Saturday 28 June 2014

Stacking The Shelves #100

Stacking the Shelves

Stacking The Shelves is hosted by Tyngs's Reviews and is all about sharing the books you are adding to your  shelves, may they be physical or virtual. This means you can include books you buy in physical stores or online, books you borrow from friends or the library, review books, gifts and of course ebooks!

We love sharing our books with you each week but more importantly we loving see what you add to your shelves. As always, clicking on a book will take you to goodreads.


Winterkill    Archie Greene and the Magician's Secret

Winterkill ~ Kate A.Boorman ~ unsolicited from publisher
Archie Green & the Magician's Secret ~ D. D. Everest ~ unsolicited from publisher
After the End ~ Amy Plum ~ Bought
The Dark World ~ Cara Lynn Shultz ~ Bought

Really love the sound of my two new unexpected books this week. Both Winterkill and Archie Greene are proofs from Faber & Faber due out in September. I'm going to be terrible and say I prefer the proof cover of Archie but it was the blurb on the back which got my attention, 'Welcome to a wonderful, magical world where bookshelves are enchanted, librarians are sorcerers and spells come to life'.  - Bungle

I bought a couple of books this week from authors I already love!  After the End is the start of a new dystopian series by Amy Plum whose last series I adored.  I also bought The Dark World by Cara Lynn Shultz.  I was a fan of her Spellbound series so I have high hopes for this one! - Sally

Hope you all got something new and exciting this week too, happy reading!







Friday 27 June 2014

Louder Than Words Blog Tour ~ Why the First 10k is Always the Hardest by Laura Jarratt



First of all I have to say, again, I'm a rather big fan of Laura Jarratt and I think I'll love anything she writes. My review for Skin Deep, Laura's first novel, said 'it's a story people should pay attention too' and Laura is an author to be reckoned with!

I'm so excited to be involved with this tour and would like to say thank to Laura for the following post:~

Why the first 10k is always the hardest.

Quite often you meet writers who are really enthusiastic about starting their new books, as if they absolutely can’t wait to begin. When I start a new book I’m afraid I look more like I’m about to face a firing squad. I hate beginning a new book and it takes me at least 10k before I feel I’ve got any idea what I’m doing. To be honest I’m uncomfortable for the first third of the book and it’s only when I get to the last third that I start to relax.

So what’s the problem? Basically it’s that I’m not a ‘plot it all in advance’ kind of writer. And what that means is I’m starting a book from scratch with very little idea of what is going to happen, who the secondary characters will be, and indeed who the main characters really are. I usually have a scene in my head from which the rest of the book comes, but that’s about it. So what happens is I have to pick up a pen and start writing. Now that’s great fun when you don’t have a deadline to meet, but when you do and you’re under contract, it’s a lot more stressful having no idea what you’re doing!

Somewhere in those first 10k I learn about who my main characters are as people, and totally crucially as I often write in first person, I find their voices. This part takes forever. I can be messing around with the opening of a book for a couple of months and feel like I’m getting nowhere at all. I’ve just done that with the one I’m writing now. And then suddenly from  nowhere I realised I was telling the story in the wrong way – the mc wanted it done differently so I had to go back and rewrite the entire thing. My family ignore me now when they ask how the writing is going and I tell them it’s awful and this book is hopeless etc. Somewhere around the end of the first draft I tend to decide it’s really not that bad at all, but until I’m reasonably happy with that first 10k I just can’t go on writing the rest. I know some writers give up on the beginning and go back and fix it later but for me it has to be right for me to carry on any further.

And the strangest thing of all? Often I don’t really make that many changes to what I originally wrote in those early pages at all. I guess the hard part is finding the entire book from within them.

I'm in the middle of reading Louder than Words and look forward to sharing my review with you all soon! I must thank Laura & Jenny for allowing us to be involved in this fabulous blog tour. Be sure to check out the other blogs for more posts by Laura.




Monday 23 June 2014

Mini Review ~ We Were Liars ~ E. Lockhart

We Were Liars

 
Title: We Were Liars
Author: E. Lockhart
Released: May 2014
Published by: Hot Key Books
Source: Bought
Rating: 2 stars

goodreads says:

A beautiful and distinguished family.
A private island.
A brilliant, damaged girl; a passionate, political boy.
A group of four friends—the Liars—whose friendship turns destructive.
A revolution. An accident. A secret.
Lies upon lies.
True love.
The truth.
 
We Were Liars is a modern, sophisticated suspense novel from National Book Award finalist and Printz Award honoree E. Lockhart. 

Read it.
And if anyone asks you how it ends, just LIE

My thoughts:
So, when Hot Key Books had this up for grabs something told me not to go for it, I never take books just for the sake of it so I skipped on this one. Then I saw so many people tweeting about it and it was all over blogs that I just had to buy a copy!
I read how people were left guessing until the end and were full of shock and heartache, and although I can see that, I figured it out early on! Sorry, but I did! I just knew it, so I guess that spoilt the impact of the story for me personally.

I found it hard to connect with the characters and the story often felt fragmented, which I guess made sense in the end. I'm not really sure what people will take away from this story, rich kids with no problems until they create them and cause pain and suffering to those around them!? Maybe I'm being a little harsh?! or maybe I'm not?! But you know what we say here at Midnight Reads, read it for yourself and make up your own mind, you might just love it!!



Saturday 21 June 2014

Stacking The Shelves #98 & #99

Stacking the Shelves

Stacking The Shelves is hosted by Tyngs's Reviews and is all about sharing the books you are adding to your  shelves, may they be physical or virtual. This means you can include books you buy in physical stores or online, books you borrow from friends or the library, review books, gifts and of course ebooks!

We love sharing our books with you each week but more importantly we loving see what you add to your shelves. As always, clicking on a book will take you to goodreads.

The 100 Society  Roomies

The 100 Society ~ Carla Spradbery ~ unsolicited from publisher
Roomies ~ Sara Zarr & Tara Altebrando ~ unsolicited from publishers

Just the two books over the last two weeks, Sal and I are being very good and keeping the pennies in the bank.
Off to see what the rest of you got. Happy reading :)




Sunday 8 June 2014

Stacking The Shelves #97

Stacking the Shelves

Stacking The Shelves is hosted by Tyngs's Reviews and is all about sharing the books you are adding to your  shelves, may they be physical or virtual. This means you can include books you buy in physical stores or online, books you borrow from friends or the library, review books, gifts and of course ebooks!

We love sharing our books with you each week but more importantly we loving see what you add to your shelves. As always, clicking on a book will take you to goodreads.
 
Louder Than Words  One Wish Solitaire
Egg and Spoon Finnikin of the Rock (Lumatere Chronicles, #1) The Letter for the King
Replica The Demons of Ghent (Forbidden Spaces, #2) The One (The Selection, #3)
 
Louder Than Words ~ Laura Jarratt ~ from publisher for review
One Wish ~ Michelle Harrison ~ unsolicited from publisher
Solitaire ~ Alice Oseman ~ unsolicited from publisher
Egg & Spoon ~ Gregory Maguire ~ unsolicited from publisher
Finnikin of the Rock ~ Melinda Marchetta ~ unsolicited from publisher
The Letter for The King ~ Tonke Dragt ~ unsolicited from publisher
Replica ~ Jack Heath ~ unsolicited from publisher
Demons of Ghent ~ Helen Grant ~ from author for review
The One ~ Kiera Cass ~ bought 
 
 
Another fabulous book week for us here at Midnight Reads. We would like to say a big thank you to all the publishers who sent us new books to read as well as Helen Grant! We love reading and you all make it so much easier for us!!
We hope you got some amazing new reads this past week, of course we're coming to check them out!
 
 
 
 
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