The third book that was sent to me was 'Stars and Other Monsters' by Phronk. I don't really know anything about this book, apart from the fact that it's based on a paparazzo who doesn't exactly get appreciated for his work, but then he discovers vampires. I like vampires, but sometimes I think that they're made too romanticised, so hopefully this will be a more violent vampire type of novel.
The fourth and final pdf that I was sent for review was 'Teeth' by Chele Cooke. I found this novel off of the other recommendations on 'Stars and Other Monsters', so it's not surprising that it's a vampire book, but I requested a copy from Chele and thankfully she sent me one through! 'Teeth' isn't actually published until January the 8th, so I'm lucky to have gotten this as early as I did, but unfortunately I have to finish 'Savage Run' and read 'Stars and Other Monsters' before I can get on to this novel, so it will likely have already been released when I get to it. It tells the story of Thomas, a medical intern who is turned into a vampire and has to be trained by another vampire called Spencer. I'm not quite sure what goes on in this novel, but I'm always up for vamp fiction, even though I will probably be quite critical about it when the time comes.
I'd just like to say another big thank you to all of the authors for sending me copies of their books, and I am eternally grateful!
The first three books I received for Christmas were all in my Christmas stocking, so I thought I'd show them all together. The first book, 'Where's Santa?' impresses me way more than it should, because you need to hunt for Santa and for ten of his elves in every scene, and it's a lot more difficult than it should be, so this is going to give me hours of fun. The second book, 'Emma' by Jane Austen, I actually already own, but this is the Vintage red spine version, so hopefully that will persuade me to finish the book. I started reading 'Emma' two years ago, and I got through the first two parts before I stopped reading it because the character really annoyed me, but I'm going to finish it eventually, even though it's looking like I'm going to need to re-read the start to remember what's going on. The third and final book I got in my stocking was 'The Walking Dead: The Fall of the Governor Part Two' by Robert Kirkman and Jay Bonansinga, which I have been meaning to get around to buying for a good couple of years. I read the first of the 'The Walking Dead' novels a couple of years ago, but I decided to wait for the third book to come out before I continued on with the series, so instead of getting the third book I just bought the first part of it, but now I can finally finish the series!
Another present I got for Christmas was 'Scaredy Cat' by Mark Billingham. I have all of Mark Billingham's novels already, but this is the first one that I've gotten... SIGNED!
SEE! Look how beautiful this is. <3
The second book I got for Christmas was 'Flesh and Blood' by Patricia Cornwell, the twenty second book in the Kay Scarpetta series. I've only read the first two, but these are the kind of books that when I start them I finish them within a day, so I can't wait to get around to this one.
The third book I got from my mum for Christmas was 'Invisibility' by Andrea Cremer and David Levithan. If you've been reading my blog for a while you will have seen
my review of 'Invisibility' and know that I wasn't one hundred percent in love with it, but I still really enjoyed it, and because of how much I love David Levithan I would have bought a copy to keep eventually anyway (because I borrowed the copy I read from the library), but this one is SIGNED.
Look, Andrea wrote a really cool little message, it's so awesome! My mother is the best person ever for buying Christmas gifts. Furthermore, it's a hardback book and it has the nice deckled edges, so it might be one of the best gifts I've ever received.
The last book I got for Christmas from my mummy was 'The World of Ice and Fire: The Untold History of Westeros and The Game Of Thrones', which is a massive hardback book that contains maps and descriptions of all of the places and people in Game of Thrones. I haven't read any of the books yet, because I think they're so massive I really need to be in the mood to commit to reading any of them, but I do really like the TV show, and I think I'll dip in and out of this as I get more withdrawal symptoms on the lead up to Season Five premiering in April.
The last book I was given for Christmas was from my wonderful boyfriend, Tom, and he bought me 'Working Stiff' by Rachel Caine, the first book in the Revivalist trilogy. The Revivalist trilogy is my favourite trilogy of all time, and I have never been able to find a copy of 'Working Stiff' to buy, so the fact that he bought it for me - especially a signed copy - meant so so much!
See, look how beautiful this is. I know a lot of people know Rachel Caine for writing The Morganville Vampires series, but I think the Revivalist trilogy is so much better and I can't recommend it enough, because not enough people have read it, or even heard of it.
The next four books were technically Christmas presents, because my grandad gave me the money to treat myself to some books, but I went out and chose them all. I also bought a signed copy of 'Us' by David Nicholls, but it hasn't been delivered yet, so I'll have to put that in my January book haul.
The first book I chose to buy for myself was 'The Bane Chronicles' by Cassandra Clare, Sarah Rees Brennan and Maureen Johnson. I own all of The Mortal Instruments series, and I own all of The Infernal Devices trilogy, so it felt right to buy a hard copy of 'The Bane Chronicles' even though I already own the first four short stories as eBooks. If you haven't heard of this book, it's a collection of a bunch of short stories based on Magnus Bane, the flamboyant warlock from The Mortal Instruments, telling his history, because he's been alive for hundreds of years.
The second book I bought for myself was the hardback version of 'Let It Snow', featuring three short stories, one by Lauren Myracle, one by Maureen Johnson and one by John Green. Because it's hardback, it's a silver book with the snowflakes and the title in silver foil, hence the awkward camera angle where I was attempting to show how beautiful it was. This is a very hard book to photograph. This is the last John Green book I needed to buy, after getting 'Will Grayson, Will Grayson' earlier in the month, and I think I'm going to fly through these three stories.
The third book I decided to buy for myself was 'The Infinite Sea' by Rick Yancey.
I reviewed 'The 5th Wave' nearly two months ago, and I've been dying to buy the sequel ever since, so I couldn't resist getting it. If you haven't heard of 'The 5th Wave', it's the first book in a new YA dystopian trilogy, where aliens have invaded earth and killed nearly all of the humans in four waves, before moving on to the fifth attack on them. The third book isn't out until Autumn, but I'm going to be buying it the day it comes out, so I'm conflicted on whether to read 'The Infinite Sea' now, or later on in the year.
The fourth and final book I bought for myself was 'Raging Star', the third book in the Dustlands trilogy by Moira Young. I bought 'Blood Red Road' and 'Rebel Heart' a couple of years ago in a charity shop, so when I was browsing Waterstones and found the third book signed, I couldn't resist getting it.
However, as well as being signed it came with this really beautiful postcard, so I felt especially excited about buying it.
If any of my readers are in the Swindon area and you enjoy Moira Young, they have lots of copies of 'Rebel Heart' and 'Raging Star' still in there, signed, and they are buy one get one half price, so I'd definitely suggest going along and grabbing one while they're still in stock.
One of my resolutions for the New Year is to only buy one new physical book for every ten books I read (because I'm not going to stop buying Kindle books when they're on offer), so don't expect too much from my book hauls over the next couple of months. However, I'll probably fail this resolution when I go to Weymouth on holiday in March, so keep an eye out for my book hauls, and happy New Year to all of my readers!