Booktubeathon Wrap up

I just finished my first Booktubeathon. The Booktubeathon was started by Ariel Basset and this year it ran from August 3 to August 9. (This is why there were like 0 posts here. I was busy reading.) There were 7 challenges involved and I managed to complete all 7, including to read 7 books!

My strategy was to choose some shorter books as well as a couple audiobooks. Since the Booktubeathon was a week long, and I work at least 40 hours each week, I knew I wasn't going to have a lot of time for reading.

The seven challenges and books I read for each are:

1. Read a book with Blue on the Cover: Old Dog New Tricks by Hailey Edwards. Book 4 in the Black Dog series. I received a free copy from NetGalley.com for review so look for a review to be posted here soon.
2. Read a book by an author who shares the same first initial of their last name with you: Paladins of Shannara, The Black Irix by Terry Brooks. (My maiden name starts with a B.)
3. Someone else's favorite book: Legend by Marie Lu.
4. The last book you acquired: Hunter by Mercedes Lackey. I had received a free copy from NetGalley.com for review; I'll have my review posted either the end of this month or early next.
5. Finish a book without letting go of it: Durarara!!
6. A book you really want to read: Sword Art Online: Aincrad. My fiance introduced me to the anime, which I have become obsessed with. I wanted to see how the manga compared.
7. Read 7 books: Taken in Death by J D Robb

I'm feeling really good right now, having met the goal and challenge set before me to read 7 books. Did you also participate in the Booktubeathon? I'm interested to know how you did and if this was your first time participating. Or tell me how your strategy changed from last year to this year, or how your strategy will change for next year. Please let me know in the comments.

Thoughts on NetGalley.com

I've been a member of NetGalley.com for about 3 months now, and wanted to share my thoughts with you. 

I enjoy being a member, and it's free! It's a great way to get advance copies of books and read and review them. Better yet, you get to pick and choose what books. 

My preference is to try to have a book read and a review ready by the time it is published. I am not always able to do this, in fact, so far I think I've only hit this goal with one book so far. Currently I have around 10 books on my shelf that I need to read, and many have already been released. 

Are you a new blogger, booktuber, or new to posting about books on instagram? Think you can't be a member of Net Galley? You would be wrong. I was just getting this blog started again when I applied to Net Galley and requested a bunch of books. I was flabergasted when I was approved for four of my requests almost instantaneously. I don't have a lot of viewers or followers yet, but I grow each and every day. May only be by one viewer, but hay, I'm still growing.

I was even more stunned when the publisher of one of the books I received contacted me about being part of their blog tour. Me? Part of a blog tour? I had a total panic attack because I don't like not knowing what to expect, and I had never been part of a blog tour, nor had I witnessed or followed a blog tour before. In the end I let myself down, I debated with myself, and took my time reading the book; I didn't want to sign up for a blog tour if I didn't like the book. With my dragging feet, I believe I put in my application to be part of the blog tour too late, plus very much limited what I was willing to do out of fear and was not chosen. I still posted my review around the time of the blog tour since I waited to be sure I had not been chosen, so I still felt I was part of it, I just wasn't officially part of it.

Another benefit of NetGalley is these are books I'm requesting and will likely enjoy reading. So while I feel obligated to read and review them, that feeling is outweighed by my interest in reading them. For example, I recently received Hunter by Mercedes Lackey; this book, I don't know what it was exactly, but I really wanted this book. I kept checking my email to see if I had received it. Then, one morning while I was at work, the notice on my phone popped up that I had received an email from NetGalley.com. Enough of the message showed in the notice that I saw I had been approved to receive a copy of this book. It took great effort to keep quiet while I did a little celebration dance in my chair. (Then I went and rushed through the book I was reading and chose Hunter as part of my BooktubeAThon TBR; and made myself wait even longer to start reading the book.)

A few tips I have are:

1. Use your shelves: NetGalley provides shelves kind of like how goodreads does. When you are approved for a request it appears on your New shelf. To track what books you have downloaded to your kindle or other reading device, switch the book over to your Reading shelf. This way you won't forget to download a book before it archives and you can no longer download it for reading. (Yes, I forgot to download one of the books I was approved for because I thought I had downloaded it already; and am kicking myself for it.)
2. Don't request more books than you can read: I went request crazy one day and now have more books than I can read in one month. This may not really bother you, but NetGalley also tracks your reviews written to approved books ratio. Once you get started and have a few reviews under your belt, the goal to aim for is 80%.
3. Read the approved request email: Some of the publishers may specify when to publish a review for their book. You do not want to publish too soon.

These are just a few tips I'm have. If you would like more tips as I go along and learn, please let me know. Do you already participate with NetGalley? Please share in the comments below any tips you have that you would like to share with me and others who read this post.

Book Review: Moonwitched by Renee Wildes

I just finished a great book, Moonwitched by Renee Wildes. I had requested this book for review on NetGalley.com and was allowed the honor of reading. What I didn't realize when I requested the book, I didn't read enough of the description, was that it is the seventh book in the Guardians of Light series.

Since I didn't realize this book was the seventh in a series, I was a little lost at the beginning. It was when I was lost that I went back to NetGalley and saw what I had missed. Even with my being lost, I still gve this book 4 stars!

I especially liked the fighting descriptions, and one part in particular where there is a training session for Mari who is a witch but she has vowed not to kill. A few of the other characters teach her to fight since she is traveling with them to war. It would not be safe for her to just march in with the rest of them unprepared. The descriptions are so clear, I felt I was receiving a training lesson too.

This book stirs up a thrilling excitement that makes it difficult to stop. After reading this book I do want to go and start the Guardians of Light series from the beginning with Duality, which was published October of 2008.

I would recommend this book to those who would love to read a romantic fantasy. Moonwitched will be published on August 11, 2015, and is available for pre-order on Amazon.


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Life Update

So I came back from vacation and had the best of intentions...but then life threw a few lemons.

One lemon being my office job; I've been given some projects that have required more of my time. I'm hoping I have it under control now, at least for the most part. Another lemon was that I recently lost an Uncle. I wasn't very close to him, but I am close to my Aunt. So I made sure I was there for her.

I've done some exploring, and blogger has a tool already built in that allows blog posts to be scheduled, or I could simply save them off. I've also invested in Hootsuite for some of my other social media outlets. This way I can prepare videos and posts in advance so that when life throws a few hurdles, I will hopefully have things already under control and be able to just go in and schedule a few things if necessary.

I promise more posts coming soon, in fact I just posted a new YouTube video this morning which you can watch here: https://youtu.be/bExVYcgcMkE. This was my first Top 5 Wednesday video, and the video for this week was top 5 character tropes. I also have a review of Moonwitched coming soon; I just have a little more of the book to read.

Stay tuned, the Lemon Meringue Pie is coming. (I am tired of lemonade.)

Home From Vacation

Last weekend my Fiance and I went to my parents cottage and participated in Pirate Day. It was sooooo much fun!!! I can't wait to go back again next year.
While getting hit with water balloons, hoses shooting water like a fire hose, and other water guns may not sound like fun to some, it was a total blast. It takes place on the lakes at the community their cottage is in. Pirate Day was created several years ago, but this was our first go of it. It only lasts an hour, rather than a day, but it was the best hour of the vacation.

We went out on their pontoon boat loaded with 5, 5-gallon sized buckets of water balloons, and water guns. We had the theme from Pirates of the Carribean playing, and a few times I couldn't help but think about some of the boat battles in the movies. More than once, in one way or another, one boat played the lead ship for the crown at the end of the third movie.

I also learned the hard way a hat does not stay on your head. I wore a baseball cap to try to protect my head from the sun...we later went fishing for the hat as on a sudden burst of speed to try to get away from one of the pirate boats, the hat went flying off my head. I'm hoping to be able to get my hands on a waterproof, possibly an underwater camera for next year. My mother stayed on dry ground, but we were so far out she wasn't able to get photos of the action.
In addition to Pirate Day, I enjoyed time reading, walking, fishing, and I even tried kayaking. My sister wanted to go kayaking but wanted someone to go with her. I went willingly, although I wonder if she regretted her choice. I kind of took off in the kayak and had to keep slowing down for her. I later found even my parents in the canoe had trouble keeping up. I did tire though, but so did they. I only made it back to the beach first because we all got there around the same time and had to allow someone to go first. It's a small beach.

Now home, and while happy to be home, I'm sad to have the vacation be over. I know that come Monday, I'll be returning to my day job at an office.

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Book Review: The Corridor by A N Willis

OMG!!! What a fantastic read!! Suspense, mystery, thrills and chills. This book is very exciting and a must read of 2015.

The Corridor by A N Willis is about a girl named Estele who goes by Stel, she lives on First Earth, and works at something called The Corridor, until an uncontrollable surge gives her the power of the Corridor.

The Corridor allows travel between worlds, or at least is supposed to. When it was first brought online it killed thousands. Her father was the head of the facility at the time, but after the surge, someone Stel thought was their friend sabotaged her father and he was demoted.

Her father now spends his time researching the Corridor trying to find a way to stabilize it for travel. Meanwhile, Stel finds the surge has given he the power of the Corridor. She can summon a portal between her hands and shift between worlds. She explores the worlds until a chilling announcement, the new head of The Corridor facility is going to build a second Corridor.

Now it's a rush to find the answers and convince the facility head that building a second Corridor is a bad idea. Stel doesn't know how to tell anyone about her ability. She fears they will consider her a Mod; a modified human with special abilities and lock her up in prison.

I was disappointed to learn I had read the last sentence. I'm sitting here craving more, to know how the story goes. Thankfully, the next book in the series, The Thirteenth, will be coming out this fall. I rate this book 5 stars out of 5. This is a definite winner in my book.

*I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley.com for an honest review.




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Book Review: Born of Fire by Sherrilyn Kenyon

Born of Fire is the second book of Sherrilyn Kenyon's hit series The League.

The story focuses on Shahara Dagan and C.I Syn; and begins with Shahara's sister in the hospital after she gets beat up badly from taking a loan she can't pay back. Shahara goes after Syn for the bounty on his head by President Zamir for the alleged rape and murder of his daughter Kiara (who we first met in Born of Night) to pay for her sister's hospital bill and pay off the loan, plus the bounty is so high she will have some money left over to take care of her debts as well.

What Shahara doesn't know, is how cruel life can be and how innocent Syn is of his alleged crimes. Luckily Syn isn't an easy catch even for a well trained tracer like Shahara, and Shahara fails to take Syn in. But she makes a deal with the Ritadarian government who wants Syn for their own reasons, and gives them Syn's location so they can arrest him. It's only after Syn is arrested that Shahara realizes there is a little bit of good in him as she learns her sister's hospital bill has been paid in full with extra should they need anything.

To get Syn out, Shahara makes another deal with the Ritadarian government to help them get what they want. Shahara has no idea what mess and trouble she has just brought upon herself. She is quickly drawn into Syn's past and current life, and learns of what a big mistake she has made.
Born of Fire takes you on a wild ride and life lessons the characters learn, you learn as well. It's filled with great one liners like Syn's motto, "no good deed goes unpunished".

The characters are great too. Kenyon has a way of making the characters come to life right off the page, and puts you in the story. So while Shahara and Syn are running for their lives your heart rate will go up with theirs.

The audio book version is read by Fred Berman, and he does a really great job with the voices. He puts emphasis in the right places and helps make the characters and what is happening real.
This is a good book that I recommend to everyone interested in a little action, some romance, and a few good laughs. Also, don't miss Born of Ice which is the next book in the series.


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