Day: January 20, 2020

Tag: Book Festival Book Tag

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Thanks to Mandy & Sha for tagging me to do their original Book Festival Book Tag! Honestly, they come up with the best tags and you should definitely be following them if you aren’t already!

Rules:

.x. pingback to the creator of the tag, @bookprincessreviews .x.
.x. tag the person who tagged you .x.
.x. find an answer to match each prompt .x.
.x. have fun! .x.

Author Lineup

Name your top 3 authors that you would like to meet.

Jenn Bennett! Sally Thorne! R.S. Grey!

The Official Schedule

How do you determine what books you’re going to read next? 

I’m usually reading three books at any given time:

  • I’m always doing some kind of buddy read with my boyfriend these days. We usually just decide on whatever jumps out at us from either our shelves or my Kindle.
  • I try to always have an ARC going in the background. I’m usually not actively reading it, but I’ll pick it up and read a chapter or two when I have free time. I read whichever ARC has the most imminent release date. If there aren’t any coming out particularly soon, I’ll go with the one that’s most overdue.
  • When it comes to audiobooks that I listen to at work, it’s anybody’s guess. I place a lot of holds, so I get surprised with them showing up all the time. When I get down to one or two checked out, I’ll usually scroll through Overdrive and see if anything from my TBR is currently available on audio. If not, I just pick something that sounds fun.

ARC Drops

What ARC would you wait hours in line for? 

Definitely Chasing Lucky by Jenn Bennett! I’m also really anticipating House of Earth and Blood by Sarah J. Maas and What I Like About You by Marisa Kanter.

The Swag!

What bookish merch/pre-order incentives/etc. is your favorite?

I like things I can use, like pens and notebooks and bookmarks. Once I got fuzzy socks and that was nice too.

The Panels

What topic would you love to see some of your favorite authors talk about?

As someone who loves to read but cannot write, I would love to hear my favorite authors talk about their process. Where do their ideas come from? How do they create such real characters? How do they write dialogue that sounds like an actual conversation? I just think it’s so incredible that anybody can pull an entire universe out of their mind and write it down in a way that other people can feel like they’re experiencing it firsthand.

Yallfest, Yallwest, BookCon/BookExpo, YALC, Etc.

What book festival/con would you go to if you had the choice?

I think BookExpo would be fun. I feel like it’s the less crazy, more civilized, less money grabby older sibling of BookCon.

I’m tagging:

Meggan ✨ Sahi ✨ Susan ✨ Rebecca

Please feel free to do this tag even if I didn’t tag you directly! I’d love to see your answers! Which authors would you like to meet? Which book festival would you most like to attend? Let’s talk in the comments!

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Mini-Reviews: Recent DNFs

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So, it turns out that once I get on a DNFing streak, I really get on a DNFing streak. Here are some more mini-reviews from books I’ve abandoned.

First Grave on the Right by Darynda Jones
Links: Amazon • TBD • Goodreads
Publication Date: February 1, 2011
Source: Borrowed

This whole grim reaper thing should have come with a manual.
Or a diagram of some kind.
A flow chart would have been nice.

Charley Davidson is a part-time private investigator and full-time grim reaper. Meaning, she sees dead people. Really. And it’s her job to convince them to “go into the light.” But when these very dead people have died under less than ideal circumstances (like murder), sometimes they want Charley to bring the bad guys to justice. Complicating matters are the intensely hot dreams she’s been having about an entity who has been following her all her life…and it turns out he might not be dead after all. In fact, he might be something else entirely. But what does he want with Charley? And why can’t she seem to resist him? And what does she have to lose by giving in?

With scorching-hot tension and high-octane humor, First Grave on the Right is your signpost to paranormal suspense of the highest order.

DNF @ 6%

I don’t have a lot to say about this because, as you can see, I made it to 6%. This is roughly page 18. In eighteen pages, Darynda Jones managed to:

  • sexualize literally every character except for an old man ghost
  • make not just one, but two inappropriate and racist statements
  • insinuate that women have to be below a certain weight to be hot

This one just wasn’t for me.

#romanceopoly: dungeon

Kiss of Midnight by Lara Adrian
Links: Amazon • TBD • Goodreads
Publication Date: May 1, 2007
Source: Borrowed

He watches her from across the crowded dance club, a sensual black-haired stranger who stirs Gabrielle Maxwell’s deepest fantasies. But nothing about this night—or this man—is what it seems. For when Gabrielle witnesses a murder outside the club, reality shifts into something dark and deadly. In that shattering instant she is thrust into a realm she never knew existed—a realm where vampires stalk the shadows and a blood war is set to ignite.

Lucan Thorne despises the violence carried out by his lawless brethren. A vampire himself, Lucan is a Breed warrior, sworn to protect his kind—and the unwitting humans existing alongside them—from the mounting threat of the Rogues. Lucan cannot risk binding himself to a mortal woman, but when Gabrielle is targeted by his enemies, he has no choice but to bring her into the dark underworld he commands.

Here, in the arms of the Breed’s formidable leader, Gabrielle will confront an extraordinary destiny of danger, seduction, and the darkest pleasures of all. . . . 

DNF @ 8%

Okay, to be fair, I actually said, “I’m probably going to end up DNFing this,” as I borrowed it from Hoopla. I know my romance tastes, and vampires aren’t really part of that anymore. But romanceopoly recommended this for one of their prompts, so I thought I’d give it a try.

Nope.

A big nope.

An hour in, and literally had nothing happened. Except a lot of fighting, I guess, but I don’t read romance for fights.

#romanceopoly: warriors way

Wicked and the Wallflower by Sarah MacLean
Links: Amazon • TBD • Goodreads
Publication Date: June 19, 2018
Source: Borrowed

When Wicked Comes Calling…

When a mysterious stranger finds his way into her bedchamber and offers his help in landing a duke, Lady Felicity Faircloth agrees—on one condition. She’s seen enough of the world to believe in passion, and won’t accept a marriage without it.

The Wallflower Makes a Dangerous Bargain…

Bastard son of a duke and king of London’s dark streets, Devil has spent a lifetime wielding power and seizing opportunity, and the spinster wallflower is everything he needs to exact a revenge years in the making. All he must do is turn the plain little mouse into an irresistible temptress, set his trap, and destroy his enemy.

For the Promise of Passion…

But there’s nothing plain about Felicity Faircloth, who quickly decides she’d rather have Devil than another. Soon, Devil’s carefully laid plans are in chaos, and he must choose between everything he’s ever wanted…and the only thing he’s ever desired. 

DNF @ 2%

To be fair, I think I made it a little further than 2% in this one. There’s an interview with the author at the end of the book, but since I’m not sure where the book stops and the interview begins, we’ll just go with 2%.

If romanceopoly has taught me anything, it’s that I can’t do straight-up historical romance. I can’t get into it, it bores me, it comes across as completely ridiculous, and I just don’t care. This is nothing against the book, which has tons of positive reviews and I’m sure is great, but this genre just isn’t for me.

#romanceopoly: mayfair

Have you read any of these books? What’s the last book you DNFed?
Let’s talk in the comments!

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