Sunday, August 14, 2016

Sunday Post #66 and Stacking the Shelves August 14th, 2016

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted  @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer. It’s a chance to share news ~ A post to recap the past week on your blog, showcase books and things we have received and share news about what is coming up on our blog for the week ahead. See rules here: Sunday Post Meme.  Not to sound like a broken record, but as you can tell by how long it's been since I last did a weekend update like this, life hasn't slowed down any!  Here are the things that have been going on.

 Last three weeks:
So, that's a lot of posts!  You can see that it was a busy three weeks!  With all of that, I was back to school last week having the meetings with the other teachers.  The kids start this week.  I actually got about 3 reviews a week done over the past three weeks.  The only thing about that though, is that I'm still way behind on reviews!  I have a stack of 9 books sitting next to where I do my blogging that are all waiting to be reviewed, not to mention the 10 free e-books I need to do a review post for, and the audiobook or two that still need reviews.  I had some internet issues this week at home, which kept me from doing what I wanted with reviews as well.  Gah!  There is another Comic-Con in my town this week, but even though there are a few authors there I'd like to go see, I think I've met them all before.  Next week though, there is a science fiction writer convention or something like that in my town, and there are some authors I've really been wanting to meet, so I'll be trying really hard to go to that!  But I've got another busy week coming up!  So who knows how much I'll get done.  

 Another disappointment this past week is something that I found out about NOLA Story Con.  I had thought it said you could bring 10 books per author from home to get autographed.  I was very sad to find out that it is only 10 books total that you can bring from home.  I've been purchasing a lot of books just to get autographed!  Oh well.  I'm going to just look at it as those are books I want to keep for sure.  I know they want you to buy books from them, but it sucks because I get my discount at my bookstore, which saves me money.  I guess on the positive side, it means my suitcase won't be as heavy on the way there!  Another downside is that I may have to spend money on books while I'm there that I hadn't planned on spending.

Coming up this week on the blog:
  • Promo Posts:  Arcana Rising (The Arcana Chronicles #4) by Kresley Cole, and Russian Tattoos:  Prisoner (Russian Tattoos #2) by Kat Shehata
  • Waiting on Wednesday
  • 5th Annual September is for Sequels Challenge sign-up post.  Check out last year's post to see if you might be interested! 
  • Cover Characteristic:  Mountains
  • Reviews:  Poison Princess by Kresley Cole, 10 Free or Cheap e-book reviews, Asa (Marked Men #6) by Jay Crownover, and  Leveled (Saints of Denver #0.5) by Jay Crownover
  • Possible Review:  Cruel Crown by Victoria Aveyard
Only one of those reviews has actually been written, so I have to fit the other two in. And I'd like to get farther ahead.  Something I'm also debating is doubling up on reviews. What I mean, is that even though I prefer not to have more than one post a day, maybe on review days, I can post two.  I'm hoping that may help me get farther ahead in my reviews, so that the books I read I'm not waiting so long to have time for a review on. But we'll see how much time I have and if I can get it done with school and everything starting back up.  

 Now, I've been trying to keep you updated with my walking goals.  Last week I had a terrible tragedy, my Fitbit Flex died.  I had thought at the end of July that I might go ahead and buy a new one, but then I decided to get a new laptop, and wait a while for a new Fitbit.  Guess that choice was taken out of my hands.  Even though  my warranty was up, when I contacted Fitbit to troubleshoot, which is how I found out it was broken, and wouldn't sync with anything anymore, they offered me a 25% off coupon, which made it so I could get the one I wanted, the Fitbit Alta, for under $100.  So I'm waiting on that to arrive!  I did still get all my walking done except for one of the three weeks, it just didn't get tracked in my Fitbit app the last week.

 August also started my 2nd round of participating in the On the Same Page Secret Sister Project.  I've already received an awesome gift from my sister, and I'm putting the finishing touches on my first package to get sent on Monday to my new sister. 






Stacking the Shelves is hosted by Tynga's Reviews.  It is a way for us to share the new books we have collected.  So, let's just say I've downloaded a ton of free e-books.  I'll probably show those at the very bottom, so that you can decide whether you want to actually scroll through them or not, because there will be a ton of them.  Anyway, here are the books that have joined my library over the past three weeks.

Physical books:



All of these books were purchased at the Barnes and Noble where I work the last week in July.  You can see two bargain books, the new Harry Potter book, a new VC Andrews book that is the long awaited sequel to My Sweet Audrina, and then the last book in the On Dublin Street series that I'd read at that point. 



These are books that I purchased.  The standing book was at the Dollar Tree store.  The stack of three all came from Half-Price Bookstore.


I ordered these from The Book Depository.  Again, before I knew I couldn't take 10 books per author, although, I will want to own all of Armentrout's books!  While I can order them from the bookstore where I want, to get these covers I had to order from TBD, and I decided I wanted to get these two this way.




I bought Torn as a ship to home order from the bookstore where I work. The second book, Redeeming Trust is by my friend and former writing partner, Michelle Sodaro.  It is the sequel to her book Broken Trust, and will be the first sequel I read for my challenge in September.

All three of these are unsolicited ARCs that I received over the past couple of weeks.  The bottom two I was actually contacted by the author and publisher asking if I wanted a copy, and I said yes!  I'm very excited for all of these!



This is the BEA Mega Prize Pack that I won from Swoony Boys and Fiction Fare.  It's got some great things in it!



This is a prize I won from Mary at Bookhounds YA when the first winner chosen never replied to the announcement.  



I got my final gift from my first On the Same Page Secret Sister, and it was so wonderful!  A hardcover copy of The Conspiracy of Us, and an adorable little dachshund necklace!  Nicole at Feed Your Fiction Addiction did a great job at picking out fun things and books that I loved over the last 6 months. 



And here is the first gift I received from my new On the Same Page Secret Sister.  This has been such a fun thing to participate in!  This time around I upped the amount I wanted to spend each  month because there were so many times with my last partner that I wanted to buy more!  But there are all different levels of this, and I'd recommend trying to participate in the next round in 6 months if you want!  Just go HERE to check out the information.  You can get started getting to know the hosts in the time up until then, so that you can get picked to join in!








The top two ARCs were unsolicited, but ones I'm excited for!  The Swan Riders is one that I got from a book tour, I requested the physical ARC to match the ARC of the first book in the series that I already have.  And then I walked into work at the bookstore one afternoon to find an ARC of The Thousandth Floor and I was so excited!  My manager thought I was weird when I squealed and danced around the break room.

E-galleys:






 The first five are all from Edelweiss. The last one I got from being part of a blog tour.  I also got an e-galley of Elementals 4:  The Portal to Kerberos by Michelle Madow for review.

Audiobooks:

It was a good deal, $2.95, from Audible.com, and so I decided to go for it!  I joined Audible again this summer when they had a two-three month deal for like $5 a month or something like that.  I used those months to get my audiobooks of the After series, because I need to own those in every format.  I already have physical copies, and I think I have them all in e-book, or at least most of them at the moment.  But audiobooks are expensive, so even though the membership is back to the $14.95 a month, I'm going to keep it long enough to get the rest of the series, then I'll cancel my membership again.

Free or Cheap E-books:
Okay, I'm not listing all of these right now, because there are a lot over the last three weeks.  I'll just list how many from and from what source for now.  Next week I'll pick back up on listing them.
  • 82 from Amazon
  • 1 from Barnes and Noble
Now to just work on going through and deleting all the ones I started reading but couldn't get into.  That will help me get through them.  Of course that takes time, and I don't have the time at the moment.


Alright, how was your last week?  What books joined your library recently?
Posted by at
Labels: , , , , , , , , , , ,