In My Mailbox (8)

This is an event hosted by The Story Siren. Every Sunday she posts a video about books she has bought/gotten during the week. And she asks us to do the same (but it doesn't have to be a video).

It has been a while since I've joined In my mailbox. The reason is that I've been trying to save money. I buy too many books and since June I've been trying not to buy so many books. First of all I have a lot of books that I haven't read yet and the second reason is that I always feel guilty of spending too much money on books. So, I'm trying not to do that and buy some books every now and then instead of 3-4 books each week which I did before. It was too many! So now I don't buy books every week like I used to.

But this week I bought a book myself and I also was lucky enough to get one in the mail! Guess who got happy!

The book I bought myself was:

Blood Ties by Sam Hayes (Note: I have a different cover)

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(Goodreads)

Jodi Picoult meets Martina Cole in this shocking, gritty novel from a stunning new British voice A mother searches frantically for her missing baby. A few streets away, a teenager gives birth in her bedroom, frightened and alone. Thirteen years later, Robert Knight, a solicitor, wonders why his new wife is so cagey about her past, and so strangely protective of her thirteen-year-old daughter. Three separate lives, bound by one shocking secret. The past is about to catch up with the present...

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Random Thoughts

The Norwegian cover (which I couldn't find online) looked really cool and freaky and the synopsis just sounds exciting. I just wanted to have the book and hopefully I get to read it soon!

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Anna dressed in blood by Kendare Blake

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(Goodreads)

Cas Lowood has inherited an unusual vocation: He kills the dead.

So did his father before him, until he was gruesomely murdered by a ghost he sought to kill. Now, armed with his father's mysterious and deadly athame, Cas travels the country with his kitchen-witch mother and their spirit-sniffing cat. Together they follow legends and local lore, trying to keep up with the murderous dead—keeping pesky things like the future and friends at bay.

When they arrive in a new town in search of a ghost the locals call Anna Dressed in Blood, Cas doesn't expect anything outside of the ordinary: track, hunt, kill. What he finds instead is a girl entangled in curses and rage, a ghost like he's never faced before. She still wears the dress she wore on the day of her brutal murder in 1958: once white, now stained red and dripping with blood. Since her death, Anna has killed any and every person who has dared to step into the deserted Victorian she used to call home.

But she, for whatever reason, spares Cas's life. 

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Random Thoughts

I have had this book on my wishlist a while and Penelope from The Reading Fever offered to send me a copy which is very kind of her. Thank you once again. It arrived in my mail yesterday in good shape. The cover is full of life and I love the title. Sounds like a good book. And I love horror and thriller. Thanks again Penelope for this book. I'm very grateful!

In My Mailbox (7)

This is an event hosted by The Story Siren. Every Sunday she posts a video about books she has bought/gotten during the week. And she asks us to do the same (but it doesn't have to be a video).

I went to a bookstore and hoping to find the second book of the House of Night series. 'Cause I finished reading the first book not long ago and enjoyed it a lot. But the store I went which was the closest to the other stores I had to stop by as well, only had Burned and another one I don't remember the name of. They didn't have Betrayed which I was looking for. And they sadly didn't have many other fantasy series either. So that was a shame! But I ended up buying other books which I'm looking forward to read even though I haven't heard about them before.

Every last one by Anna Quindlen

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(Goodreads)

In this breathtaking and beautiful novel, the #1 New York Times bestselling author Anna Quindlen creates an unforgettable portrait of a mother, a father, a family, and the explosive, violent consequences of what seem like inconsequential actions.

Mary Beth Latham is first and foremost a mother, whose three teenaged children come first, before her career as a landscape gardener, or even her life as the wife of a doctor.  Caring for her family and preserving their everyday life is paramount.  And so, when one of her sons, Max, becomes depressed, Mary Beth becomes focused on him, and is blindsided by a shocking act of violence. What happens afterwards is a testament to the power of a woman’s love and determination, and to the invisible line of hope and healing that connects one human being with another. Ultimately, in the hands of Anna Quindlen’s mesmerizing prose, Every Last One is a novel about facing every last one of the the things we fear most, about finding ways to navigate a road we never intended to travel, to live a life we never dreamed we’d have to live but must be brave enough to try.

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Random Thoughts

The title sounds kind of like a horror but it's not. It's an ordinary novel and the text on the back of the book sounded very interesting about a mom who finds out that one of her children, Max is depressed.

Looking forward to read it and I really love the cover. It's beautiful and sad at the same time!

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A gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore

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(Goodreads)

Finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award Finalist for the Orange Prize for Fiction Chosen as a Best Book of the Year by The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, The Christian Science Monitor, Kansas City Star, Financial Times, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and Real Simple 

Twenty-year-old Tassie Keltjin, the daughter of a gentleman farmer, has come to a university town as a student. When she takes a job as a part-time nanny for a mysterious and glamorous family, she finds herself drawn deeper into their world and forever changed. Told through the eyes of this memorable narrator, A Gate at the Stairs is a piercing novel of race, class, love, and war in America.

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Random Thoughts

Mysterious cover and what was standing back of the book really got me curious. Books I've never heard of doesn't scare me so I can't wait to give it a try!

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The Killing Place by Tess Gerritsen

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(Goodreads)

Tess Gerritsen’s new book The Killing Place is markedly different from her usual fare, but sports all her usual narrative acumen. The well-established page-turning abilities that marked out such earlier Gerritsen novels as The Mephisto Club and The Bone Garden are fully in evidence here, and the characters remain as sharply defined as ever – welcome news for followers of Gerritsen’s much-loved series heroines, forensic anthropologist Maura Isles and detective Jane Rizzoli.

In Wyoming, the quaintly-named village of Kingdom Come is snowed in, and twelve identical houses are abandoned and in darkness. Cars, similarly, are abandoned. Where are all the human inhabitants? The snowstorm has marooned Maura Isles – and the private road that took her to the village has also led her into a frightening and disturbing puzzle. Subsequently, Jane Rizzoli arrives to find a car containing four bodies, all burnt to a crisp. Is one of the corpses Maura Isles?

Rizzoli and Isles often find themselves investigating gruesome and baffling murder mysteries – very much the case here, but with Isles missing from the investigative team. As the tension is screwed ever tighter, it’s clear that, as ever, Tess Gerritsen has the full measure of the crime genre at her fingertips. Both her heroines – women who have to fight to remain at the top of their professions – are capable, but it’s Jane Rizzoli who is, in The Killing Place , stretched to her limits. --Barry Forshaw

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Random Thoughts

After grabbing two novels (a genre I should read more of!) I thought I should also get some darker books, like a thriller or a horror (I have a weakness for those genres...) I ended up with a thriller with a promising plot!

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So, even though they didn't have Betrayed book 2 of House of Night which I was looking for, I wasn't disappointed. I always find books which sounds really exciting. I can't leave a bookstore without buying anything. That is so wrong:) They did have a lot of urban fantasy books though but they were mostly translated and I want to read them in English, so that's why I didn't bought anything from that genre and the fantasy genres they did have in English was old stuff like Twilight (which I don't like) and some series that I wasn't really interested in. But it doesn't hurt to read from other genres as well so I was happy with the books I got and I hope they are a good read!

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In My Mailbox (5) and (6)

 

This is an event hosted by The Story Siren. Every Sunday she posts a video about books she has bought/gotten during the week. And she asks us to do the same (but it doesn't have to be a video).

 I'm gonna do In my mailbox thing 2 in 1 since I didn't had the chance to do it last Sunday 'cause then I was reading for (or at least tried) to read for 2 finals which I had last Monday and Tuesday so I didn't have time to make a post about books that I got. But hey, anyway, I didn't get many books last week only one, 'cause I was busy with reading for finals but this week I got more when the nightmare was over. Like a little reward to myself ... I'm like a dog sometimes...when I think I've done a great job about something I need a little reward ... and that means books (and yeah sometimes candy too ...)

Anyway, books that I got last week was only one. A book that I got from a Norwegian bookblog friend of mine. She was nice to give it to me and I would like to thank her again. Thanks! You know who you are:) She was kind to give me this book.

Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl

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(Goodreads)

Lena Duchannes is unlike anyone the small Southern town of Gatlin has ever seen, and she's struggling to conceal her power, and a curse that has haunted her family for generations. But even within the overgrown gardens, murky swamps and crumbling graveyards of the forgotten South, a secret cannot stay hidden forever.
Ethan Wate, who has been counting the months until he can escape from Gatlin, is haunted by dreams of a beautiful girl he has never met. When Lena moves into the town's oldest and most infamous plantation, Ethan is inexplicably drawn to her and determined to uncover the connection between them.
In a town with no surprises, one secret could change everything.

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Random Thoughts

I hadn't heard so much about this book before she mention it. Just a little.But the description of the book really get me curious 'cause I want to find out what that secret is! I'm gonna read few more books that has been waiting like forever to be read first - but I can't wait to read this one. Sounds like it is a book for me! So, I hope I can hold myself to read it after other books that is in the waiting pile.

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And earlier this week after the last final, I just had to go to the bookstore and calm down. It's totally a place where I can relax no matter what the name of the bookstore is as long it has books there. And I ended up buying three books. I try to buy something from each genre and I've been good at doing that lately but this time I only ended up with urban fantasy/paranormal romance. I'm kind of new to this genres still so I try to read more and more of it. I've been sceptical to those genres a long time after reading the first book of The Twilight Saga which I thought was a piece of crap. Vampires with sparkling eyes ... please! But it doesn't hurt to explore more books from that genre 'cause I've been through books that hasn' been that bad ... luckily.

 So, the books I ended up with was ...

Marked by P.C. and Kristin Cast

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(Goodreads)

The House of Night series is set in a world very much like our own, except in 16-year-old Zoey Redbird's world, vampyres have always existed.  In this first book in the series, Zoey enters the House of Night, a school where, after having undergone the Change, she will train to become an adult vampyre--that is, if she makes it through the Change.  Not all of those who are chosen do.  It’s tough to begin a new life, away from her parents and friends, and on top of that, Zoey finds she is no average fledgling.  She has been Marked as special by the vampyre Goddess, Nyx.  But she is not the only fledgling at the House of Night with special powers.  When she discovers that the leader of the Dark Daughters, the school's most elite club, is misusing her Goddess-given gifts, Zoey must look deep within herself for the courage to embrace her destiny--with a little help from her new vampyre friends.

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Random Thoughts

I've heard very mixed feelings about this book which is the first one of (I don't know how many books) The House of Night series. It's been a long time I've read a vampire book. I prefer classic, old vampire - style books better than the modern ones but why not just give it a try? So I'm excited to try this series.

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Evermore by Alyson Nöel

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(Goodreads)

Since a horrible accident claimed the lives of her family, sixteen-year-old Ever can see auras, hear people’s thoughts, and know a person’s life story by touch.   Going out of her way to shield herself from human contact to suppress her abilities has branded her as a freak at her new high school—but everything changes when she meets Damen Auguste…

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Random Thoughts

The first book of the The Immortals series. I've heard mixed feelings about this one too and it doesn't sound very original either - but I always get curious about series people are talking about. I want to check out if a book/series are good or bad myself. I'll let you know when I have read it,

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 Die for me by Amy Plum

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(Goodreads)

When Kate Mercier's parents die in a tragic car accident, she leaves her life--and memories--behind to live with her grandparents in Paris. For Kate, the only way to survive her pain is escaping into the world of books and Parisian art. Until she meets Vincent.

Mysterious, charming, and devastatingly handsome, Vincent threatens to melt the ice around Kate's guarded heart with just his smile. As she begins to fall in love with Vincent, Kate discovers that he's a revenant--an undead being whose fate forces him to sacrifice himself over and over again to save the lives of others. Vincent and those like him are bound in a centuries-old war against a group of evil revenants who exist only to murder and betray. Kate soon realizes that if she follows her heart, she may never be safe again.

In this incandescent debut, newcomer Amy Plum has created a powerful paranormal mythology with immortal revenants. The Paris setting comes enchantingly alive as a relentless struggle between good and evil takes place in its streets. Rich with romance, atmosphere, and thrills, Die for Me will leave readers breathlessly awaiting its sequel

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Random Thoughts

I don't know so much about this book but heard just good stuff about it on other blogs. Seems interesting and the cover is just breathtaking! It's gorgeous so I just had to have it!

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So, these are the books I got the last two weeks and I hope the list doesn't look bad ...

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In My Mailbox (3)

This is an event hosted by The Story Siren. Every Sunday she posts a video about books she has bought/gotten during the week. And she asks us to do the same (but it doesn't have to be a video).

If I stay by Gayle Forman

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(amazon)

Starred Review. The last normal moment that Mia, a talented cellist, can remember is being in the car with her family. Then she is standing outside her body beside their mangled Buick and her parents’ corpses, watching herself and her little brother being tended by paramedics. As she ponders her state (Am I dead? I actually have to ask myself this), Mia is whisked away to a hospital, where, her body in a coma, she reflects on the past and tries to decide whether to fight to live. Via Mia’s thoughts and flashbacks, Forman (Sisters in Sanity) expertly explores the teenager’s life, her passion for classical music and her strong relationships with her family, friends and boyfriend, Adam. Mia’s singular perspective (which will recall Alice Sebold’s adult novel, The Lovely Bones) also allows for powerful portraits of her friends and family as they cope: Please don’t die. If you die, there’s going to be one of those cheesy Princess Diana memorials at school, prays Mia’s friend Kim. I know you’d hate that kind of thing. Intensely moving, the novel will force readers to take stock of their lives and the people and things that make them worth living.

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Random thoughts

To be honest, I've never heard about the author or the book. But the cover really caught my eye and the synopsis didn't sound so bad either. I have a bad feeling that this won't be my type of a book 'cause first of all I'm afraid that this is sort of like chick lit (not really, sure). And that is a genre I'm not a really fan of. But I  have promised myself to read books that I'm not so used to. I'm not really a fan of books that you are suppose to cry to. I've never in my life cried to a book no matter how gripping it is to read. I'm not afraid of crying. That's not a problem. But I just hope this is not a typical chick lit book. (Hard to explain what I mean...) But the synopsis sounded interesting, and I've been wishing to read more novels so I thought, why not? I'm gonna give it a try the upcoming summer.

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Fallen by Lauren Kate

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(amazon)

Luce must spend her senior year at reform school after her boyfriend dies in a mysterious fire. She suspects that the dark shadows that have tormented her all her life had something to do with it. When she meets supernaturally gorgeous Daniel, she feels a familiar longing, making her believe they have met before. Although Cam is clearly interested in her, Luce only wants Daniel, who runs both hot and cold. He tries to keep Luce at a distance, telling her that the truth would kill her as it has many times before. The first chapter is gripping and foreshadows the supernatural elements to come. The plot revolves around lovers who find one another, only to lose one another over and over again in a story that spans centuries. Instead of vampires, though, these are fallen angels. Many elements are not resolved, such as the cause of the fire and why angels are at this school. Still, fans of supernatural romance will be lining up for this book despite its flaws, and begging for a sequel

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Random thoughts

Another beautiful cover. It took me a long time to explore more urban fantasy series after reading the first book of Twilight (that was really bad ). I automatically thought all series is the same. But over the years I've been curious about what so big with this genre and have always wanted to try to read urban series. And after reading the amazing and thrilling Darke Academy (highly recommend that series). I wanted to explore and check out other series. Fallen has gotten very mixed reviews. Some like it and some didn't. I'm still very new to this genre and I got hypnotized of this beautiful and mysterious cover so I just had to get it and I wonder how I'm gonna like it. Looking forward to read it though.

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 Eating animals by Jonathan Safran Foer

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(amazon)

The latest from novelist Foer is a surprising but characteristically brilliant memoir-investigation, boasting an exhaustively-argued account of one man-child’s decade-long struggle with vegetarianism. On the eve of becoming a father, Foer takes all the arguments for and against vegetarianism a neurotic step beyond and, to decide how to feed his coming baby, investigates everything from the intelligence level of our most popular meat providers-cattle, pigs, and poultry-to the specious self-justifications (his own included) for eating some meat products and not others. Foer offers a lighthearted counterpoint to his investigation in doting portraits of his loving grandmother, and her meat-and-potatoes comfort food, leaving him to wrestle with the comparative weight of food’s socio-cultural significance and its economic-moral-political meaning. Without pulling any punches-factory farming is given the full expose treatment-Foer combines an array of facts, astutely-written anecdotes, and his furious, inward-spinning energy to make a personal, highly entertaining take on an increasingly visible (and book-selling) moral question; call it, perhaps, An Omnivore’s Dilemma.

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Random Thoughts

I love animals but I also love meat.So, this will be an interesting read but also I'm kind of nervous about the book 'cause I hate the thought that there are animals who gets bad treatment. I wish all kinds of animals was treated with respect but unfortunately not all of them don't get the respect they deserve. It's a really sad thought. This is a book that will make us think what we put in our mouths and what kind of treatment the animals from different slaughterhouse has gotten. Should we eat meat or not?

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That's my books this week. Have you read any of them, and if so, please let me know what you think. Thank you:)

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In My Mailbox (2)

 

This is an event hosted by The Story Siren. Every Sunday she posts a video about books she has bought/gotten during the week. And she asks us to do the same (but it doesn't have to be a video).

Empty Mailbox ... No books for me this week. I haven’t visited a single book store and it must be one of the first few weeks this year! I’ve been strong!:) But I wish someone suddenly sent me books in my mailbox and I wouldn’t have to go to the book store (even though I love book stores). Wish I had a secret friend who dumped a book or two in my mailbox every day. Wish that dream could come true!!! Oh, I can dream, can’t?:)

In My Mailbox (1)

This is an event hosted by The Story Siren. Every Sunday she posts a video about books she has bought/gotten during the week. This is the first time I'm trying the In my mailbox thing. I'm not gonna post video *lol* but I love her videos. She's fun:)

These are the books I've bought this week:

You're next - Gregg Hurwitz

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(amazon)

Mike Wingate, abandoned by his father at four and raised in foster care, is finally living the life he always dreamed of—he’s happily married with a precocious 8-year-old daughter, and his construction company is about to finish a “green” housing development that will secure a solid future for them all. But then something from his own past, a past he doesn’t even remember, comes back to visit terror upon him and his family.
Shady characters begin threatening Mike and, when he reports them, the police seem more interested in Mike’s murky past than in protecting him. Now, with Mike, his wife Annabel and daughter Kat suddenly under attack from all sides, Mike turns to Shep, a dangerous man—and Mike’s only true friend— from his childhood days in foster care. Together they will do whatever it takes to protect Mike’s family against the hidden men behind the terrifying warning, “You’re Next.”

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I've never heard about this author before but the cover looked really interesting and I love crime novels so, I'm very curious about it. I've never heard of  Gregg Hurwitz before but he is compared to Harlan Coben and Linwood Barclay. I've read many books of Coben (love most of his books!) and read one of Barclay. So, this one sounds interesting. 

 M is for magic - Neil Gaiman

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(goodreads)

Stories to delight, enchant, and surprise you.
Bestselling author and master storyteller Neil Gaiman here presents a breathtaking collection of tales that may chill or amuse readers—but always embrace the unexpected. Collection includes:
"The Case of the Four and Twenty Blackbirds," "Troll Bridge," "Don't Ask Jack," "How to Sell the Ponti Bridge," "October in the Chair," "Chivalry," "The Price," "How to Talk to Girls at Parties," "Sunbird," "The Witch's Headstone," "Instructions"

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I wish I had read more books of Neil Gaiman. I read Coraline. I liked the cat and the illustration but I found Coraline extremely annoying so, the book didn't fascinate me as much as I hoped for but enought to check out more of Gaiman books. I read The Graveyardbook last year and fell in love in it. The book had amazing illustration, fascinating characters and I liked the main character Nobody Owens a lot. And raised up by ghost. (Cool, huh?) In this book M is for Magic we meet Nobody Owens again in one of the stories. This is a collection of stories but Nobody is just in one of them. So, I'm excited for this book. And the cover is beautiful!

Across the universe - Beth Revis

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(goodreads)

A love out of time. A spaceship built of secrets and murder.  

Seventeen-year-old Amy joins her parents as frozen cargo aboard the vast spaceship Godspeed and expects to awaken on a new planet, three hundred years in the future. Never could she have known that her frozen slumber would come to an end fifty years too soon and that she would be thrust into the brave new world of a spaceship that lives by its own rules.
Amy quickly realizes that her awakening was no mere computer malfunction. Someone-one of the few thousand inhabitants of the spaceship-tried to kill her. And if Amy doesn't do something soon, her parents will be next.
Now Amy must race to unlock Godspeed's hidden secrets. But out of her list of murder suspects, there's only one who matters: Elder, the future leader of the ship and the love she could never have seen coming.

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I've read a lot about this book in many different bookblogs. When summer comes, and I have time to read even more I have planned to read a lot more fantasy and sci-fi. Those are genres I haven't read much of and in summer I can do something about it. I can't wait. The book sounds really good and I've also seen the booktrailer.


So, have you read any of these books and how much do you like them?



 

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