Stacking the Shelves #21

Hosted by Tynga’s Reviews

Welcome back to Stacking the Shelves, a regular meme hosted by Tynga at Tynga’s Reviews. Stacking The Shelves is all about sharing the latest books you have added to your shelves, physical or virtual.  This means you can include books you buy in store or online, books you borrow from friends or the library, review books, gifts, and of course e-books!

I’ve been a bit AWOL from this meme for a few weeks, but the book gathering has continued. I signed up to the blog tour for the Rising Storm serial and unexpectedly started receiving e-ARCs via InkSlingerPR. I didn’t receive the first book, so bought that myself from Amazon after the ARCs started turning up. I now have the first six in the series, and have read and reviewed three.

I also joined the mailing list for the series and received the free prequel novella, Storm Season, by Dee Davis, which tells the story of Ginny and Jacob.

While I was there, I also joined the mailing list for 1001 Dark Nights, and received the free first novella, The First Night, by Lexi Blake and M.J. Rose.

Netgalley continued feeding my addiction by granting me access to the e-ARC of The Greatest Zombie Movie Ever Made, by Jeff Strand. Love that cover!

Also from Netgalley was All That is Lost Between Us, by Sara Foster, a new-to-me author that Netgalley recommended. Looks interesting and has a pretty purple cover.

An author contacted me to read her ARC, The Marshall Plan, by Olivia Folmar Ard. It’s a sequel and I haven’t read the first book, but it looks good and features a journalist, so I’m there.

And, finally, since they were both free on Amazon, I grabbed Hide Your Heart, by local New Zealand author Tracey Alvarez, and When the Perfect Comes, by my friend and colleague, Susan Ward. Looking forward to both of these.

Whew! So that’s it for the last few weeks. When will I find time to read them all??? Keep an eye out for my reviews of these in coming weeks. So what new books did you pick up this week? Let me know in the comments.

Free read: Welcome to Shadowhunter Academy, by Cassandra Clare and Sarah Rees Brennan

Cassandra Clare‘s latest Mortal Instruments serial, Welcome to Shadowhunter Academy, is currently free to read on Simon and Schuster’s Teen website, PulseIt. As with the Bane Chronicles, the Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy series is being released in 10 e-book parts, and will no doubt be consolidated in one volume once they have all been published.

Back cover blurb: After living as a Mundane and a Vampire, Simon never thought he would become a Shadowhunter, but today he begins his training at Shadowhunter Academy.

This standalone e-only short story follows the adventures of Simon Lewis, star of the #1 New York Times bestselling series The Mortal Instruments, as he trains to become a Shadowhunter. Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy features characters from Cassandra Clare’s Mortal Instruments, Infernal Devices, and the upcoming Dark Artifices and Last Hours series.

Read the story for free on PulseIt HERE. The story will be available free until May 7 (US time).

Amazon

Stacking the Shelves #7

Hosted by Tynga’s Reviews

Welcome back to Stacking the Shelves, a regular meme hosted by Tynga at Tynga’s Reviews. Stacking The Shelves is all about sharing the latest books you have added to your shelves, physical or virtual.  This means you can include books you buy in store or online, books you borrow from friends or the library, review books, gifts, and of course e-books! Here is my haul from this week.

Approved Netgalley requests

Netgalley approved a few more of my requests this week, about which I am very excited. I received Rogue by Julie Kagawa, Broken Juliet by Leisa Rayven, and Inherit the Stars by Tessa Elwood, the latter of which isn’t published until December and doesn’t even have a cover yet.

Purchased from Amazon

Amazon sent me my pre-order of Overruled by Emma Chase, and from Audible I purchased Ten Things I Love About You by Julia Quinn. I’m a big fan of both these authors.

Purchased from Audible

iBooks had Holly Smale‘s Geek Girl for free this week, so I grabbed that one as well. Can’t go past a freebie!

Freebie from iBooks

Not bad. Keep an eye out for my reviews of these in coming weeks. So what new books did you pick up this week? Let me know in the comments.

Stacking the Shelves #5

Hosted by Tynga’s Reviews

Welcome back to Stacking the Shelves, a regular meme hosted by Tynga at Tynga’s Reviews. Stacking The Shelves is all about sharing the latest books you have added to your shelves, physical or virtual.  This means you can include books you buy in store or online, books you borrow from friends or the library, review books, gifts, and of course e-books! Here is my haul from this week.

Purchased from Audible

Audible had a half-price sale on my entire wishlist, so of course I couldn’t let that pass. I purchased Endless Knight by Kresley Cole, Off the Grid by Faith Hunter, and pre-ordered One Night With You by Marie Force.

Approved from Netgalley

Netgalley approved my request for The One In My Heart, a new contemporary romance by Sherry Thomas.

Purchased from iBooks

While waiting to see if I’d won a competition for Catherine Robertson‘s new book, The Hiding Places – I think I was unsuccessful – I downloaded her free novella, May Day, from New Zealand iBooks. I also received my pre-order of Story of Son, by J.R. Ward.

Purchased from Amazon

My only other purchase this week was from Amazon, and was The Shadows by J.R. Ward.  I waited a couple of weeks for the price to come down before I bought this, purely because I’m not sure I’m going to like it once I start reading, based on all my friends’ reviews, and it would annoy me more if I had paid top dollar for it! The price had dropped by a third since its release day, so I think it was worth waiting.

Keep an eye out for my reviews of these in coming weeks. So what new books did you pick up this week? Let me know in the comments.

Stacking the Shelves #2

Hosted by Tynga’s Reviews

Welcome back to Stacking the Shelves, a regular meme hosted by Tynga at Tynga’s Reviews. Stacking The Shelves is all about sharing the latest books you have added to your shelves, physical or virtual.  This means you can include books you buy in store or online, books you borrow from friends or the library, review books, gifts, and of course e-books! Here is my haul from this week – oooh, and I can’t wait to get started on some of them!

Netgalley e-ARC requests

As I mentioned last week, I have just joined Netgalley, and this week I was granted access to a surprising number of my requests. I’m clearly going to have to pace myself! So far I have already read Sea of Stars (Kricket, book 2) by Amy A. Bartol and the sneak peek of Saint Anything by Sarah Dessen and absolutely loved them. You can read my reviews here and here. Also in my Netgalley haul were Lone Star by Paullina Simons, In the Shadow of Winter by Lorna Gray, The Confectioner’s Tale by Laura Madeleine, The Blondes by Emily Schultz, 1,000 Foods To Eat Before You Die by Mimi Sheraton, and Techbitch by Lucy Sykes and Jo Piazza. Such pretty covers, don’t you think?

Bought by me this week

New Zealand iBooks had a promotion this week on New Adult series, with the first in several series free. I can’t resist a freebie, and managed to pick up I Want It That Way by Ann Aguirre, After by Anna Todd, All Lined Up by Cora Carmack, and White Hot Kiss by Jennifer L. Armentrout. There was also a sale at Audible, through which I managed to pick up Snow Falling on Bluegrass by Molly Harper, and Red Rising by Pierce Brown.

Not bad for one week, eh? I’d better get reading! Keep an eye out for my reviews of these in coming weeks. So what new books did you pick up this week? Let me know in the comments.

Free Four: Tobias Tells the Story, by Veronica Roth

I feel like I’m the last person in the world to know about this, but when Divergent author Veronica Roth got 35,000 preorders for her sequel Insurgent, published last week, she promised fans a scene written from the point of view of our beloved Four, aka Tobias.

The scene – the one from Divergent where Four must throw knives at Tris’s head – is free HERE and it is totally worth reading. I love Four, and being in his head is just swoonworthy. My only complaint is that it isn’t long enough! Roth needs to do this again. And I really need to start reading Insurgent – it’s next on my TBR list 🙂

The Twisted Tale of Stormy Gale, by Christine Bell

Format: ebook, 25,900 words

Published: April 25, 2011 (first published March 16, 2011)

Publisher: Carina Press

Back cover blurb:

I’m a time pirate—born in 1810, now a 21st-century woman. I travel through time trying to right wrongs without disrupting the fragile balance between what is and what can never be.That’s why it’s vital that I go to 1836 and find the man who conned my brother out of his Time Travel Mechanism as quickly as possible. If the technology falls into the wrong hands, it could change the world as we know it. The notorious Duke of Leister definitely qualifies as the wrong hands. An amateur scientist of the slightly mad variety, he’s bound to figure out how to use the TTM sooner rather than later.

I knew this wouldn’t be easy. But I wasn’t counting on him being as sexy as hell. Or winding up chained to his bed…

 

My review:

This novella was a quick read, free from Carina Press during their promotional week last month. I hadn’t read any steampunk before, and the idea of time pirates was an interesting one.

Dorothy “Stormy” Gale and her brother, Bacon – note to self: never let kids pick their own names – travel back from 2010 to the early 1800s to retrieve Bacon’s time travelling machine which he has lost in a game of cards. Little do the pair know the man who won it off him is someone from their past, someone Stormy wants to be part of her future, too.

The adventure is fun and the romance very sexy, but the bits I enjoyed the most were the out-of-time references – Stormy’s 21st century lingerie confounding her beau, her trying to teach him to moonwalk, etc – and Stormy’s wonderfully colourful language. The story also had a lovely message about helping the less fortunate, and I was glad to see the time pirates kept up their looting so they could help abandoned kids. A fun, light read.

My rating: 3/5

Caressed by Moonlight, by Amanda J. Greene

Format: Kindle Edition, 272 pages

Published: November 29, 2010

Publisher: Amazon Digital Services

Back cover blurb:

Dorian Vlakhos is no ordinary aristocrat. He is a vampire king, who will do anything to save his clan from complete annihilation, before an ancient curse can claim his immortal life.

Penniless and orphaned, Victoria Kingston has nothing to bring to a marriage, yet she must shackle an unsuspecting gentleman into marriage by the end of the month or forfeit her rights as guardian of her younger sister. With the help of her dearest friend, Victoria begins her hunt, and vows to stay far away from the dark, mysterious, Prince Vlakhos.

After meeting the beautifully innocent Miss Kingston, Dorian had to have her. He would do absolutely anything to make Victoria his. One sweet stolen kiss would bring them together while a force, more powerful than any vampire would bind them for all eternity. But treachery, war, and death rule Dorian’s dark world and Victoria would be fortunate to survive.

My review:

This was a freebie from the author’s website, which I found via the Goodreads giveaways group. Bearing in mind it cost nothing, and the cover art was quite amateurish, I wasn’t expecting much. However, this book was really surprisingly good! Set in the early 1800s, it tells the story of two orphaned sisters who are given an ultimatum by their horrid guardian aunt: the eldest, Victoria, must find a husband within a month or she will never see her baby sister again.

Luckily, Victoria and her friend are invited to all the society balls, where she meets dullard after dullard until she falls under the spell of Prince Dorian, who is not all he appears. He’s a vampire, in London to act as bait for the enemies who hunt his clan in eastern Europe. Of course, they fall in love, although neither would admit their depth of feeling. What follows includes fights, witchcraft, a sea journey and some hot smexing.

The only downside was that the story was full of typos, my personal bugbear. Some were unintentionally hilarious: someone fell into a “beep sleep”; and my personal fave, “Are you calling me a lair?”

Nevertheless, I really enjoyed the story. A lovely cross between a period bodice-ripper and a paranormal romance.

My rating: 4/5

The Warlord Wants Forever, by Kresley Cole

Format: Free PDF ebook, 113 pages

Published: 2006

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Back cover blurb:

Nikolai Wroth, once a ruthless human warlord in the 1700s and now a general in the rebel vampire army, needs to find his Bride, the one woman who can render him truly alive. As a turned human, he doesn’t enjoy a heartbeat or breaths and is consequently weaker than fully blooded vampires. He wants his Bride for the power she will bring him and can hardly believe it when his heart beats for Myst the Coveted, a mad, fey, mythological creature.

Myst is known throughout the world as the most beautiful Valkyrie, part chillingly fierce warrior, part beguiling seductress who can “make you want her even as she’s killing you.” She has devoted her life to protecting an ancient, powerful jewel and to fighting the vampires, and she now sees a way to torment one—for with Wroth’s heartbeat comes consuming sexual desire that can only be slaked by her.

She eludes him for five years, but he has finally chased her to ground and stolen the jewel which commands her, giving him absolute power over her. While he possesses it, he can make her do anything, and he plans to in order for her to experience first hand the agonizing, unending lust she’d purposely subjected him to for half a decade. Yet when Wroth realizes he wants more from her and frees her, will she come back to him?

The first in Cole’s Immortals After Dark series was originally published as one of three novellas in “Playing Easy to Get”. It was also available on its own as a special promotional ebook from Simon & Schuster.

My review:

This little novella was incredibly hot! My Kindle keeps recommending Kresley Cole to me, but I wasn’t sure if I wanted to read about Valkyries – I had a picture in my head of husky girls with horned helmets, lol! – but it turns out they are hot, kick-ass modern women who have just been around a very long time and know a few tricks 😉

The cover made me think this story was set much further back in time, to the era when vampire Nikolai was first a warrior, so I kept being surprised every time something modern, like the Pussycat Dolls or Agent Provocateur lingerie, was mentioned. Of course, Nikolai still had some of those old-fashioned attitudes, but that just added to the sexual tension. Rawr.

The next (full-sized) book in the series apparently introduces werewolves, which aren’t usually my cup of tea, but having been introduced to this world I am now quite interested in how the sisters will all pair up. I’m particularly intrigued about who Nikolai’s brother Murdoch might have blooded, but I think that story is well down in the series.

The free pdf, which also includes excerpts from her other novels in the series, is available HERE. I really recommend it. Did I mention it was hot??

My rating: 4/5