Book Blogger Hop

This meme is hosted by Billy at Ramblings of a Coffee Addict! 

This week's question is: When you enter an unfamiliar house or apartment for the first time, do you feel disappointed if you don't see any bookshelves, or books on the coffee table? (submitted by Maria @ A Night's Dream of Books)

MY ANSWER: Well...kinda. Lol. Makes me wonder why I thought I liked them in the first place! But I also realize not many people are readers like I'm a reader, so I don't begrudge them too much!

 

Random Thursday

Let's see what more we can learn about the secret innerworkings of Disney with Disney Facts Revealed: Answers to Fans' Curious Questions as answered by Dave Smith!

(image borrowed from Wikipedia)

Donald Duck is apparently the only character from Mickey and his friends who has a middle name. It's Fauntleroy.

(image borrowed from Disney Clip Art Galore)

Minnie's cat, Figaro, first appeared as her pet in First Aiders in 1944, four years after he appeared in Pinoccchio. He would continue to appear in cartoons with Minnie and Pluto a few more times and ending with Pluto's Sweater which aired in 1949.

(image borrowed from Disney Wiki)

Roger Rabbit appeared in three other short cartoons called Roller Coaster Rabbit, Tummy Trouble, and Trail Mix-up. He naturally starred in Who Framed Roger Rabbit as well. As to which came first, the book didn't say.

 

Waiting on Wednesday

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly blog post by Jill over at Breaking the Spine, that spotlights releases we're eagerly awaiting.

In this hotly anticipated sequel to the haunting #1 bestseller Stalking Jack the Ripper, bizarre murders are discovered in the castle of Prince Vlad the Impaler, otherwise known as Dracula. Could it be a copycat killer...or has the depraved prince been brought back to life?

Following the grief and horror of her discovery of Jack the Ripper's true identity, Audrey Rose Wadsworth has no choice but to flee London and its memories. Together with the arrogant yet charming Thomas Cresswell, she journeys to the dark heart of Romania, home to one of Europe's best schools of forensic medicine...and to another notorious killer, Vlad the Impaler, whose thirst for blood became legend.

But her life's dream is soon tainted by blood-soaked discoveries in the halls of the school's forbidding castle, and Audrey Rose is compelled to investigate the strangely familiar murders. What she finds brings all her terrifying fears to life once again.

SOOOOOO cannot wait to read this one! My attempts to obtain an ARC were futile, so I'm busying myself with review books until September 19th rolls around! I can't wait!! :D

TITLE: Hunting Prince Dracula

AUTHOR: Kerri Maniscalco

PUBLISHER: Little, Brown, & Company

GENRE: Paranormal YA

RELEASE DATE: September 19, 2017 

The battle for the Crown has begun, but which of the three sisters will prevail?

With the unforgettable events of the Quickening behind them and the Ascension Year underway, all bets are off. Katharine, once the weak and feeble sister, is stronger than ever before. Arsinoe, after discovering the truth about her powers, must figure out how to make her secret talent work in her favor without anyone finding out. And Mirabella, once thought to be the strongest sister of all and the certain Queen Crowned, faces attacks like never before—ones that put those around her in danger she can’t seem to prevent.

In this enthralling sequel to Kendare Blake’s New York Times bestselling Three Dark Crowns, Fennbirn’s deadliest queens must face the one thing standing in their way of the crown: each other.

Despite majorly struggling with the first book for some unknown reason, I am willing to give this one another try! Especially since we'll be in this world longer than two books!

TITLE: One Dark Throne

AUTHOR: Kendare Blake

PUBLISHER: Harper Teen

GENRE: Fantasy YA

RELEASE DATE: September 19, 2017 

Teaser & Top Ten Tuesdays

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly feature hosted by Purple Princess of The Purple Booker.

Here are the rules:

1. Grab your current read
2. Open to a page

3. Pick out 2 lines that are SPOILER FREE
4. Name the title, author, etc.

So excited to be back with the Weird Girls series! It's so fun! Taran is just a barrel of laughs in my opinion! She's got quite the attitude problem, but I can't help but relate to her sense of humor!

"The cell phone ring sounds through the leather fabric. But it's the familiar ringtone of Emme's phone to my right that has me turning left.

That's right, left.

I'm not stupid. When evil lures you one way, go the other." Kindle loc. 11%*

*Quote comes from the eARC, therefore it and its location are not final






TITLE: Of Flame and Fate
AUTHOR: Cecy Robson
PUBLISHER: Self
GENRE: Urban Fantasy
RELEASE DATE: September 26, 2017

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created at The Broke and the Bookish. This feature was created because we are particularly fond of lists here at The Broke and the Bookish. We'd love to share our lists with other bookish folks and would LOVE to see your top ten lists!

Each week we will post a new Top Ten list  that one of our bloggers here at The Broke and the Bookish will answer. Everyone is welcome to join. All we ask is that you link back to The Broke and the Bookish on your own Top Ten Tuesday post AND add your name to the Linky widget so that everyone can check out other bloggers lists! If you don't have a blog, just post your answers as a comment. Have fun with it! It's a fun way to get to know your fellow bloggers.

This week's topic is: Top Ten Books for Fans of Urban Fantasy (Old School)

*in no particular order

 10. THE HOLLOWS SERIES by Kim Harrison--one of my first "adult" series I ever read in Urban Fantasy! It was awesome! The paranormal peeps basically coexist with humans. Rachel is a witch who somehow always gets into trouble!

9. THE DARK DAYS SERIES by Jocelynn Drake--another good one! A vampire working with a vampire hunter trying to uncover bad guys. It's been awhile since I read it in its entirety so I'm sketchy on all the details but I know I LOVED it!

8. SIGN OF THE ZODIAC SERIES by Vicki Pettersson--here we have superheroes taking on signs of the Zodiac. There's good guys and there's bad guys and all kinds of action and secrets!

7. SABINA KANE SERIES by Jaye Wells--Sabina is part vampire, part mage. Vampires and mages are enemies...you could imagine what kind of life she lives! Lots of good action in this one!

6. WOMEN OF THE OTHERWORLD SERIES by Kelley Armstrong--a series where there's a lot of different kinds of paranormals! I love each and every one of them! Bitten is still likely my favorite though! 

5. ANNA STRONG CHRONICLES by Jeanne C. Stein--a teacher turned bounty hunter turned vampire. Anna's life was never what you would call easy. I really liked how this one lets us watch Anna grow into her new vampire state. I feel like that's rare these days!

4. SHIFTERS SERIES by Rachel Vincent--another really good one! Mystery, romance, and lots of action...this is a series that was just pure awesomeness!

3. KITTY NORVILLE SERIES by Carrie Vaughn--I still need to read the last two books of this series! But Kitty's a werewolf and she has her own radio show. Then she gets outed that she's a were and soon she has her own talk show! There's still plenty of paranormal drama with more paranormal bad buys plus a hunter soon sets his sights on her. 

2. RILEY JENSON SERIES by Keri Arthur--another one that's been years since I read it. Riley is half were, half vamp and she works as a sort of elite police officer for all the paranormals. Lots of action and romance in this series!!

1. CHICAGOLAND VAMPIRES SERIES by Chloe Neill--probably the newest one out of the bunch, but it did just come to its fitting end earlier this year. Merit is also a newly turned vampire and over the course of a year we watch her transform and adapt to her new life. Lots of excitement, action, tears, and other good things in this series and I am SO excited for the spinoff!

Discussion Challenge: When I Feared Romance

As I was wrapping up my last post I started remembering a time when I didn't like romance in my books. I had had some bad experiences with picking up a book I thought was light on romance and it ended up being overkill on it. It basically made me fear to ever pick up a book from the romance shelves ever again, because I pretty much thought that was what all the books would be like.

When I Feared Romance

I can't remember the book that I read specifically. But it was a vampire romance book, but I thought maybe there's not that much romance/sex in it. Well, I was wrong. There was a good guy and a bad guy. Both wanted to have sex with the heroine. I swear the bad guy told her he wanted to f*** at least three times on one page! Granted, I don't really remember how many times it was. But he went on and on about it! Then the heroine would rather have sex with the other guy because, obviously, he was the good guy! But she didn't know him any better than the bad guy.

Needless to say I was most displeased at the end of the book. I pretty much swore to never buy a book from the romance section again after that. I stuck to my other books that I was getting into, like the Weather Warderns series, The Hollows series, and The Southern Vampire Mystery series. Yes they had romance too, they had maybe 1 or 2 sex scenes, usually there would be 2 if it was Charlaine Harris's books! However, I was able to read through those easily enough because the sex was just something that happened. It wasn't really plot related, which I felt like it was in that other book.

Then I decided to give Maria V. Snyder's Poison Study a try, since Amazon recommended me Magic Study and not Poison Study (eyeroll). I found the book in the romance section and was a tad hesitant, but thought it's more fantasy related than anything. So I bought it anyway, and as we all know, I LOVED IT!

The next time I took a risk, I felt like it was a bigger one. It was for Stray by Rachel Vincent. We had a storyline that sounded really good, more mystery like and needing to hunt down bad guys. Some of my already favorite authors were quoted on the cover praising the book, so I thought okay, I will take the risk and buy it! And again, as we already know, I loved that one too! 

I guess since I was still a teenager when I crossed over to the "adult" books, since I found a severe lack of Paranormal YA titles back then (I call those the Dark Days), I was hoping I would find reads like the few Paranormal YA books that I did read. Romance was a mild theme if anything. Obviously there wasn't any sex in those books back then. I wanted a read that had action and a good storyline! One where the characters left the bedroom more often than not.

Again, these are the things I can remember from my teen mind back then. I still find that I prefer the romance not being the focus of the story, but I do like having romance in the books! Though I can say I feel more embarrassed when reading a sex scene in public no matter what book I'm reading! I feel like other people just KNOW what I'm reading in that moment! Lol!

So I'll ask you guys again, how do you feel about romance in your books? Are you romance readers or more the type that doesn't want the straight up romance story? When did you realize you did or didn't like romance in your reads? I struggle to phrase my question right since my rambling kind of went all over the place! LOL!

It's Monday! What are You Reading?

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? is hosted by Sheila at Book Journey. It's a fun meme where we gather to share what we've read last week and our reading plans for this week.

Last Week I Read:

 

Rituals by Kelley Armstrong (Early Copy) (5 stars)

Seduced by Fire by Erin Kellison (ARC) (3.75 stars)

Midnight Crossroad by Charlaine Harris (3 stars)

 

 

Review That Was Posted:

 

Ferocious by Paula Stokes (ARC) (4.5 stars)

 

 

Currently Reading:

 

Of Flame and Fate by Cecy Robson (ARC)

 

 

What I Plan to Read this Week:

 

Ashes Reborn by Keri Arthur (ARC)

 

 

Other Posts of Interest:

 

Teaser & Top Ten Tuesdays

Waiting on Wednesday

Random Thursday

Book Blogger Hop

My Favorite Kind of Romance

Stacking the Shelves

Stacking the Shelves

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


This was another pretty awesome week! I ordered a keeper copy from my ARC stash, some Australian covers of a beloved author, a review book, and a free read for preordering another book! All in all, a GREAT week!

Here's what I bought:

Reunited by Colleen Houck--keeper copy

Shadow Study by Maria V. Snyder--Australian copy! Yes, I treated myself to quite an expense to order the gorgeous Australian covers for some of Maria's books! These were the first to arrive and I'm hoping the next batch isn't too far behind either! ;D

Night Study by Maria V. Snyder--Australian copy!

Scooby Apocalypse #16 by J.M. DeMatteis & Keith Giffen, Ill. by Carlos D'Anda, Howard Porter, Dale Eaglesham, Andy Owens, & Rom Wagner

For review from Caffeinated Services, I received:

Of Flame and Fate by Cecy Robson (ARC)

Then it looks like Goodreads took it down already, but I did receive the amazing short story Meeting Thomas Cresswell--which I still need to read! I received this for preordering Hunting Prince Dracula!

And that was my haul this week! What did you get?

 

Discussion Challenge: My Favorite Kind of Romance

So it's been awhile since I did a discussion post and I thought I'd better get on it! Especially since I'm feeling lazy and not quite up to bookstagramming like I should! LOL! Needing inspiration, I turned to the helpful list and I saw one that I thought I would talk about!

My Favorite Kind of Romance!

It's not so much that I look for something specific really. I'm not a fan of the insta-romance, but I'll admit that it can be done well sometimes. As for examples I'm drawing a blank. Again, I'm feeling kind of meh. Not sick, but wanting to be lazy and not do the things I should be doing! Lol! 

But basically my favorite romance are the slow-burn ones. I'd say it extends to hate-to-romance as well. I like it when it takes awhile for the romance to happen. I'm kind of the believer in that love takes times. Don't get me wrong, I'm still a Disney girl at heart too and I'm totally fine with all those moments the prince sees the princess and falls in love! Or vice versa! It's Disney, it's expected to happen that way! Which is why I got a kick out of Enchanted a few years back when it released! God was it 10 years already?!

But anyway, back to the topic on hand! I like when the romance takes awhile! Sure there can be those moments where we think something might happen. A kiss that's just a kiss, but could mean something more to one of the parties. Those little teases are fun. Plus I like to feel like in all that time our characters are getting to know one another, even if they tend to pick on one another more so than being nice!

How about you guys? What kinds of romance do you like in your books? Or do you prefer no romance in books?

Book Blogger Hop

This meme is hosted by Billy at Ramblings of a Coffee Addict! 

 

 

This week's question is: Do you participate in readathons and/or reading challenges? (submitted by Kristin @ Lukten av Trykksverte)

 

 

 

MY ANSWER: Not so much readathons, but I sign up for challenges every year. Usually just ones I know I can complete from what I normally read. Right now I'm participating in the Goodreads Challenge, I pledged 100 books and I'm almost there!, a New Release Challenge, Series Ender Challenge, a Discussion Post Challenge, and then a TBR Challenge, though I didn't like how that one was set up, so I'll likely try finding another one for next year. One that basically has you set a number of TBR books for the year rather than per month. For that one I basically just pledged 1 per month. I surpassed 12 already, obviously, but I haven't read any TBR books yet for August, but thankfully I have time!

Review--Midnight Crossroad by Charlaine Harris

The #1 New York Times bestselling author who created Sookie Stackhouse and her world of Bon Temps, Louisiana, “is back with a vengeance” (Tangled Web) with this first book in an all-new trilogy—and inviting readers to an even darker place on the map...  
Welcome to Midnight, Texas, a town with many boarded-up windows and few full-time inhabitants, located at the crossing of Witch Light Road and Davy Road. It’s a pretty standard dried-up western town.

There’s a pawnshop (someone lives in the basement and is seen only at night). There’s a diner (people who are just passing through tend not to linger). And there’s new resident Manfred Bernardo, who thinks he’s found the perfect place to work in private (and who has secrets of his own).

Midnight Crossroad is the first book in Charlaine Harris’s new series, Midnight, Texas. This was quite an intriguing read. I was expecting something along the lines of the Southern Vampire Mystery series (as I will always refer to it as that!) and in some ways it was, but wasn’t. We have mystery, murder even, we have eerie things that aren’t quite normal, but we’ve only just brushed the surface of this tiny little town in the middle of nowhere. I can’t wait to see what other secrets will unfold!

I expected this would be a story where we follow the newcomer, Manfred, around as he settles into his new home (I admit, I watched the pilot episode of the show first, then cut myself off so I could at least read this book). Manfred is a psychic, he even knows Harper which I found this one-liner positively delightful! He’s the real deal in some sense, but his multiple business accounts aren’t quite on the up and up. His powers don’t really work in the way that business over the internet can be totally legit. But as far as we know, he’s never had a customer come gunning for him.

Things are relatively quiet in Midnight, until the day that they have a town picnic and discover the body of a young woman, who just happens to be the girlfriend of Manfred’s renter, Bobo. And soon there’s an investigation going on where Bobo is the prime suspect.

There are other characters in this story as well, such as the witch who lives across from Manfred, Fiji. She harbors a secret crush over Bobo, oh and she’s a witch too. The real deal. As everyone seems to be in Midnight. It’s hard to say who else is what in this town as we only learn of one other town member’s identity. Let’s just say, Midnight is a place I would totally love to live in! Lol!

I was a little surprised by the mystery itself. It felt like it was very much in the background of things, yet it’s still present on everyone’s minds. They aren’t detectives, so no one is really ought to solve it. Especially since Aubrey wasn’t very well liked either. Though it seems Aubrey had secrets of her own.

Though the mystery itself wasn’t so great, there was still an air of mystery to the town itself and its residents! I found them to be very fascinating and I can’t wait to continue this series and hope to learn more! Plus I also can’t wait to binge watch the last two episodes of the show, though I am immediately seeing some differences from the pilot alone! Naturally.

I think it’s safe to say that Midnight Crossroad was a mysterious kind of read, though not in the true way of mysteries. There was quite a lot of secrets in this book. Every town member had one. Some far darker than others. We do discover the big whodunit and I can honestly say I was shocked! It was one of those reveals that I felt like came out of left field and you’re left wondering, how did we come to this? I didn’t really pick up on any clues or hints. Though I suppose that’s the point, sometimes. I could’ve just missed it entirely I suppose!

Despite that, I did like the book. It was a pretty solid read and it kept me engaged! It’s a no brainer that I will be returning to Midnight at some point! Hopefully not too far along either!


Overall Rating 3/5 stars

Random Thursday

Time to venture back to more of the intriguing questions answered from Disney Facts Revealed: Answers to Fans' Curious Questions as answered by Dave Smith!

(image borrowed from Disney Wiki)

Apparently some Disney short cartoons were aired with other non-Disney films. Short cartoons were apparently normal features before movies.

(image borrowed from Disney Wiki)

Huey, Dewey, and Louie's mother was named Dumbella Duck, nice huh? But apparently her husband was never mentioned either. Another fact, Dumbella was never actually made into a cartoon. We only hear from her via postcard when Donald was looking after his nephews.

(image borrowed from Wikipedia)

So Donald Duck never wore pants. Yet, he's been seen wrapping a towel around his waist after showering. The reason? Nothing major. Things like to fit with the story, he's getting out of the shower, perhaps modesty, maybe embarrassment? There's really no telling why!

(image borrowed from Disney Wiki)

The radio announcer who basically tells of the gorilla on the loose signed off by saying, "That is all. Breckinridge." One fan wanted to know where the name came from. The answer, writers selected the name because it sounded funny! They apologize to anyone who has said name, of course. But apparently it was a takeoff from another radio show called, Calling All Cars, where the radio announcer would sign off by saying, "That is all. Rosenquist."