So, we recently found out about a very cool subscription service that sends out a bunch of very cool geeky stuff every month. It's called LOOT CRATE . The exciting thing about it is that it's a mystery box. So you don't know what you're going to get each month. The only …

Please Remain Calm by Courtney Summers My rating: 5 of 5 stars Today I had a bit of a zombie-reading day. I read The Walking Dead #136 and then got stuck into this novella. :) I LOVED This Is Not A Test , so I was looking forward to reading this one. Especially after my daug…

Betty Plum has never been in love. She's never even kissed a boy. But when H.O.T. Toby starts school it's like Betty has been hit with a thousand of Cupid's arrows. It's like a bomb has exploded – a love bomb!   More than ever Betty wishes her mum hadn't died wh…

Seventeen-year-old Prenna James emigrated to New York when she was twelve. But Prenna didn't come from a different country, she came from a different time - a future where a mosquito-borne illness has mutated into a pandemic, killing millions and leaving the world in ruins. Pre…

Firstly, no matter where you live, I hope you all had a great weekend.   Secondly, THANK YOU to everyone who entered my contest!   After using Random.org , the winner is...   Angelya @ Tea in the Treetops   Angelya, please send me an email--it's on the Contact …

Nuestra Señora de la Esperanza: A Wild Cards Story by Carrie Vaughn My rating: 5 of 5 stars I don't know anything about the Wild Cards universe, but I enjoy Carrie Vaughn's books, so I decided to give this a go. Not to mention that it's a TOR.com story, and you know…

Hello--I mean, G'day--and welcome to my first Australia Day Book Giveaway Blog Hop. This weekend, Australians have a long weekend to celebrate Australia Day. So I'm going to join a bunch of book bloggers, publishers, booksellers, and authors by taking part in a big giveaway …

Shelby Jane Cooper is seventeen, pretty and quiet. It's just Shelby and her mom, Shaylene, a court stenographer who wears pyjama jeans, stitches tapestry, eats ice-cream for dinner and likes to keep Shelby safe. So safe she barely goes out. So safe she doesn't go to school. Bec…

Hey, how is everyone today? It's Friday, so I'm cool. Especially since we're heading into a long weekend. Yay.   This week has been kinda hard. Because we hit the workouts pretty hard last week, went for a massive city walk on Saturday, and completed our 14 Day Lean Legs…

Warm Up by V.E. Schwab My rating: 5 of 5 stars This is yet another TOR.com story. There are so many good ones that I've decided to read one after every book I read. :) David hasn't left his house for a long time. 297 days to be precise. After the avalanche that took hi…

Faeries. Knights. Princes. True love. Think you know how the story goes? Think again...   Near the little town of Fairfold, in the darkest part of the forest, lies a glass casket. Inside the casket lies a sleeping faerie prince that none can rouse. He's the most fascinating thi…

The other day, I saw this on the Dymocks Twitter stream :     And it got me thinking...   As soon as I looked at the chart I labelled myself a  MONOGAMIST READER because I love to grab one book and totally lose myself in it until I reach The End. And while it's true in …

Now this is a word that can make me crazy.   Mainly because I'm so good at unintentionally  creating clutter for myself.   When I receive or buy something, I don't put it away. I like to put the item/s on my stationery trunk. So that I can see what I've got. It&#…

The other day I spoke about how much I love my Moleskine planner:   But this isn't my first Moleskine, and it definitely won't be my last. :)   Until a few years ago, I didn't know anything about these lovely and stylish notebooks. I actually stumbled upon them w…

I can't believe we're already halfway through this month. Yikes!    January is not just the start of a new year, but it's also when my daughter has summer holidays. That means that she's got school holidays during half of December and most of January. She doesn'…

Burning Girls by Veronica Schanoes My rating: 5 of 5 stars "In America, they don’t let you burn. My mother told me that." I have to start by saying, Wow . This is a very powerful, well written, heartbreaking novella featuring fascinating Jewish mythology, folklore and…

The bond between twins is unmistakable. For Jocelyn and Jack, that bond was all they had. But now Jack is dead. Then Jocelyn receives a letter from Jason December-the code name Jack used when they were children. Only one other person knows about Jason December: Noah, Jocelyn's chil…

Hey, how are you today? Hope you all had a great weekend. I certainly did. Monday morning sucks, so I thought it might be nice to brighten it up by posting about something nice. Last year I decided that instead of having a bunch of random To-Do Lists lying around on post-it notes an…

This Chance Planet: A Tor.Com Original by Elizabeth Bear My rating: 5 of 5 stars This is another TOR.com story. They post some really good stuff over there. Ilya is trying to convince Petra to harvest a liver for money. He's in a band and while she slaves away as a cocktail…

The other day when I was thinking about the things I'd like to do in 2015, I couldn't help but remember how much I used to blog, and how much I used to enjoy doing it.    I didn't mention this on my Goals Post yesterday because I wanted to post something separately. …

Clean Sweep by Ilona Andrews My rating: 5 of 5 stars By the time I found out about this book, it was too late to read it online. So I was very excited when it was released as an eBook. Dina is just an average girl running a nice B&B in small-town Texas. She has a cut…

Like I said last year , I don't make New Year Resolutions because those things just don't last (or stick). What I do like is setting goals for myself. But I never do that until the year is well on its way. Why? Mostly because my daughter is home during January, and/or I u…

Kia and Gio: A Tor.Com Original by Daniel José Older My rating: 5 of 5 stars This is another TOR.com short story set in the Bone Street Rumba world, so I was really looking forward to checking it out. Kia is almost seventeen and she can't get her cousin Gio out of her head. The…

I'm the kind of writer who likes to keep tallies. Whether I'm writing a first draft, revising, or editing I always set a goal date, which means setting smaller daily goals to get the project done by that certain date. I also write down how many words/pages I get done/through eac…