Wildthorn

Title: Wildthorn
Author: Jane Eagland
Genre: YA, Historical
Source: E-book from Netgalley.com

This book took me completely by surprise. I had requested it without knowing much about it. I loved the corset on the cover and that imagery combined with my penchant for only hearing about paranormal novels lately, helped me to convince myself that this was a steampunk novel of some sort. I was very wrong! In reality, this is a novel about blossoming sexuality and self awareness. This is a story about a girl living in a time when being individual meant you would likely be convicted as insane. This is a story about a family who just doesn't function. While the material is much more serious than paranormals, it was a good read. I was engrossed in the story the entire way!

Christmas Gifts

Merry Christmas!

I hope your holiday was joyous and filled with all the tasty treats and heartfelt gifts you could ever want. Did Santa get you what you asked for?   My stocking was filled with presents for my husband and I to share...mostly video games and movies. This is good! But there was one present that was just for me....from my Book Blogger Holiday Swap friend, Sam from Parenthetical.net

Samantha sent me a package packed with all this fun stuff. There was a card with a cute lil robot envelope, three book plates, a place holder, some chocolate, and a pretty wrapped present (it's hard to see in this picture, but under all the other goodies is the wrapped package).

Here's an up close of the chocolate that she sent me. Her note said that this was made just down the street from her home, which just makes it better in my book. I love locally made things - even if they aren't my local. :) Plus, chocolate!

This is the card. The robot from the envelope was also on the card. So cute! This is quite possibly my favorite card this year.

The present itself contained these two novels. The Good Neighbors is a hard back graphic novel. I'm interested to get into it. I've read other books by Holly Black and have enjoyed them.  Then there is The Knife of Never Letting Go. This book comes with a personal recommendation from Sam, which just makes this novel all the more interesting. These books jumped to the top of my to-be-read pile. I'm so excited about receiving them. 

Samantha, thank you for wonderful presents!

Is it December already?

Oh hi! Bet you thought I had completely forgotten about you. I didn't. I promise. I've been thinking about you quite a lot, but the world has just been too busy for me to find time to blog. But I have been reading and a whole boat load of other things I want to share with you.

First, I posted about this during November, but I have an update. I attempted NaNoWriMo for a second time this year. It was quite scary as I didn't have any real ideas until the weekend before....and even those were just pictures on a poster board. But, it seems that the collage worked.

 

And I'm still not actually finished. I hit the 50,000 required words, but I"m not at the end of my story. My plan is to pick it back up during Christmas break....see if I can finish it.

Oh! Also, I want to mention the book blogger  holiday swap...

I've already mailed out my gift.....I hope the receiver enjoys it!  And I received my package...It's sitting under the tree, tempting me with it's colorful paper and cards. I really want to give into temptation and open it, but I'm going to be good and restrain myself...Christmas isn't that far away! I'll share pictures with you when I've opened it.

And then reviews.....I have a pile of them to get through, an ebook, a YA novel or two, and a few romances...some are from November...some from Dec. It will be busy on this here blog. :)

How's December looking for you?