Stacking The Shelves #6

Welcome to  Stacking The Shelves!  Stacking the Shelves is hosted by Tynga Reviews and is a meme to share those books, both print and e-book, that have been added to your shelves in the last week/s.

Not a huge week but what it lacked in quantity, it definitely made up for in quality.  One book I have been dying to read for months and one that I had been meaning to read pretty much since it came out last year :-)

Purchased:(Print Books):

I loved the Hex Hall series, of which this is a spin off so I  have been dying to read this book pretty much since i first heard it had been written and was due to be released.  Ordered it a couple of weeks ago and it finally arrived this week.  Can't wait to get stuck in to it.

School Spirits (School Spirits  #2) by Rachel Hawkins

Goodreads  | Book Depository 

Fifteen-year-old Izzy Brannick was trained to fight monsters. For centuries, her family has hunted magical creatures. But when Izzy’s older sister vanishes without a trace while on a job, Izzy's mom decides they need to take a break.

Izzy and her mom move to a new town, but they soon discover it’s not as normal as it appears. A series of hauntings has been plaguing the local high school, and Izzy is determined to prove her worth and investigate. But assuming the guise of an average teenager is easier said than done. For a tough girl who's always been on her own, it’s strange to suddenly make friends and maybe even have a crush.

Can Izzy trust her new friends to help find the secret behind the hauntings before more people get hurt?

Rachel Hawkins' delightful spin-off brings the same wit and charm as the New York Times best-selling Hex Hall series. Get ready for more magic, mystery and romance!

Purchased:(E-Books):

I actually already have a hardback copy of this book but couldn't resist when I heard it was only $0.99 on itunes this week.  it also motivated me to finally get off my butt and read it ( and enjoy it) - review to come

Throne of Glass (Throne of Glass #1) by Sarah J Maas

Goodreads  | Book Depository 

After serving out a year of hard labor in the salt mines of Endovier for her crimes, 18-year-old assassin Celaena Sardothien is dragged before the Crown Prince. Prince Dorian offers her her freedom on one condition: she must act as his champion in a competition to find a new royal assassin. Her opponents are men-thieves and assassins and warriors from across the empire, each sponsored by a member of the king's council. If she beats her opponents in a series of eliminations, she'll serve the kingdom for three years and then be granted her freedom.

Celaena finds her training sessions with the captain of the guard, Westfall, challenging and exhilirating. But she's bored stiff by court life. Things get a little more interesting when the prince starts to show interest in her... but it's the gruff Captain Westfall who seems to understand her best.

Then one of the other contestants turns up dead... quickly followed by another.

Can Celaena figure out who the killer is before she becomes a victim? As the young assassin investigates, her search leads her to discover a greater destiny than she could possibly have imagined.

So what did you add to your shelves this week?

On My Wishlist #10

Welcome to On My Wishlist!


On My Wishlist is a meme that was originally created by Book Chick City and is now hosted by Cosy Books where we can showcase (and squee about) books that are on our individual wish lists whether already released or still awaiting publication.


For more information or to get involved yourself, head over to Cosy Books and check it out!


Lastly, don't forget to comment and let me know what books are on your Wishlist this week.

School Spirits (School Spirits #1) by Rachel Hawkins
Fifteen-year-old Izzy Brannick was trained to fight monsters. For centuries, her family has hunted magical creatures. But when Izzy’s older sister vanishes without a trace while on a job, Izzy's mom decides they need to take a break.

Izzy and her mom move to a new town, but they soon discover it’s not as normal as it appears. A series of hauntings has been plaguing the local high school, and Izzy is determined to prove her worth and investigate. But assuming the guise of an average teenager is easier said than done. For a tough girl who's always been on her own, it’s strange to suddenly make friends and maybe even have a crush.

Can Izzy trust her new friends to help find the secret behind the hauntings before more people get hurt? 

Rachel Hawkins' delightful spin-off brings the same wit and charm as theNew York Times best-selling Hex Hall series. Get ready for more magic, mystery and romance!

Publication Date: 14 May, 2013

Pre-Order:Book Depository

Comment: I loved Rachel Hawkins Hex Hall series so cannot wait for this spin off series :-)

What has gone on your Wishlist this week?

Best Book Covers of 2012

Wow! Can you believe we are about to head into the last week of 2012! This year has been huge for me! Having my daughter Elizabeth who is turned 9 months on Saturday and learning to adjust to what seems like less hours in the day for things like reading, blogging...sleeping :P 

The year has just flown, and because I don't want to forget all that I read in the blur that was 2012, I am participating in Top Ten of 2012 Week: A week of Looking back...And looking forward hosted by Fiktshun, A Life Bound by Books, Confessions of a Bookaholic, Two Chicks on Books and Magical Urban Fantasy Reads 

Each day features a different Top 10 and today's Top 10 is the Best Books Covers of 2012. This is just  for books written in 2012.  I at first thought to keep it to what I had read but turns out I didn't have enough covers I loved in this selection so went looking on my physical TBR shelf to find the pretty books i have bought this year that I haven't had a chance to read yet and that is the list below:

10. Immortal Rules by Julie Kagawa

"In a future world, vampires reign. Humans are blood cattle. And one girl will search for the key to save humanity."Allison Sekemoto survives in the Fringe, the outermost circle of a vampire city. By day, she and her crew scavenge for food. By night, any one of them could be eaten.

Some days, all that drives Allie is her hatred of "them." The vampires who keep humans as blood cattle. Until the night Allie herself is attacked--and given the ultimate choice. Die...or become one of the monsters.

Faced with her own mortality, Allie becomes what she despises most. To survive, she must learn the rules of being immortal, including the most important: go long enough without human blood, and you will go mad.

Then Allie is forced to flee into the unknown, outside her city walls. There she joins a ragged band of humans who are seeking a legend--a possible cure to the disease that killed off most of humankind and created the rabids, the mindless creatures who threaten humans and vampires alike.

But it isn't easy to pass for human. Especially not around Zeke, who might see past the monster inside her. And Allie soon must decide what--and who--is worth dying for.

Purchase: Book Depository

9. Diviners by Libba Bray

Evie O'Neill has been exiled from her boring old hometown and shipped off to the bustling streets of New York City--and she is pos-i-toot-ly thrilled. New York is the city of speakeasies, shopping, and movie palaces! Soon enough, Evie is running with glamorous Ziegfield girls and rakish pickpockets. The only catch is Evie has to live with her Uncle Will, curator of The Museum of American Folklore, Superstition, and the Occult--also known as "The Museum of the Creepy Crawlies."
When a rash of occult-based murders comes to light, Evie and her uncle are right in the thick of the investigation. And through it all, Evie has a secret: a mysterious power that could help catch the killer--if he doesn't catch her first.

Purchase: Book Depository

8. Tiger Lily by Jodi Lynn Anderson

Before Peter Pan belonged to Wendy, he belonged to the girl with the crow feather in her hair. . . .

Fifteen-year-old Tiger Lily doesn't believe in love stories or happy endings. Then she meets the alluring teenage Peter Pan in the forbidden woods of Neverland and immediately falls under his spell.

Peter is unlike anyone she's ever known. Impetuous and brave, he both scares and enthralls her. As the leader of the Lost Boys, the most fearsome of Neverland's inhabitants, Peter is an unthinkable match for Tiger Lily. Soon, she is risking everything—her family, her future—to be with him. When she is faced with marriage to a terrible man in her own tribe, she must choose between the life she's always known and running away to an uncertain future with Peter.

With enemies threatening to tear them apart, the lovers seem doomed. But it's the arrival of Wendy Darling, an English girl who's everything Tiger Lily is not, that leads Tiger Lily to discover that the most dangerous enemies can live inside even the most loyal and loving heart.

From the New York Times bestselling author of Peaches comes a magical and bewitching story of the romance between a fearless heroine and the boy who wouldn't grow up.

Purchase: Book Depository

7. The Light Field  by Traci Harding

In the battle to get the Being of the Field back to the Universe Parallel, the greatest weapon and risk lay in its own light-field.

Ten years in Maladaan′s past, Taren Lennox seizes the opportunity to secure personal financing for the AMIE Project and base the building on Frujia -- away from Maladaan and its Secret Service.

But when the MSS develop a weapon, from a patent of one of Taren′s inventions, that counts light -- photon by photon -- she begins to doubt her ability to keep her ever-growing psychic army a secret. For this new photon-camera can identify a psychic from the more inept by the unmistakable brilliance of their light-field.

Purchase: Book Depository

6. The Lost Prince by Julie Kagawa

Don’t look at Them. Never let Them know you can see Them.

That is Ethan Chase’s unbreakable rule. Until the fey he avoids at all costs—including his reputation—begin to disappear, and Ethan is attacked. Now he must change the rules to protect his family. To save a girl he never thought he’d dare to fall for.

Ethan thought he had protected himself from his older sister’s world—the land of Faery. His previous time in the Iron Realm left him with nothing but fear and disgust for the world Meghan Chase has made her home, a land of myth and talking cats, of magic and seductive enemies. But when destiny comes for Ethan, there is no escape from a danger long, long forgotten.

Purchase: Book Depository

5. Spell Bound (Hex Hall #3) by Rachel Hawkins

Hailed as “impossible to put down,” the Hex Hall series has both critics and teens cheering. With a winning combination of romance, action, magic and humor, this third volume will leave readers enchanted.

Just as Sophie Mercer has come to accept her extraordinary magical powers as a demon, the Prodigium Council strips them away. Now Sophie is defenseless, alone, and at the mercy of her sworn enemies—the Brannicks, a family of warrior women who hunt down the Prodigium. Or at least that’s what Sophie thinks, until she makes a surprising discovery. The Brannicks know an epic war is coming, and they believe Sophie is the only one powerful enough to stop the world from ending. But without her magic, Sophie isn’t as confident.

Sophie’s bound for one hell of a ride—can she get her powers back before it’s too late?

Purchase: Book Depository

4. Everneath by Brodi Ashton

Last spring, Nikki Beckett vanished, sucked into an underworld known as the Everneath. Now she's returned--to her old life, her family, her boyfriend--before she's banished back to the underworld . . . this time forever. She has six months before the Everneath comes to claim her, six months for good-byes she can't find the words for, six months to find redemption, if it exists.

Nikki longs to spend these precious months forgetting the Everneath and trying to reconnect with her boyfriend, Jack, the person most devastated by her disappearance--and the one person she loves more than anything. But there's just one problem: Cole, the smoldering immortal who enticed her to the Everneath in the first place, has followed Nikki home. Cole wants to take over the throne in the underworld and is convinced Nikki is the key to making it happen. And he'll do whatever it takes to bring her back, this time as his queen.

As Nikki's time on the Surface draws to a close and her relationships begin slipping from her grasp, she is forced to make the hardest decision of her life: find a way to cheat fate and remain on the Surface with Jack or return to the Everneath and become Cole's queen.

"Everneath" is a captivating story of love, loss, and immortality from debut author Brodi Ashton.

Purchase: Book Depository

3. Hallowed by Cynthia Hand

For months Clara Gardner trained to face the fire from her visions, but she wasn't prepared for the choice she had to make that day. And in the aftermath, she discovered that nothing about being part angel is as straightforward as she thought.

Now, torn between her love for Tucker and her complicated feelings about the roles she and Christian seem destined to play in a world that is both dangerous and beautiful, Clara struggles with a shocking revelation: Someone she loves will die in a matter of months. With her future uncertain, the only thing Clara knows for sure is that the fire was just the beginning.

In this compelling sequel to "Unearthly," Cynthia Hand captures the joy of first love, the anguish of loss, and the confusion of becoming who you are.

Purchase: Book Depository

2. The Gathering Dark by Leigh Bardugo

The Shadow Fold, a swathe of impenetrable darkness, crawling with monsters that feast on human flesh, is slowly destroying the once-great nation of Ravka.

Alina, a pale, lonely orphan, discovers a unique power that thrusts her into the lavish world of the kingdom’s magical elite—the Grisha. Could she be the key to unravelling the dark fabric of the Shadow Fold and setting Ravka free?

The Darkling, a creature of seductive charm and terrifying power, leader of the Grisha. If Alina is to fulfil her destiny, she must discover how to unlock her gift and face up to her dangerous attraction to him.

But what of Mal, Alina’s childhood best friend? As Alina contemplates her dazzling new future, why can’t she ever quite forget him?

Glorious. Epic. Irresistible. Romance.

Purchase: Book Depository

1. Days of Blood and Starlight by Laini Taylor

Once upon a time, an angel and a devil fell in love and dared to imagine a world free of bloodshed and war.

This is not that world.

Art student and monster's apprentice Karou finally has the answers she has always sought. She knows who she is—and what she is. But with this knowledge comes another truth she would give anything to undo: She loved the enemy and he betrayed her, and a world suffered for it.

In this stunning sequel to the highly acclaimed Daughter of Smoke & Bone, Karou must decide how far she'll go to avenge her people. Filled with heartbreak and beauty, secrets and impossible choices, Days of Blood & Starlight finds Karou and Akiva on opposing sides as an age-old war stirs back to life.

While Karou and her allies build a monstrous army in a land of dust and starlight, Akiva wages a different sort of battle: a battle for redemption. For hope.

But can any hope be salvaged from the ashes of their broken dream?

Purchase: Book Depository

In My Mailbox #18

Welcome to  In My Mailbox, a meme run by The Story Siren where each week over 200 bloggers post on their blogs the books they have bought, received to review or won in the past week.

To find out more information, get involved yourself or see what's in other bloggers mailboxes this week head over to The Story Siren or to find out what is in my mailbox this week, keep reading.

Don't forget to comment and post your IMM link or just let me know what's in your mail box this week

So my beautiful daughter Elizabeth is exactly one month old today so I figured it was the perfect time to attempt to post on my blog again.  While i haven't done as much reading as previous, reading, especially on my kindle and ipad have been one of the things to  get me through the long nights of feeding and trying to get Elizabeth to sleep. Of course finding the free time to write blog entries and reviews is going to be the interesting part.  Currently she is lying on my lap dead tired but with eyes wide open determined not to miss a thing. So if i get distracted mid post you know why :-P

Anyhew here is what has arrived in my mailbox over the last couple weeks

To Review:

 

 The Immortal Rules by Julie Kagawa (HarlequinTEEN via Netgalley)
The Six by K. B Hoyle (Smith Publicity - The Writer's Coffee Shop via Netgalley)
Shift by Kim Curran (Angry Robot via Netgalley)
Blackwood by Gwenda Bond (Angry Robot via Netgalley)

Purchased:

 I did some pre-ordering before Elizabeth's birth and these are the ones that have arrived in the past three weeks:

The Calling by Kelley Armstrong
Spellbound by Rachel Hawkins
Balthazar by Claudia Gray 

Actually I received Balthazar before Elizabeth was born and managed to get it signed by Claudia Gray while she was in Australia but it never got to feature in an IMM and I thought it should.  Here is a photo of a very pregnant me (I was 9 days overdue at the time - i think elizabeth waited so i could go to the signing before being born :-P) and Claudia Gray:

 

Borrowed:

The library has been my best friend lately and Elizabeth and I try to make at least on trip there a week. Her for baby rhyme time and me for more books  Here is what I currently have on loan:

Star Trek Myriad Universes (assorted authors)
Darkfall by Isobelle Carmody
The Named by Marianne Curley
The Dark by Marianne Curley
The Tin Princess by Philip Pullman
The Shadow in the North by Phillip Pullman
The Tiger in the Well by Phillip Pullman
The Ruby in the Smoke by Phillip Pullman
Heist Society by Ally Carter
Dark Visions by L J Smith
Fantasy Lover by Sherrilyn Kenyon

So what was in your mailbox this week?

Review: Hex Hall by Rachel Hawkins

Title: Hex Hall
Author: Rachel Hawkins
Released: 2nd March, 2010
Source: Purchased
Reviewed by: Sapphired Dragon
Sapphired Dragon rating : ****

Synopsis ( via Goodreads):
Three years ago, Sophie Mercer discovered that she was a witch. It's gotten her into a few scrapes. Her non-gifted mother has been as supportive as possible, consulting Sophie's estranged father--an elusive European warlock--only when necessary. But when Sophie attracts too much human attention for a prom-night spell gone horribly wrong, it's her dad who decides her punishment: exile to Hex Hall, an isolated reform school for wayward Prodigium, a.k.a. witches, faeries, and shapeshifters.
By the end of her first day among fellow freak-teens, Sophie has quite a scorecard: three powerful enemies who look like supermodels, a futile crush on a gorgeous warlock, a creepy tagalong ghost, and a new roommate who happens to be the most hated person and only vampire student on campus. Worse, Sophie soon learns that a mysterious predator has been attacking students, and her only friend is the number-one suspect. 
As a series of blood-curdling mysteries starts to converge, Sophie prepares for the biggest threat of all: an ancient secret society determined to destroy all Prodigium, especially her.

Review:

I really enjoyed this book, more than I expected to, actually. At first it seemed like every other similar book in its premise in that an outsider goes to a new school where there is your snotty popular girls who always automatically takes a disliking to the main character and the beautiful popular boy (usually dating the snotty popular girl) seems drawn to the main character who almost always has some sort of crush on said beautiful popular boy but is an outcast from the first. However that is where the similarity ends.  What follows is a story with enough twists and turns that you are truly surprised by how the story turns out. Hawkins also writes it in such a way that you are following along with the main character to find out what happens and she gives you just enough information to keep you wanting more without giving too much away too early. 

The main character of Sophie, at first ( as previously mentioned) seemed a little cliched but she had a humor and sincerity about herself that was engaging and in the end emerged a much more multiple dimensional character than I had been expecting and one,  whom I actually cared about what happened next.

Best of all there was a number of different threads going on in this novel, one of which is solved at the end of this particular book while another I think is to be explored further in subsequent books.  I liked this along the fact that you couldn't actually tell which was which until the end. 

All in all this was definitely an enjoyable book which I have no qualms about giving four stars

Sapphired Dragon xx

In My Mailbox #4

Welcome to  In My Mailbox, a meme run by The Story Siren where each week over 200 bloggers post on their blogs the books they have bought, received to review or won in the past week. 

To find out more information, get involved yourself or see what's in other bloggers mailboxes this week head over to The Story Siren or to find out what is in my mailbox this week, keep reading.

Don't forget to comment and post your IMM link or just let me know what's in your mail box this week:

So nothing new to review received this week which has given me a little time to catch up on what I am currently reading to review.

Purchased :

Gotta love book sales though they can also be a little dangerous :-p


      
      

        
            
  

      

      

      

      

      

      

      

      

      

      
    

Nikk's favorite books »
  
  
  

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Hex Hall by Rachel Hawkins
Goodreads | Amazon | The Book Depository

The Morganville Vampires Vol. 3  by Rachel Caine
Goodreads |  Amazon | The Book Depository

Moonlight by Rachel Hawthorne (Dark Guardian #1)
Goodreads |  Amazon | The Book Depository

Full Moon by Rachel Hawthorne (Dark Guardian #2)
Goodreads |  Amazon | The Book Depository

Dark of the Moon by Rachel Hawthorne (Dark Guardian #3)
Goodreads |  Amazon | The Book Depository

Shadow of the Moon by Rachel Hawthorne (Dark Guardian #4)
Goodreads |  Amazon
| The Book Depository

Hush Hush by Becca Fitzpatrick 
Goodreads |  Amazon| The Book Depository

Siren by Tricia Rayburn
Goodreads |  Amazon| The Book Depository

Spy Glass by Maria V Snyder
Goodreads | Amazon | The Book Depository

So what was in your mailbox this week?