June Round Up and Book of the Month

June's Book of the Month is Remix by Non Pratt

Remix was the perfect summer read! I picked this up to get me even more excited to go see Taylor Swift in concert with my best friend and it certainly did the trick! I loved the focus on best friends here rather than romance and how real both Kaz and Ruby felt. This is a must read UKYA book. For more of my thoughts check out my review here.

Read in June
48.) Remix by Non Pratt (4.5*)
49.) The Cake Shop in the Garden by Carole Matthews (3.5*)
50.) Seed by Lisa Heathfield (4*)
51.) Afternoon Tea at the Sunflower Cafe by Milly Johnson (4.5*)
52.) The Mystery of the Clockwork Sparrow by Katherine Woodfine (3.5*)

To my shame I only read five books this month - half of my usual total. It's been a very busy month though and I've also made my return to blogging, planned YALC Month and have started working on my very first novel. With July being YALC Month I hope to fit in more reading time even though July is also going to be busy for me.

 Monthly Book Awards 
Best Plot: Afternoon Tea at the Sunflower Cafe by Milly Johnson
Best Writing: Remix by Non Pratt
Best Cover: Seed by Lisa Heathfield
Best Characters: Remix by Non Pratt
Best Ending: Seed by Lisa Heathfield
Best Romance: The Cake Shop in the Garden by Carole Matthews
Most un-put-down-able: Seed by Lisa Heathfield
Most Memorable: Remix by Non Pratt
Best Moral: Afternoon Tea at the Sunflower Cafe by Milly Johnson

Top 3 Most Recommended Books: Remix, Afternoon Tea at the Sunflower Cafe and Seed.

Books I’m Looking Forward to Being Released in July
First Class Murder by Robin Stevens
The Great Village Show by Alexandra Brown
The Little Flower Shop by the Sea by Ali McNamara
The Heavenly Italian Ice Cream Shop by Abby Clements
 Little Black Lies by Sharon Bolton
The Heart of Betrayal by Mary E. Pearson

 What did you read and love in June? 

 And what are you looking forward to reading in July?

The Lost and the Found Blog Tour: First Chapter and Giveaway!

Cat Clarke is one of my all time favourite authors and so I am thrilled to be the first stop on the blog tour for her new book The Lost and the Found today. I'm sharing the first chapter to read and giving away one copy of The Lost and the Found to one lucky reader!

 

Giveaway

Rules 

 To enter you have to fill in the Rafflecopter 

 Open to UK residents only 

 End date: Monday 6th July 2015 

 The winner will be drawn and contacted by email with 1 week to reply else another winner will be selected 

 Make sure you complete what the form asks of you - I do check! Any winner who has not completed an option will be disqualified 

a Rafflecopter giveaway 

Stop by Adventures With Words tomorrow for the next stop on the tour!

Announcing YALC Month!

Banner by Faye at A Daydreamer's Thoughts

It's that time of year again! YALC 2015 will soon be upon us! Last year I hosted the YALC Readathon which I had so much fun with but a week was nowhere near enough time to read all of the books I wanted to ready for YALC and so with even more authors announced this year I decided to turn the YALC Readathon into a themed reading month.

For YALC Month the goal is simple: read as many books by authors attending YALC 2015 during July as you can! Authors attending can be found here. I know that a lot of us attending YALC have massive TBR piles and review book obligations so you do not have to read YALC books exclusively. With YALC itself happening in the middle of July this also gives us a chance to read the books we buy at YALC afterwards. I remember having a lot to get through last year!

I won't be reading YALC books exclusively in July because I have other review books I need to get to so I'd like to read at least 5 books for YALC Month and I have a great pile to choose from. What do you recommend I pick from this pile?

To sign up share your intention to join us either on your Blog, Youtube, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook or Goodreads and share the link to your post in the linky below. If you'd also like to share the banner, your TBR or goals for the month then please do, although this isn't mandatory. When talking about the event on social media please use the hashtag #YALCMonth so we can all follow each others updates and progress! I hope you want to join me in reading YALC books throughout July! If you do please sign up here

Review for The Accident Season by Moira Fowley-Doyle

The Accident Season by Moira Fowley-Doyle 
Publisher: Corgi Childrens
Release: 2nd July 2015
Genre: Magical Realism
Source: Proof copy received from the publisher in exchange for an honest review



Synopsis:

"It's the accident season, the same time every year. Bones break, skin tears, bruises bloom. 

The accident season has been part of seventeen-year-old Cara's life for as long as she can remember. Towards the end of October, foreshadowed by the deaths of many relatives before them, Cara's family becomes inexplicably accident-prone. They banish knives to locked drawers, cover sharp table edges with padding, switch off electrical items - but injuries follow wherever they go, and the accident season becomes an ever-growing obsession and fear.

But why are they so cursed? And how can they break free?"

Review 
The Accident Season is a gorgeously written, haunting tale that puts a fresh magical spin on human tragedy. Magical Realism isn’t a genre you see a lot of in YA and the dash of horror that Moira Fowley-Doyle adds is just enough to make you slightly uncomfortable. I loved how different this was to anything I’ve read in YA before.

Every October Cara’s family are prone to accidents and their lives become carefully controlled as they avoid anything from bruises and grazes to broken legs and broken hearts. And then there are the tragedies…but nobody speaks of those. The family do not know why they are cursed to tumble, fall and break but the greatest mystery of all is Elsie a girl who though ever present in Cara’s life doesn’t appear to be present at all…

It’s impossible to talk about The Accident Season without giving away its secrets so instead I’m going to tell you how it made me feel: on edge, spellbound and distorted. It’s the kind of book that even after finishing it I’m not entirely sure what took place and what didn’t between the pages and I love that this book messed with my mind so thoroughly.

Eerie, lyrical and atmospheric The Accident Season is an instant classic for YA fiction.

Is it book bloggers' job to sell books?

“Do book bloggers sell books?” this is a question that gets thrown into the air every so often be it from publishers, readers or authors and each time it’s met with heated debate and generally concludes on the fact that because there aren’t any concrete numbers to go off, nobody really knows for sure. But I’ve started to wonder is it book bloggers’ job to sell books? For me personally, that answer is no.

When I started blogging five years ago I didn’t start this blog as a way of bookselling. I started it for purely selfish reasons. I wanted to discuss my thoughts and opinions on books I love with other people who have read them, I wanted to find other people with the same tastes as me and get recommendations on what else they’ve enjoyed, I wanted to share my excitement about an upcoming release and have somebody say “me too!” and that for me, five years later, hasn’t changed.

It wasn’t until a few months into blogging that publishers and authors would contact me and I was made aware that me fangirling about books to my online friends was somehow helping them whether in book sales, raising more awareness for a book or inspiring more people to read at all. The fact that my blog can help this industry that I love so much makes me happy but it’s not what I’m here for, if it didn’t, I’d still blog.

Placing a book bloggers worth on how many books we might potentially sell is massively misunderstanding what we do. Book bloggers are important to the industry because they shine a light on reading. Our enthusiasm for books is contagious and whether somebody reads a review of mine and buys the book, checks it out of the library, adds it to a wishlist or discards it as not for them isn’t the be all and end all for me. What’s important to me is that people are taking the time to read a post about books and are thinking about them and talking to me about them because that spark of being interested and excited and passionate about books is what I’m here for.

I don’t think that a book bloggers purpose it to sell books because as a whole we are doing something more important. We are getting to the root of why people buy books in the first place. We are nurturing a love of reading, we are creating an ongoing conversation about books, and we have created a community of diversity and different voices that are united by one thing: a passion for books. That is what will make someone not only buy one book in their lifetime – but several. This is what turns a reader into a book lover and this is what I’m here for.