Monday, 1 July 2013

Finding it by Cora Carmack-Cover Reveal!

Exciting news! I've been chosen to be one of the blogger bringing you the cover of Cora Carmack's brand new novel Finding It! So here it is...






Isn't it gorgeous? Finding it follows another of the characters from Losing It-Kelsey who went travelling when she graduated from college. I am very excited about this novel and I LOVE the mint colour scheme! Totally hot! This novel is set to be released on the 26th September here in the UK. I'm being extra lovely to you and have found the UK cover too. Just as lovely I think you'll agree...


Happy reading! 

Sunday, 30 June 2013

Letterbox Love #3



Welcome to Letterbox Love, this is a UK meme, hosted by the lovely Lynsey at Narratively Speaking and inspired by The Story Siren's In My Mailbox. This post is a means by which to highlight the books we get in the post and beyond, and especially to bring attention to those books which may be sat on our shelves for a little while yet that we love all the same.

Another lovely lot of books this week so another Letterbox Love for Fabulous Book  Fiend!

I received Witchstruck and Witchfall by  Victoria Lamb from Random House this week. Witchstruck won the Romantic Novelists Association YA prize and so I am very much looking forward to reading both of these!







I was also lucky enough to get some fabulous new books on Netgalley this week. I was approved for The Silver Chain by Primula Bond, this looks interesting, definitely something to keep me entertained over the summer! I also downloaded The Bookstore by Deborah Meyler and Between You and Me by Emma Mclaughlin and Nicola Kraus. I received an email recommending both of these to me and am quite excited about them, especially having loved the Nanny diaries! 






Finally, I downloaded the audiobook of After the Party by Lisa Jewell. I have the paperback of this but I decided to use an audiobook credit on it because I have a long car journey this week and have pledged to get through my Lisa Jewell novels this summer! 


Look out for my review of all of these soon! Thanks to publicists and authors for my books this week! 

Saturday, 29 June 2013

And the winner is... Cora Carmack Giveaway

This morning I drew my Faking It signed copy winner...



Names went into a bowl and I drew one out...


And the winner is....


Please email me your address details and I will post the copy out to you as soon as possible.

Thanks to everyone who entered and keep an eye out for future giveaways on the blog! 

Friday, 28 June 2013

Review! The Siren by Tiffany Reisz

Notorious Nora Sutherlin is famous for her delicious works of erotica, each one more popular with readers than the last. But her latest manuscript is different—more serious, more personal—and she's sure it'll be her breakout book...if it ever sees the light of day.


Zachary Easton holds Nora's fate in his well-manicured hands. The demanding British editor agrees to handle the book on one condition: he wants complete control. Nora must rewrite the entire novel to his exacting standards—in six weeks—or it's no deal.



Nora's gruelling writing sessions with Zach are draining…and shockingly arousing. And a dangerous former lover has her wondering which is more torturous—staying away from him...or returning to his bed?



Nora thought she knew everything about being pushed to your limits. But in a world where passion is pain, nothing is ever that simple.




Review: I downloaded this novel because I was reading it for a fabulous Twitter book group hosted by author Sophie Hart. I was expecting some full on erotica, maybe a little bit of bondage here and there but what I got was quite a serious story about self-discovery, personal relationship patterns, and also about writing a novel. Of course there was some sex and quite a few scenes set in a secret underground bondage club, but I found it to be more that what it says on the tin, so to speak!

The characters in the book were very interesting to me. We had our writer in residence, Nora, who turns out to be so much more than what she seems. She is a determined woman, and a woman who knows what she wants, but as the book develops, we find out that that there is definitely another side to her, and that side is what really inspires her writing. Her editor, Zach is the male lead in the book. He seems entirely bored with having to work with Nora and their interactions are really quite interesting. What I didn't like about Zach was that he seemed fairly weak-willed, and wasn't really sure what he wanted to be doing with his life. 

My favourite character was Wesley. He was Nora's assistant and also studying. He is such a sweet person and yet does everything in his power to look after Nora and serve her properly. I would LOVE to read a spin off about what Wesley does next because he is most definitely the character that sticks in my mind most of all. I found the storyline fairly easy to follow, although it was slightly redo table. It seems to have quite a slow pace, and I did find myself skimming at times in order to get ahead in the book.

There is an interesting balance of action and dialogue in the book, or perhaps lack of. There are long screeds of description, followed by long periods of conversation. This made it easy for me, when I was not interested in what the characters had to say, to switch off and skim through this section, I preferred the descriptions, I thought the way these sections were written were lovely, and there were some really interesting comparisons made by the author.

Overall I enjoyed the book, but i personally wouldn't be rushing out to download the sequels. I think that if you enjoyed fifty shades, you would probably enjoy this novel. It was a fairly easy read, and because of the predictable nature of the outcome, it went quite quickly. It did have a nice balance of sex scenes and straight things and I think that this is important when looking for erotic FICTION in today's bookshelves. 

Click here if you like what you have read and fancy grabbing yourself a copy now...

Thursday, 27 June 2013

Review! Revenge Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger

Almost a decade has passed since Andy Sachs quit the job a million girls would die for working for Miranda Priestly at Runway magazine dream that turned out to be a nightmare. Andy and Emily, her former nemesis and co-assistant, have since joined forces to start a high end bridal magazine. The Plunge has quickly become required reading for the young and stylish. Now they get to call all the shots: Andy writes and travels to her hearts content; Emily plans parties and secures advertising like a seasoned pro. Even better, Andy has met the love of her life. Max Harrison, scion of a storied media family, is confident, successful, and drop-dead gorgeous. Their wedding will be splashed across all the society pages as their friends and family gather to toast the glowing couple. Andy Sachs is on top of the world. But karma's a bitch. The morning of her wedding, Andy cant shake the past. And when she discovers a secret letter with crushing implications, her wedding-day jitters turn to cold dread. Andy realises that nothing not her husband, nor her beloved career is as it seems. She never suspected that her efforts to build a bright new life would lead her back to the darkness she barely escaped ten years ago and directly into the path of the devil herself...




Review: can I just start by saying, this is book is totally not what I expected! Now this is neither a bad thing, nor necessarily a good thing, but I feel a bit unsettled that it wasn't anything like I thought it was going to be. It's always fabulous when you read a sequel because you are revisiting old characters and settings and it feels like you are returning home or meeting friends you haven't seen for a while. I was so excited for the release of this novel and when I got it in my hands, I just had to start reading it immediately. It as a fairly quick read (I read it over the release weekend) but the events that unfolded, weren't the ones that I expected...

I loved the plot of this book. It is ten years on and Andy has grown up. We meet her as she is about to get married, and that, unfortunately is where things start to unravel for her... There is all the drama you would usually expect from a Lauren Weiberger novel, but the issues that the characters are having to face are things to do with mergers, and babies and schools, and divorces, and so I love the plot because of it. I don't want to give too much away as I could be in danger of letting a spoiler or too slip, but I really did enjoy the plot.

I knew I was going to love the characters because I have met most of them before, I like Andy as much as ever, although I feel that she has lost some of the backbone that she acquired during 'Devil Wears Prada'. The others characters in the novels that are returning characters seem to have been scaled down a little bit. Emily isn't quite the aggressive, controlling, bitchy girl that she seemed to be in the first novel, but I am sure that this was a deliberate choice to reflect the fact the she is now older, and more settled in lied. But Miranda Priestly is also not as vicious and snappy as she was in the previous novel. We see glimpses of her horrible side, but it's just not as full on as she has been previously.

I was left feeling lightly disappointed by the events that took place over the course of the book. The ending and the beginning were quite exciting, but I felt that the middle section of the story dragged a little bit. We got over quite a lot of time in quite a short space of pages and I think that this shows, nothing much really happened in that middle section. It was more Andy and her personality sharing, that took place in this part, rather than anything key to the storyline. 

Fans of Weisberger  will not be disappointed by her latest offering, it's great to catch up with the characters, and they have been written incredibly well, to reflect the changes that have gone on in their lives. I was left feeling slightly disappointed in the storyline, but I wouldn't have wanted any events in the book itself to be left out, and so if there had been more drama we would have been left with a novel which was too big to fit in our Prada bags, so there is definitely more than enough for Fans of the devil to be getting on with. This is a great one to pop in your suitcase over the summer and you definitely don't have to have read 'Devil Wears Prada' to understand what is going in in this novel, although I heartily recommend you do, as it is definitely one of my favourite novels! 

You can follow the author on Twitter here: @LWeisberger
And if you have liked what you heard, you can buy the book buy clicking here

Wednesday, 26 June 2013

Dougal Trump Book Launch

On Tuesday 18th June I was lucky enough to be invited to the book launch for I'm Dougal Trump...Where's my Tarantula? This is the second book written by Author Jackie Marchant and follows the incomparable Dougal Trump and the rest of his family.
These books could be compared to the likes of Diary of a Wimpy Kid or the Clarice Bean. I grabbed myself a copy of this new book and hope to get a review up on here soon.

The event itself was very popular, held in The Pheonix Club in central London, guests were treated to tarantula biscuits as well as alcoholic refreshments. Jackie's publicist introduced Jackie and her novel, before she told us that although Dougal wanted to come tonight, he was unable and had sent a noted and a present for us in his absence. The note told us that he had to stay in because his mum and dad were making him, and Jackie opened the box to reveal the very tarantula from the book waiting inside.

We were then lucky enough to hear some of the book, which was read by another author, Andrew Wheale. He really made the book come alive and made me even more excited about reading it!

Jackie was then lovely enough to sign copies of her book, and i left very happy and excited to read about Dougal Trump's adventures with my very own Dougal Trump bookmark nonetheless!

Keep checking back to the blog for a review of this book...

You can buy a copy of the book by clicking here.


Tuesday, 25 June 2013

To Ten Tuesday: top ten books I've read so far in 2013

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created at The Broke and the Bookish. This feature was created because they are particularly fond of lists over there at The Broke and the Bookish. I'd love to share my lists with other bookish folks and would LOVE to see your top ten lists!

This is such a hard list! To narrow it down to only 10 top books over the last 6 months, man! Ok here goes, I'll leave links to the reviews if I have them...

1. A Passionate Love Affair with a Total Stranger by Lucy Robinson
2. The Mummyfesto by Linda Green



3. Geek Girl by Holly Smale
4. Never Google Heartbreak by Emma Garcia
5. The Wish List by Jane Costello
6. Losing it and Faking It by Cora Carmack
7. The Naughty Girls Book Club by Sophie Hart
8. The Secret Supper Club by Dana Bate
9. The Meryl Streep Movie Club by Mia March

10. The Lovliest Chocolate Shop in Paris by Jenny Colgan
Have a look at the reviews of these and you will be able to see why these books made the list. I could probably go on and on, and can't wait to do the next installment of this list!

Leave me a link to let me know what made YOUR list!