into book two of Venators:Promises Forged. I thought book one’s cover was amazing but I’m definitely loving book two’s cover more. I’m guessing that’s my little marshmallow, Grey, on the cover? I can’t wait to dive back into Devri Walls’ world! I’ve been hearing really great things 😍
It has been mere days in the world of Eon, where Rune Jenkins, her twin brother Ryker, and their friend Grey have been trapped, fighting for their lives. After discovering the truth of their ancestry, the three are far from home, and far from anything resembling their mundane lives of the past. While Ryker is still held captive by the eerily beautiful Zio and her goblins, Grey falls into the clutches of Feena, the Fae queen. She begins to drain his soul bit by bit to feed her dark underground garden, and Grey has no hope of escaping on his own.
It is now up to Rune to save Grey, as his precious time slips away inexorably. But the Council has denied her permission to embark on a rescue mission, until she can harness her Venator gifts and prove herself capable of venturing into the Fae queen’s territory. As Rune discovers that promises in Eon are forged with life-or-death consequences, she realizes that she must act quickly, or else be swallowed and Grey along with her by the dangers of Eon.
We’re 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: male POVs — I’m taking this to mean male only POVs
Okay wow, I didn’t think I’d struggle as much as I did to think of a list for today’s prompt! Turns out, a lot of the books I own on my TBR aren’t written from male (only) POVs 🙃 I also don’t think I ever properly paid attention to this before (oops! 🙈) but that’s pretty interesting to note! Also interesting was that when I took to Google and Goodreads (as I usually do to jog my memory for these prompts), it turns out a lot of male POV lists are either romance or YA related (or both), with little to no mention of contemporary fiction, mysteries/thrillers, adult fantasy or the sub-genres. So that wasn’t really useful… but after deep-diving into my failing memory (and my Kindle shelf!) I’ve managed to make a list of five books from mixed genres including adult fantasy, middle-grade fantasy and contemporary fiction!
Happy Friday book lovers! We’re back with another First Lines Friday, a weekly featurefor 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:
“As seems to be the custom, bad news comes with the afternoon mail: the news that his granddaughter was rejected from her top-choice college, then a call to jury duty. Today, though, it is much worse.”
Do you recognize the book these first lines come from?
It’s been a hot minute since I’ve done some tags so I thought I’d get around to answering one that I was tagged in fairly recently by Leslie @ Books Are the New Black! Thanks for the tag, lovely 🥰 If you haven’t checked out her blog, I strongly suggest you head on over there because her content is great!
If it isn’t obvious from the title, this is a tag that lets you readers get to know me a little better! So if you’re not keen on doing that (which is totally okay), you should probably leave now 🤣 Without further ado… Let’s get to it!
Nominate 5+ bloggers you’d like to know more about, to do this tag
Why did you start blogging? & Why have you kept blogging?
Being very honest, the main reason I started blogging was because I wanted to get (e)ARCs and I thought having a blog was one of the only ways to do that. 😅 When I started I’d already had my bookstagram running for a few months, and I was really focused on that more than my blog, but that’s completely changed now since I’m rarely on there.
I’ve kept blogging because it was so much more rewarding than I anticipated. I used to have a personal blog that I kept for almost 10 years but I stopped because I didn’t feel inspired anymore. Being part of the book community, sharing my thoughts, and having people actually read and relate to them has been so rewarding, but most importantly it’s meeting so many like-minded people that has kept me motivated with blogging! (And I really hope that doesn’t change any time soon!)
What is your favorite type of blog post to write?
I really enjoy writing the weekly meme posts which is what a lot of my blog contains on top of the reviews I write. #5OnMyTBR, Top Ten Tuesday, #WWWWednesday, First Line Fridays and Top 5 Saturdays are so fun to do and even though I’m horrible at choosing/making decisions about favourites, I’ve come to really love making these lists! I think since I blog on top of a full-time job these meme posts are just what appeal to me most because I still have to think but not as hard compared to if I were to write more discussion posts 😂
What are your top three favorite blog posts you wrote?
It’s so hard to pick favourites — I’m rubbish at that! So I’ve just chosen three random posts that I really enjoyed making!
My review for Nevernight (Nevernight Chronicle #1) by Jay Kristoff is probably one of my favourite because I mean, I was proper freaking out about how much I loved the book, but there was also a lot of artwork and reaction GIFs that I included, plus it was my first time writing a review in this way and it was just so fun! 🤣
What are some of your favorite things to do to relax?
Well, reading obviously! But I also really love gaming (although that’s not always super relaxing when you’re in battle or on a quest haha). Another thing that really relaxes me is colouring — it’s just so soothing not having to think about anything except what colour I’ll choose next. I also love to throw on my favourite playlists while doing other things (like colouring) or sometimes simply doing nothing but lying back and listening to the song lyrics (while singing along off-key)!
What are three of your favorite things?
My family & friends (who are basically my family!) 💞
Animals (especially doggos, pandas, and elephants)
Food (especially Japanese, Mexican and Chinese)! 🤤
What are your proudest blogging moments?
As of 20 May 2020!
One of the blogging goals that I set for 2020 was to reach 500 followers and I actually reached that goal yesterday! 😭 I’m pretty shook (understatement) because I didn’t even think getting 100 followers would even be in the realm of possibility for me and my little blog! I’m so thankful for this community, for all the people who follow me, for the new friends I’ve made… It’s beyond anything I ever expected when I started this and (sorry if I’m starting to sound like a broken record but) I’m so grateful for all of it! 🥰
What are your hobbies outside of blogging?
It’s a bit sad but I honestly don’t have many hobbies outside of blogging (and reading)! Um… I do love singing and I’m part of a small community choir here. I also really love to bake — pies and cookies are my absolute favourites to make 😍 If this counts as a hobby, I also love colouring 🤣 One time I got a bunch of colouring books from my friends and I was the happiest little panda 🐼 Sometimes it’s the simple things, right?!
Describe your personality in three words
I really dislike answering these kinds of questions because I always have a hard time coming up with answers! If I had to say… Loyal, Compassionate, and Stubborn (AF) 😆
What are your top three pet peeves?
I wouldn’t necessarily say these are my “top three” but… they’re pretty high up on the list!
People holding very loud and personal conversations in public. Must you really? 🤦🏻♀️
People who walk very very slowly in the middle of the walkway/sidewalk — and to make it even worse, those who don’t move even when you say “excuse me”! 🙄
People who are rude to workers. That’s vague but when I say workers I also mean waiters, cleaners/helpers, etc. Okay, this one is definitely in my top three (maybe even top two!) because I can’t stand those who treat people like trash just because they feel they’re better than them. Reality check: you’re really not. This is the toxic environment that I’m leaving and I couldn’t be happier! 😤
What’s something your followers don’t know about you?
Hmm… Hard to choose because I feel like there’s a lot that my followers don’t know about me 😁 But I’m going with the most random thing I can think of (that a lot of people in my real life probably don’t even know about me): I used to teach hip hop dance and break dancing with a friend when I was in high school. When I was in boarding school in Australia, I started an after-school dance club with a friend that counted towards my extracurricular credits! It was heaps of fun 😊
And that’s it folks! I hope you enjoyed reading those little tidbits about me — not very interesting but hey, that’s me 🤷🏻♀️ This was a lot of fun to answer so thanks again for tagging me, Leslie!
I’m Tagging:
Again, no pressure if tags aren’t your thing 😊 Even if you’re not tagged and want to do this, go for gold! Don’t forget to link back so I can read your answers and learn more about you too! 🥰
So, we’re back with another Top Ten Tuesday, a weekly meme hosted by Jana @ That Artsy Reader Girl. This week’s prompt is: Opening Lines (Best, favorite, funny, unique, shocking, gripping, lines that grabbed you immediately, etc.)
Who doesn’t love a good opening line?! I certainly do and I usually share some first/opening lines every Friday for my “First Lines Friday” posts! Since this week’s prompt is open to interpretation I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do since it’s so hard for me to choose “favourites” — there are always so many, how do I choose?!
(Also, my memory is really not that great 😂)
So I decided to keep things simple, especially as I’m writing this during one of my quick work breaks lol, and look at the opening lines from my last ten ★★★★★ (5 star) reads! Yes, some of these might be more than just the first line, but opening lines plural, right? 😂
Welcome back to Goodreads Monday! 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.
Wooh, it’s been a hot minute since I did one of these but I’m glad to be back with it! This week’s featured book is Winterwood by Shea Ernshaw. This is a standalone (I think) Young Adult Fantasy that was released towards the end of last year and it currently has a 3.82 rating on Goodreads!
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!
This Sunday I spent a good chunk of the day reading The Wrongful Death which is Book III in The Great Devil War series. Although there are some bits that I’m not enjoying so much, mostly an awkward pre-pubescent romance that seems a little forced. I honestly wish the ‘relationship’ between two characters was platonic as I think it’d be more believable. Still, I’m really enjoying Andersen’s imagination of hell. The more I read the series the more I wonder what inspired and continues to inspire Andersen to bring this hellish world to life. It’s so interesting but also obviously very dark (even the humour).
An unfortunate chain of events makes Philip responsible for the untimely death of the school bully Sam—the Devil’s original choice for an heir. Philip must return to Hell to find Sam and bring him back to life, so that fate can be restored. But trouble is stirring in Lucifer’s kingdom and not even Philip can imagine the strange and dark journey that awaits him. A journey that will take him through ancient underworlds and all the way to Paradise.
The Wrong Death is volume 3 of The Great Devil War series.
We’re 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: books about plants/flowers (can be on the cover, in title or plot)!
I’ve only ever read one book that’s about plants specifically and it was a horror novel that left me feeling extremely uncomfortable being around any vine-y plants for quite some time! Thanks to The Ruins for that nightmare!
I think having flowers and leaves on covers has been a big trend in recent years as I’ve seen my fair share of them. I’m admittedly a sucker for these kinds of covers though! They’re eye-catching, bold and colourful but also sometimes just really appealing in their simplicity. That said, I don’t think any of these are actually about plants/flowers, so this is going to be an appreciation post for books on my TBR with plants/flowers on the cover!
dinipandareads 