Follow Friday (19)

This week's question is the same as last weeks?! : Inspired by the inane twitter trend of #100FACTSABOUTME, GIVE US FIVE BOOK RELATED SILLY FACTS ABOUT YOU.
1. Once upon a time I refused to read more than one book at a time, now I hardly ever read just one.2. If I could, I'd trade my entire DTB library for the e-book equivalent.3. My Kindle was the best give I ever got.4. My TBR list (140 at the moment) scares the crap out of me.  I'm actually anxious thinking about how I'm going to get through it.5. I enjoy shopping for my books as much as I enjoy reading them.  I'm like a kid at Christmas when I find a new book to read.

Thanks for hopping by!

Monthly Rewind (3): March 2011

Is March really over already?  Where does the time go?  Yikes!!   Sadly, this month's rewind is pretty short and sweet:

Must Read *Book of the Month*

Stray by Rachel Vincent
I've been wanting to read this series for a while now, so I was totally excited when Hilde from Turn of the Page sent this to me as a RAK! While, sadly, the review won't be up until the 21st of April, I will share here that I LOVED this book and cannot wait to get further into the series.  Already I find myself Team Jace!  Any other fans out there?!

Book Reviews:

Truly, Madly by Heather Webber (4 Stars)
The Help by Kathryn Stockett (5 Stars)
Deeply, Desperately by Heather Webber (4 Stars)
Absolutely, Positively by Heather Webber (4 Stars)
Definitely, Maybe by Heather Webber (3 Stars)
Spying in High Heels by Gemma Halliday (3 Stars)


Other Reviews:
Nook Lyra Light (4 Stars)

US vs UK Cover Challenge Features:

Vampire Diaries
The Carrie Diaries
The Help
Rachel Morgan Series

Author Interviews:

John Brinling
Simon Lelic

Challenge updates:

Mystery & Suspense Challenge: 11 of 12

Horror & Urban Fantasy Challenge: 2 of 24

Vampire Challenge: 6 of 20

Outdo Yourself / 100 Books in a Year Challenge: 28 of 100

Nicholas Sparks Challenge: 0 of 10

E-Book Challenge: 19 of 20

Vampire Chronicles Challenge: 0 of 10

Black Dagger Brotherhood Challenge: 1 of 9


Also, launched this month was a NEW feature at Bookaholic Does Blogging, Book of the Day! If you haven't checked that out yet, you should!

AND! I also launched my first Challenge/Book Club for the Black Dagger Brotherhood.  Challenge starts April 1st and the first book club is April 15th!

All in all, we had a good month!  I'm hoping to work on some of those challenges (and knock out a couple -- YAY!) as well as post more reviews next month.  I was slacking it appears.

Wanted Wednesday (12)

I don't know about you, but I am super excited for the Royal Wedding in t-minus one month.  I'm all stocked up on books and mags featuring the event.  The one that I don't have, however, is the Life Special Edition.   This is very high on my "to buy" list and might even be worthy of spending my precious Amazon Gift Card Balance on.  I'm trying to decide if I reallllyyyyy need another one or not -- of course I do, right?

But I can say one thing for sure -- I will buying all the post-wedding Special Editions.  I'm a sap for weddings, but make it royal and there isn't much I won't buy. I figure since I wasn't even born when the last one rolled around (ok, the last BIG one... Charles and Diana, anyone?) I need to make this one worth my while. =)

How often does the future King of a country you don't live in get married?  Exactlyyyyy...

Review: Spying in High Heels

Spying in High Heels
Author: Gemma Halliday
Characters: 3 out of 5
Plot: 3 out of 5
Overall: 3 out of 5
Format: e-Book (on my Kindle)
Source: Purchased by Myself

Book 1 in the High Heels Series

Description: (Author Website) L.A. shoe designer, Maddie Springer, lives her life by three rules: Fashion. Fashion. Fashion. But when she stumbles upon the work of a brutal killer, her life takes an unexpected turn from Manolos to murder. And things only get worse when her boyfriend disappears - along with $20 million in embezzled funds - and her every move is suddenly under scrutiny by the LAPD's sexiest cop. With the help of her post-menopausal bridezilla of a mother, a 300 pound psychic and one seriously oversexed best friend, Maddie finds herself stepping out of her stilettos and onto the trail of a murderer. But can she catch a killer before the killer catches up to her...

From My Point of View:  Lesson Learned from this book?  Attitude is everything.  And I'm not talking about the characters.  I'm talking about me.  I started this book up at 9:30 on a night I was BEYOND tired and finished the second half.  Badddd Idea.  I was irritated and moody and it definitely hindered my feelings toward this book.

This is a fun and quirky book -- definitely a girly read.  I would suggest being in the mood for a such a book when you pick this up.  It's filled to the binding with shoes and clothing references, which on a normal day doesn't bug me, but in my sleep deprived haze, annoyed me to no end.

As far as the characters go, Maddie annoyed me -- and not just because of my attitude.  She was very contradicting as a character.  On the one hand, she'd put her life on the line -- literally -- to find Richard.  On the other, she didn't have enough courage to pee on a fricken stick!  I was SO annoyed about the pregnancy test.  Not to mention it was drawn out entirely too long, what with them being expired, stepped on, or when the coke spilled.  I was over it.

Ramirez is really what kept me going.  He is the very definition of everything I look for in a book hunk.  *swoon*  If it weren't for him, this entire book would have been a waste of my time.

With all that being said, I honestly feel this series has potential.  It's pretty evident this is the author's first book ever.  I've actually finished the second one as I write this and it was a VAST improvement.  I'm excited to keep going with this series in hopes that I continue to see improvement in each one.

Author Interview: Simon Lelic

Today's author interview is with Simon Lelic, author of The Facility. Simon Lelic has worked as a journalist and currently runs his own business. Rupture, Simon’s first novel, received incredible, widespread reviews and led to The Times branding him as ‘set for literary stardom’. Rupture was shortlisted for the Specsavers Crime Thriller Awards. The Facility is his second novel. (I took that from the tour website, just so you know - yes, I cheated! (= )

About The Facility (also from the tour website): Henry Graves has dedicated his life to the prison service, but he is unprepared for the challenge his new and secret assignment brings. Tasked with managing a government facility hidden deep in the countryside, Henry finds himself tested as never before: by the confused and frightened prisoners, by the sinister Dr Silk and, above all, by his conscience.

Tom Clarke, a precocious but naive journalist, has his own problems meanwhile. His career – and his life – is turned upside down by the arrival of Julia Priestley, who seeks his help in finding her estranged husband, Arthur, an innocent dentist who has been arrested under severe new anti-terrorism legislation.

The authorities admit they have taken him but will not say where he is being held – or why. Discovering a trail that implicates those at the very top of government, Tom and Julia begin a quest to find Arthur, and the truth about his incarceration. But some people will stop at nothing to keep the facility’s secret hidden, and soon the couple find themselves fighting for their lives…


And now, on to the interview:

What was the hardest part of writing The Facility?

I wrote The Facility in something of a vacuum. My first novel, Rupture, had been accepted and scheduled for publication but was almost a year away from actually being released. As such, I did not have the distractions of publicity requirements, reviews (good or bad!) or even the pressures of a deadline. Rather, I could enjoy and look forward to becoming a published ovelist, and write The Facility with something of a sense of liberation. In that regard, it was easier in a way than writing Rupture. The hardest parts about the process, really, were the day-to-day challenges that writing, as a discipline, presents. See below!

If you had to do it all over again, would you change anything about this novel?

I try not to play this game! I will not pass a manuscript to my publisher until I am one-hundred-percent happy with it but once a draft is considered ‘final’, I rarely look back at it. I have not read, and do not plan to read, either Rupture or The Facility since they were published, for instance. Of course I have to accept that there may be things, had I been writing a novel at a later time, that I would do differently with it. The trick, I think, is putting everything you have learned in the experience of writing one novel into the book that follows.

Is there anything you find particularly challenging in your writing?

If you mean the things I find most challenging in the process of writing, there are plenty! I would never go as far as to claim that writing is hard (being a social worker is hard; being a full-time mother is hard) but it is certainly a leap of faith. There are always points during the course of writing a novel where obstacles present themselves (in terms of plotting, for example, or tone or characterisation) that seem, at the time, to be insurmountable. The hardest part about writing, I find, is not allowing whatever dilemma presents itself to consume you; to knock you completely off track. There is always a way forwards, even if it means first taking several steps back.

Who designed the cover of The Facility?

Stuart Wilson at Macmillan. It’s great, don’t you think? And I have just seen a proof of the paperback jacket, which in my mind is ever better...

What inspired you to write your first book?

My first ‘book’ was a story about a teddy bear who escapes his owner and visits a funfair. It was entitled, imaginatively enough, ‘Ted Visits the Funfair’. It came complete with illustrations and a cover and totalled, I imagine, something like 500 words. During a couple of months of illness, I in fact settled on turning the idea into a series. I wrote a prequel and had two ideas for sequels – but then got better and went back to school. After that, in my teenaged years, I attempted numerous knock-offs of The Lord of the Rings. None, it goes without saying, was good. Finally, I settled my aspirations on becoming a journalist. It was, after working for eight years of so in business-to-business publishing, that I became weary of the Style Guide and decided to try something more . . . novel.

Who is your favorite author and what is it that really strikes you about their work?

Although I hold a number of contemporary authors in particularly high regard (Don DeLillo, Hilary Mantel and David Mitchell, for example), Cormac McCarthy is a constant in my mind in the number-one spot. He writes in such a compelling, lyrical, relentlessly engaging way. I love, too, that he writes with such fluidity, sparsely but with enormous emotional depth. Coming from a journalistic background, where writing is often, by necessity, formulaic, it is always refreshing to read prose that creates its own rules. Few, if any, do it as well today as McCarthy does.

Do you have any advice for other writers?

I am not sure I have earned the right yet to dispense advice but, if pushed, I would tell aspiring authors to be selective about what advice they follow! I know from experience how tempting it is to latch on to every utterance you come across concerning ‘how to write’, to the point where you are frantically trying to accommodate conflicting, contradictory counsel. Find what works for you; forget about how other writers do it.

Do you have anything specific that you want to say to your readers?

Other than a sincere and heartfelt ‘thank you’ for investing their time in reading my novels, I would hope that any message I hope to impart comes across in the books I have written. Not too heavy-handedly, however – there is nothing more off-putting than a book that tries to preach.

Thank you so much Simon for stopping by!  Be sure to check out The Facility!

US vs UK (14): Rachel Morgan Series

EDIT // Well, this post was meant for tomorrow, but since it's up early, I'll just leave it!  Enjoy!

 

It's that time again: another US vs UK challenge! US vs UK was created by Jenny from Wondrous Reads.  Thank you, Jenny for being so brilliant! =)

This week I have a reader request!  Celine, from Nyx Book Reviews wanted to see the Rachel Morgan series (The Hollows Series) by Kim Harrison.  Since this series has a whopping nine books, I'm just going to show off the first four.  As usual US is on the left and UK is on the right!

This week was probably the easiest for me: UK all the way.  The US covers are just Ok for me, but the UK cover?  Total cover love.  I LOVE the colors, the fonts, and the images.  There isn't anything I don't like about them.  The US covers on the other hand are a different story.  I don't care for the font choices. The pictures are just OK, not awesome.  And they remind me The Night Huntress Series, but I don't know which series came first.

Our new total so far is: US 6, UK 8.  Which covers are your winner for this week?!

Do you have a book or series you'd like to see featured on my US vs UK meme?! Click here to tell me about them!  I'd love to hear your ideas!

Follow Friday (18)

This week's question is: Inspired by the inane twitter trend of #100FACTSABOUTME, GIVE US FIVE BOOK RELATED SILLY FACTS ABOUT YOU.
1. Once upon a time I refused to read more than one book at a time, now I hardly ever read just one.2. If I could, I'd trade my entire DTB library for the e-book equivalent.3. My Kindle was the best give I ever got.4. My TBR list (140 at the moment) scares the crap out of me.  I'm actually anxious thinking about how I'm going to get through it.5. I enjoy shopping for my books as much as I enjoy reading them.  I'm like a kid at Christmas when I find a new book to read.

Thanks for hopping by!

Review: William and Kate: A Royal Love Story

William and Kate: A Royal Love Story

Author: James Clench

Overall: 4 out of 5

Format: Hardcover

Source: Purchased by myself

Description: (Amazon.com) The true story of Prince William and Kate Middleton's fairy-tale romance--and the Royal Wedding that will capture the hearts of people around the world.

He was the boy who would one day be king, and she the middle-class girl who had harbored a crush on him. In 2001, both new students at the University of St Andrews, Prince William and Kate Middleton met for the first time. Though competition for William's affections was fierce, and the scrutiny of the paparazzi (and all England) daunting, love blossomed and Kate won her Prince Charming.

Now the sound of wedding bells is about to ring loud and clear for the joyful couple. Wiilliam & Kate celebrates their much-awaited upcoming nuptials and tells the story of their remarkable romance. Written by The Sun's Royal correspondent, it features 150 beautiful photographs and is the perfect keepsake of this memorable, once-in-a-lifetime event.

From My Point of View:  I realized just now this is second William and Kate book I've read and they've both had the exact same title.  I guess non-fiction authors arn't unique with titles anymore??

At any rate, this book was MUCH better than the first Will and Kate book I reviewed.  My favorite part is that it's mostly pictures, which is really all we care about right? =)

The information presented in this book was much the same as that in the other Will and Kate book, so it was reassuring that the information is being presented consistently.  I had my reservations about the content of this book given that it was written by an employee of The Sun, a tabloid newspaper in London, but it the information presented seemed truthful and was a better caliber than reading a tabloid.

I can't help but compare this biography to the last, so I was disappointed when the information in this book was much more vague than the other novel.  I would guess this is because of size and content.  As I mentioned, this book had a lot more pictures and it was smaller to begin with.

Another thing that annoyed me was that the author constantly referred to The Sun and only in a positive light.  He would say things like, "The Sun first reported this breaking story on..." and "But, like a good publication, The Sun did not take advantage of this opportunity because it could be detrimental so and so." I understand wanting to promote The Sun in a good light, but it was a bit much at times.

Overall, this would make a great coffee table book.  I don't think I'll ever actually read it again, but I will certainly be checking out the pictures many times over. =)

Wanted Wednesday (11)

Topping my list of books I want this week is Jen Lancaster's Bright Lights, Big Ass: A Self-Indulgent, Surly, Ex-Sorority Girl's Guide to Why It Often Sucks in the City, or Who Are These Idiots and Why Do They All Live Next Door To Me?  My favorite part is the title.  Honestly?  I think this books just sounds like a lot of fun!

Here's the official Goodreads description: Jen Lancaster hates to burst your happy little bubble, but life in the big city isn't all it's cracked up to be. Contrary to what you see on TV and in the movies, most urbanites aren't party-hopping in slinky dresses and strappy stilettos. But lucky for us, Lancaster knows how to make the life of the lower crust mercilessly funny and infinitely entertaining.

Whether she's reporting rude neighbors to Homeland Security, harboring a crush on her grocery store clerk, or fighting-and losing-the Battle of the Stairmaster- Lancaster explores how silly, strange, and not-so-fabulous real city living can be. And if anyone doesn't like it, they can kiss her big, fat, pink, puffy down parka.