From the Review Pile (40)

From the Review Pile is a meme hosted by Stepping Out of the Page every Thursday.

The aim of this meme is to showcase books that you've received for review (or if you don't receive review books, any book that you own and really want to read/review) but haven't yet got around to reading, in order to give the book some extra publicity.

I know that a lot of you have a huge pile of books that you want to read/review, but it understandably takes a while to get around to reading them all - here you can give a book (or two!) some of the publicity that it deserves, even if you haven't read it yet!

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This week, I'm going to showcase Scarlet (Lunar Chronicles #2)!

I am so excited to read Scarlet, as I read the first book in the Lunar Chronicles last year and I absolutely loved it. I love Meyer's new twist on these traditional characters and can't wait to see what this book is like.

 

Scarlet (Lunar Chronicles #2) by Marissa Meyer

Paperback

Expected publication: 3rd February 2013 by Puffin

This is not the fairytale you remember.

But it’s one you won’t forget.

Scarlet Benoit’s grandmother is missing. The police have closed her case. The only person Scarlet can turn to is Wolf, a street fighter she does not trust, but they are drawn to each other.

Meanwhile, in New Beijing, Cinder will become the Commonwealth’s most wanted fugitive – when she breaks out of prison to stay one step ahead of vicious Queen Levana.

As Scarlet and Wolf expose one mystery, they encounter Cinder and a new one unravels. Together they must challenge the evil queen, who will stop at nothing to make Prince Kai her husband, her king, her prisoner...

Blog Tour Stop: Dance of Shadows

Dance of Shadows has to be one of the most hyped up books for this year and I'm so happy to be part of this blog tour. Here, I was given the chance to ask the author, Yelena Black, the timeless 'Fantasy Dinner Party' question! Here is Yelena's reply to the question:

Which five people, living or dead, fiction or real would you invite to her fantasy dinner party and why?

George Balanchine

One of the most brilliant choreographers in the world. I think any dancer or lover of ballet would want to meet George. He was the co-founder of the New York City Ballet, and an absolute genius. I would love to pick his artistic brain for an evening.

Tom Colicchio

Every dinner party needs amazing food! Hopefully Tom would cook for us and then entertain us with wildly funny stories from Top Chef. I’m a huge fan.

Margot Fonteyn

My favorite ballerina of all time. I’d want to ask her about dancing Swan Lake and find out all of her dancing secrets!

Kristen Wiig

Every dinner party needs someone to tell some amazing jokes … and she never fails to make me laugh. I’ve seen Bridesmaids probably five times.

J.K. Rowling

A little magic never hurt at a dinner party. I love the Harry Potter books beyond words—I’d love to sit down with J.K. and ask her how she plotted out all of those books!

I'd like to thank both Yelena Black and Bloomsbury for allowing me to take part in this tour. I will be posting my review of Dance of Shadows next week, so please do check back for that! 

Dance of Shadows is released 12th February!

If you're still wanting more Dance of Shadows information and exclusive content, check out the following links:

Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZhiZZgkO8o

Extract: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dance-Shadows-Chapters-1-3-ebook/dp/B00APXZI6I/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1359563370&sr=8-1

www.facebook.com/DanceofShadows

www.twitter.com/TheYelenaBlack

www.yelenablackbooks.com

Stacking the Shelves and Showcase Sunday (38)

Stacking the Shelves is hosted by Tynga's Reviews. Showcase Sunday is hosted by Books, Biscuits and Tea.

These memes are a replacement of The Story Siren's In My Mailbox.

Stacking the Shelves and Showcase Sunday make a place to showcase your new books,

whether you obtained them through the post or otherwise.

This week brought some very exciting but also quite mysterious books to my door! I received such a lovely gift box full of goodies, including a copy of the book itself to promote Boy Nobody, which I'm very thankful for. I wasn't expecting a copy of While The Others Sleep but I am so pleased that I got one - It looks really good, but also very scary! I am also excited to delve into MILA 2.0 - the cover just makes me really want to pick it up! I also received copies of Reason To Breathe and Easy after participating in the Love Hurts Blog Tour.

Such great mail this week! 

Did you get anything exciting? Let me know by leaving a link below!

A Month with April-May

A Month With April-May by Edyth Bulbring

Paperback, 224 pages

Expected Publication: 17th February 2013 by Hot Key Books

My shelves:  arc-or-review, cultural, read-in-2012, realistic-fiction, series-or-companions, to-be-reviewed, young-adult

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Description via Goodreads:

'Life is not a bowl of cherries. Suck it up.' On April-May's first day at Trinity College, she has the wrong colour bag, too-bright socks and she gets her favourite novel confiscated for reading it during class. She makes total enemies with the evil Mrs Ho, but she makes total friends with mouth-breather Melly. Then, she meets the gorgeous Seb, loses her entire wardrobe to a hobo and gets branded a sockless trouble-maker. A MONTH WITH APRIL-MAY is a one-eyebrow-raised account of a teenager's trials and tribulations as she navigates a new school, a new family situation and a whole new way of life.

My thanks go to Hot Key Books for sending me this book in exchange for an honest review.

I am always on the look out for fresh, fun and quick reads (aren't we all?) so I had to check out this new release from Hot Key Books. I admit that I hadn't heard of the author before, but the story sounded entertaining and I really wanted to see what April-May was like. From only the blurb, I knew that April-May was a character that I just had to get to know.

There are comparisons of Bulbring's writing to the hilarious Louise Rennison and one of my childhood favourites, Jacqueline Wilson. This both excited me and made me a little nervous - those are quite big names to live up to! I can understand these comparisons as the writing style is very easy to read, accessible and fun. I often have some issues where I feel the author tries to be 'too cool' when writing for younger teens, but thankfully this was not the case here. Though there were some words that some people will certainly not be familiar with, the words flow easily and it's easy to understand what they mean in context (though if you really are stuck, there's even a glossary at the back!).

The main thing that stands out about this book is the setting - rather than the usual British or American setting, it's set in South Africa. I've never read a book that was set in South Africa before so it made a great, interesting change. I loved the use of some Afrikaans words in the book - it added a great deal of authenticity and added to the cultural aspect of the book. 

Of course, the characters were interesting and fun too - especially April-May herself, who is a witty, funny character who is absolutely bursting with attitude. I enjoyed reading about her relationship with the 'awful' teacher, Mrs Ho. However, my favourite relationship in the book was between April-May and her father. Though the book is very light hearted and jokey, there was obviously a good and slightly deeper connection between April-May and her dad which stood out to me most.

This is a book that is aimed at young teenagers and so I am above the target age-group for this book. However, I can imagine that if I read this when I was younger that I would have liked it very much and it's something that I'd definitely recommend to middle grade readers. For me, this was a speedy and amusing read which grabbed my attention from start to beginning. Though there wasn't really any depth, I do look forward to seeing what April-May gets up to in her next instalments!