Happy Friday! 

What does everyone have planned for the weekend? I have my fingers crossed for a quiet, reading filled one!! 

I'm actually pretty pleased with how much I managed to do this week and am feeling a little more productive with my blog after a week of almost no posts at all and I'm really happy to be doing another #Friday56 post after missing it last week. 

The Friday 56 is a weekly blog meme hosted by Freda’s Voice. There are only 4 rules:

• Grab a book, any book.
• Turn to page 56 or 56% in your eReader. 
• Find any sentence, (or a few, just don't spoil it). 
• Post it.

The book I've chosen today is by one of my all-time favourite romance authors, but it's not a romance novel. It's an NA thriller, and it's fantastic and extremely underrated. 

This book seriously messed with my head, drove me all kinds of crazy and I'm still not over it even though I read it about a year ago!!

​Here's the Goodreads synopsis for Bury Me by Tara Sivec:

Sorry about the longer than usual quote but I just feel that this section perfectly captures the turmoil of this character and how she's feeling. 

I love this book, it really blew me away and if you decide to read it, I hope you love it as much as I did, even as you question your own sanity at the end. 

​Genre: Contemporary Romance
Standalone/Series: Standalone
How I got this book: Bought

Happy Tuesday! What are you reading this week? 

I'm still bouncing between Heart of Thorns by Bree Barton and The Novice by Taran Matharu (which has now become a buddy read). 

Let's jump into the first of today's blog memes. 

First up, we have:

Tell Me Something Tuesday which is a weekly discussion post on Rainy Day Ramblings where a wide range of topics are discussed from books to blogging.

​This week's topic is 'At what point do you think a series has gone on too long?' 

​This is a tricky one. I've read some amazing series that span LOADS of books i.e the Throne of Glass Series and Harry Potter, so it's hard to pick a point where a series has gone on too long. I think it's more of a feeling. 

If you start to lose interest in the plot or the characters, that's a major indicator that the series has gone on too long, but I suppose that can happen in any book, not just a series. 

There are a few series that I've grown tired of, the Divergent series being the most obvious one for me. I'm not sure what happened there, I loved book one, tolerated book two and completely lost interest in book three; I just wasn't invested in the characters anymore. 

The Mortal Instruments series was also a tough one for me to finish. As a romantic, I wanted more of the lovey dovey stuff, but felt like it took forever to get there. I enjoyed the magic and the characters but more than once, I almost stopped reading. 

I guess it doesn't matter how long a series is, if the characters are compelling and grow throughout the novel, if the plot is engaging and ever changing, if the writing/voice is consistently good, I'll probably keep reading! 

What do you think? Is there a point where you think a series has gone on too long?
​
Up next is the First Chapter, First Paragraph - Tuesday Intros meme.

I know what you're thinking. We're two weeks into August, why am I only now posting my July book roundup?

Truthfully, I just haven't had the time. I also haven't had the time to post any of the blogs I wanted to over the past week, including the weekly memes. Oh, the joys of being an adult! 🙄

I started 11 books in July and finished 10, since I'm still reading Heart of Thorns by Bree Barton, which admittedly is taking me forever to read (hence the lack of reviews lately). Here's a closer look at the books I read in July (just click on the title to head over to the review):

The Definition of Us by Sarah Harris (NetGalley eARC) - I absolutely adored this book. It's one of the most beautiful books that I've ever read. The characters, the plot and the mental health representation were perfect. 

Vicious by V.E. Schwab - This was my first ever V.E. Schwab book and I really, really enjoyed it. The characters were not at all what I expected, neither was the plot but it worked exceptionally well and I couldn't stop reading. 

Grace & Fury by Tracy Banghart - Another fantastic read this month. This book had a great feminist message, with strong characters and a really intriguing plot. I'm excited for book 2.

The Knight and the Red Cloak by Dru Wellington - Sadly, I didn't really enjoy this m/m novella. It just didn't grab my attention, so there's no full review of this one. 

To Be Honest by Maggie Ann Martin (NetGalley/Xpresso Book Tours eARC) - This book was read as part of an upcoming blog tour with Xpresso Book Tours, so keep your eyes peeled for my review on 20th August 2018. 

Leah on the Offbeat by Becky Albertalli - This was my first audio book of the year and whilst I loved the narration, as well as revisiting favourite characters, the main character wasn't my cup of tea. 

Smart Tass by Mimi Jean Pamfiloff - Sadly, this was the second book this month that I didn't particularly enjoy. I had high hopes for this enemies-to-lovers style story but the relationship was actually pretty toxic and was unfortunately, not for me. 

Openly Straight by Bill Konigsberg - My second audio book of the year turned out to be one of my favourite books of the year. I absolutely  loved this story. I loved the narrator, the characters, the wit and humour, and the angst. I'm really looking forward to the next book in the series!

Heartship by Amy Jo Cousins - Honestly, I can barely even remember this book, which I suppose is a review in itself. 

Captive by Jex Lane - This book was something of a mixed bag for me. There were parts of it that I loved and parts I hated. It was an interesting concept and the main character was likeable but I'm still not sure whether I'll continue with the series. 

Since I didn't read many LGBT books in June, I'm glad that 6 out of the 10 books I read in July had some form of LGBT rep. 🌈

Have you read any of these books? What did you think of them?

Books I bought this month: 
To Kill a Kingdom by Alexandra Christo (Amazon) 
The Novice by Taran Matharu (Amazon)
Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Saenz (Waterstones)
Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo (Waterstones)
The Lost Witch by Melvin Burgess (NYALitFest)
The Monsters We Deserve by Marcus Sedgwick (NYALitFest)

As usual, I have no idea which eBooks I bought this month. 

I also received the FairyLoot July - Power Within Book Box which included a stunning copy of Heart of Throns by Bree Barton, that I'm currently reading. 

Have you read any of these? Which would you recommend?

I was also lucky enough to attend my first ever book event this month, the NYALitFest which was fantastic! 

I hope you've enjoyed my July 2018 book roundup! I'm a little behind on my August reading but hoping to catch up soon, so stay tuned for more reviews and blog tours coming up!

Happy reading! 😃📚

Hi all!

I hope you're having a good week so far! I really enjoyed the two new memes I joined last week, so I'm going to stick with them again this week, I hope you enjoy!

First up, we have:

Tell Me Something Tuesday which is a weekly discussion post on Rainy Day Ramblings where a wide range of topics are discussed from books to blogging.

​This week's topic is 'For those who don’t have time to reread series, what would you reread when you found the time?'

I'm one of those people who loves to re-read books but in between running a business, being a mum, running my blog and trying to have some semblance of a normal life (yeah, right), I don't get to do this as often as I'd like.

I used to re-read The Night Circus (featured below) by Erin Morgenstern religiously each year. It was the first book I buddy read with my partner and we both fell in love with it. Each time I read it I feel like I uncover some new secret as I'm transported back to the mysterious circus, but I just haven't had time to do it the past two years and it's looking unlikely this year too. 

Since my daughter is now four, I've been re-reading some of my childhood favourites to her. We've been working our way through a range of Brother's Grimm fairy tales alongside a book called The Dragon's Eye. I can't wait until she's ready for me to read Harry Potter with her as I've been waiting to re-read the series for years!!

Other than those few books, the only other books I re-read are shorter contemporary romances, books I know I love and can read quickly, usually in just a few hours to put me in a good mood. These books are limited to three of my favourite romance authors; Tara Sivec, Sophie Jordan and R.L. Mathewson. Their books always make me smile. 

What about you? What would you reread when you had the time?

What do you think? Would you/have you read this? 

Feel free to leave your comments and links below.

Genre: M/M Contemporary Romance
Standalone/Series: Love Letters #1
How I got this book: Bought

Admiring Ash is the first book in Anyta Sunday's brand new Love Letters series. I absolutely love Anyta Sunday, she is one of my favourite romance authors and I was so excited to dig into this new series. 

As with pretty much all of Anyta's books, Admiring Ash features a super-sweet, slow-burn romance. 

Ash is a nice guy, with a wariness of men because of his mum's past experiences. He's raising his younger sister and working several jobs to take care of her. He hates his jobs and is struggling to make ends meet until he receives some surprising news that could change his life forever. 

River and Ash are both genuinely sweet, good guys and watching their friendship blossom into an extremely sweet relationship was lovely. 

This book is really sweet and was a nice, quick-paced read. In this book I was introduced to the other two characters in the series, and I'm looking forward to their stories. 

Happy Friday!

I had so many blog posts planned for this week but sadly work and just life in general has been crazy hectic, so I'm a little behind, but fingers crossed I'll have more for you soon! 🤞

On that note, I just wanted to thank everyone who's subscribed so far!! It means so much, thank you! 😊

The Friday 56 is a weekly blog meme hosted by Freda’s Voice. There are only 4 rules:

• Grab a book, any book.
• Turn to page 56 or 56% in your eReader. 
• Find any sentence, (or a few, just don't spoil it). 
• Post it.

Today's spotlighted book is one of my 3 current reads. It's a brand new release that only came out this week from one of my favourite romance authors Anyta Sunday. 

​Here's a little about the book, Admiring Ash, courtesy of Goodreads: 

Here's my chosen quote from 56%:

I'm 70% of the way through this short m/m romance and so far it's super sweet and slow burn, the usual Anyta Sunday trademark, and that's definitely a good thing! Looking forward to seeing this through to the end and meeting the other characters in this series. 

What do you think? Have you read any of Anyta's books? Would you read this one?

Feel free to leave your links and thoughts in the comments below ​😄

Genre: Paranormal, Romance/Suspense
Standalone/Series: Beautiful Monsters #1
How I got this book: Bought 

I have sooo many mixed feelings about this book. 

First of all, I had no idea how to categorise this book. It's definitely paranormal, full of suspense and yeah, there's a lot of sex, both M/M and F/M, but I don't feel like 'romance' is the right category for this book, even if Goodreads disagrees, which is the only reason I've included it above lol. 
​
Let me start by getting the bad stuff out of the way first, because there's a serious amount of traumatic sh** in this book including mental, physical and emotional abuse, and slavery - none of which are things I enjoy reading about. 

However, moving past that, there was a lot about this book that I did like. The world-building was fantastic, especially the description, history and development of the four different species featured in this book; look out for vampires, incubi, gargoyles and more. 

I really like the main character Mathew, he's very likeable, and I just wanted to save him through every single moment of this book, especially at the end where I honestly felt like bursting into tears.

I also liked how the author changed my opinion of different characters, those I started off liking/hating sometimes switched, and then again switched back. It was different, and I ended the book still completely unsure who's 'good' (although that's an extremely loose term) and who isn't. 

The absolute best thing about this book was the action. The fight scenes were the kind that have you on the edge of your seat, heart pounding, hoping that everything will work out in the end. 

I think ultimately, this book features far too much sex, which detracts a lot from the plot. Honestly, if you cut the majority of the sex scenes from this book between various characters, the pace would flow so much quicker. 

There are four books in this series, and I'm just not sure yet if I want to continue with this series. I'd hope for more action, less sex, and in truth, the synopsis of book two sounds really promising. 

​What do you think? Have you read this book? Should I keep reading? 

Hello lovelies!!

Thanks for stopping by! I hope you don't mind that I've decided to change things up a little this week. I was getting a bit tired of doing the TopTenTuesday meme as it takes ages to find ten book covers that fit the theme but the posts themselves were a little bland. So, I found two new memes that I'd like to try and cover in one post that will hopefully make things a little more interesting! 

First off:

Tell Me Something Tuesday is a weekly discussion post on Rainy Day Ramblings where a wide range of topics are discussed from books to blogging.

This week's topic is 'What are some popular series you haven't tried or have and stopped because they just don't appeal to you?'

​​This is quite a fun opening question as there are some popular series that I just haven't gotten around to yet and there are some that I didn't enjoy or don't want to read at all because they just don't appeal to me. 

I know there are some readers who will read a book simply because it's popular, because everyone else is raving about it, and whilst I obviously take reviews into account to some extent when looking at what books to read, I occasionally find myself going against the grain and being drawn to a book by it's synopsis or sampler even though it has awful reviews. Sometimes I end up agreeing with the reviews and don't enjoy the book, other times I discover a book that I truly love. It also works the other way around. Sometimes I'll read a book that has amazing reviews and I'll hate it or at least not enjoy it enough to keep reading. So, on that note here are some popular series I tried to read but couldn't finish/didn't enjoy:

• The Divergent Series by Veronica Roth. Honestly, I loved book one in this series. I immediately started book 2 and found it somewhat lacking but powered through onto book three. At this point I was really struggling to continue with this series until I completely gave up halfway through the final book and to this day have no idea how it ends. Ironically, the last film adaptation (which was supposed to be the latter half of the final book) was never made/released, so I guess I'm not the only one who lost interest. 
• The Fallen Series by Lauren Kate. With this book, I actually watched the film adaptation first and I hated it. It was horrendously boring but I really wanted to give the book a fair chance. Sadly, I hated it even more than I hated the film. I just didn't understand it. To me, the plot made absolutely no sense and yet this book has over 400,000 reviews and a rating of 3.74 on Goodreads! 🤷

Onto a more positive note, there a quite a few popular book series that I'm really looking forward to starting including; A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab, Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo, Scythe by Neil Shusterman, The Summoner Series by Taran Matharu and To All The Boys I've Loved Before by Jenny Han. 😍😍😍 I'm so excited to start these!!

There are also a few popular series that I'm really excited to continue with after reading the first book in the series:

• The Nevernight Chronicles by Jay Kristoff - this was easily one of my favourite books of the year so far and definitely one of my favourite books of all time. I was skeptical before starting this book but I fell in love with it so much and Godsgrave is nipping at me to start reading it. 
• A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin - I read the first book in the series after watching season one of the TV adaptation and I really loved it. I remember being mostly impressed by how accurate the show was, how closely it followed the book and as a devout fan of the show, I'm looking forward to reading more of the books. 
• The Illuminae Files by Amie Kauffman and Jay Kristoff - for someone who's always stayed away from scifi, Illuminae, for me, was very much a popularity buy and it surprised the hell out of me by how much I loved the characters and the story, despite how much I hated the formatting. 

What about you? What popular book series have you stayed away from or not enjoyed? 

Up next is the First Chapter, First Paragraph - Tuesday Intros meme.

Kell wore a very peculiar coat. 
     It had neither one side, which would be conventional, nor two, which would be unexpected, but several, which was, of course, impossible. 
    The first thing he did whenever he stepped out of one London and into another was take off the coat and turn it inside out once or twice (or even three times) until he found the site he needed. Not all of them were fashionable, but they each served a purpose. There were ones that blended in and ones that stood out, and one that served no purpose but of which he was just particularly fond. 

I actually really like this opening. It grabs me by throwing up loads of questions that I feel I need to find the answers to. 

What about you? Would you/have you read this?

Feel free to leave your comments and your links in the comments below, and let me know what you think of this new weekly post! 😃

Genre: Contemporary YA/LGBT
Standalone/Series: Openly Straight #1
How I got this book: Bought via Audible

While fantasy has always been my top choice of novel, particularly when it comes to YA fiction, I seem to be falling in love with contemporary novels more and more lately. It's strange that this is coinciding a little with my recent love-affair with audio books. I signed up for a 3-month free trial with Audible two-months ago, and so far I haven't looked back. 

This book caught my eye as a recommendation from Audible after I'd finished listening to Leah on the Offbeat and The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue.

I hadn't actually heard of this one before but the sample and the synopsis piqued my interest. 

I instantly found the narrator, Pete Cross, really likeable, I love his voice work for all of the different characters, giving each one their own different, distinguishable voice, which really helps the story to flow smoothly. 

I love the life he brings to Rafe who is funny and witty, to the point where I found myself giggling away while I listened. The very different mixture of characters is something I really enjoyed, from the enigmatic, quirky Albie, sweet and crazy Toby, troubled Bryce, and Rafe's crazy parents, to the extremely complicated Ben, who is so very wise and thoughtful. 

Openly Straight surprised me. There are so many laugh out loud moments but they're woven into a complex story about personal identity and the importance of being true to yourself whilst also containing a bittersweet love story that hurt a little to witness. 

My heart goes out to both Rafe and Ben for their stubbornness and naivety, but the true beauty of this story wasn't their friendship but Rafe's journey of self-discovery, something that I think can be appreciated no matter your gender or sexual orientation. 

This book made me think. It's something I'm really enjoying about a lot of the contemporaries that I'm reading lately, that they force you to look deeper, to assess your own life and reflect on it, and for the most part, I agree with Rafe, labels shouldn't matter. Whether it's your skin colour, your sexual preferences, your proficiency at a certain skill; that one thing does not define your entire being. But, I also understand the conflict, that you can't push aside an unchangeable, inextricable part of who you are.

What really cemented my love for this beautiful book was the finishing sentence:

"There was nothing anyone needed to accept or tolerate. We celebrated."

Which is exactly what this book felt like. A celebration of everything that makes us different, but how in that, we're all tied together, all connected. 

So, if you're looking for a book that will make you smile, laugh and maybe even cry a little, and if you love books like Simon vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda and Running With Lions, I'd highly recommend Openly Straight.

Book two, Honestly Ben is now available, and will more than likely be my next Audible purchase because I NEED to find out what happens next!

A slightly odd, side note, is that this book really made me want to write. I haven't written anything other than my blog (and stuff for work) for a couple of months. I've been stressed, bogged down with life and just not feeling it, but the more I read this book, the more I just wanted to pick up my pen and write fiction. Finally, I did and it feels great again, so fingers crossed the feeling continues.