Saturday, 17 October 2015

Dewey's 24 Hour Read-A-Thon October 2015

Hey everybody! So, there is actually something very exciting coming up later today! In actually about six and a half hours. I was late on announcing it last time, and I guess it looks like I’m late on announcing it this time as well. This mysterious thing that I am talking about is Dewey’s 24 Hour Read-A-Thon! I am so excited for this to start, so I’m just going to let you know what I’m going to be reading, and also a little bit about what Dewey’s is!

So, if you didn’t know, Dewey’s is a read-a-thon that started about seven or eight years ago. This will be my second time participating, and I’m really looking forward to it. A read-a-thon is where there is a set amount of time, and sometimes that are challenges or certain types of books that you have to read it. Dewey’s however, doesn’t really have any particular challenges. The only rule is that you have to read as many books as you can in 24 hours.

Personally, I find read-a-thons that are shorter, like Dewey’s, easier to complete and participate in, than ones that are longer like RYBSAT. I feel like this is because it’s a much shorter amount of time, which means that I’m able to stay focused on it for the entire thing instead of getting distracted and wanting to do other things than read, which is what ends up happening for me in the longer read-a-thons.

Dewey’s, since it’s only a 24 hour read-a-thon, starts at the same time for everyone. This is also so you can join into the fun little challenges they have going on, and so that you can socialise with other’s that are also participating in the read-a-thon. For me, since I live in Australia, the read-a-thon starts at ten p.m. today, Saturday and ends at ten p.m. the next day, Sunday.

Here is the link to where you can figure out when it starts in your time-zone:

Here is the link to the read-a-thon's main page:


I right now have four books that I am planning on reading. I know for sure that I’m not going to finish all of them, I just like to have different choices that I can pick from. I’ve got two shorter books which are both under 300 pages, and then two longer books.


These books include:

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling
A Little Wanting Song by Cath Crowley
The Bad Beginning by Lemony Snicket
Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare


I’m already just under halfway through Goblet of Fire, so I’m hoping to finish it first. Since the read-a-thon starts at ten p.m. for me, I want to definitely have finished Goblet of Fire before I go to sleep. I also want to finish, or be near to finishing, either The Bad Beginning or A Little Wanting Song before I go to sleep. Then, when I wake up as I won’t have as much time to read during the day as I will at night, I’m hoping to finish the other short book, and then possibly start Clockwork Angel if I have time. I know I’m not going to be finishing Clockwork Angel, or be anywhere near to finishing Clockwork Angel, I just am going to try my best to start it.

I know I’m probably not even going to finish a second book, but I like to set my expectations higher, so that I work harder to get there.

I am going to be intagramming and tweeting throughout the duration of the read-a-thon, so if you would like to follow me journey of my reading, you can find me here:


Alright, well let me know if you are going to be participating in the read-a-thon, and if you are, what books you’re planning on reading!


Thanks for reading, and I will talk to you next time!

Sunday, 11 October 2015

October 2015 TBR

Hello everybody! So, I know that it’s almost halfway through October, but I just wanted to let you all know what I am planning to read throughout this month. I’m sorry that it’s pretty late, it’s only because I’ve had lots of schoolwork, and I’ve been working so I haven’t had a lot of time to write anything.

The last couple of months I haven’t done very well with my reading, so I want to try to read as much as I possibly can throughout the month of October. So, without further ado, here is my October TBR!

I am currently planning on reading a total of five books this month, which is less than last month, but a lot of the books that I am planning on reading this month are a lot longer than the ones from September. This number may change, along with the actual books that I want to read, just because I may change my mind of what I’m feeling like reading later on in the month.


These are the five books that I am hoping to read throughout the month:


Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by JK Rowling
Adrift by Paul Griffin
Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare
Resistance by Kayla Howarth
Baad Dog by Sal Conte

Baad Dog isn’t pictured because it is an e-book which I am planning on reviewing later this month, so you can keep an eye out for that!










I’m now going to go into a little bit about why I actually want to read these books!

The reason that I want to read Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is pretty simple and obvious. Harry Potter is absolutely amazing, and I just love reading it. I started re-reading the series a while ago, and sort of just stopped because I was reading other books as well, however this month I am definitely going to be getting a move on with the series, and finishing the fourth book. I’m already about one hundred pages into it, but there’s still a while to go before I finish it!
I’d also just like to mention since I’m already talking about Harry Potter, that I am so excited to purchase the illustrated edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s/Sorcerer’s Stone! It looks absolutely beautiful and I seriously cannot wait to see what Jim Kay’s interpretation of the story was. I get paid in just under two weeks, so this book is definitely going to be the first thing that I buy with my money!



The second book that I am hoping to read this month is Adrift by Paul Griffin. I won this book from a Goodreads giveaway a few weeks ago and I still have not read it. It does seem pretty interesting sounding. Basically what it’s about is that there is a group of friends, who get lost out at sea. The small blurb on the front of the book is; “Five of us went out on the water that night. None of us came back whole, and not all of us came back”. This just intrigues me so much and I am definitely looking forward to jumping into this book!

There are multiple reasons of why I want to read Clockwork Angel this month. One of the biggest reasons though, is that I absolutely loved The Mortal Instruments, and I just want to read more of the story. I received this book from a friend for my birthday nearly six months ago, and I just haven’t gotten to it yet. I’m so upset that I haven’t had time to read this book yet, as I have been looking forward to reading it for so long. Clockwork Angel is the first book in a prequel trilogy to The Mortal Instruments series, and I have heard so many good things about this trilogy, and I know a lot of BookTubers who really enjoy this trilogy as well. So, I will definitely be trying to get to this book this month!

The next book on my TBR list is Resistance by Kayla Howarth, which is the second book in The Institute Series. One of my friend’s, mom’s, friends (if that made any sense) wrote this series, and so I really want to get to it. I read the first book in this series, The Institute, a few months back, and I really enjoyed it. I’m already just under one hundred pages into Resistance, and I am enjoying it immensely so far. The Institute Series is a dystopian series about a world where there are people called Defectives. The Defectives have different powers, and they are seen as a threat to the world, so they are all locked away. Allira, the main character, has a brother who is a Defective, so her family is forced to become invisible. I am a really big fan of dystopian novels, so I was pretty sure that I was going to enjoy this series going into it, and I was completely correct. I loved the first book, so I am almost certain that I will enjoy this second book just as much.


The final book that I have on my TBR for the month of October, is Baad Dog by Sal Conte. I have absolutely no idea what this book is about. All that I really know is that it’s a short novella, and it’s about love for a dog. That’s pretty much all that I know about it, but from what I’ve heard it sounds like it could be interesting. I received an e-book copy of this book for review, so I am looking forward to reading it. My review for this book will be going up on the 21st of this month, so definitely look forward to that!








So, that is it for my October TBR! I am really looking forward to reading all of these books, and I will definitely be letting you know what I thought of them either through my October Wrap-Up at the end of the month, or through separate reviews!

Let me know if you have read any of these books and what you thought of them and what you’re planning on reading throughout this month down in the comments!

Thank you all for reading, and I will talk to you next time!




Saturday, 10 October 2015

September 2015 Wrap-Up

Hey guys! So, I know that this is a few days later than I said it would be, but this was my first week back at school, and so I just didn’t have a lot of time to be writing. However, better late than never was my thinking, so without further ado, here is my September Wrap-Up!

I feel like I was pretty productive with reading throughout the month of September. I didn’t read as much as I was hoping to, but I did read a decent amount. I ended up reading a total of six books, which is definitely better than how many books I’ve been reading over the last couple of months, so I was pretty happy with that number.

It was also RYBSAT this last month, so that did motivate me to read a bit as well.


The books that I was able to complete this month were:

 Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews
The Maze of Bones by Rick Riordan
One False Note by Gordon Korman
The Sword Thief by Peter Lerangis
Beyond the Grave by Jude Watson
The Black Circle by Patrick Carman 





I’m now going to go into a bit of what I thought of Me and Earl and the Dying Girl and also the five books within The 39 Clues series. I will hopefully be putting up a full book/movie review of Me and Earl and the Dying Girl soon, so that you guys can see what I thought about the movie compared to the book.


For those of you who don’t know, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl is about a boy names Greg, who just wants to stay under the radar. He has made it to his senior year of high school, while staying acquaintances with every single group and student in the entire school. He only has one person that is a friend, and that person is Earl. Greg and Earl have grown up together, and they also make films. They take a film that they really enjoyed, change the name of it and then remake it. His life seems pretty perfect to him. That is, until his mom tells him that he has to go talk Rachel, who has just been diagnosed with cancer.

I know what you’re thinking, ugh it’s just another cancer book. Or, it’s probably just a remake of The Fault in Our Stars. I’m here to tell you to get that thought out of your mind because Me and Earl and the Dying Girl is NOT just another cancer book. Sure, it does follow a boy who meets someone who does have cancer, but that’s not what the book is about. The book is not about the cancer.

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl is a comedic goldmine. I laughed so hard throughout this book, you just wouldn’t believe it. Although this book does have a cancer storyline, cancer is not the main plot point of the book. The main plot point of this book is that Greg is just a normal person. I know that that sounds strange, and that since it’s a contemporary book it should be following a normal person, but most contemporary novels just don’t feel like that. Greg had normal thoughts, he did normal things, he did things and thought things that most authors wouldn’t think to put into their books because they’re too absurd, too bizarre. But Jesse Andrews did. He knew that the thoughts running through Greg’s mind were ones that run through the minds of teens on a daily basis.

When I was reading this book, and somebody would ask me what is was about. Or whenever somebody would come up to me for a book recommendation, I would tell them about Me and Earl and the Dying Girl. They’d ask what’s it about, and I would tell them that it’s a funny book about cancer. They would all look at me like I was completely insane, and ask me how a book about cancer could possibly be funny. But Me and Earl and the Dying Girl is completely hilarious, and it definitely, definitely deserves the five out of five stars that I am giving it.


Since the last five books that I read this last month were all a part of the same series, I’m just going to give you an overview of what the series is about, and then also what I thought about the books as a whole.

The 39 Clues series follows siblings, Amy and Dan Cahill, who have just lost their grandmother. They are at the funeral, when they and some of their other family members from all over the world get called into a secret room. None of them have any idea what is going on, until Grace’s (the grandmother’s) lawyer comes in and turns on the TV. Grace pops up on the screen, and explains to the family members’ that they have a choice. They can either each take a million dollars, with no catch at all, or they can receive a clue. Only one clue out of thirty nine, and if they collect all of the clues, then they will have eternal glory. Amy and Dan’s minds are boggled at the thought of receiving one million dollars each, but they take a leap of faith and decide to embark on the adventure of finding the thirty nine clues.

The 39 Clues is a middle-grade series written by multiple different authors. Although you can see the difference between the different authors’, and their different writing styles, it all seems to fit together perfectly. The 39 Clues books are ones that I collect. I got the first ten books in a boxset from my school years ago, and ever I’ve just liked to collect them and they are just fun to pick up every once in a while if I want something short to read.

Rick Riordan, the author of the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series, is one of the many authors of these books, and I just loved reading a different style of his writing. I love the mystery aspect of these books, and even though it is a middle-grade series, it does just seem to capture my attention and intrigue me.

This time around, I only managed to get through five of the books, which was a little bit disappointing as I was hoping to read a lot more, but in the next few months if I get bored of what I’m reading, or if I just want something quick to read I will definitely make sure to pick up the next book in The 39 Clues series. For the series, I’m going to give it a three out of five stars, as I really did enjoy it, it just isn’t one of my favourite series of all time.


So, that’s my wrap-up for the month of September! I’m sorry once again for getting this up so late, I’ve just been busy with school and work and other things, so I haven’t had much time to write this up and upload it. I will, however, definitely have my TBR up either later tonight or sometime tomorrow, so you can definitely look forward to that!


Let me know what you read in the month of September, and what your favourite book that you read was! Mine was definitely Me and Earl and the Dying Girl. Thanks for reading, and I will talk to you next time!

Saturday, 3 October 2015

Ellie Jordan, Ghost Trapper by J.L. Bryan

Hello there everybody! So, I know I said that I would be having my September Wrap-Up up today, but I will actually be putting that up tomorrow. Instead, I was lucky enough to be able to promote a book that was published about a year ago. That book is, Ellie Jordan, Ghost Trapper by J.L. Bryan. I haven't yet read this book, but after reading what it's about, it definitely looks like something that is right up my alley! Also, it looks perfect for Halloween which is coming up at the end of this month!

Ellie Jordan, Ghost Trapper (Ellie Jordan, Ghost Trapper #1) by J.L Bryan
Publication Date: August 27th, 2014
Genre: Adult Paranormal Mystery





Like I said, this book sounds really interesting, and I think you'll agree with me after reading the synopsis!

Ellie Jordan’s job is to catch and remove unwanted ghosts. Part detective, part paranormal exterminator, Ellie operates out of Savannah, Georgia, one of the oldest and most haunted cities in North America.


When a family contacts her to deal with a disturbing presence in the old mansion they’ve recently purchased, Ellie first believes it to be a typical, by-the-book specter, a residual haunting by a restless spirit. Instead, she finds herself confronting an evil older and more powerful than she’d ever expected, rooted in the house’s long and sordid history of luxury, sin, and murder. The dangerous entity seems particularly interested in her clients’ ten-year-old daughter.

Soon her own life is in danger, and Ellie must find a way to exorcise the darkness of the house before it can kill her, her clients, or their frightened young child.



You can purchase Ellie Jordan, Ghost Trapper on many different platforms including;

Amazon / Barnes / Kobo / iBooks / Smashwords / Goodreads




For a limited time only, you can also enter into a rafflecopter giveaway, to win a signed copy of 
Ellie Jordan, Ghost Trapper!

Giveaway!


J.L. BryanJ.L. Bryan studied English literature at the University of Georgia and at Oxford, with a focus on the English Renaissance and the Romantic period. He also studied screenwriting at UCLA. He enjoys remixing elements of paranormal, supernatural, fantasy, horror and science fiction into new kinds of stories.

He is the author of The Paranormals series of horror novels (Jenny PoxTommy Nightmare, and Alexander Death) the Songs of Magic series for younger readers (Fairy Metal ThunderFairy Blues, and Fairystruck...so far) and other books. He lives in Atlanta with his wife Christina, their son, and some dogs and cats.




You can also find Author, J.L. Bryan at these links:

Website / Facebook / Twitter / Goodreads


Thank you so much to Kiss Off, Let a Lady Read Book Tours for giving me the chance to promote this book!



Thank you all so much for taking your time to read through this! I also hope that you all go and check out Ellie Jordan, Ghost Trapper, because I know I definitely will. I'll be back tomorrow with my September Wrap-Up, and hopefully the next day with my October TBR! 

Thanks once again for reading, and I will talk to you all next time!


Thursday, 1 October 2015

Read Your Bookshelf A Thon Wrap-Up

Hey guys! So, the Read Your Bookshelf A Thon (RYBSAT), just finished the other day, and let me just say I didn’t do as well as I would have hoped. If you read my last post, then you would have seen that I was planning on reading all eighteen books in The 39 Clues series. I know that that sounds like quite a lot, but they’re all pretty short books and I didn’t have school so I was sure that I could do it. Things didn’t go quite to plan.

I ended up being a lot busier that I had planned which meant that I didn’t have as much time to read throughout the week. So, I am pretty ashamed to say that I only read five of the books during RYBSAT.




I ended up reading five out of the eighteen books that I had planned, which still isn’t too bad for a week, but I wish I could have done better. I’m not going to go into what the books were about at all for now because I will be having a September Wrap-Up going up tomorrow, so you can look forward to that.


I ended up completing:
The Maze of Bones by Rick Riordan
One False Note by Gordon Korman
The Sword Thief by Peter Lerangis
Beyond the Grave by Jude Watson
The Black Circle by Patrick Carman


Although I did fail my overall goal, I am glad that I decided to participate in RYBSAT because I did get some reading done.

I feel like I’m not as good at longer read-a-thons than I am at shorter ones. For example, I participated in the Dewey’s 24 Hour Read-A-Thon last year, and I got more reading done during that than I did in a whole week this time. I think it’s because I get more distracted during the week, or I have other stuff that I need to do. However, during a shorter read-a-thon, such as a 24 hour one, I am more focused and I pretty much read every single minute of that 24 hours, so I just feel like shorter read-a-thons are better for me.

Don’t get me wrong, I am very glad that I participated in RYBSAT because I enjoyed the community, and I did enjoy the reading that I got done. I’m not sure if I will participate in it again next time, but I might. I guess it just depends on if I’m going to be busy again like I was this week.

Did any of you guys participate in RYBSAT this time around? Let me know! I’d love to know how many books you got done, and which one you enjoyed the most! Since I read five books that were in a series, it’s kind of hard for me to choose my favourite one, but I think I’m going to have to go with book number one, The Maze of Bones, just because it was the book that started and finished the series.


I hope you guys all enjoyed this post, and thank you so much for reading it! I will hopefully have my September Wrap-Up tomorrow, so look forward to that! I’ll talk to you all later!

Monday, 21 September 2015

Read Your Bookshelf A Thon TBR

Hello there everybody! Wow, I have definitely been blogging a lot lately, and to tell you the truth, I really actually am enjoying it. I am currently on a two week break from school right now, as it was the end of the term, and so I’ve had a lot more time to blog.

If you had noticed, I took about a two week break from blogging at the beginning of this month, and that was because of two reasons. One, I was changing over to a new blogging platform, which I may actually make a post on why I did that if you would to see it. If you would, you can let me know in the comments. However, the second reason on why I wasn’t blogging was because it was the end of the term. The last two weeks of every term are always when I have the most assessments to complete, and this last term was no different. I had four assessments the first week and seven assessments the second week so I was VERY busy, which meant that I didn’t have a lot of time for blogging. It also meant that I never got the chance to upload my TBR post and my Wrap-Up post, which makes me sad, because I was looking forward to putting those up.

I may still upload my August Wrap-Up, because it was a bit of a special one, as during the month of August, I was doing a little bit of a different thing with my reading, so I’d like to put one up. However, I don’t think that I will put up a TBR. It’s a bit too late into the month to put up a TBR for September, as September is almost over.

As I was busy with schoolwork, I didn’t have a lot of time to read either. So, I have only read one book so far this month. I was hoping to read a few others, but I didn’t get the chance to. However, there is something going on in the week that will definitely bring my reading numbers up this month, and will hopefully also bring up my Goodreads challenge (right now I’m five books behind, yikes). What I am talking about is the Read Your Bookshelf A Thon, or RYBSAT. I am really excited to finally participate in this read-a-thon, as I have heard about it from so many different bloggers and vloggers. It’s also really lucky that RYBSAT has fallen on my two week break, because that means that I am going to be able to read a lot.

If you haven’t heard of RYBSAT before, basically what is, is you pick a certain shelf on your bookshelf. You then pick a certain book on that shelf, and then you read on from there. I feel like this is a very unique read-a-thon, and I am so excited to participate in it. This month, it is running from the 22nd to the 29th of September, which means that for me since I live in Australia, it is starting tomorrow.

So, now onto the books that I will be reading during RYBSAT. I actually have two different bookshelves, my read books, and my TBR books, however for this read-a-thon, I decided that I wanted to re-read some of my old favourites, so I went with my read bookshelf.




I then had to choose a shelf on this read bookshelf, and I decided to go with my middle-grade shelf, because I just wanted to go back to my childhood, and read some old books.



Finally, the last thing that I had to do was choose a book on my middle-grade shelf, and read on. This was pretty easy for me, because I already had the books in mind that I wanted to re-read. Those books were, the 39 Clues Series.




So, I am going to start with The Maze of Bones, then move onto One False Note so on, and so forth, until the week is up. I am actually hoping to complete all of these books by the time that RYBSAT is over, because for one I’m really behind on my Goodreads challenge, and two, I just really want to read a lot of books this month for some reason. There are eighteen books all together, which is over two books a day, but I feel like I can do this, as all of the books are just under, or just over 200 pages, with the exception of a few of them.  This does mean that all together I will be attempting to read 3,774 pages throughout the week. This calculates to me reading about 540 pages each day, which does sound like an insane amount of pages each day, but I think I can do it. The words on each page are larger because they are middle-grade, so I should have no problem completing this goal.

You can follow RYBSAT at twitter to keep up on the read-a-thon news: https://twitter.com/Rybsat15
I will have a wrap-up going up after the read-a-thon, so look forward to that, and I also hope to have a few posts going up throughout the read-a-thon. They won’t necessarily be about the read-a-thon, but I’m sure that I will mention them at some point.

I really hope that you are all going to participate in this read-a-thon with me, and if you are let me know down in the comments what books you’re hoping to read throughout the seven days!


Thank you all for reading, and I will talk to you next time! 

Secrets in Phoenix Cover Reveal!

Hello there everybody! So, as you may have seen in yesterday’s post, I released some sneak peeks on Gabriella Lepore’s new book, Secrets in Phoenix, from the publishing company, OfTomes Publishing.
Today, I have something super, super, super exciting about Secrets in Phoenix, and I am so happy to be one of the few people that gets to release it to you. This being, ***DRUMROLL PLEASE*** the book cover for Secrets in Phoenix by Gabriella Lepore, and let me just say that the cover is absolutely beautiful!



I really hope and think that you all will agree with me in saying that this book cover is completely stunning, and I can’t wait to see what the book holds inside.

Along with this cover, I also have a few other new things that I can share with you. One of these being, something that was in yesterday’s post, but I thought that I would share it with you again today. That is the blurb or the synopsis of Secrets in Phoenix.


Like what I said yesterday, this synopsis is so intriguing, and this along with the cover, just tells me that Secrets in Phoenix is going to be an amazing and breath-taking book.

One new thing that I have to share with you is the book trailer for Secrets in Phoenix, which makes this book look so freaking intriguing.

You can also find the book trailer at this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiEd4v0XJfM

You can also pre-order the book NOW over at Amazon. It is available at all Amazon sites.


The last thing that I have here for you is a special pre-order giveaway of sorts. Basically, if you pre-order a kindle copy of the book on amazon, and then send a picture of the pre-order confirmation to BenjaminofTomes Twitter, Instagram or his email, you have the chance of winning one of five special, limited-edition, proof copies of Secrets in Phoenix, which I mean sounds so cool and amazing, so you should all go and enter.

                                                  

You can find Ben from OfTomes Publishing at multiple different social media locations.

I really hope that you guys are all as intrigued and as interested in this book as I am, because honestly
it just sounds amazing. I cannot wait for the book to come out on October 13th of this year, because I know that I will be picking it up and giving it a read.

Thank you for reading this, and I hope that you all enjoyed this. This is the second book cover reveal that I have done on Bookwormia, and honestly I really enjoy doing them.

I like helping out authors and publishers that need the book covers to be released across as many different blogs and BookTube channels as possible. If I get the chance to do a cover reveal again, I will definitely take the offer because, honestly, I just love doing them.

I really encourage all of you to go and check out Secrets in Phoenix, check out BenjaminofTomes on YouTube, and of course, go and see what other books Gabriella Lepore has out, and finally I hope that you all go and check out OfTomes Publishing.

Once again, I hope that you enjoyed this post, and I will talk to you all next time!