Blog Archives
Book Mail!
I always love getting books in the post! Today Penguin have
sent me “A New Darkness” and “The Dark Army” by Joseph Delaney and also “The Creeping Shadow” by Jonathan Stroud. Have any of you read the Spooks or Lockwood & Co series? I’m so excited to read these! I shall be saving them for Halloween season!
#bookmail #books #reading #amreading #horror #halloween #spooks #lockwoodandco #bookblogger #bookblog #blog #blogging #halloween
I love proofreading!
One of the things I love about being a stay-at-home mum, rather than having your usual 9-5 day job, is that I can now concentrate on the things I’m passionate about and one of them is proofreading. A lot of people may think it’s boring but I love it! I love spotting mistakes and correcting them before they’ve made their way to the readers’ eyes! If you know of anyone who needs another pair of eyes to go over their work, feel free toleave a comment below or send them my way. I’d be more than happy to help! You can also email me: secretlivesoffictionlovers@gmail.com
Take care,
Dayna.
Blame by Simon Mayo – Read-along!
Hi everyone. The lovely people at Penguin recently sent me a copy of Blame by Simon Mayo. I’m so excited to read it! My boyfriend’s mum has also got a copy so, starting tonight, we have decided to do a read-along where we’ll read a chapter each night. This is actually a great way for me to read as with having little Willow now, I’ve been struggling to read as much as I used to, but setting aside half an hour or so to read a chapter is doable!
If you haven’t heard of Blame yet, here’s the blurb:
“Heritage crime [noun]: A previously undetected crime committed by your parents or grandparents for which you are held responsible.
Ant and her brother, Mattie, are locked up in Spike, a new family prison. Society demands they do time for the unpunished heritage crimes of their parents. Tension is simmering inside the jail. When the tension breaks and a riot begins, Ant realizes they’ve got one chance to break out.
It’s time for Ant to show the world that they’re NOT TO BLAME.”
Have any of you read Blame? If so, what did you think? Do any of you have it on your TBR list? Do you fancy reading along with us? Let me know in the comments below.
Take care,
Dayna.
The Tales of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter
(please excuse the poor photo quality)
Even after all these years, I still enjoyed reading it and really felt for poor, naughty, Peter.
It gave me such a warm fuzzy feeling to be so lucky as to have my very own daughter that I can read books to and pass down my childhood favourites to. I really do hope she becomes a book lover just like me.
My apologies for such a short review tonight. Brain is getting sleepy so has given up for the night lol!
Take care, guys,
Dayna.
My Summer Book Stack.
Woohoo the Summer has officially arrived! Happy belated Summer Solstice everyone! Living in Pembrokeshire now means I get to go to the beach a fair bit during the Summer as we have several near by. That is on the few occasions that we actually get to see a bit of sun lol! I’m not one for the hot weather, but I do love bright sunny days where the sky is a beautiful shade of blue with a few fluffy clouds floating by. The perfect opportunity to sit on the beach and do a spot of reading. This brings me to my post. I’ve decided to put together a few books that I’d like to read over the Summer. My Summer book stack! Now, whether I’ll be able to get through them all, I don’t know but I shall certainly try. The books I’ve chosen are:
Me Before You by Jojo Moyes
Ink and Bone by Rachel Caine
Burn For Burn by Jenny Han and Siobhan Vivian
Lady Midnight by Cassandra Clare
Life and Death Twilight Reimagined by Stephenie Meyer
I’ve had some of these books for quite some time but hadn’t got around to reading them. Hopefully I’ll get through them all this Summer! I am particularly excited about reading Lady Midnight as I adore Cassandra Clare’s The Mortal Instruments and The Infernal Devices. Have you read any of these? Do you have a Summer TBR list? What will you be reading? Let me know in the comments below! 😃
Oh, and if you don’t already know, we’re on Facebook! Stop on by and say hi!
Take care,
Dayna.
Serial Reader – An app for book lovers!
This morning I’d noticed on Litsy that people were talking about an app called Serial Reader. Being a book lover, I thought I’d check it out!
I know it’s my first day of using it but so far I’m loving it! It’s an app for people who love to read the classics. Your book of choice is split up into manageable bite size pieces called issues (like a comic/graphic novel).
Each day, at a time of your choosing, an issue is sent to you and you’re also given an estimated reading time. – I thought it might also calculate your actual reading time but it doesn’t which is shame. In my opinion, it would be great if they could update it to do that. Once you’ve read an issue, you have the option of waiting until the next day or, if you’re the impatient type and the book is just too exciting to wait, you can read on ahead to the next issue. However, to do that, you have to upgrade which costs £2.99. This unlocks the option to read ahead, sync with iCloud, make highlights and notes, pause & read later, and add more fonts. I love the concept of this app and with the upgrade, it reminds me a lot of the Kindle app. I think maybe £2.99 for the upgrade is a little steep, though, and I’m not in the habit of paying for upgrades in apps anyway but that aside, the app is still definitely worth downloading and gets a thumbs up from me as I love the idea of looking forward to an issue to read each day.
Have a lovely day, guys!
Dayna.
Next On My TBR List: And I Darken by Kiersten White.
A few weeks back the lovely Harriet at Penguin sent me a copy of the soon-to-be released And I Darken by Kiersten White. Unfortunately, I haven’t had a chance to read it yet BUT this weekend will be THE weekend that I can finally get engrossed in it! I am so excited to be reading this book! Here’s the blurb:
AND I DARKEN by Kiersten White
Published 7th July 2016
“The phenomenal first book in an epic feminist trilogy set in the bloody Ottoman Empire, by the New York Times bestselling author Kiersten White.
Perfect for fans of Game of Thrones and The Queen of the Tearling, this is the ultimate, gripping, ‘can’t-stop-reading!’ novel to get stuck into on your summer holiday. Anti-princess Lada Dracul is destined to be the next feminist heroine, following in the footsteps of recent strong, gritty female characters Arya Stark, Jessica Jones and Star Wars’ Rey.
No one expects a princess to be brutal. And Lada Dragwyla likes it that way.
Ever since she and her brother were abandoned by their father to be raised in the Ottoman sultan’s courts, Lada has known that ruthlessness is the key to survival. For the lineage that makes her and her brother special also makes them targets.
Lada hones her skills as a warrior as she nurtures plans to wreak revenge on the empire that holds her captive. Then she and Radu meet the sultan’s son, Mehmed, and everything changes. Now Mehmed unwittingly stands between Lada and Radu as they transform from siblings to rivals, and the ties of love and loyalty that bind them together are stretched to breaking point.”
Look out for my review in the coming weeks! 😃
Have a lovely weekend, all!
Come Join Me on Litsy!
Hey everyone! I hope you’re all keeping well and enjoying the Summer so far! It’s been a while and I do apologise for that. Having a cute little baby girl seems to be taking up a lot of my time now, but I’m still here, I promise. 😀
Have any of you heard of an app called Litsy? No? Neither had I until recently when my fiancé’s mum introduced me to it. It’s a book community where book lovers go to chat about, well, books! Basically it is a simplified version of Goodreads. At least that’s how I see it. It’s the only thing I can think to compare it to.
When you sign up, they ask if you want to follow their suggested users. I chose to do that but you don’t have to. One of them is a Litsy book club which I thought was a fab idea and will hopefully be joining in the fun next month myself. 😀
Here is what your profile layout will look like:
When you want to post something, just click on the cross symbol. You can then choose to write a review, write a blurb (or a general comment), or quote something from the book. Once you’ve chosen what you would like to do, you select your book and then you can write about it! It really is a nice little app. I think if I was to suggest any improvements, it would be to maybe have hashtags (or simply search for words) so that you can find other people who are reading the same book as you, like the same genre, are bloggers etc. So, if you love books like I do then come join me: SecretLivesOfFictionLovers
Enjoy your evening, guys! Oh and I thought I’d share a photo of Willow:
She’s wearing an Alice in Wonderland bow that I had made for her. I hope she loves books when she’s older!
Currently reading … And my Valentine’s Day gifts! 💕
Hi everyone! I haven’t disappeared off the face of the earth … honest! This pregnancy (I’m now 38 weeks pregnant – eek!) just seems to have taken over! So apologies yet again for being so quiet! I seem to have really lost the reading bug of late but I’m *trying* to get it back! I’ve been attempting to read something on my Kindle but my hands are crying out for an actual book to hold and turn the pages of (you just can’t beat the feel of an actual book, right?) so I’ve given in and chosen to read The Sin Eater’s Daughter by Melinda Salisbury!
Here’s the blurb:
“I am the perfect weapon.
I kill with a single touch.
Twylla is blessed. The Gods have chosen her to marry a prince, and rule the kingdom. But the favour of the Gods has its price. A deadly poison infuses her skin. Those who anger the queen must die under Twylla’s fatal touch.
Only Lief, an outspoken new guard, can see past Twylla’s chilling role to the girl she truly is.
Yet in a court as dangerous as the queen’s, some truths should not be told…”
I haven’t gotten very far but of what I have read, I’m really enjoying it! I love my YA novels and this was one that was recommended to me by Amazon. Seems completely unique to anything I’ve read in the past so thought I’d give it a go. Can’t wait to see how it all unfolds. 😃
Now on to Valentine’s Day … With having a little one due any day now, Aled and I didn’t go mad this year. He did offer to buy me a new Pandora charm but I opted for books instead! Coz I do love my books (even if I seem to have lost all motivation atm) and thought it a great excuse to get some new ones! These are the books I’d chosen:
For a change, I thought I’d go for a classic by H.P. Lovecraft and a book called Ashes by Ilsa J. Bick. As you can see, it’s been compared to The Hunger Games but for me the only similarities seem to be the fact it’s a dystopian. Here’s the blurb taken from the back of the book:
I couldn’t find a blurb online that matched the back of the book, hence this picture.
Oooh Superheroes AND zombies … should be in for an interesting read here!
So, there you have it. I can’t wait to delve into these books and hopefully my reading bug will return and I’ll be back to normal with my head constantly stuck in a book. Or as much as our baby girl will allow, once she is here lol!
