In My Mailbox is a meme hosted by The Story Siren, which allows bloggers to share what books they’ve received in the past week. They can be from stores, contests, tours or publishers!

• Evernight by Claudia Gray (purchased)
• Raised By Wolves by Jennifer Lynn Barnes (purchased)
• Born At Midnight by C.C. Hunter (purchased)
• Winter’s Shadows by M.J. Hearle (won) Thanks Lisa @ Badass Bookie
• Spellbound by Cara Lynn Shultz (purchased)
• Nevermore by Kelly Creagh (purchased)
• Blood Magic by Tessa Gratton (purchased)

I borrowed Evernight and Raised By Wolves from my library last month, and I enjoyed them both so I snapped them up cheap on AmazonUK. I also order the following books from both series, but Amazon decided to split my order and send me the ones I’ve already read first so I’m still waiting on them. Thanks to Lisa from Badass Bookie for my copy of Winter’s Shadow. It’s another one I library’d and really loved, so I’m happy to have my own copy now. She also sent me all of those bookmarks, badges and even a little Possession bottle opener. That tiny booklet also has the first chapter of Divergent in it. The rest of my books here, I haven’t read. If you read my IMM last week, you’d see I now have two copies of Blood Magic, one US hardcover and one UK paperback. I actually like both covers, I just hope I enjoy the book once I get around to it.

Here are my reviews from the past week:
Vincent, Rachel Soul Screamers #2, My Soul To Save
Weatherly, L.A. Angel #1, Angel

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Title: Angel (Angel #1)
Author: L.A. Weatherly
Published: October, 2010 by Usborne Publishing
Pages: 506
Rating:  
Purchase: The Book Depository

Angels are all around us: beautiful, awe-inspiring, irresistible.

Ordinary mortals yearn to catch a glimpse of one of these stunning beings and thousands flock to The Church of Angels to feel their healing touch. But what if their potent magnetism isn’t what it seems? Willow knows she’s different from other girls. And not just because she loves tinkering around with cars. Willow has a gift. She can look into people’s futures, know their dreams, their hopes and their regrets, just by touching them. But she has no idea where she gets this power from.

Until she meets Alex…
Alex is one of the few who know the truth about angels. He knows Willow’s secret and is on a mission to stop her. The dark forces within Willow make her dangerous – and irresistible. In spite of himself, Alex finds he is falling in love with his sworn enemy.

Final Thoughts:
I loved the main characters. Both were strong willed, competent, and slightly broken. A great angel plot, as an angel-loving cult sweeps the nation. With the two leads on the run across America, we get to see their tense relationship blossom as they hide out among backwater motels and hotwire cars.

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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 and share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page.

“You, um…you know about cars,” said Alex. And then felt like an idiot. Way to state the obvious.
Willow gave him a cool look as she brushed her jeans off. “Yeah, go figure. I actually do something that isn’t freaky half-angel stuff.”

– Angel by L.A. Weatherly, page 164.
Published in October, 2010 by Usborne Publishing.

Title: My Soul To Save (Soul Screamers #2)
Author: Rachel Vincent
Published: December, 2009 by Harlequin Teen
Pages: 279
Rating:  
Purchase: The Book Depository

When Kaylee Cavanaugh screams, someone dies.

So when teen pop star Eden croaks onstage and Kaylee doesn’t wail, she knows something is dead wrong. She can’t cry for someone who has no soul.

The last thing Kaylee needs right now is to be skipping school, breaking her dad’s ironclad curfew and putting her too-hot-to-be-real boyfriend’s loyalty to the test. But starry-eyed teens are trading their souls: a flickering lifetime of fame and fortune in exchange for eternity in the Netherworld—a consequence they can’t possibly understand.

Kaylee can’t let that happen, even if trying to save their souls means putting her own at risk…

Final Thoughts:
A great second novel, building on the bean sidhe (banshee)/reaper dynamics built in My Soul To Take. Rather than being swept up in her own budding romance, Kaylee is actually quite selfless, a little too much I think. This one brings a lot of fun and ample tension as the little group takes on an evil corporation stealing their teen stars’ souls.

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Okay, so the winners of my 100 Followers Giveaway are:

Tristan Bruce

and

Myranda @ My{reads}da

Both will be getting a copy of The Demon’s Lexicon by Sarah Rees Brennan. I’ve emailed the winners and they have 48 hours to get their mailing details to me otherwise sadly I’ll have to draw replacements.

Thanks to everyone who entered and to those who’ve stopped by to say hello, you’ve made my first few months of blogging great 🙂

In My Mailbox is a meme hosted by The Story Siren, which allows bloggers to share what books they’ve received in the past week. They can be from stores, contests, tours or publishers!

• Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion (won)
• Blood Magic by Tessa Gratton (won)
• Hammered by Kevin Hearne (purchased)
• Angel by L.A. Weatherly (purchased)
• Fearscape by Simon Holt (purchased)
• Forgotten by Cat Patrick (purchased)

And because I felt like it:
I tipped out every box and satchel I’d been accumulating in my cupboard since I started doing my shopping online. My room sat like this for six days, making it an expedition to get to my bookshelves without tripping over. It’s clean now finally, we backed the ute (truck – for my US readers) up to my window and threw it all out into the tray. I think this made me rethink my hoarding habits.

Thanks to O’Dell from BookTwirps for Warm Bodies and Blood Magic, which I won in a giveaway hop a few weeks ago. I hadn’t heard of the first one, but it sounds really good. I’m looking forward to getting into some zombie romance. Blood Magic, of course, I can’t wait to read. As you can see, my bookmark is sticking out of Angel, it’s good so far, but I’m only a chapter or so in. I’ve had Hammered and the paperback of Fearscape pre-ordered from Book Depository for a while and they finally turned up. I haven’t started either series, but I’ve got them all now, so I’ll get to them eventually. I read a sample of Forgotten on iBooks and I’ve seen good reviews, so I got myself a copy. There are so many different covers for this one, but I like this one better than the US one.

I didn’t do an IMM last week so here are my reviews from the past two weeks:
Barnes, Jennifer Lynn Raised By Wolves #1, Raised By Wolves
Carriger, Gail Parasol Protectorate #1, Soulless
Carroll, Lee Black Swan Rising #1, Black Swan Rising
Curley, Marianne Old Magic
Gray, Claudia Evernight #1, Evernight
Harvey, Alyxandra Drake Chronicles #2, Blood Feud
Hatfield, Meagan Shadow Of The Vampire
Jones, Carrie Need #3, Entice
Soule, Sherry Spellbound #1, Beautifully Broken
Westerfeld, Scott Peeps #1, Peeps
Williamson & Plec, Kevin & Julie Stefan’s Diaries #3, The Craving

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Title: The Craving (Stefan’s Diaries #3)
Author: Kevin Williamson & Julie Plec
Published: May, 2011 by HarperTeen
Pages: 234
Rating:  
Purchase: The Book Depository

Blood brothers . . .

After his brother, Damon Salvatore, betrays him in New Orleans, Stefan starts over in Manhattan. Vowing never to harm another human, he roams the streets, trying to disappear into the city’s chaos. But just when he thinks he’s left his past behind, Stefan discovers that he can never escape his brother. Damon has grand plans for the vampire Salvatore brothers—whether Stefan likes it or not. Together, they take New York by storm. When their exploits end up on the society pages, an old enemy resurfaces—one hell-bent on revenge.

Final Thoughts:
Compared to the first two books, it’s a little lacking in the plot department. Stefan and Damon are at each other’s throats, literally. There is more of the same you’ve come to expect from those two. Fans of the TV series will enjoy this. As Lexi remarks of Stefan, “I can tell you’re going to be quite the brooder.”

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