Stacking the Shelves #3

Stacking The Shelves is all about sharing the books you are adding to your shelves, may it be physical or virtual. This means you can include books you buy in physical store or online, books you borrow from friends or the library, review books, gifts and of course e-books!

After neglecting both my bookshelf and my blog for the past few months, I'm back with brand new books! A combination of being ludicrously busy at work and needing to cram for final exams have meant the only things I've been reading for the last few weeks are analysis reports and textbooks. Rock and roll! Fortunately though, my exams are done and my assignments are in - now begins the nervous wait for my results in September - so I can get back to reading what I love.

Books bought

The Evaporation of Sofi Snow - Mary Weber

It's finally arrived! After the delivery date on Amazon being pushed back every time I raced home and was disappointed to find no bookmail, I resigned myself to a long wait to finally get my hands on a copy of this book. A check last week gave the estimated delivery date to be 1-2 months away. So imagine my surprise when I almost tripped over a parcel on Saturday morning, only to find this beauty inside! I absolutley adored Mary Weber's Storm Siren trilogy (you can read my five star rave reviews here, here and here), so anything and everything she writes, forever and always, is going straight to the top of my TBR.

Aurabel - Laura Dockrill 

A sort-of sequel to Lorali, this book sold me on two words; steampunk mermaids.

Books borrowed
A Darker Shade of Magic - V E Schwab
Nod - Adrian Barnes

I inevitably walk away from my book club each month with more than one book! Someone brings along four books for the rest of us to pick next month's read, but there's always more than one that I like the sound of. Nod, by Adrian Barnes, a dystopian story about 99% of the world suddenly losing the ability to sleep and the resulting collapse of civilisation was the official choice by 6 to 5, but I ended up borrowing the runner up, A Darker Shade of Magic, as well. The person choosing the books this week said it was the closest she's come to loving another series as much as Harry Potter. High praise indeed!

Books for review
Heart of Mist - Helen Scheuerer
Show Stopper - Hayley Barker

I received an ARC of Heart of Mist from Helen Scheuerer a few weeks back, but had to wait until by last exam was done before I'd let myself started. Go sensible me! It's a good thing too, because the book would have distracted the hell out of me while I was trying to study. Seriously, it's so good! It's the kind of book where you can stop thinking about the characters even after you've put it down. It's got absolutely everything I love in a book; far away lands, women who kick ass, sisterhood, friendship, magic and mystery. I'd better stop now, because otherwise I'll end up posting an entire, gushing review here! I'll be posting an author interview early next week and an actual, coherent review (promise!) in late August when the book is released, so if you stop by my blog be sure to check them out. 

I won an ARC of Showstopper from Scholastic to my surprise and arm-flailing excitement. Seriously, I've never won any bookish giveaways before. I have the worst luck with that sort of thing! I'm getting serious Caraval vibes from this one, so I can't wait to get started.

It's been a good week for books! What's been added to your bookshelves?

Top Ten Tuesday - Things That Will Make Me Instantly Want To Read A Book

Happy Tuesday everyone! This week's feature is all about things that send a book shooting straight to the top of my must-read list. I really don't need any more books on my TBR that's growing faster than I can possibly hope to clear it, but there are some things that mean a book is going in my shopping basket regardless!

As always, a big thanks your to the fab bloggers over at The Broke and The Bookish for this feature!

A gorgeous cover
Don't judge a book by its cover is not advice I live by when it comes to books. Just as "bad" covers - Photoshop fails, cliches and the like - can kind of put me off, a beautiful cover always grabs my attention. Sprayed pages and foil details are always a plus too!

Storm magic
Storm was always my favourite X-(Wo)man, plus, living in the UK, behind able to control the weather would be a pretty awesome superpower. There's something very cool about the beauty and power of thunderstorms, so stories where people throw them around like dodgeballs is going to be epic!

Female friendship
There are some YA cliches that I like and some that I don't like. The pretty mean girl stereotype is one of my most loathed tropes, I much prefer stories that show a positive, healthy friendship between women - not one where they just talk about guys or the best friend is only there to prop up the protagonist when the love interest is being a jerk. A story about two friends against the world is always a must read for me!

Male friendship (yep - just friendship!)
Some authors don't appear to believe that a girl and a guy can be friends anymore than two girls can be friends! It's kind of hard to tell from blurb, but books that feature a strong friendship between the protagonist and a friend of the opposite sex that isn't a plot point in and of itself, I'm all over it.

Celtic mythology
Admittedly my homeland of Cornwall tends to dip out when it comes to Celtic-inspired stories. Everyone tends to get caught up with Irish and Scottish stuff - not that I'm bitter about that *simmers quietly* - but Cornish history is always something that's fascinated me. Throw in witches - we have tons of stories about witches back home! - and I will pay any amount of money to read your book.

Epic villains
Don't give me a sulky, misunderstood bad guy with a tragic backstory. Give me an unapologetic bitch/bastard who kicks ass and takes names. I like my villains villainous!

Mermaids
Forget Beauty and the Beast, wake me up when there's a live action Little Mermaid movie! I've officially reached the age where I find myself agreeing with King Triton (seriously Ariel, you want to give up your life to be to be with a prince you saw one time? Bitch, you don't even know the guy!) but it's still my favourite classic Disney movie, and I've always been slightly obsessed with mermaids as a result. If they're in a book, I will read it.

Science and alchemy
I'm a science nerd at heart, so stories that feature a protagonist who surrounds herself with test tubes and potions will always get me.

Written by
Some authors are on my auto-buy list before I've seen a cover or read a blurb. Laini Taylor, Mary Weber, Melinda Salisbury, Leigh Bardugo.

A super-hot love interest
Currently, I'm all about Lazlo Strange from Strange the Dreamer, but I accumulate book-boyfriends on a regular basis, to the point where my actual boyfriend barely raises an eyebrow anymore.

Anything you've read lately tick a box or two from the above? Let me know in the comments, you can never have too many books to read . . .

Waiting on Wednesday #8 - The City of Brass

This week's Waiting on Wednesday is possibly my longest wait for a book - with The City of Brass by S A Chakraborty not due out until November. My last to WoWs have been due out in June/July and I practically threw myself to the floor in suitably dramatic fashion when I found that out, so add on four months and there was some colourful language when I checked the Goodreads publication date!

I discovered this book on one of my frequent trips to the io9 website for a fix of movie/tv/comic book spoilers, and happened to come across a promo post with a quote from the author and the first chapter where I was introduced to Nahri, the trickster/healer protagonist, as she's conning a couple of rich guys out of their money with a combination of her wits and playing up to their preconceptions of her.

Well, this superstitious fool is about to swindle you for all you’re worth, so insult away.
Nahri smiled as the men approached.

I can't get into quoting too many of the awesome bits because I'll end up copying and pasting the whole damn thing. The promo post and first chapter are over on io9 if you want to check them out. Be warned though, you'll be as hooked as I was, and it's a long wait for the rest of the book!

The world building sounds epic too! As the author herself puts it: "In the book, there’s a djinn version of Baghdad’s great library, filled with the ancient books humans have lost alongside powerful texts of magic; they battle with weapons from Achaemenid Persia (enhanced by fire of course); the medical traditions of famed scholars like Ibn Sina have been adapted to treat magical maladies; dancers conjure flowers while singing Mughal love songs; a court system based on the Zanzibar Sultanate deals justice to merchants who bewitch their competitors… not to mention a cityscape featuring everything from ziggurats and pyramids to minarets and stupas. I also pushed a little further with the idea of the unseen, imagining a world of enchanted creatures created from other elements passing through ours: marid raising rivers into great serpents, peris whipping the air into tornados, djinn conjuring maps of smoke and racing birds of fire."

The whole thing has echoes of Laini Taylor's incredible Daughter of Smoke and Bone series (and her Strange the Dreamer duology - which I've just started and am loving!) and Renee Ahdieh's middle eastern inspired world from The Wrath and the Dawn. And the icing on the cake - the cover art is bloody gorgeous too!

Nahri has never believed in magic. Certainly, she has power; on the streets of 18th century Cairo, she’s a con woman of unsurpassed talent. But she knows better than anyone that the trade she uses to get by—palm readings, zars, healings—are all tricks, sleights of hand, learned skills; a means to the delightful end of swindling Ottoman nobles.

But when Nahri accidentally summons an equally sly, darkly mysterious djinn warrior to her side during one of her cons, she’s forced to accept that the magical world she thought only existed in childhood stories is real. For the warrior tells her a new tale: across hot, windswept sands teeming with creatures of fire, and rivers where the mythical marid sleep; past ruins of once-magnificent human metropolises, and mountains where the circling hawks are not what they seem, lies Daevabad, the legendary city of brass; a city to which Nahri is irrevocably bound.

In that city, behind gilded brass walls laced with enchantments, behind the six gates of the six djinn tribes, old resentments are simmering. And when Nahri decides to enter this world, she learns that true power is fierce and brutal. That magic cannot shield her from the dangerous web of court politics. That even the cleverest of schemes can have deadly consequences. After all, there is a reason they say be careful what you wish for . . .

So, while I count down the six months I have to wait for this book, what's your Waiting on Wednesday?

Stacking the Shelves #2

Stacking The Shelves is all about sharing the books you are adding to your shelves, may it be physical or virtual. This means you can include books you buy in physical store or online, books you borrow from friends or the library, review books, gifts and of course e-books! Thanks to Tynga's Reviews, for hosting!

Books bought

How to Be a Woman - Caitlin Moran

An appropriate pick for a book club held on International Woman's Day! I've not read anything by
Caitlin Moran before, but a quick flick through was enough to make me laugh. I don't agree with Caitlin's recent claims that women should avoid all books written by male authors (possibly one of the least equal claims for equality I've ever heard!), but How to Be a Woman has made me snort out loud with laughter several times already and I'm only a couple of pages in.

Wintersong - S Jae-Jones
Because David Bowie is the Goblin King.

The Scarecrow Queen - Melinda Salisbury

The final book in Melinda Salisbury's Sin Eater's Daughter trilogy. I'm not expecting this to be a cheery read, and the ending is probably going to be the literary equivalent of being punched in the face, but I've come too far with this series to give up now!

The Huntress: Sea 

I bought this one as a kind of buddy read with my twelve-year-old niece for when she comes to stay with me. Plus it's gorgeous, so wins all round.

Books borrowed
Lion - Saroo Brierley
The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood

I inevitably walk away from my book club with more than one book to read! Someone brings along four books for the rest of us to pick next month's read, but there's always more than one book that I like the sound of. How to Be a Woman was the "official" choice this month, but I ended up borrowing these two as well. The fourth pick, in case you're interested, was The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying: The Japanese Art by Marie Kondo. Thankfully, no one voted for that one!

Books for review
Confessions of the Very First Zombie Slayer (That I Know Of) - F J R Titchenell
Blood Orchid - Claire Warner
The Black Lotus - Claire Warner

Thanks to YA Bound Book Tours for these!

I also got sent a copy of The Auctor Trilogy by T.R.Wolf 

It's been a good week for books! What's been added to your bookshelves?

Waiting on Wednesday #7 - The Evaporation of Sofi Snow

Another Waiting on Wednesday, another book added to by ever-growing and seemingly unconquerable TBR shelf! The difference with these books is they go straight to the top of said pile when they're finally released, or more likely they'll just bypass the pile entirely and I'll start reading the moment they arrive.

My Waiting on Wednesday pick this week is The Evaporation of Sofi Snow by Mary Weber. The first in a duology (which seems to be the new trilogy!) isn't due out until June (!!!), but I am counting the days. If you follow my blog, you probably know I'm more than a little obsessed with Mary Weber's Storm Siren trilogy (see evidence here, here, and here).

I love her books, and will forever buy anything she writes! Her mix of flawed yet human characters, epic world building and beautiful writing style makes anything with her name on an instant pre-order. Her new series sounds a lot more sci-fi than the straight up fantasy of the Siren series, with some serious gamer girl props, something sorely lacking in YA! Throw in the charming playboy love interest (because duh!), sibling bond and intergalactic politics and you've got all the ingredients for a must-read.

Ever since the Delonese ice-planet arrived eleven years ago, Sofi's dreams have been vivid. Alien. In a system where Earth's corporations rule in place of governments and the humanoid race orbiting the moon are allies, her only constant has been her younger brother, Shilo. As an online gamer, Sofi battles behind the scenes of Earth's Fantasy Fighting arena where Shilo is forced to compete in a mix of real and virtual blood sport. But when a bomb takes out a quarter of the arena, Sofi's the only one who believes Shilo survived. She has dreams of him. And she's convinced he's been taken to the ice-planet.

Except no one but ambassadors are allowed there.

For Miguel, Earth's charming young playboy, the games are of a different sort. As Ambassador to the Delonese, his career has been built on trading secrets and seduction. Until the Fantasy Fight's bomb goes off. Now the tables have turned and he's a target for blackmail. The game is simple: Help the blackmailers, or lose more than anyone can fathom, or Earth can afford.

When this book finally lands on the doormat, I may do an actual happy dance. Although I probably shouldn't, because I have a glass porch and my neighbours may think I'm crazy.

So, while I count down the 90+ days I have to wait for this book, what's your Waiting on Wednesday?

Waiting on Wednesday #6 - Roar

Yay! I've finally made it to another Waiting on Wednesday! The universe seems to conspire against me whenever I try to take part in this, but, finally, through some forward planning and actual organisation, I made it this week. Success! A big thank you to Jill at Breaking The Spine for hosting this weekly feature.

My first Waiting on Wednesday this year (my god, I really am unorganised!) is Roar by Cora Carmack. Oh, Roar! Let me count the reasons I am waiting for thee!

1. I've been looking for a book to fill the hole in my life that was left by the Storm Siren trilogy, and I think this might be it. It has enough similarities to hook me, and enough differences to reel me in.

2. From the blurb alone, Roar has all the magic ingredients I look for in a YA fantasy read, with enough twists on convention to make it something different; a "magical" saviour who doesn't actually possess magic, a princess who's trying to get out of a marriage to a hot prince rather than into one, and a heroine who's going out to take power for herself. No special snowflakes here!

3. As the author herself says; "There’s a hot (and possibly evil) prince, a bad ass storm hunter who looks great in leather, a princess in disguise, and a really fun and ferocious cast of characters. Plus lots of angsty sexual tension and kissing and swoony stuff." Hot damn! Where do I preorder?

4. That cover art. Seriously, look at it! That deserves to be framed and put on the wall!

 

In a land ruled and shaped by violent magical storms, power lies with those who control them.

Aurora Pavan comes from one of the oldest Stormling families in existence. Long ago, the ungifted pledged fealty and service to her family in exchange for safe haven, and a kingdom was carved out from the wildlands and sustained by magic capable of repelling the world’s deadliest foes. As the sole heir of Pavan, Aurora’s been groomed to be the perfect queen. She’s intelligent and brave and honorable. But she’s yet to show any trace of the magic she’ll need to protect her people.

To keep her secret and save her crown, Aurora’s mother arranges for her to marry a dark and brooding Stormling prince from another kingdom. At first, the prince seems like the perfect solution to all her problems. He’ll guarantee her spot as the next queen and be the champion her people need to remain safe. But the more secrets Aurora uncovers about him, the more a future with him frightens her. When she dons a disguise and sneaks out of the palace one night to spy on him, she stumbles upon a black market dealing in the very thing she lacks—storm magic. And the people selling it? They’re not Stormlings. They’re storm hunters.

Legend says that her ancestors first gained their magic by facing a storm and stealing part of its essence. And when a handsome young storm hunter reveals he was born without magic, but possesses it now, Aurora realizes there’s a third option for her future besides ruin or marriage.

She might not have magic now, but she can steal it if she’s brave enough.

Challenge a tempest. Survive it. And you become its master.

Top Ten Tuesday - Hate to love romances

Happy Valentine's Day everyone! Or, as the card my boyfriend gave me this morning said, Happy Let's Get Ripped Off For A Shit Card And Some Overpriced Flowers Day (who says romance is dead?)! This week's Top Ten Tuesday's romance-based theme is All About Romance Tropes/Types, so I've gone for my top ten hate to love romances - these are romances where the characters start off hating each other and end up loving each other, not romances that I hate to admit that I like.

(As always, a big thanks your to the fab bloggers over at The Broke and The Bookish for this weekly meme!)

I love good hate to love romances that are done right as much as I loathe ones that are done wrong. I couldn't come up with ten I hated or ten I loved, so I decided to do five of each. So, here are my best and worst hate to love relationships in fiction, plus a couple thrown in from TV (I'll let you guess which show I've been binge-watching lately).

Ones I love

Buffy and Spike - Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Forget Buffy and Angel, Buffy and Spike were by far and away the better pairing. Plus, they hated each other more on meeting, so their journey to sort-of love by the end of the show packed more of a punch. Also, you can keep David Boreanaz's sullen pouting and I'll take James Marsters' dry humour and tight t-shirts. His back and forth hunter vs hunted relationship with Buffy, their hilarious banter and their genuinely sweet moments were the highlights of later series'. Okay, maybe she didn't really love him at the end. But she said it anyway.

Nym and Eogan - Storm Siren
I love this series, I love the characters, and I love this couple! The hate was pretty one-sided, coming almost entirely from Nym towards the man who was training her to harness her storm powers as a weapon of war, but Eogan supports her every step of the way. There's no instances of the guy treating the girl like crap, disrespecting her or mistreating her just to make their eventual love seem more of a transformation, Eogan's too much of a sweetheart and Nym's too much of a badass for that to fly!

Karou and Akiva - Daughter of Smoke and Bone
Once upon a time, an angel and a devil fell in love. It did not end well. Okay, so this one's more hate to love, back to hate, then back to love again, but it's epic! I don't want to say too much because spoilers, but this is Romeo and Juliet amongst warring angels and demons. A blue-haired, demon serving girl and a winged, vengeance-seeking angel-boy. Their highs are high and their lows are low as the pair find themselves on opposite sides of a centuries old war, but their souls always find each other. Even if they don't always want them to.

Mia and Tric - Nevernight
God damn you Jay Kristoff! Was it too much to hope that these too would get a happy ending (no spoiler by the way. It's made abundantly clear in the opening chapters that this story is not going to end with "and they all lived happily ever after")? From the gender stereotype switch up - they're both wannabe assassins, but she's the ass-kicking, foul-mouthed, hyper-violent one, and he's the sensitive, moral, considerate one - to their back and forth between rivals, lovers, fighters and friends is beautiful, all the more so because it's overshadowed by the spectre of inevitable heartbreak.

Shazi and Khalid - The Wrath and the Dawn
Khalid is the boy-king who takes a new wife each night and executes her each morning. Shazi is the volunteer bride looking to avenge her best friend's murder by killing Khalid. Sometimes the "hate" in hate-to-love relationships in YA is forced to make the "to-love" bit seem all the more dramatic, but in this case, it's perfectly justified! The slow-burn relationship between the pair and Shazi's uncertainty about her mission as she learns more about the boy behind the mask, all set against a dreamy middle-eastern backdrop, is front and centre of the story as Shazi falls foul of her own heart.

Ones I hate

Cordelia and Xander - Buffy the Vampire Slayer
I love Cordelia and I love Xander. But I hate Cordelia and Xander. I love an odd couple pairing but  never go on board with this one. It felt like one of the writers randomly said; "hey, wouldn't it be funny if Cordelia and Xander got together?", and then they all went home for the day and it got left in the script. It never felt believable, it never felt fully developed and it was just weird. Good thing it didn't last! Although I still maintain that Xander should have ended up with Faith!

Ananna and Naji - The Assassin's Curse
Ananna was an amazing character, and until she was paired up with Naji, this book was great. Unfortunately the author saddled an amazing character with a crappy love interest and killed the pacing of the story dead. Ananna turns from a total badass to a whiney pushover who traipses around after Naji, talks shit about his exes because they're prettier than her and just generally sulking. I fail to see what either of these characters see in each other, and to top if all of, their continued presence around each other is down to another of my pet peeves; an unbreakable magic bond. I hate these so much! Because magic is not a basis for a relationship, it's a lazy way of sticking two characters together and allowing one character to treat the other like crap (usually the guy to the girl) and not be called on it.

Lea and Les - Assassin's Heart
Both of these characters are a stupid and unlikable as each other, so they're at least a good match. But they're both also amoral, selfish, idiotic and just downright unpleasant. Still, their hate to love romance was one of the worst things about a book that I absolutely hated.

Daenerys Targaryen and Khal Drogo - A Song of Ice and Fire
Their romance fares a little better in the books that on TV (he doesn't rape her at least), but the fact remains that Dany is a thirteen year old child bride sold to a brutal war lord against her will by her own brother. Regardless of where their relationship goes, it's forever tainted by how it started in my eyes.

Cyra and Ako - Carve the Mark
This relationship is far from the most problematic thing about this book, but it's certainly up there. My main issue with this one is that it was just so by the numbers. Every stage was obvious, every "twist" was signposted and every conflict was glossed over. I knew from the blurb alone exactly how this relationsip would start, develop and end, and I wasn't wrong. Nothing about it surprised me and nothing felt original. I felt like I'd read it a hundred times before, and while I could probably level that criticism at any number of hate to love relationships in YA, this book is the last one I read, so it makes the list.

Feature & Follow #12

I've been neglecting my blog a bit lately thanks to being up to my eyes in work and studying. But I'm hoping to get back into the swing of it - and actually read a book again since I haven't picked one up for weeks - with Feature & Follow Friday!

The Feature & Follow is hosted by TWO hosts, Parajunkee of Parajunkee's View and Alison of Alison Can Read. It's a really cool way to find out what people are reading and connect with other bloggers. Added bonus, the aim of a blog hop is to follow others. You follow me, I follow you. Wins all round! I'm happy for followers on GFC, Twitter, Bloglovin', Goodreads, whatever works for you. I guess I'd prefer Bloglovin' follows if I had to pick one. Make sure you leave me a comment so I know you're a new followers, I'm kind of scatty with keeping track of new followers!

The post prompt:
What's Your Book Betrayal Story? (Someone borrowed a book and destroyed it? Waited for a book for forever and it was terrible?)
 
Hmmm, a tricky one this week! 

In terms of a destroyed book, most people know better than to touch my books, much less destroy them. But I did once lend a copy of A Man Called Ove to someone in my book club and they returned it with dog-earred pages, highlights and annotations, much to my annoyance. 

There have been a few books that I was super excited for, only to find them to be a colossal letdown. Assassin's Heart by Sarah Ahiers is the most recent one I can think of. Snow Like Ashes by Sara Raasch (hmmm, maybe I should just stay away from authors called Sara!) was another. I didn't hate either of them as such, I just had really high hopes and they both turned out to be sort of ... meh. 

But my biggest book betrayal is probably Allegiant by Veronica Roth. I try to refrain from bitching about books, even if I didn't really enjoy them, but I HATED THIS BOOK SO MUCH! From the terrible pacing, the lack of story, the personality transplants the characters seemed to have undergoing and THAT ending, that book was the closest I've come to actually feeling betrayed by an inanimate object. And after I enjoyed Divergent and Insurgent so much, it seemed like an extra kick in the teeth.

Feature & Follow #11

Feature & Follow is back with a new look! This time, rather than a question, we've got a more open ended prompt. More of a struggle if you're not feeling creative, but luckily you get a pretty good prompt to get you thinking!

The Feature & Follow is hosted by TWO hosts, Parajunkee of Parajunkee's View and Alison of Alison Can Read. It's a really cool way to find out what people are reading and connect with other bloggers. Added bonus, the aim of a blog hop is to follow others. You follow me, I follow you. Wins all round! I'm happy for followers on GFC, Twitter, Bloglovin', Goodreads, whatever works for you. I guess I'd prefer Bloglovin' follows if I had to pick one. Make sure you leave me a comment so I know you're a new followers, I'm kind of scatty with keeping track of new followers on Bloglovin' and the like!

A big thank you to the hosts this week for picking me as the featured blog!

The post prompt:
Name one or more standalone books that you wish were a series.

It's a tricky one this week, as my go-to genre is YA fantasy, and it's rare to find one that isn't a series, or at least a trilogy, or the increasingly popular duology!

Lorali - Laura Dockrill
Despite this book wrapping up nicely, I'd still love to read more about mermaids.

The Girl With All The Gifts - M.R. Carey
I don't think I'd want to read a sequel to this, but I'd definitely pick up a prequel! Post-apocalytic/dystopian books always pick up after the drama that caused the end of the world, but I always think it's a missed opportunity!


The Girl Who Would Be King - Kelly Thompson
One of my favourite books! I thought this was setting up for a series - the ending certainly leaves the door open for a sequel - but there's no sign of one.

Feature & Follow #10

Feature & Follow is back with a new look! This time, rather than a question, we've got a more open ended prompt. More of a struggle if you're not feeling creative, but luckily you get a pretty good prompt to get you thinking!

The Feature & Follow is hosted by TWO hosts, Parajunkee of Parajunkee's View and Alison of Alison Can Read. I've just started getting involved in these features and they're great fun! It's a really cool way to find out what people are reading and connect with other bloggers. Added bonus, the aim of a blog hop is to follow others. You follow me, I follow you. Wins all round! I'm happy for followers on GFC, Twitter, Bloglovin', Goodreads, whatever works for you. I guess I'd prefer Bloglovin' follows if I had to pick one. Make sure you leave me a comment so I know you're a new followers, I'm kind of scatty with keeping track of new followers on Bloglovin' and the like!

The post prompt:
Five websites you hang around that aren't shopping sites.

Goodreads
Technically not a shopping site, although it does end up costing me a fair amount of money! My "want to read" list is a mountain I'm never going to climb!

Cracked
I spend entriely too long on Cracked! Their articles are a bit hit and miss at times, but when they hit, they're pure gold! Soren Bowie, Seanbaby and David Wong are undoubtedly the best writers of the bunch, and while their comedy stuff is brilliant, the quieter, more serious articles are utter genius. This site introduced me to the wonderful writing of David Wong, and for that I'll always be greatful!

Lonely Planet
If I'm not travelling, I'm armchair travelling. I'm always organising, planning or dreaming of my next escape, and Lonely Planet has plenty of inspiration to get me started.

BoredPanda
Aside from the adorable panda logo, BoredPanda has all the wins from me. Whether it's list of the most impressively sarcastic Facebook posts or photos from a random office somewhere in Europe where a newbie has the misfortune of falling asleep and finding that their co-workers Photoshopped them into all sort of famous photos, it's usually irreverent, but always very funny.

DeviantArt
DeviantArt isn't a website. It's a black hole of time and energy. You head over to it to have a browse, and before you know it it's three hours later. It really is incredible how many utterly fantastic artists are out there and some of the work on display is mindblowingly good! 

Top Ten Tuesday

(As always, a big thanks your to the fab bloggers over at The Broke and The Bookish for this weekly meme!)

This week on Top Ten Tuesday the topic is "Ten Reasons I Love X". The X can be a book, an author, a series, a character, something bookish, anything at all. So after a quick glance over at my bookshelves for inspiration, I've gone with; "Ten Reasons Why I Love The Storm Siren Trilogy".

I loved this series. I loved Storm Siren. I loved Siren's Fury. I loved the utterly beautiful and captivating Siren's Song (no pun intended). Will I stop raving about it because it's finished? Never! In fact it only makes me want to rave more, because if you pick it up now you don't have to suffer the interminable wait for the sequel. But if you need a bit more persuading, here are my ten favourite things;

1. Nym
It's not about the power to rain down storms from the sky at will (or not in some cases). It's not about riding a monsterous, flesh-eating war horse. No, Nym is one of my favourite characters ever commited to the printed page because she kicks ass in spite of that. Sold into slavery and changing owners since she was a little kid, she'd be forgiven for lightning-zapping her way through anyone who crossed her. But she doesn't. Instead it's her compassion and desire to help rather than harm that lead her to become something more than just a weapon and the ultimate book themes of choice, compassion and redemption play out through perfectly through this prickly, headstrong, fiercely determined character.

2. Eogan
Ee-o-ghan? O-gan? Owen? I've never been 100% sure that I'm saying this character's name right in my head, but I love the character and his utterly adorable relationship with Nym. The fact that this character is a poc and the book doesn't make a big song and dance of an interacial pairing (as it quite rightly shouldn't. It's 2016 after all!) is an added breath of fresh air.

3. World building
From the feudal, slave-supported land of Faelen, to the steampunk-esque Bron, to the crystal castle of Cashlin, this series is world building 101. Ok, Tulla may get a bit of a fly by, literally, but everwhere else is vividly described and richly imagined. A world to get lost in!

4. Epic bad guys
You know those books that profess that their big bad is something to be really, truly feared? They're the horror stories that make sure kids are home before dark and no one really knows fact from fiction when it comes to tales about them - although both are equally horrific? And then they're introduced and they're just a bit ... limp? Or they smarm and talk a good game, but spend more time monologuing than actually doing anything to justifiy their "bad guy" tag? Well Storm Siren's big bad, Draewulf, is the first half of that, but Mary Weber delivers the villanous goods! Even when he's not on the page, the spectre of the man/monster looms large over the story, and when he is on the page ... ooooh, it's so good!

5. World map
My heart always lifts when I open a fantasy book to a world map. It's great to get lost in a book, but it's even better to know where you're going.

6. Colin
I've heard a few people bemoan the love triangle in book one between Nym, Eogan and Colin, but I didn't read it that way. To me, Colin is Nym's friend and nothing more. Ok, he's that slightly irritating, little-brother type friend who tries it on after one drink too many, but he brings much needed comic relief to the story that can get a bit heavy.

7. Princess Rasha
If I read one more book where our beautiful protagonist (who swears blind that she's, like, totally plain) has to deal with a pretty mean girl, I will throw said book out of the window. It's tired, it's boring and it's the worst kind of female stereotyping. Which is why I love the friendship between Nym and Cashlin princess Rasha in this series. No girl-on-girl hate here!

8. Airships
The steampunk twist of giant metal airships is brilliant! No more riding for days across a realm that seems to get bigger or smaller depending on whether the plots needs to move more slowly or quickly.

9. Cashlin
The world building is fantastic, but the incredible descriptions of the beautful, if thoroughly impractical, crystal castle of Cashlin are standout. I pity the person responsible for keeping the fingerprints and smudges off that!

10. The moral of the story... 
I won't give away too much about the story for those who haven't read the books - what are you waiting for!? Go, go go! - but it's so much more than unique and special snowflake accepts her destiny (can you tell I'm getting a bit of YA cliche burn-out at the moment?). The lessons of compassion, acceptance and sacrifice are so beautifully woven through the story it was only when I was digesting everything for my reviews that I realised how strong they were. It's refreshing for books to give the readers credit to pick up the subtext without smacking them around the head with it at every given opportunity.

So, there you have it- my ten favourite things around the Storm Siren trilogy. Plus my absolute insistence that you read it, right now! And if you already have, join me in raves in the comments, I'll love you forever!

Feature & Follow #9

Feature & Follow is back with a new look! This time, rather than a question, we've got a more open ended prompt. More of a struggle if you're not feeling creative, but luckily you get a pretty good prompt to get you thinking!

The Feature & Follow is hosted by TWO hosts, Parajunkee of Parajunkee's View and Alison of Alison Can Read. I've just started getting involved in these features and they're great fun! It's a really cool way to find out what people are reading and connect with other bloggers. Added bonus, the aim of a blog hop is to follow others. You follow me, I follow you. Wins all round! I'm happy for followers on GFC, Twitter, Bloglovin', Goodreads, whatever works for you. I guess I'd prefer Bloglovin' follows if I had to pick one. Make sure you leave me a comment so I know you're a new followers, I'm kind of scatty with keeping track of new followers on Bloglovin' and the like!

The post prompt:
Ten reasons you love your favourite genre.

In a move that will surprise no one who has even glanced sideways at my blog, I've gone for fantasy YA.

In a land far, far away...
World building scores big points with me, and there's usually plenty of that in fantasy YA novels.

Dance, dance
I don't mean the Fall Out Boy song (although that it is a tune!), I mean the inevitable learning to dance and going to the ball chapters. If there isn't an occasion for you to have a "She's All That" style makeover and go to a fancy ball, then you're not in a YA fantasy novel.

The prince and the pauper
He's a prince, she's some kind of commoner/assassin/apprentice in the kind of one-sided match up that would last about five seconds in the real world. But come on, who doesn't like to think they could snag someone who's way out of the their league given half the chance?

Magic
Because...magic

An ass-kicking female lead
Some, alright most, of my favourite book characters are from YA. I have a whole page dedicated to my favourite leading ladies.

World Map
I love world maps! Honestly, I'd make wallpaper of some of my favourite maps if I could, or at least frame them and put them on the wall. A YA book is off to a good start if I open it to a world map, and most of them do.

Escapasim
Come on, who doesn't like to think that they're Anne Hathaway in The Princess Diaries with a long lost kingdom waiting out there for them somewhere? Who doesn't love a rag to riches story? Fantasy is just that, it's endless possibility and about reaching as high as you can and dreaming without limits.

Down the rabbit hole
A lot of YA fantasy novels and series share a lot of common themes and DNA. Some people call them cliches, and I do too, but that doesn't mean I don't love them. If you find yourself with a severe book hangover when your favourite series comes to a close, there's a ton of new ones out there and you'll find your new favourite read in no time. Fickle? Me? Surely not...

Ready for the close up
YA fantsy cover art is, 9 times out of 10, gorgeous. I've done posts dedicated to beautiful artwork here and here, and I suspect there will be more to come.

The leading man
No YA fantasy novel is complete without a swoonworthy love interest. Some books get this more right than others (and a few get it so horrendously wrong that the book reads like a warningly pamphlet for abusive relationships) but if a book features the literary equivalent of Ryan Reynolds, well, that's at least one review star right there.