Top Ten Tuesday (20)

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme created by the Broke and the Bookish where a new top ten list is posted each week. This week is: Top Ten Books I'd Quickly Save if my House Was Going to be Abducted by Aliens. These pretty much fall into two categories - those that are signed and those that have sentimental value.

The Signed Ones:

1. All my Maggie Stiefvater books
2. City of Bones & Clockwork Prince by Cassandra Clare
3. The Demon's Lexicon & The Demon's Covenant by Sarah Rees Brennan

4. All my Becca Fitzpatrick books
5. Bad Moon Rising by Sherrilyn Kenyon
6. Ill Wind by Rachel Caine

The Special Ones:

7. My 'Tomorrow When the War Began' books
When I decided I wanted to read these I quickly realised that several were out of print in the UK and only available used at freakishly high prices. My Mum actually tracked them all down and even ordered the trickier ones from Australia for me for my birthday!

8. The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge
This is one of my favourite books from when I was little and I now have the hardback collectors edition which is full of illustrations and maps.

9. My Harry Potter box set
My kid sister brought me these last summer and I ended up hugging the box and stroking all the books. They are so pretty and special and I love them.

10. Noodle's Knitting by Sheryl Webster
This was the first gift ever from my niece that I was given when she was born. It's soooo cute and it has fuzzy bits :) It was the ideal gift for me as I love both reading and knitting...plus it's fuzzy!

Top Ten Tuesday (19)

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme created by the Broke and the Bookish where a new top ten list is posted each week. This week is: Top Ten Books That Broke Your Heart a Little.

1. Blood and Chocolate by Annette Curtis Klause
I stumbled across this as a teenager in my local library and picked it up expecting a standard paranormal romance...but it isn't. This is a more realistic love story where people aren't perfect and don't necessarily react in the best ways, ending up in a totally different place to what I expected.

2. Daughters of Darkness by L.J. Smith
It is a little difficult to talk about why this book broke my heart without revealing huge parts of the plot, but one of the characters makes a choice to go off and become worthy before taking what they want. How could a line like "see you next year...with slain dragon" not break your heart a little?

3. Acheron by Sherrilyn Kenyon
Acheron had been a favourite character of mine from the start of the Dark Hunter series so when it came to his own book I couldn't wait. I knew his past had been bad, but the first half of this book shows exactly how bad. This didn't just break my heart...it shattered it.

4. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling
I would not be surprised if this pops up on a lot of lists this week purely because of the body count. J.K. Rowling didn't hold back and some of my favourite characters didn't survive this book. Two of the death scenes were particularly heartwrenching, not to mention unexpected :(

5. Dance with the Devil by Sherrilyn Kenyon
Zarek is another tortured hero but it isn't just Zarek's past that broke my heart. His entire life is a torment thanks to a sadistic deity and this book takes place as a divine judge is sent to determine whether he is too dangerous to live. But even as Zarek embraces his insanity, his truly sweet hidden side sneaks out and that is what broke my heart.

6. Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater
At an event with Maggie Stiefvater last year she announced one of the things she hoped to do with her books was to make the reader cry. With me, she succeeded - and I rarely ever cry at books. Some how she's managed to create incredibly realistic heartwrenching stories that succeed in making her readers cry, especially with the end of Shiver.

7. Lover Awakened by J.R. Ward
Zsadist is another one of those broken characters who you fall in love with only to end up with your heart bleeding over what happened in their past. Zsadist also doesn't think he is worthy of love anymore so he pushes everyone away, especially those who truly love him.

8. New Moon by Stephenie Meyer
The scene when Edward leaves is heartwrenching, but that is not the part of New Moon that managed to break my heart. Nope - my heart was broken by four little pages: OCTOBER. NOVEMBER. DECEMBER. JANUARY. The fact that Bella's life loses meaning without Edward is more painful than anything else from the book.

9. The Haunted by Jessica Verday
This book has one of the few cliffhangers that I don't hate. The end of the book changes everything for Abby and Caspian and left me completely crushed. I haven't managed to read the final installment yet but I'm desperately hoping it gives these guys the happy ending they deserve.

10. Fantasy Lover by Sherrilyn Kenyon
My final pick didn't break my heart because of the storyline, but because of a single event. The main character Grace has a library of her books tucked away in her home and a psycho breaks in and shreds them. Her reaction combined with the details of the book massacre (we're talking destroyed first editions here), and the reaction of hunky Julian totally broke my heart.

Top Ten Tuesday (18)

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme created by the Broke and the Bookish where a new top ten list is posted each week. This week is a freebie so I've chosen to do Top Ten Minor Characters. It always seems to be the hero and heroine of books that get focused on (and to be fair it is generally their story being told) but the minor characters can often be unfairly overlooked. Where would Harry Potter be without Ron and Hermione or Buffy without Willow or Scooby without all those meddling kids?

1. Cole St. Clair from Linger and Forever by Maggie Stiefvater 
Cole wasn't written to be likeable, heck Maggie Stiefvater herself has said multiple times that Cole is a bad boy and we girls should steer clear. That said, he was a pretty awesome addition to Sam and Grace's world because he has his own demons and actually chose to be a wolf thus showing Sam a whole new side to his wolfish ways.

2. Luna Lovegood from the Harry Potter series
I love Looney Lovegood! She is probably one of my favourite characters from the entire series. She's quirky and confident in her skin which is unusual for a lot of YA books. Luna doesn't let other people's opinions affect her and if she was real I'd love to be her BFF.

3. Emmett Cullen from the Twilight Saga
Emmett is possibly my favourite character from Twilight. I love the fact he is clearly a badass, and I love his sense of humour. The scenes with him and Bella's father in Breaking Dawn had me in hysterics, plus he's seriously hot in the movies.

4. Giguhl from the Sabina Kane books by Jaye Wells
A naked cat demon? A naked cat demon! Giguhl is brilliant. He starts out as a regular demon and (minor spoilers) accidentally gets stuck as a cat. In trying to turn him back he looses his fur. Giguhl has a great sense of humour and actually puts up with wearing little handknit sweaters :)

5. Stefan from the Mercy Thompson series by Patricia Briggs
A vampire who drives a replica Mystery Machine - seriously how could he not make it onto my list? Stefan is Mercy's connection to the vampire world, but he's also her friend as well which puts him in more than one akward position.

6. Jenks from The Hollows series by Kim Harrison
Jenks is Rachel Morgan's pixy partner and he has some of the best one liners I've ever read. Every book in the series has had me in hysterics - in part due to Jenks. Here are some of my favourites: "You think my kids just popped out of the ground?" "Tink's a Disney whore!" and "Grab the fish and run like hell."

7. Nick from the Secret Circle by L.J. Smith
Dark, brooding and good with his hands I adore Nick. He's also incredibly loyal and will pretty much do anything for his friends, as long as you can get to be his friend. He's my favourite character from the series and I'm curious to see how he is in the TV show as soon as I get a chance to watch it.

8. Bubba from the Southern Vampire Series by Charlaine Harris
If you haven't read the Southern Vampire books I won't spoil Bubba's true identity for you, so I'll just say I wasn't a fan until I read these books. Bubba is an awesome character and I was horrified when I realised he wasn't going to be included in True Blood.

9. Savitar from the Dark Hunter series by Sherrilyn Kenyon
Savitar will eventually be getting his very own book, but at the moment he's mulling about in the background of the other Dark Hunter novels so I get to put him here. He's a bit of a mysterious character who has some serious powers and does whatever he wants, which seems to mostly be hanging on the beach and surfing.

10. Ari and Janco from the Poison trilogy by Maria V. Snyder
I debated between these two before deciding one without the other is like Ben without Jerry. I love both of these two and loved every scene they were in. If you haven't read the series, I'd recommend it based on these two kick-butt hilarious soldiers alone.

Top Ten Tuesday (17)

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme created by the Broke and the Bookish where a new top ten list is posted each week. This week is: Top Ten Books I'm Excited To Read in 2012. I'm splitting this week into two Top Fives - one of books that I'm excited to read in 2012 and one of books with a 2012 release date that I'm excited for.

Existing Releases

1. Juliet Immortal by Stacia Jay
I've been hearing awesome things about this for months and despite the fact I've never really been a big Romeo and Juliet fan (seriously they're 13 and it takes place over a week - talk about insta-love!) I'm really looking forward to it. This has been picked as a group read in a Goodreads group I belong to so hopefully I'll get to it this month.

2. Across the Universe by Beth Revis
Other than occasionally glaring at my copy for being the UK paperback not the awesome double-covered US hardback, this is a book I was lusting after for ages before I got a copy. I can't wait to get reading!

3. Glass Houses by Rachel Caine
The Morganville Vampires is one series that I'm freakishly behind on. I have the first 11 books waiting to be read and I have no idea why it's taken me this long. I love the author's writing and have enjoyed all of her other books. I'm about to start a buddy read today so hopefully I'll enjoy it.

4. Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi
I'm totally psyched that I finally have my own copy of this. So far all I've done is stroke the gorgeous cover and flick through the pages but I love adore how strikethroughs are used in the prose (it had to be done guys lol).

5. Divergent by Veronica Roth
I have only heard awesome things about this book. I haven't managed to read it yet though (no idea why). The Totally Booksessed youtube channel just did Book Oscars and this kept winning them over and over - best debut, best hero, best heroine and best dystopian!

2012 Releases

6. Unbroken by Rachel Caine
This is the final book in the Outcast Season series and I've been waiting for it for what feels like forever. I read the first book as soon as it was released to find the biggest cliffhanger ever (it's like the book just ran out of pages) so I decided to wait until the series was complete before reading further.

7. Fair Game by Patricia Briggs
Patricia Briggs is one of those authors I have loved for years. This is the third and newest release in her Alpha and Omega series which I love. It's a bit more romance focused than her Mercy Thompson series but I fell in love with the characters and love seeing things from Anna's perspective.

8. Fever by Lauren DeStefano
Probably one that is on a lot of lists this week. I adored Wither and that ending? Well lets just say I'm hooked and desperate to know what happens next for Rhine. The whole dystopian world is incredibly well developed and deeply creepy.

9. Thirteen by Kelley Armstrong
The last Otherworld novel *sniff*. Bitten was one of the first urban fantasy books I read and it really hooked me to the genre. I'm waaaay behind on the series but I'll be reading and re-reading them all this year in preparation for this.



10. Hush, Hush book 4 by Becca Fitzpatrick
No title, no picture but one that I can't wait for! I only read the first three Hush, Hush books last year and I loved them. It took me a while to really like Patch though (literally until the third book!) so I'm looking forward to reading about him again. Also you just know the cover is going to be gorgeous!

Top Ten Tuesday (16)

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme created by the Broke and the Bookish where a new top ten list is posted each week. This week is: Top Ten Favorite Books I Read in 2011. These are in no particular order.

 1. Wither by Lauren DeStefano
I was a little nervous of the hype about this book as I've been let down in the past, but this was an outstanding read. I loved Rhine and Gabriel, and I adored the fact that there wasn't a conventional love triangle. Instead the author focused on the emotional consequences of living a lie, even if it's for the best reasons.

2. The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater
This is hands down one of my favourite books of all time. Not only is the cover beautiful (and has an awesome silky/neoprene feel to it) but the book is lyrical and gorgeous in its writing. Plus it has evil water horses. I love evil water horses! I also need to make the November Cakes as they just sound yummy.

3. The Hollow & (The Haunted) by Jessica Verday
I read these two way back in January and loved it. I've got the last book of the trilogy (The Hidden) waiting to be read but I want a weekend where I can curl up with some snickerdoodles and read all three. I love Abby and Caspian, and the whole Sleepy Hollow link is amazing. I'm a sucker for any kind of gothic romance, and this is an outstanding example.

4. Slave to Sensation by Nalini Singh
This pick could include all of the Psy-Changeling novels because I absolutely adore them. They are one of my favourite paranormal romance series partly because alongside the beautifully written romances there is some of the best world building I've ever seen. The series is now ten books long and presents a fully fleshed out realistic world.

5. Tomorrow When the War Began by John Marsden
Back near the start of the year I saw a preview for a movie on TV that seemed really familiar. Five minutes on Google and I knew why. I first read this a few years back, realised the rest of the books were unavailable in the UK and promptly forgot about it. My Mum got me all the books for my birthday (she ordered them from Australia!!!) and I'm totally hooked. The movie is also really good.

6. Bitten by Kelley Armstrong
An old favourite of mine that I reread. This was my gateway book to urban fantasy. I'd tried a few authors before, but Kelley Armstrong was the first to get me completely hooked. I really liked Elena and I totally fell for Clay ("I am the local psychopath" lines aside). The last book in the series is out next year *sniff* so I'm guessing I'll be rereading it again.


7. Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake
Definitely an out of left field pick for me, my reading of this book was basically down to other bloggers. I doubt I'd have even heard of the book without them. I loved Anna and Cas, and then the book threw in an awesome secondary plot that left me with my mouth hanging open. I cannot wait for the sequel!

8. Paranormalcy by Kiersten White
I'd heard good things about this for ages before I read it. It was one of those tricky to get books that I randomly stumbled across one day in a store and snatched up a copy. Evie is awesome (and I soooo need a pink taser). The world is really well developed and I loved how pretty much every kind of paranormal creature is featured.

9. Lover Awakened by J.R. Ward
I finally got around to reading past the first book of the Black Dagger Brotherhood series and can safely say Zsadist's is my favourite book so far. I love the whole tortured anti-hero vibe he has and I like that his story wasn't just "I love you, I'm healed, lets be happy". Z has issues and they rarely come with simple solutions.

10. Shiver, Linger and Forever by Maggie Stiefvater
A blatant cheat I know, but I love this trilogy. I actually waited to start my blog until I had reviews for these as I wanted to get it off to an awesome start. All three books are amazing and I am totally blown away by Sam and Grace every time I read them. As a bonus below is a video of Jonas and Plunkett performing Summer Girl (from Shiver) at Maggie's London signing. Sorry it's not brilliant quality.

Top Ten Tuesday (15)

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme created by the Broke and the Bookish where a new top ten list is posted each week. This week is: Top Ten Books I Hope Santa Brings. I'm not going for books I hope Santa brings because they were on my list, I'm going for books I'd love to receive but haven't asked for.

1. Evernight by Claudia Gray
I just got the last two books in the series in a lucky dip, but I haven't read the first two so they are top of my list. I don't like starting in the middle of a series because I always miss important things so I need to pick this up before I'll read the two I have.

2. Stargazer by Claudia Gray
Ditto what I said above, plus it's purple!

3. White Cat by Holly Black
I keep hearing amazing things about this series and the author. I have Tithe waiting to be read but this sounds like an incredible read too - illegal curse workers who by a simple touch could change your emotions, your thoughts, your luck? Awesome!

4. The Demon's Surrender by Sarah Rees Brennan
I met Sarah at a Cassandra Clare signing a few months back in London and got to chat with her for a bit. I've had The Demon's Lexicon on my TBR for ages and I picked up The Demon's Covenant at the signing so I really need to catch up. This would allow me to read the entire trilogy in one go.

5. Fitzwilliam Darcy, Rock Star by Heather Lynn Rigaud
I only just heard of this a couple of days ago, but it sounds hilarious. I really enjoyed Pride and Prejudice when I read it (although I'm still a Knightley girl at heart) and I love modern retellings of classic novels so this sounds made for me. Plus rock music :)

6. Sweet Venom by Tera Lynn Childs
I heard about this modern take on the Medusa myth back when I first started blogging and it sounds amazing. It is however a hardcover so it's pricier than my normal paperback purchases. It's a very girls-kick-butt kind of book so I would love to read it.

7. All Just Glass by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes
I've always been a reader but when I hit my late teens I got really hooked and started reading at least once a day, every day. Amelia Atwater-Rhodes was one of the authors I discovered and I still love her books. This continues on from one of my favourites (Shattered Mirror) which had a bit of a cliffhanger ending. I can't wait to see how she concludes the story.

8. Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi
This sounds like an incredible read and I've heard so many great things about it. The idea of not being able to touch anyone for fear of killing them reminds me of Rogue from X-Men. It's an idea that terrifies me - never being able to touch anyone or be touched? Creepy.

9. The rest of the Discworld by Terry Pratchett
I started reading the Discworld books last year and fell in love with the world. I've read up to Mort and have a couple more standing by but I'd love all of them. There are a lot of books in the series though so it's going to take me a while to catch up.

10. The Jaz Parks series by Jennifer Rardin
I read the first one of these a few years ago when I got it out of the library. I really enjoyed it but never managed to get my own copy. The series is now complete and the author has sadly passed away so I'd love to get and read all of them.