JULY BOOKHAUL

A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas | Red Rising by Pierce Brown | Made You Up by Frncesca Zappia

Hello,

I've become very  busy once again. I hate it when this happens. Not only can I not blog regularly but I also can't read so much. School works get piled up easily and I get tired so quickly. It's either I sleep so early because of fatigue or not sleep at all because of too much things to do. But yeah, I'm still here and hoping that the next month will be better for me.

I didn't bought so much books this month. So proud of myself! :D I bought Made You Up and A Court of Thorns and Roses at the end of June but wasn't able to share it on my June Book Haul. So I decided to add them here. I also bought an extra copy of Red Rising... 

{ FOR REVIEW }

The Silent Treatment by Melanie Surani | This is Where It Ends by Marieke Nijkamp | The Girl's Guide to the Apocalypse by Daphne Lambe | Cherry Blossom Baseball by Jennifer Maruno

[COVER REVEAL] On Thin Icing

Series: A Bakeshop Mystery #3

Author: Ellie Alexander

Genre: adult, mystery, cozy mystery,

Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Expected Publication: December 29, 2015

Purchase: Amazon | B&N | Powells

Welcome to Torte-a small-town family bakeshop where the treats are killer good.

It's the dead of winter in the sleepy town of Ashland, which means no tourists-and fewer customers-for Jules Capshaw and her bakery. But when she's asked to cater an off-season retreat for the directors of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, business starts heating up...until Jules finds a dead body in the freezer.

"An intriguing new series."-Reader to Reader

Someone at the retreat has apparently iced the bartender, a well-known flirt with a legendary temper-that is, before a killer beat him to the punch. Then, from out of nowhere, Jules's own ex-husband shows up at the shop-and soon becomes a suspect. With accusations piling up higher than the snow-and thicker than a chocolate mousse cake-Jules has to think outside the (recipe) box to find the real culprit...and make sure he gets his just desserts.

"A delectable tale of murder and intrigue."-Portland Book Review on Meet Your Baker

[REVIEW] Descendants of the Rose

full tour schedule can be found at CBB Book Promotions

Series: Selby Jensen Paranormal Mystery #1
Author: Juliette Harper
Genre: mystery, paranormal
Published: May 6, 2015
Publisher: Skye House Publishing
Purchase: Amazon

Selby Jensen’s business card reads “Private Investigator,” but to say the least, that downplays her real occupation. Let’s hear it in her own words:  

“You want to know what I do for a living? I rip souls out. Cut heads off. Put silver bullets where silver bullets need putting. You think there aren't any monsters? . . . I have some disturbing news for you. You might want to sit down. Monsters walk among us. I'm looking for one in particular. In the meantime? I'm keeping the rest of them from eating people like you.”  

In this debut novel of her new paranormal mystery series, Juliette Harper, author of The Lockwood Legacy books and The Study Club Mysteries creates a cast of characters, most of whom have one thing in common; they don’t have a pulse. The dead are doing just fine by Selby, who is determined never to lose someone she loves again, but then a force of love more powerful than her grief changes that plan.  

Join Selby Jensen as she and her team track down a shadowy figure tied to a murder at a girls’ school. What none of them realize, however, is that in solving this case, they will enter a longer battle against a larger evil.

[BOOK BLITZ] For No Apparent Reason

Series: N/A
Author: S.K. Derban
Genre: mystery, romance, 
Publisher: TouchPoint Press
Published: October 10, 2013
Purchase: Amazon | B&N

A focused law student, romance has been absent from Madison’s life. She has successfully planned each phase of her life and resigned to the fact that there will be plenty of time for love after she passes the bar exam—that is, until the single act of seeking shelter from a spring downpour dramatically alters the course of her life. 

Madison is lured away from the security of law school into a world where she learns about the destructive nature of greed. Thrust in a maze of money laundering and murder, Madison experiences the value of true friendship and witnesses the healing power of love. 

[MINI REVIEWS] Everything You and I Could Have Been If We Weren't You and I + CRESS

Series: N/A
Author: Albert Espinosa
Genre: adult, science fiction, fantasy
Published: July 2, 2015
Publisher: Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial, GRIJALBO
Purchase: Amazon

Can you imagine a future where everyone has given up sleeping? 

From the creator of the television series Red Band Society and author of the international bestseller The Yellow World comes this uniquely special novel.

What if I could reveal your secrets with just a glance? And what if I could feel with your heart just by looking at you? And what if --in a single moment-- I could know that we were made for each other? Marcos has just lost his mother, a famous dancer who taught him everything, and he decides that his world can never be the same without her. Just as he is about to make a radical change, a phone call turns his world upside down.

Albert Espinosa has a peculiar talent for generating immediate congeniality around him, for shifting people's moods toward the positive and for reconciling them with themselves and the world, when needed.

[TOP TEN TUESDAY] Last Books That Came Into My Possession

This Week's Topic: Last Ten Books That Came Into My Possession

I have been avoiding buying books. I have been avoiding downloading review copies. Yup, somehow, I'm doing well. This past month, June, I only bought four books (only two of those were included in my recent book haul because I bought the first two I mentioned on the last day of June).

And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie. Review Here. This made me want to read more books by Agatha Christie!!
Cruel Beauty by Rosamund Hodge. The many reviews I've read lately convinced me that I should totally place this above my reading list.
A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas. Fantasy = not my usual read but everyone's been raving about this so I thought that I should try it.
Made You Up by Francesca Zappia. I've read great things about this. SO excited to get around to reading this!

[REVIEW] The Catastrophic History of You and Me

Series: N/A
Author: Jess Rothenberg
Genre: young adult, contemporary, romance, paranormal, fantasy, ghost, supernatural, death
Published: April 18, 2013
Publisher: Speak

denial. heartbreak. true love.

Brie is the "biggest, cheesiest, sappiest romantic," and she believes that everyone will find their perfect someone. So when Jacob, the love of Brie's life, tells her he doesn't love her anymore, the news breaks her heart, literally, and she dies. 

But now that she's D&G (dead and gone), Brie revisits the living world to discover that her family has begun to unravel and her best friend has been keeping an intimate secret about her boyfriend. Somehow, Brie must handle all of this while navigating through the five stages of grief with the help of Patrick, her mysterious guide to the afterlife. But how is she supposed to face the Ever After with a broken heart and no one to call her own? 

[WEEKLY MUSING] Book Buying Bans and I will NEVER be friends

Hello,

Last week, it was raining so hard. Three school days were suspended due to heavy rains. It was really crazy. It brings me back to crazy experiences with strong rains and high floods years ago. As much as I'd like to enjoy this mini(and untimely)-vacation, I'm honestly disappointed because that means I won't have allowance which means that's three days less of savings. Ugh!

book buying ban promises are meant to be broken.
ANYWAY, when May started, I told myself that I won't buy any books. At all. But then, I always end up dropping by the bookstore near my school. For some reasons, bookstores are so attractive and it doesn't bother me even though I go there every single day (or maybe every other day because that's just overdoing it, or not?). The point is, I drop by several times. I even ended up almost memorizing the books they have. 

BUT one unfortunate day, my family and I went to the mall with this bookstore "with all the good stuff." And yeah, you know what happens next....

[KINDLE KANDY] MG scifi + YA horror

"Kindle Kandy" is a weekly event hosted at The Book Dame where we share our forgotten owned books

Series: The Accelerati Trilogy #1
Author: Neal Shusterman and Eric Elfman
Genre: middle grade, science fiction, fantasy, mystery, adventure, juvenile, humor, magic

Tesla's Attic is the first book in a brilliantly imagined and hilariously written trilogy that combines science, magic, intrigue, and just plain weirdness, about four kids who are caught up in a dangerous plan concocted by the eccentric inventor Nikola Tesla. 

After their home burns down, fourteen-year-old Nick, his younger brother, and their father move into a ramshackle Victorian house they've inherited. When Nick opens the door to his attic room, he's hit in the head by a toaster. That's just the beginning of his weird experiences with the old junk stored up there. After getting rid of the odd antiques in a garage sale, Nick befriends some local kids-Mitch, Caitlin, and Vincent-and they discover that all of the objects have extraordinary properties. What's more, Nick figures out that the attic is a strange magnetic vortex, which attracts all sorts of trouble. It's as if the attic itself has an intelligence . . . and a purpose. 

Ultimately Nick learns that the genius Nikola Tesla placed the items-his last inventions-in the attic as part of a larger plan that he mathematically predicted. Nick and his new friends must retrieve everything that was sold at the garage sale and keep it safe. But the task is fraught with peril-in addition to the dangers inherent in Tesla's mysterious and powerful creations, a secret society of physicists, the Accelerati, is determined to stop Nick and alter destiny to achieve its own devious ends. It's a lot for a guy to handle, especially when he'd much rather fly under the radar as the new kid in town. 

Fans of intrigue, action, humor, and nonstop surprises are guaranteed a read unlike any other in Tesla's Attic, Book One of the Accelerati Trilogy.

[MINI REVIEWS] The Book of James + Mama Cried

Series: N/A
Author: Ellen J. Green
Genre: adult, mystery, thriller
Published: June 30, 2015
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
Purchase: Amazon

After a devastating car accident, Nick whispers his last words to his wife, Mackenzie: “As soon as they know I’m dead, they’ll come after you.”

Frightened and bewildered, Mackenzie travels to Philadelphia for the reading of her late husband’s will. To her shock, she learns that Nick’s mother, Cora, is not dead as he always claimed—rather, she is living as a recluse in the family’s gloomy nineteenth-century mansion. Desperate to understand why her husband lied to her for so many years, Mackenzie accepts Cora’s invitation to stay as her guest.

As the women come together in the same house, their stories entwine, each driven by an agenda. Cora clings to her memories and will do anything to protect her family’s secrets, while Mackenzie struggles to uncover a terrible truth long denied. But as she brings to light the darkness in her husband’s past, is Mackenzie putting her own future at risk?

Revised edition: This edition of The Book of James includes editorial revisions.

[WAITING ON WEDNESDAY] Career of Evil

Series: Cormoran Strike #3
Author: Robert Galbraith (J.K. Rowling)
Genre: adult, mystery, crime fiction, contemporary, thriller, detective
Expected Publication: October 22, 2015

When a mysterious package is delivered to Robin Ellacott, she is horrified to discover that it contains a woman’s severed leg.

Her boss, private detective Cormoran Strike, is less surprised but no less alarmed. There are four people from his past who he thinks could be responsible – and Strike knows that any one of them is capable of sustained and unspeakable brutality.

With the police focusing on the one suspect Strike is increasingly sure is not the perpetrator, he and Robin take matters into their own hands, and delve into the dark and twisted worlds of the other three men. But as more horrendous acts occur, time is running out for the two of them…

Career of Evil is the third in the highly acclaimed series featuring private detective Cormoran Strike and his assistant Robin Ellacott. A fiendishly clever mystery with unexpected twists around every corner, it is also a gripping story of a man and a woman at a crossroads in their personal and professional lives. 

Cormoran Strike is back, with his assistant Robin Ellacott, in a mystery based around soldiers returning from war.

*             *             *

I’m Waiting Because: I LOVE THIS SERIES, I LOVE Strike, I LOVE Robin. Do I need to say more? If you haven't read this series, I'd say you start NOW! :D

"Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted at Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming can't wait to read.

[REVIEW] A Batter of Life and Death

full tour schedule can be found at CBB Book Promotions

Series: A Bakeshop Mystery #2
Author: Ellie Alexander
Genre: adult, contemporary, mystery, cozy mystery
Published: June 30, 2015
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Purchase: Amazon | B&N | Indiebound

Welcome to Torte–a small-town family bakeshop where the coffee is hot, the muffins are fresh, and the cakes are definitely to die for… 

It’s autumn in Ashland, Oregon–’tis the season for a spiced hot apple cider with a serving (or two) of Torte’s famous peach cobbler. It’s also the perfect time for Jules Capshaw to promote her family’s beloved bake shop by competing in The Pastry Channel’s reality show, Take the Cake. The prize is $25,000. But as Jules quickly learns, some people would kill for that kind of dough. Literally. 

Then, just as Jules dusts off her Bavarian Chocolate Cake recipe and cinches up her apron, the corpse of a fellow contestant is discovered–death by buttercream. What began as a fun, tasteful televised adventure has morphed into something of a true-crime detective show for Jules and everybody else on set. Who could have killed Chef Marco, and why? Can Jules sift out the killer before someone else gets burned?

JUNE ROUNDUP: Back to School!!

Hello,

A couple of weeks ago, I went back to school. I'm finally on my (yet again) third year in college. This advertising major isn't putting so much stress on me as much as my previous major (BS Computer Engineering) had which is really good. It tells me that in some ways, I'm actually enjoying it. I guess this means I made the right choice (in terms of shifting to my new major).

I'm currently enrolled in 3D Design, Creative Copywriting, and Color and Line Appreciation (aka Painting) Classes which I'm enjoying so far. Hopefully I'll be able to develop my drawing and painting skills soon :)

June was a really decent month for me in terms of both reading and blogging. I'm ahead of my Goodreads reading challenge and have become a bit consistent on my posting. But since school is back, I'm really hoping to manage my time better this time around.

{ BOOK REVIEWS }

P.S. I Still Love You by Jenny Han | The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey | The Secret Ingredient by Stewart Lewis | Secret of the Sevens by Lynn Lindquist | Evil Games by Angela Marsons | Rumors by A.C. Arthur | The Cure by Stephanie Erickson | You Can't Get Blood Out of Shag Carpet by Juliette Harper | Sugar by Deirdre Riordan Hall

{ PROMOTIONAL POSTS }

Rumors by A.C. Arthur | You Can't Get Blood Out of Shag Carpet by Juliette Harper

[REVIEW] And Then There Were None

Series: N/A
Author: Agatha Christie
Genre: adult, classics, mystery, thriller, suspense, detective
Published: November 27, 2013
Purchase: Amazon

"Ten . . ."
Ten strangers are lured to an isolated island mansion off the Devon coast by a mysterious "U.N. Owen." 

"Nine . . ."
At dinner a recorded message accuses each of them in turn of having a guilty secret, and by the end of the night one of the guests is dead. 

"Eight . . ."
Stranded by a violent storm, and haunted by a nursery rhyme counting down one by one . . . one by one they begin to die. 

"Seven . . ."
Who among them is the killer and will any of them survive?