31 January, 2018

30 January, 2018

REVIEW: THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO by Stieg Larsson


Title: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Author: Stieg Larsson
Series: Millennium #1
Genres: Mystery, Fiction
Publisher: Norstedt
Release: August 2005
Source: Kindle Edition
Pages: 658

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BLURB: Mikael Blomkvist, a once-respected financial journalist, watches his professional life rapidly crumble around him. Prospects appear bleak until an unexpected (and unsettling) offer to resurrect his name is extended by an old-school titan of Swedish industry. The catch—and there’s always a catch—is that Blomkvist must first spend a year researching a mysterious disappearance that has remained unsolved for nearly four decades. With few other options, he accepts and enlists the help of investigator Lisbeth Salander, a misunderstood genius with a cache of authority issues. Little is as it seems in Larsson’s novel, but there is at least one constant: you really don’t want to mess with the girl with the dragon tattoo.

29 January, 2018

28 January, 2018

COVER OF THE MONTH


New year, new meme!

We are always told to not judge a book by its cover but... this is exactly what we will be doing! Cover art should also be appreciated. Am I right? ;)

In this meme we will be choosing 5 covers every month from books published on said month
e.g. for january we will choose a cover from a book published in january


27 January, 2018

REVIEW: THE TEMPTATION by L.J.Smith


Title: The Temptation
Author:  L.J. Smith
Series: The Secret Circle #6
Genres: YA, Witches, Paranormal
Publisher: HarperTeen
Release: 2013
Source: Audiobook
Pages: 277

// Goodreads // BookDepository // Amazon //

BLURB:
It’s always darkest before dawn.

Cassie hasn’t felt this alone since she moved to New Salem and joined the Circle – the closest thing to a family she’s ever known. But now that the Circle has been possessed by powerful evil spirits, Cassie is left with no choice but to turn to her dark side to rescue them. As she struggles to get through to her friends, and her soul mate, Adam, she finds an unexpected ally—one who will tempt her more than ever before.

With her enemies quickly closing in, Cassie fights to keep her heart true and her soul pure. But she knows better than anyone that all magic comes at a price, especially when Black John’s Book of Shadows is involved. Will Cassie defeat the darkness once and for all…

26 January, 2018

REVIEW: THE HUNT by L.J. Smith


Title: The Hunt
Author:  L.J. Smith
Series: The Secret Circle #5
Genres: YA, Witches, Paranormal
Publisher: HarperTeen
Release: 2012
Source: Audiobook
Pages: 171

// Goodreads // BookDepository // Amazon //

BLURB:
The Hunt, from the bestselling author of The Vampire Diaries L. J. Smith, is a dangerously exciting tale of love, witchcraft, and the supernatural, perfect for fans of the Beautiful Creatures series.

Cassie's life is far from ordinary. Her best friends are a coven of witches and her relationship with her boyfriend, Adam, is written in the stars. As the leader of the Secret Circle, it is up to her to keep them safe.

But then Cassie's evil half sister surfaces, determined to take Cassie's place in the Secret Circle. And a band of powerful witch-hunters begins targeting the group, determined to destroy them. Will the circle remain intact despite the powerfully evil magic that has infiltrated their ring? And will Cassie survive this ultimate battle between good and evil?

25 January, 2018

REVIEW: THE HOST by Stephenie Meyer

Title: The Host
Author: Stephenie Meyer
Series: The Host
Genres: Science Fiction, YA, Fantasy
Publisher: Little Brown and Company
Release:
Source: Physical copy
Pages: 620

// Goodreads // BookDepository // Amazon //

BLURB: Melanie Stryder refuses to fade away. The earth has been invaded by a species that take over the minds of human hosts while leaving their bodies intact. Wanderer, the invading "soul" who has been given Melanie's body, didn't expect to find its former tenant refusing to relinquish possession of her mind.
As Melanie fills Wanderer's thoughts with visions of Jared, a human who still lives in hiding, Wanderer begins to yearn for a man she's never met. Reluctant allies, Wanderer and Melanie set off to search for the man they both love.

24 January, 2018

23 January, 2018

REVIEW: THE DIVIDE by L.J.Smith


Title: The Divide
Author:  L.J. Smith
Series: The Secret Circle #4
Genres: YA, Witches, Paranormal
Publisher: HarperTeen
Release: 2012
Source: Audiobook
Pages: 320

// Goodreads // BookDepository // Amazon //

BLURB:
Keep your enemies close. . . .

For the first time since moving to New Salem, Cassie Blake feels normal. She's dating her soul mate Adam and making new friends in town. But between the secret coven of witches she belongs to and the incredible power she holds within her, Cassie is leading a far from ordinary life. When tragedy strikes the Circle, Cassie realizes being extraordinary can be a curse.

The Circle is being hunted by an unknown enemy—and anyone could be the next victim. As they struggle to protect themselves, alliances are formed and relationships are tested. No one knows who to trust or who to fear. Will Cassie be able to save the Circle . . . and herself? Or will her choices break it apart forever?

22 January, 2018

21 January, 2018

SUNDAY PORTRAIT: Lucien Vaudrey


Happy Sunday, friends! Welcome to Sunday Portraits, where we give a face to our beloved book friends!

 Today we have: A CHARM OF MAGPIES by K.J. Charles:

LUCIEN VAUDREY 
Lucien Vaudrey is the current Lord Crane and owner of the Piper Estate in Lychdale, which he inherited after the deaths of his father, Quentin Vaudrey, and brother, Hector Vaudrey. Lucien also holds the title of Viscount Fortunegate and is the descendent of one of the most powerful magicians and the inventor of modern magic practice, Lord Fortunegate or the Magpie Lord.

20 January, 2018

REVIEW: THE POWER by L.J.Smith


Title: The Power
Author:  L.J. Smith
Series: The Secret Circle #3
Genres: YA, Witches, Paranormal
Publisher: HarperTeen
Release: 1992
Source: Audiobook
Pages: 320

// Goodreads // BookDepository // Amazon //

BLURB:
In So Deadly A Battle...

United at last with Diana, the mistress of her coven, Cassie must first sacrifice her love for Adam to save the Secret Circle and the town of New Salem from the evil powers of the witch Faye.

Threatened by the possibility of her destruction in a final battle between good and evil, Cassie must hope that her supernatural gifts are strong enough to obliterate the powers of evil.

If victorious, Cassie will win more than she ever dreamed. But if she and Diana fail, the Power will go to those who seek only to destroy.

...Can Anyone Triumph?

19 January, 2018

REVIEW: LONGBOURN by Jo Baker


Title: Longbourn
Author:  Jo Baker
Series: -
Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Romance
Publisher: Knopf
Release: 2013
Source: Audiobook
Pages: 352

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BLURB:
• Pride and Prejudice was only half the story •

If Elizabeth Bennet had the washing of her own petticoats, Sarah often thought, she’d most likely be a sight more careful with them.

In this irresistibly imagined belowstairs answer to Pride and Prejudice, the servants take center stage. Sarah, the orphaned housemaid, spends her days scrubbing the laundry, polishing the floors, and emptying the chamber pots for the Bennet household. But there is just as much romance, heartbreak, and intrigue downstairs at Longbourn as there is upstairs. When a mysterious new footman arrives, the orderly realm of the servants’ hall threatens to be completely, perhaps irrevocably, upended.

Jo Baker dares to take us beyond the drawing rooms of Jane Austen’s classic—into the often overlooked domain of the stern housekeeper and the starry-eyed kitchen maid, into the gritty daily particulars faced by the lower classes in Regency England during the Napoleonic Wars—and, in doing so, creates a vivid, fascinating, fully realized world that is wholly her own. 

18 January, 2018

REVIEW: THE MAN WHO MISTOOK HIS WIFE FOR A HAT by Oliver Sacks

Title: The Man Who Mistook Hist Wife for a Hat
Author: Oliver Sacks
Series: -
Genres: Nonfiction, Psychology
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Release: January 1st, 1985
Source: Kindle Edition
Pages: 328

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BLURB: In his most extraordinary book, "one of the great clinical writers of the twentieth century" (The New York Times) recounts the case histories of patients lost in the bizarre, apparently inescapable world of neurological disorders. Oliver Sacks's The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat tells the stories of individuals afflicted with fantastic perceptual and intellectual aberrations: patients who have lost their memories and with them the greater part of their pasts; who are no longer able to recognize people and common objects; who are stricken with violent tics and grimaces or who shout involuntary obscenities; whose limbs have become alien; who have been dismissed as retarded yet are gifted with uncanny artistic or mathematical talents.

If inconceivably strange, these brilliant tales remain, in Dr. Sacks's splendid and sympathetic telling, deeply human. They are studies of life struggling against incredible adversity, and they enable us to enter the world of the neurologically impaired, to imagine with our hearts what it must be to live and feel as they do. A great healer, Sacks never loses sight of medicine's ultimate responsibility: "the suffering, afflicted, fighting human subject."

17 January, 2018

16 January, 2018

REVIEW: IT by Stephen King


Title: It
Author: Stephen King
Series: -
Genres: Horror, Thriller, Fiction
Publisher: New English Library
Release: 1st October, 1987
Source: Audiobook/Kindle
Pages: 1116

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BLURB:

To the children, the town was their whole world. To the adults, knowing better, Derry, Maine was just their home town: familiar, well-ordered for the most part. A good place to live.


It was the children who saw - and felt - what made Derry so horribly different. In the storm drains, in the sewers, IT lurked, taking on the shape of every nightmare, each one's deepest dread. Sometimes IT reached up, seizing, tearing, killing . . .

The adults, knowing better, knew nothing.

Time passed and the children grew up, moved away. The horror of IT was deep-buried, wrapped in forgetfulness. Until they were called back, once more to confront IT as IT stirred and coiled in the sullen depths of their memories, reaching up again to make their past nightmares a terrible present reality.

15 January, 2018

14 January, 2018

REVIEW: AGNES GREY by Anne Bronte


Title: Agnes Grey
Author:  Anne Bronte
Series: -
Genres: Classics, Romance, Fiction
Publisher: Penguin Books
Release: 1847
Source: Audiobook
Pages: 251

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BLURB:
At age 19 Anne Brontë left home and worked as a governess for a few years before becoming a writer. Agnes Grey was an 1847 novel based on her experience as a governess. Bronte depicts the precarious position of a governess and how that can affect a young woman. Agnes was the daughter of a minister whose family was in financial difficulty. She has only a few choices for employment. Agnes experiences the difficulty of reining in spoiled children and how wealth can corrupt morals.

13 January, 2018

REVIEW: PRINCESS DRACULA by John Patrick Kennedy


Title: Princess Dracula
Author:  John Patrick Kennedy
Series: Princess Dracula
Genres: Horror, Fantasy
Publisher: Kindle Press
Release: January 17th, 2017
Source: eBook
Pages: 203

// Goodreads // // Amazon //

BLURB:
All power comes at a price…

Ruxandra learned everything she knows while growing up in a convent. Training to be the perfect nobleman’s wife, she relishes the prospect of a simple life. But everything changes when her father, Vlad Dracula, retrieves her on her eighteenth birthday. Securing her a marriage is the last thing he has in mind…

After he performs a mysterious ritual over her, Ruxandra gains uncontrollable supernatural powers. Alone, terrified, and faced with an unknown future, she is left to forge a new life for herself. There’s only one thing she knows: if she doesn’t learn to control her unnatural instincts, she’ll destroy every last shred of her humanity.

Princess Dracula is the first book in a dark fantasy horror series. If you like crisp writing, emotional gravitas, and intriguing retellings of classic tales, then you’ll love John Patrick Kennedy’s new twist on vampire lore.

12 January, 2018

REVIEW: SPELLBOOK OF LOST AND FOUND by Moïra Fowley-Doyle


Title: Spellbook of Lost and Found
Author: Moïra Fowley-Doyle
Series: -
Genres: YA, Fantasy, Magical Realism
Publisher: RHCP Digital
Release: June 1st 2017
Source: Audiobook
Pages: 416

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BLURB:
One stormy summer night, Olive and her best friend, Rose, begin to lose things. It starts with simple items like hair clips and jewellery, but soon it’s clear that Rose has lost something bigger; something she won’t talk about.

Then Olive meets three wild, mysterious strangers: Ivy, Hazel and Rowan. Like Rose, they’re mourning losses - and holding tight to secrets.

When they discover the ancient spellbook, full of hand-inked charms to conjure back lost things, they realise it might be their chance to set everything right. Unless it’s leading them towards secrets that were never meant to be found . . . 

11 January, 2018

REVIEW: THE PRINCESS SAVES HERSELF IN THIS ONE by Amanda Lovelace

Title: The Princess Saves Herself in this One
Author: Amanda Lovelace
Series: Women are some king of magic #1
Genres: Poetry, Feminism
Publisher: CreateSpace
Release: 2016
Source: Kindle Edition
Pages: 156

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BLURB: "ah, life—
the thing
that happens
to us
while we’re off
somewhere else
blowing on
dandelions
& wishing
ourselves into
the pages of
our favorite
fairy tales."

a poetry collection divided into four different parts: the princess, the damsel, the queen, & you. the princess, the damsel, & the queen piece together the life of the author in three stages, while you serves as a note to the reader & all of humankind. explores life & all of its love, loss, grief, healing, empowerment, & inspirations.

10 January, 2018

09 January, 2018

08 January, 2018

07 January, 2018

06 January, 2018

REVIEW: ANIMAL FARM by Goerge Orwell


Title: Animal Farm
Author:George Orwell
Series: -
Genres: Fiction, Classics, Fantasy
Publisher: NAL
Release: May 6th, 2003
Source: Audiobook
Pages: 122

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BLURB:
As ferociously fresh as it was more than a half century ago, this remarkable allegory of a downtrodden society of overworked, mistreated animals, and their quest to create a paradise of progress, justice, and equality is one of the most scathing satires ever published. As we witness the rise and bloody fall of the revolutionary animals, we begin to recognize the seeds of totalitarianism in the most idealistic organization; and in our most charismatic leaders, the souls of our cruelest oppressors.

05 January, 2018

REVIEW: ALEXANDRIA REBORN by Mark Wallace Maquire


Title: Alexandria Reborn
Author: Mark Wallace Maquire
Series: Alexandria Rising Chronicles #2
Genres: Fiction, History, Adventure
Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
Release: August 2nd, 2017
Source: Paperback
Pages: 237

// Goodreads //  Amazon //

BLURB:
He can't go home. He's dead in the real world. Everything has changed. Forever. In, 'Alexandria Reborn,' the anticipated sequel to 'Alexandria Rising' Rand O'Neal rises from the ashes to join an elite team in an effort to shift the power struggle set in motion by control of the alchemistic Slendoc Meridian. As this fast paced adventure continues, Rand will discover the answer to many of this questions, but will he lost Hope in the process? 

04 January, 2018

REVIEW: RUBY RED by Kerstin Gier


Title: Ruby Red
Author: Kerstin Gier
Series: Precious Stone Trilogy #1
Genres: YA, Fantasy
Publisher: Arena Verlag
Release: 2011
Source: Paperback/Audiobook
Pages: 324

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BLURB:
Gwyneth Shepherd's sophisticated, beautiful cousin Charlotte has been prepared her entire life for traveling through time. But unexpectedly, it is Gwyneth, who in the middle of class takes a sudden spin to a different era!

Gwyneth must now unearth the mystery of why her mother would lie about her birth date to ward off suspicion about her ability, brush up on her history, and work with Gideon--the time traveler from a similarly gifted family that passes the gene through its male line, and whose presence becomes, in time, less insufferable and more essential. Together, Gwyneth and Gideon journey through time to discover who, in the 18th century and in contemporary London, they can trust.

03 January, 2018

02 January, 2018

REVIEW: ELDEST by Christopher Paolini


Title: Eldest
Author: Christopher Paolini
Series: The Inheritance Cycle #2
Genres: Fantasy, YA
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
Release: 2005
Source: Hardcover
Pages: 668

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BLURB: Darkness falls... Swords clash... Evil reigns.

Eragon and his dragon, Saphira, have just saved the rebel state from destruction by the mighty forces of King Galbatorix, cruel ruler of the Empire. Now Eragon must travel to Ellesméra, land of the elves, for further training in magic and swordsmanship, the vital skills of the Dragon Rider. It is the journey of a lifetime, filled with awe-inspring new places and people, each day a fresh adventure. But chaos and betrayal plague him at every turn, and Eragon isn't sure whom he can trust.

Meanwhile, his cousin Roran must fight a new battle back home in Carvahall – one that puts Eragon in even graver danger.

Will the king's dark hand strangle all resistance? Eragon may not escape with even his life...

01 January, 2018