On My Wishlist...

 

On My Wishlist is a great event that Book Chick City runs every Saturday. It's where you list all of the books that you desperately want but haven't actually bought yet. They can be old, new or forthcoming. I thought that this was a fantabulous idea so I thought I would join in!
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"Lament" by Maggie Stiefvater 

From Goodreads: "Sixteen-year-old Deirdre Monaghan is a painfully shy but prodigiously gifted musician. She's about to find out she's also a cloverhand—one who can see faeries. Deirdre finds herself infatuated with a mysterious boy who enters her ordinary suburban life, seemingly out of thin air. Trouble is, the enigmatic and gorgeous Luke turns out to be a gallowglass—a soulless faerie assassin. An equally hunky—and equally dangerous—dark faerie soldier named Aodhan is also stalking Deirdre. Sworn enemies, Luke and Aodhan each have a deadly assignment from the Faerie Queen. Namely, kill Deirdre before her music captures the attention of the Fae and threatens the Queen's sovereignty. Caught in the crossfire with Deirdre is James, her wisecracking but loyal best friend. Deirdre had been wishing her life weren't so dull, but getting trapped in the middle of a centuries-old faerie war isn't exactly what she had in mind . . .

Lament is a dark faerie fantasy that features authentic Celtic faerie lore, plus cover art and interior illustrations by acclaimed faerie artist Julia Jeffrey." 
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"Ballad" by Maggie Stiefvater 

From Goodreads: "In this mesmerizing sequel to Lament: The Faerie Queen's Deception, music prodigy James Morgan and his best friend, Deirdre, join a private conservatory for musicians. James' musical talent attracts Nuala, a soul-snatching faerie muse who fosters and feeds on the creative energies of exceptional humans until they die. Composing beautiful music together unexpectedly leads to mutual admiration and love. Haunted by fiery visions of death, James realizes that Deirdre and Nuala are being hunted by the Fey and plunges into a soul-scorching battle with the Queen of the Fey to save their lives."
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What is on your wishlist?

Waiting on Wednesday

"Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted over at Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating...
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Title: "The Golden Lily"
Author: Richelle Mead
Release Date: March 1st, 2012

From Goodreads: "The second thrilling installment in Richelle Mead’s Vampire Academy spinoff series.

Tough, brainy alchemist Sydney Sage and doe-eyed Moroi princess Jill Dragomir are in hiding at a human boarding school in the sunny, glamorous world of Palm Springs, California. The students—children of the wealthy and powerful—carry on with their lives in blissful ignorance, while Sydney, Jill, Eddie and Adrian must do everything in their power to keep their secret safe. But with forbidden romances, unexpected spirit bonds, and the threat of Strigoi moving ever closer, hiding the truth is harder than anyone thought. 

Populated with new faces as well as familiar ones, Richelle Mead’s breathtaking Bloodlines series explores all the friendship, romance, battles and betrayals that made the #1 New York Times bestselling Vampire Academy series so addictive. In this second book, the drama is hotter, the romances are steamier, and the stakes are even higher."

"Forever" by Maggie Stiefvater

From Goodreads: "The thrilling conclusion to #1 bestselling Shiver trilogy from Maggie Stiefvater

then.

When Sam met Grace, he was a wolf and she was a girl. Eventually he found a way to become a boy, and their love moved from a curious distance to the intense closeness of shared lives.

now.

That should have been the end of their story. But Grace was not meant to stay human. Now she is the wolf. And the wolves of Mercy Falls are about to be killed in one final, spectacular hunt.

forever.

Sam would do anything for Grace. But can one boy and one love really change a hostile, predatory world? The past, the present, and the future are about to collide in one pure moment - a moment of death or life, farewell or forever."

For the last few years Sam and Grace have occupied a large part of my heart, they are most definitely one of my most favourite YA couples and I have always rooted for their happy ending, however I must admit that when I first started reading this book and saw that they did not play as large of a role in it than they had in the previous books I wasn't as heartbroken as I had thought I would be. Why would that be? Because of Cole. While in the previous book he was totally swoon-worthy with his bad-boy behavior he was even more so swoon-worthy in this book because he showed a completely different side of himself- a gentle, caring, and selfless side- while still maintaining his trademark sarcastic edge.

In the parts that Sam and Grace were the focus of the story you couldn't help but experience the emotional turmoil that they were feeling alongside them. From Grace transforming back to a human and trying to remember who she was- let alone remembering who Sam was, Sam frantically trying to find the now-human Grace before the cold took her away from him once again,and the realization that no one was safe with Jack Culpeper in town.

What I also loved also appreciated about this book was how humorous it was, when you were in the pits about the Grace and Sam situation, someone would come along (usually Cole) and do something to really uplift your mood- for instance, all of the voicemails that Cole left on Isabel's answering machine, Sam and Cole bonding as Cole tried to teach himself how to play guitar, Isabel and Cole dancing around the kitchen, and Grace bugging Sam when he was in the shower.

I think that my largest complaint about this book was the ending. I am the sort of person who needs an epilogue that spells everything out for me (for instance in the epilogue of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" we find out which characters married one another, their occupations as adults, their children's names, etc.), I hate things that are left up in the air, and therefore not knowing what truly happens to the characters, specifically Grace, eats me up inside (especially when taking into consideration that THIS IS THE LAST BOOK IN THE SERIES! *Fingers crossed that Maggie extends the series a la Cassie Clare and her "Mortal Instruments" series, or that she writes a spin-off a la Richelle Mead with her "Vampire Academy" and "Bloodlines" series).

All in all, aside from the little problem I have with the ending of the book, I think that this is a perfectly written finale to such an amazingly emotional series. In this book there is so much well thought humor and character development that it is truly unlike anything I have ever read of before, I highly recommend this series to anyone who has yet to read it, I don't think that you will be disappointed with it one bit!

Rating: 10/10

Memorable lines from the book:

"Sam.
His name returned suddenly, and with it a thousand other things: poems whispered uncertainly in my ear, his guitar in his hands, the shape of the shadow beneath his collarbone, and the way his fingers smoothed the pages of a book as he read" (pg. 6).

"Voicemail #1: Hi, Isabel Culpeper. I am lying in my bed, looking at the ceiling. I am mostly naked. I am thinking of... your mother. Call me" (pg. 23).

"I stepped into the bathtub, my shoes squeaking softly on the surface. My heart hammered against my T-shirt. Bees hummed inside my head. One thousand minutes other than this one lived in here, minutes with razors, minutes where everything that was me gurgled down the drain, minutes with hands pinning me in the water. But there was also Grace holding my head above the surface. Grace's voice calling me back to myself, Grace taking me by the hand" (pg. 158).

"I sleep naked," Cole said. He put both milk and sugar in my coffee. "As the day goes on, I put on more and more clothing. You should've come over an hour ago" (pg. 244). 

"I felt a tickle on my skin; it took me a moment to realize that Cole was driving his die-cast Mustang up my arm. He was laughing to himself, hushed and infectious, as if there was still any reason to be quiet. He turned the car around at my shoulder and headed back down toward my hand, the wheels skidding on my skin a bit when he laughed.
I thought that it was the truest thing I'd even heard from Cole St. Clair" (pg. 262).

Maggie Stiefvater Book Signing

On Sunday Maggie stopped by London, Ontario for her Forever Tour. This was exciting because I essentially live in London (and I had the day off of work) so I could actually attend it! It was further exciting because it was my first EVER book signing.

*Note: When I got to the bookstore I realized that I had forgotten my digital camera memory card in my computer, the memory card that I had spent all morning cleaning up so I would have lots of room for pictures and videos. I wasn't all that concerned because I figured that I could just load pictures directly off of my camera to my computer. Not so much. All but one of the pictures were corrupted and wouldn't let me download them to my computer, however I was able to take cell phone pictures of a few of the pictures on my digital camera (how is that for ingenuity? ;) ).

Because it was my first signing I wasn't quite sure how a signing went so I dragged my sister to the bookstore about two hours before the signing began (thank gosh I did so because by the time the signing started the few seats that they had out were filled and everyone else had to stand- fifty or so people standing I would guess). And I am not quite sure how it happened, but I got in a conversation with two women sitting behind me and it turns out that one of them was Jen from Lost in the Library! AND a young girl sitting beside me was KC Graham from In The Words Of... It was really awesome talking to all of the ladies/ reassuring that I am not the only obsessed with books and blogging out there.

After a couple rounds of giveaways (I somewhat embarrassingly mispronounced NARKOTICA and missed out on a GC to the bookstore. Boogers!) Maggie came out to great applause and started telling us about how "Forever" came to be (she wrote the book and handed it in to her editor two weeks before the deadline, almost as soon as she did she realized that she absolutely hated it and rewrote it) and she answered some audience questions (people at first were quite hesitant to ask anything, but after one or two questions more started to roll in, ie. "What music inspired you to write?", "Why German poetry?", "Can I ride with you in Loki?").

After the Q&A session she drew the winner for her gorgeous Sharpie guitar (You can see the guitar on Maggie's blog).  Jen and I debated grabbing the guitar and making a run for it, but chickened out- unfortunately neither of us won it (or my little sister who I would have obviously stolen the guitar from).

After the guitar drawing the signing then technically started. Because of where my sister and I were sitting we were actually at the front of the line. I nervously went up to Maggie and handed her my pile of books to sign. I totally had a fangirl moment and blathered on about how I loved "Forever's" shower scene between Grace and Sam and the dancing scene between Isabel and Cole. Apparently her editor thought that the shower scene was too goofy for the book, but I am really glad that it was included because I thought that it showed a different side of Grace's and Sam's relationship. She also asked me why I had a ton of little pieces of paper strewn throughout my books and I explained that they were all of the best/ most memorable portions of her books IMO and that I had been featuring those parts on my blog (I used some of them in my Take Two of "Shiver" and my Take Two of "Linger")- I then totally had a shameless promotion moment and handed her a bookmark that I had made that had all of my blog info on it.

My signed books

After stumbling away awestruck from Maggie I then wandered over to Tessa Gratton (I felt really bad that I have yet to read "Blood Magic", but it is totally going to the top of my TBR pile). Tessa seemed like an absolute sweetheart and I was really glad to have had the opportunity to have met her as well (The picture of Tessa and me, left, was the only picture I managed to successfully download- thank gosh it was that one and not the one I had accidentally taken of my elbow).

And my signed copy of "Blood Magic"

And as we we leaving I obviously had to get a picture of myself with (Blue) Loki! Maggie was super excited because the bookstore actually let her park Loki on the sidewalk in front of it. Look at that license plate!

Thing I learned from my first book signing:

1) Take a working camera with you. Heck, take twelve if possible. And a cell phone with a good camera in it. Better. Safe. Than. Sorry.

2) Make sure your little sister is well fed before you force her to take you to a book signing (if not she will become super fidgety and grumpy and will go MIA for quite a long time as she drives to the nearest fast food restaurant to stuff her face).

3) Try to reach out to fellow bloggers who may be attending a signing prior to it (special thanks to Liz over at Midnight Bloom Reads- she actually let Jen and myself know that we would both be attending the event).

Thanks goes out to Maggie Stiefvater, Tessa Gratton, and Chapters (Wellington location)!

In My Mailbox

In My Mailbox is a weekly post hosted by Kirsti at The Story Siren as a chance to share the books we've bought or received over the past week.
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Received for Review 
"Possess" by Gretchen McNeil (Thank you so much to HarperCollins and Shannon!)

Bought
"Haunted" by Meg Cabot
"Personal Demons" by Lisa Desrochers 
"Original Sin" by Lisa Desrochers 
"Forever" by Maggie Stiefvater 

Won
A HarperCollins mug from Facebook (Thanks HarperCollins)

And then NetGalley offered up some truly amazing books for review this week (Thanks to NetGalley and the Publishers!): 

 

"The Iron Knight" by Julie Kagawa

"Cold Kiss" by Amy Garvey

"Vanish" by Sophie Jordan

"A Beautiful Dark" by Jocelyn Davies 

"The Girl of Fire and Thorns" by Rae Carson 

"Wreath" by Judy Christie

What did you get in your mailbox?

On My Wishlist...

 

On My Wishlist is a great event that Book Chick City runs every Saturday. It's where you list all of the books that you desperately want but haven't actually bought yet. They can be old, new or forthcoming. I thought that this was a fantabulous idea so I thought I would join in!
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"A Million Suns" by Beth Revis 

From Goodreads: "The plot of this book is currently a secret..."

UGH! No description! Darn authors who love to tease us!