Sunday Post. A Not Very Exciting Week

Sunday Post is a meme hosted by Caffeinated Book Reviews.

Hey! How is everyone doing? I know, I know... I have been missing in action again (believe me or not I've so many blog post saved to read and drop a lovely comment). I'm alive - well, I'm barely alive because a heat wave is trying to make me melt.

ARC Review // The Demon Race by Alexandria Warwick

Title: The Demon Race

Author: Alexandria Warwick

Publisher: Wolf Publishing

Published: September 18th 2018
Pages: 372 pages

Hidalgo meets An Ember in the Ashes in this Middle Eastern-inspired YA fantasy debut.

A race across the desert.

An unimaginable prize.

It occurs once every thousand years: the Demon Race. A test of will and strength, it is a race across the Saraj, a fight for the prize of a lifetime. And it is the key to Namali Hafshar’s freedom.

When shy, seventeen-year-old Namali learns of her arranged marriage, she flees home and enters the Demon Race for the chance to change her fate. But to compete, she must cross the Saraj on a daeva, a shadow demon that desires its own reward: to infect her soul with darkness.

Namali soon learns the desert holds more dangers than meets the eye. The only person she can trust is Sameen, a kind competitor seeking his own destiny. As her affection for him grows, however, so too does the darkness in her heart.

In this race of men and demons, only one can win. But the price of winning might be more than Namali is willing to pay.

Cover Reveal. Sugar Spells

It's cover reveal time! Thank you Xpresso Book Tours for the opportunity to share with everyone the cover of Sugar Spells by Lola Dodge. I read Deadly Sweet (review) a few months ago and I have an advise for you: Do not read Deadly Sweet with an empty stomach. Delicious cake descriptions will make you crave for something sweet. If the cover of Sugar Spells is any indication, the book will leave one craving for cakes and cupcakes too.

Sunday Post. A Life Recap

Sunday Post is a meme hosted by Caffeinated Book Reviews.

How is everyone doing? Me? Well, I'm exhausted. But nothing that some good books and too many hours of sleep won't restore... I hope. 

What happened in my life this last month:

🌻 Yesterday was my birthday (7th July). I'm never excited about it - who gets excited about getting older and realizing that hasn't accomplished much? Because the truth is I haven't accomplished much and no matter how hard I try, I always fail. And if I don't get results, then all the motivation is gone... and all there's is left is disappointment.
🌻 On a brighter note, I returned from France last week. It was a great intensive programme - although, I couldn't enjoy it as much as I wanted because while I was away one of my cats got sick and we still don't know if she's going to make it. All I wanted was to get back home and hug her.
🌻 I visit two amazing bookshops during my stay: Le Bookshop and Shakespeare and Company (the return flight was cancelled, so my and my colleagues had to travel to Paris to catch a new flight; we decided to visit Shakespeare and Company while we were waiting for it).
🌻Which means I bought a lot of new physical books (but none of them is written in French). Well, maybe not a lot since I was able to place them in my bag easily.

ARC Review // All These Beautiful Strangers by Elizabeth Klehfoth

Title: All These Beautiful Strangers

Author: Elizabeth Klehfoth

Publisher: Penguin

Published: July 12th 2018
Pages: 512 pages

"Beneath the glittering heights of the rich and powerful, lie secrets that can destroy them all...

The perfect summer beach read, for fans of Cruel Intentions, The Secret History and One of Us is Lying.

Charlie Calloway has a life most people would kill for. A tight knit family. A loyal set of friends. A fast-track to whichever college she chooses. But Charlie isn't interested in what most people want.

She's a Calloway. She's special. And she's been taught to want more.

So when she's invited to join an exclusive secret society, her determination to get in is matched only by her conviction that she belongs there. But behind their mysterious facade is a history of lies which unravels everything Charlie thought she knew... including the story behind her mother's disappearance ten years ago."

No one knows what happened to Grace Calloway. All These Beautiful Strangers follows Charlie's search for the truth about what happened her mother ten years after she went missing. However, Charlie learns that some doors should never be open.

PROS

Boarding School. Who doesn't love a story set in a boarding school? I don't know how to explain (there really isn't a reason why), but I quite enjoy when authors choose a boarding school as the setting. The halls are always full of secrets to be unveiled and past ghosts that still haunt the present.

The A's. Another concept that always grabs my attention is an anonymous club. Of course these avengers turned corrupted down the line, but I still enjoy the concept.

TTT. Books That Awake the Travel Bug in Me

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Artsy Reader Girl.

This week Top Ten Tuesday is simply perfect. Why? This Friday, I'm leaving to Marseille and then to Montpelier, in France, for two weeks of sightseeing (I hope there will be time since I'm going with my uni and will be attending classes about William Shakespeare) and trying to speak a language I've long forgotten.

Language barrier aside, let me share with you some of the books that made me think about dropping everything behind (minus my cats) and jump into an adventure around the world.

Sunday Post. It's Cake Week

Sunday Post is a meme hosted by Caffeinated Book Reviews.

How is everyone doing? How am I doing? I'm still stressed and there has been a lot of crying this week, but I'm trying not to give up everything. For that reason, I decided to cheer up myself and created Cake Week. I confess I quite enjoyed this themed week. I enjoyed it so much that I may do a few other themed weeks. 

What happened in my life this week:

🎂 The video game gods sensed my mood this week and decided to release a few seconds of Spyro gameplay. That put a smile on my face. #releasethedragon
🎂 Must stop picking 500 pages books. Since I'm such a slow reader, I feel like I'm not reading, and that's quite depressing.
🎂 NetGalley feedback ratio is above eighty per cent for the first time in months. How did this happen? *happy dance*
🎂 CAKE WEEK!