Saturday, 5 January 2013

Giveaway Winner!

The Winner of my Merry Christmas Giveaway for a January 2013 Pre-Order is... a Rafflecopter giveaway Congratulations Hanna! An email has been sent to you :) Thank you to everyone who entered the giveaway and spread the word and for those who didn't win this time round there will be more fabulous giveaways from me in the coming year so stay tuned and better luck next time. Happy reading everyone!

Thursday, 3 January 2013

Love Hurts Blog Tour: Teasers from New Adult novels Reason to Breathe and Easy!

To kick off 2013 I’m very excited to be bringing to you for my post in the Love Hurts Blog Tour some teaser lines from two upcoming New Adult titles releasing this month in the UK Reason to Breathe by Rebecca Donovan and Easy by Tammara Webber. I adored Easy and my review for it will be up very soon and I’m really excited for my copy of Reason to Breathe to arrive in the post as I have heard fantastic things about it! If you haven’t heard of these two novels yet they should definitely be on your radar and I think that teasers are a perfect way to get a taste for a book and what the authors writing style is like, so here they are chosen by the authors themselves!

 Reason to Breathe by Rebecca Donovan

Click on the cover to add to Goodreads!


ONE 
I wasn’t embarrassed by my grades or what other students thought of my high marks. I knew I earned them. And I also knew that they were going to save me some day. What no one understood, besides Sara, was that all I really cared about were the days I counted down until I moved out of my aunt and uncle’s house to go to college. So if I had to put up with the whispers behind my back as I received the highest marks in the class, then so be it. They weren’t going to be there to save me if I did anything but succeed, so I didn’t need to get involved in the gossip and typical teenage tripe. Sara was the closest I was going to get to any semblance of the high- school experience, and she definitely kept it entertaining. She was admired by most, envied by many, and could discreetly seduce a guy with a grin. What mattered most to me was that I trusted her with my life – which was saying a lot, considering the unpredictability that awaited me at home each night.
TWO 
I noticed his presence so much more than I had before. Every time he brushed past my arm when we walked down the hall or leaned in close to whisper to me in Anatomy, it sent thousands of sparks flying through my body. I found myself smiling more and caught up in his gaze longer. It was like I was noticing him for the first time, all over again. But this time, I knew he noticed me too. Evan sat closer, walked nearer and looked longer. He started storing his books in my locker in between classes, placing his hand on the small of my back when reaching over me to retrieve them. These subtle touches would ignite a warmth in my chest, and release tingles up the back of my neck. He didn’t hold my hand in school, but he always found a way for the backs of our hands to lightly touch when we were near enough. We were engaged in a very intricate dance of touching without touching, knowing without saying, and feeling without expressing. We were friends walking along a ledge, a very thin ledge – and I was too caught up in my heightened awareness of his existence to realize how close the ledge was to crumbling beneath my feet.
THREE
In the uneven balance of my life, I experienced love and loss, more loss than I thought I could handle. But the love was unexpected. I almost missed out on it, too afraid and uncertain to give it a chance. Love helped me live life instead of just survive it. It challenged my resolve, proving I was stronger than I ever thought possible. The comfort of it healed my wounds and caressed my scars. It gave me the confidence to stand taller than the inches within my body. In the dark I searched for it, yearning for its reprieve, only finding that I was alone.


 Easy by Tammara Webber

Click on the cover to add to Goodreads!

ONE 
I shook off my reverie and looked across the counter, prepared to give my usual order, and there stood the guy from Saturday night. The guy I’d avoided sitting next to this morning in economics. My mouth hung open but nothing came out. And just like this morning, Saturday night came flooding back. My face heated, remembering the position I’d been in, what he must have witnessed before he’d intervened, how foolish he must consider me. But then, he’d said it wasn’t my fault. And he’d called me by my name. The name I no longer used, as of sixteen days ago. My split-second wish that he wouldn’t recall who I was went ungranted. I returned his penetrating gaze and could see he remembered all of it, clearly. Every mortifying bit.
TWO 
‘Hey, Jackie.’ Buck’s piercing gaze roamed over me and my skin crawled. ‘Lookin’ good, as always.’ His words gushed flirtation, but all I felt was the threat underneath, intended or not. The bruises had faded from his face, but weren’t entirely gone. One yellowish streak ringed his left eye, and another brushed along the right side of his nose like a pale smear. Lucas had given him those, and only the three of us knew it. I stared back, mute, the coffee clutched in my hand. I’d once thought this boy handsome and charming—the all-American veneer he wore fooling me as thoroughly as it fooled everyone else.
THREE 
I’d barely let anyone else touch me at all tonight, adamantly refusing all slow dances. Dizzy from weak but plentiful margaritas, I closed my eyes and let him lead, telling myself that the difference was the alcohol in my blood, nothing more. A minute later, he released my fingers and spread his palms across my lower back, and my hands moved to his biceps. Solid, as I knew they would be. Tracking a path, my palms encountered equally hard shoulders. Finally, I hooked my fingers behind his neck and opened my eyes. His gaze was penetrating, not wavering for a moment, and my pulse hammered under the close scrutiny. I stretched up toward his ear, and he leaned down to accommodate my question. ‘S-so what’s your major?’ I breathed. From the corner of my eye, I watched his mouth pull up on one side. ‘Do you really want to talk about that?’ He maintained the closeness, our torsos pressed together chest to thigh, ostensibly waiting for my answer. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been so full of pure, unqualified desire.


I hope you enjoyed the teasers! Just click the covers to read the synopsis, add to a wishlist or read reviews on Goodreads! Thank you to the authors and publisher for putting this tour together and be sure to stop by Once Upon a Bookcase for the next tour stop tomorrow!

Thursday, 27 December 2012

The Books and Bookish Gifts I Got For Christmas!

Hey guys! I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas! I know I said that my giveaway was going to be the last post of the year but I thought it might be cool to share with you some of the things I got for Christmas that are either books or books/blogging/reading/writing related in an informal chatty style vlog. I decided to separate them into parts. Part One is purely books and Part Two bookish gifts in case any of you are just interested in watching one or the other and to save it from being one long video. I personally love being nosey at stuff like this so hopefully you’ll enjoy being nosey too!

The Books I Got For Christmas (Part One) 



 Bookish Things I Got For Christmas (Part Two)

 


I hope you enjoyed the vlogs! Happy New Year everyone and I’ll see you in 2013!

Thursday, 20 December 2012

The Merry Christmas Giveaway for a January 2013 Pre-Order!

Hey everyone! This is going to be my last blog post of 2012 and I decided that I wanted to give one of you a Christmas present of a January pre-order from The Book Depository. Here is the list of books you can choose from, one international winner will win one book.


Books You Can Win 
Shades of Earth by Beth Revis (US Hardcover)
Just One Day by Gayle Forman (US Paperback)
Splintered by A. G. Howard (UK Paperback)
Undone by Cat Clarke (UK Paperback)
The First Last Kiss by Ali Harris (UK Paperback)
Reason to Breathe by Rebecca Donovan (UK Paperback)
The Archived by Victoria Schwab (US Hardcover)
Level 2 by Lenore Appelhans (UK Paperback)
Paper Valentine by Brenna Yovanoff (UK Paperback)
How We Met by Katy Regan (UK Paperback)
Falling Kingdoms by Morgan Rhodes (UK Paperback)
Shadows by Paula Weston (UK Paperback)
Cupcakes at Carrington's by Alexandra Brown (UK Paperback)
The Lost Girl by Sangu Mandanna (UK Paperback)

Rules 
To enter the giveaway please fill in the Rafflecopter
Giveaway is open to wherever The Book Depository Ships
Please select a book from the list a book not mentioned on the list will not be counted
Giveaway Ends: 5th January 2013
Winner will be contacted by email and will have 1 week to reply else another winner will be selected.

  a Rafflecopter giveaway

It’s been another incredible year, Merry Christmas to those of you who celebrate! Good luck to you all and I’ll see you in the New Year :)

Monday, 17 December 2012

Thank You and Announcement!

So this is just a quick little post to say one huge thank you. As some of you may know I made it into the top ten of the blogink competition, now before you all get too excited, I didn’t win. But I’m actually really okay with that. Getting into the top ten was amazing enough on its own and the support I received during the contest was staggering and really touched me so I wanted to take the time to say that, although I didn’t win, your support was amazing and I wanted to say a huge thank you to those of you who watched/supported my video.


To celebrate getting so far in the competition I’ve decided to go ahead and reward myself with something I’ve been looking into and thinking about for some months now. Everyone… I’m getting my own custom blog design!

I really started to look into getting the blog a designer this summer but something was always not quite right. I’d find designers I liked but then I wouldn’t go through with it either because the price was too high, the waiting list too long or they weren’t taking any new orders at the current time and then I got ill and it just didn’t happen. I decided to look back into it as a treat for both me and you guys when I got into the top ten and found my dream designer in Lori at Imagination Designs. Lori’s been fantastic to work with so far and we’ve already come up with some ideas about what I want for the blog. I put down a deposit the other day and I’m currently on the waiting list for April.

The blog is going all fancy pants! I love what we’ve come up with so far and Lori has designed some of my very favourite blogs so I’m really excited for my own personal dream blog design in 2013. I figured this was a good way of giving myself a pat on the back, bettering the blog, and also giving a little something back to you guys with a pretty blog to look at.

Needless to say this is something I’m really excited about and I hope you guys will like the final outcome when it’s ready. Once again thank you so much for supporting me during blogink, and even though I didn’t win I’m looking forward to bringing new and exciting things to this blog in 2013!
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Blog design by Imagination Designs using images from the Valentine Owls and Valentine's Day clip art kits by Pink Pueblo