Booking Through Thursday

What is the first book you remember reading? What about the first that made you really love reading? From an early age I loved being read to; however I didn’t really like reading to myself as it was normally set as homework to do and like most children at that age all homework was *obviously* boring. I adored people telling me stories though and would spend Saturday afternoons when I was being babysat by my aunty snuggled up with my sweets whilst she read me some books. I had a wonderful teacher as well who had a real gift for story telling she used to make up stories to tell us off the top of her head usually about a boy named Sam and his granddad who always had some sort of adventure. You could of heard a pin drop in those last half hours before the school day ended when we would all sit captivated wanting to hear another Sam and granddad adventure. For the next school year we had a new teacher who read us actual story books and that’s where my love of reading begins. One day she started to read to us The Twits by Roald Dahl and I found myself looking forward to going to school and going in even when I was sick just so I could find out what happened next in the book. As we got further into the story I found myself becoming impatient so instead of waiting out another whole weekend to find out what happens that Saturday me and my aunty went to the bookshop and brought my very own copy of The Twits so I could read it at my leisure along with a bind up of three other Roald Dahl books The BFG, Matilda and Georges Marvellous Medicine. Because I found reading in my head much faster than someone reading to me, I took it upon myself to finish The Twits and then read my other Roald Dahl bind up. When I had finished with all of Roald Dahl’s books I’d go to the school library and take out books like The Secret Garden and A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett, Book’s by Jacqueline Wilson, Enid Blyton and C. S. Lewis and a few years after that I stumbled upon Harry Potter and The Philosophers Stone when a girl in my class was reading it during reading hour and seemed rather engrossed. The Harry Potter books were the first books that I became seriously obsessed with and my library and love of reading has just grew and grew since then :) I loved this question I think it’s my favourite yet so leave me a link with your answer so I can check out your first book or the first book you loved.

Review for The Sisterhood by Emily Barr

I’ve had this book on mount To Be Read for a while now. I found it going cheap at Tesco and liking the sound of it brought it on a bit of a whim. Then I read another of Emily Barr’s novels Backpack which I loved. She’s a terrific writer, at first I thought she was an author of chick lit but her books are much darker than chick lit yet her writing still has that easy going nature to it. Fancying something different to what I’d been reading recently, on a rainy day I decided to finally get this read and I really enjoyed it. Backpacks still my favourite but this one comes in at a close second. This is going to be a hard book to review because it’s got so many twists that there’s not much I can say without giving it all away, so the description may be brief but bare in mind that there’s so much more to this book than just that and I guess if you want to find out you’ll have to pick it up and read it yourself (which I would recommend by the way.) Anyway here it goes. This book is told from the point of view of two women alternating from chapter to chapter between Liz in London and Helen in France. Liz has just come out of a relationship and has found herself pregnant and alone after a one night stand. Helen bored of her sheltered life in France has just found- after poking around in her mothers things- a birth certificate for another baby a sibling she knows nothing about - Miss Elizabeth Greene. After finding Liz on the internet Helen plans to move to England to get to know her sister more and bring her home to reunite her with their mother - pretty straight forward right? But with Helen things aren’t quiet what they seem. Both sisters are keeping secrets from each other and they find one thing they definitely have in common is their dark side… I really did enjoy this book. Straight off the bat you know that Helens a bit of an odd young woman but you don’t get to find out the lengths of it until the very end. This book is full of twists and turns that honestly surprised me. The ending however fell a little bit flat for me as I was expecting a much bigger ending which is why I gave it 4 stars instead of 5 but the idea for the story itself is original and I very much enjoyed the rest of the book. If you’re looking for something dark but yet easy to read Emily Barr is the author for you. Not quiet girly enough to be called chick lit and not quiet dark enough to be called a thriller her books meet nicely in the middle and the outcome is a rather compelling enjoyable read. I’m very much looking forward to reading some more of Emily’s books. 4 stars. My Rating 4/5 stars ****

Teaser Tuesday - The Iron King

Hey guys, its time to do one of my very favourite bookish meme’s Teaser Tuesday! I started a really awesome book yesterday and can’t wait to share a teaser with you all. I started The Iron King by Julie Kagawa and although I’m only 50 pages in I really like it so far. The second books just come out and I’ve heard so much hype about this book that I decided to finally pick it up and read it. My teaser will be somewhere in the first 50 pages as I don’t want to spoil myself! Here it is… Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme hosted by MizB of Should be Reading. Anyone can play along, just do the following: * Grab your current read * Open to a random page * Share two (2) "Teaser" sentences from somewhere on that page * BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS!! * Share the title and author as well so other TT participants can add the book to their TBR lists if they like your teaser! My Teaser

''My mother lay on her back on the checkered tile floor, arms and legs flung akimbo, one side of her face covered in glistening crimson. Her purse, its contents scattered everywhere, lay beside one limp white hand. Standing over her in the doorway, his head cocked to one side like a curious cat, was Ethan. And he was smiling.''

pg 49 of The Iron King by Julie Kagawa Hope you enjoyed my teaser for this week, make sure you leave me a comment with your Teaser Tuesdays, and if you’ve read the book let me know what you thought :)

Reaching 100 followers and Update!

Hello everyone, I just wanted to do a little post to say a huge thank you to all my lovely followers. This weekend I’ve reached over a 100 followers. I’ve only been blogging for 2 months so I really didn’t expect to gain this many followers in such a short time. It really means a lot to me so I just wanted to say thanks for taking an interest in what I have to say and I hope you enjoy following my blog as much as I do keeping it. I’m also considering doing either a 150 or 200 followers give away depending on how long it takes so spread the word and get people to follow! As for the update I just wanted to leave a list of all the books I’ve read this month and let you know my ultimate favourite so you can all rush out and buy it. So here it is! July 48.) Dreamland by Sarah Dessen (5*) RR 49.) Sisters Red by Jackson Pearce (4*) 50.) Two-way Street by Lauren Barnholdt (5*) 51.) Beastly by Alex Flinn (4*) 52.) The Reckoning by Kelley Armstrong (4*) 53.) Forget You by Jennifer Echols (4*) 54.) Linger by Maggie Stiefvater (4.5*) 55.) The Sisterhood by Emily Barr (4*) Favourite book of July: Two-way Street by Lauren Barnholdt Everybody rush out and buy Two-way Street! I really did love this book though. It was really hard to pick a favourite this month because I honestly haven’t read a book I didn’t like. I’ve loved them all and I have to add that Dreamland and Linger come in at a close second so if you’re interested in those I’d highly recommend them. If you want to learn more about the books you can find my reviews for them in my review archive which can be found at the top of the page. Also keep your eyes peeled for my review of The Sisterhood by Emily Barr coming soon. Hope your all having a wonderful weekend and getting lots of reading done! Ever bookishly yours Jess ♥

In My Mailbox: The week of awesomeness!

In My Mailbox is hosted by The Story Siren Hey everyone, well I got some really good books this week! I’m going to start with what I got first this week on Wednesday morning through the post. I got a signed copy of Endless Summer by the wonderful Jennifer Echols! She was kind enough to send me a copy all the way to England for review and it come with a funky little business card. I was super excited about this as I love Jennifer she really is such a lovely person and always makes time to talk to her fans. So here are the pictures of that and here’s Jennifer Echols’s website so you can go check out her and her books! http://www.jennifer-echols.com/ Then on Wednesday afternoon I went into The Works this little discount store in the UK and got a bunch of books I wanted cheap. I’ve already got the first 4 Morganville Vampire books so I got the last ones for £1.99 each or 3 for £5 in my case. Then to make up another 3 for £5 I got a P.C Cast book and an Anne Rice book with the last Morganville book. Note that these are all brand new books and I got 6 of them for £10 so I was so excited about that. I may go back next week because there were so many more books I wanted. Lord of Misrule (Morganville Vampires) by Rachel Caine Carpe Corpus (Morganville Vampires) by Rachel Caine Fade Out (Morganville Vampires) by Rachel Caine Kiss of Death (Morganville Vampires) by Rachel Caine Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice Divine by Mistake by P.C. Cast And then on Friday I made an Amazon order which arrived yesterday and got 3 other books that I really wanted. Eternal by Cynthia Leitich Smith Jealousy by Lili St.Crow Katy Carter Wants a Hero by Ruth Saberton So that’s what I got in my mailbox this week. Leave me a comment letting me know what you guys got :)