800 Follower Giveaway!

I hit 800 followers a few days ago!!

Thank you everyone who follows my blog, I appreciate and love every single one of you!

So to celebrate I'm giving one lucky winner the chance to win a book of their choice up to the value of £10 from the Book Depository!

Giveaway is open internationally, as long as the book depository ships to your country!

Enter now!

Review: Dead Beautiful (Dead Beautiful #1) - Yvonne Woon

Name: Dead Beautiful (Dead Beautiful #1)

Author: Yvonne Woon

General Release Date: 1st May 2011

Date I finished it: 3rd October 2011

Type: Audio Book

My Rating: 5/5 stars

Dead Beautiful follows the story of Teenager Renee after her parents die in very suspicious circumstances, they both dropped dead of a heart attack at the exact same time. Although no one else apart from Renee seems to think this is strange or wants to look into it further.

Renee is shipped off to a very elite boarding school by her grandfather, so elite in fact that she can't find out any information about the school online at all. Soon after she arrives there she discovers that the school itself is very strange, and instead of studying normal subjects like Maths, History or Spanish she finds herself enrolled in Latin and Horticulture classes!

After discovering that a previous student died last term of a sudden heart attack, just like her parents, Renee investigates deeper into the mysteries of Gottfried Academy and discovers much more than she bargained for!

I really enjoyed this book, I have it 5/5 stars.

Even though I do have it on paperback, I chose to listen to the audio instead. I loved the character of Renee, even though so many bad things had happened to her, in the end she tried her best to overcome them, to me that is a true storybook heroine. I especially liked those few days she spent moping over Dante watching hours and hours of horror movies. To me Renee was a very believable character, she was pretty down to earth and easy to relate too.

I am a massive fan of books set in boarding schools and I'm sure I've mentioned that before. I think it's my brain's way of telling me that secretly I wanted to go to a boarding school! Gottfried Academy seems like a more grown up and more believable version of Hogwarts. I loved all the mystery and unknown that surrounds the school, and all it's little secret passages that only select people know about. The classes in the book actually sound really fun and much  more interesting that your typical high school classes.

The story itself is well thought out, when I was getting near the end of the book I had a feeling about what was going to happen but wasn't too sure. The story is not predictable and the plot is full of unexpected twists and turns and catch you when you are least expecting it.

Overall I really loved this book and I am super excited to start the follow up to it soon as well!

Pyxis Mini Tour 11th - 14th October

I am so excited to be a part of this mini blog tour for the amazing début novel Pyxis: The Discovery by K.C. Neal. I asked K.C. a few questions about the book and she recorded her answers:

So Hopefully those questions and answers have got you a bit more intrigued about the story!Pyxis will be released as an e-book on the 4th of November and will be out on paperback on the 2nd of December.
I was so lucky to receive a super early ARC of Pyxis to review for this mini tour, massive thanks to K.C. for asking me to take part and giving me the opportunity to read her book!
My Review
Pyxis follows the story of 16 year old Corinne who is still coming to terms with the recent death of her grandmother. She discovers a strange box filled with strange looking liquids that her grandmother left her, with no idea what these colourful liquids could be Corinne thinks they must be some kind of home-made food colourings and uses them to colour icing for her cakes for the school bake sale. 
After people who eat Corrine's cakes start acting very strange toward her, Corinne and her friend Ang soon discover that these little bottles do not hold food colourings - but something else entirely! After experimenting on some of their school friends they still have no idea what these liquids are actually for. The two start to dig a little deeper into Corinne's grandmother's past and with the help of Corinne's life long friend Mason they try their best to get to the bottom of things!
Pyxis is an amazing book, to me it is a completely fresh and original concept in the world of YA Paranormal.I like to think that I have read a lot of books in this genre and I can honestly say that there are no books out there with a similar plot line to Pyxis. I have no idea how K.C. came up with the idea for the potions or the history and legacy that comes along with them, those ideas teamed with the three main characters work amazing well together!
As a book blogger, when I hear the words debut novel I can get a little worried about the writing style, you just don't know what to expect. Pyxis is beautifully written, it's not overly complex and it's easy to find yourself completely lost in the pages. The story itself doesn't seem dragged out like some books can be, there is a lot of important information in Pyxis, which is released to the reader in small, manageable chunks. Meaning the story sticks in your head and all the important pieces aren't thrown at you at once, making the book much more enjoyable.
I loved the uncertainty between Mason and Corinne, they whole will they or won't they thing. On one hand it's obvious they like each other and they should just come out and say they like each other, but on the other hand they have been a part of each others lives for so long now would moving forward damage that closeness they already have?I would have liked to have seen a bit more of Ang in Pyxis, it seemed that whenever something important was happening she was always at church or visiting relatives. I don't know if this has any significance or not, guess I'll have to wait for the second book to find that one out!
Overall, the book was brilliant!Well written, it has realistic and likeable characters as well as an original plot line!5/5 stars for me!
Don't forget to stop by K-Books tomorrow for the giveaway!
Follow the Tour!11th - SpadesHighReads (Sneek Peak at the first chapter)12th - YA-Aholic (Second Chapter and Hayley's Review)13th - BelleBooks (Video Interview and Emma's Review)14th - K-Books (Giveaway!)

Top Ten Tuesday #2

This week is topic is top ten books I wish I could read for again for the first time.

1. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling

I went to a midnight release party for Deathly Hallows and started reading it straight away, I actually skipped college the next day just so I could stay in all day and finish the book. I grew up reading Harry Potter and this book brought the whole saga to an end, I wish I could go back and read it again for the first time and savour it rather than rushing through it just to get to the end.

2. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Technically I could go back and read this again for the first time as I listened to it on audio.

The Hunger Games was my first proper dystopian book and because of it I fell in love with the dystopian genre.

At the time it was so completely different from anything I had ever read before and it had me hooked from the first chapter.

3. The Northern Lights by Phillip Pullman

I first read this when I was 10 and have re-read the entire trilogy about five times since then.

The Northern Lights was the first full sized novel I ever read and it also opened the door to mystical/fantasy type books to me.

4. Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead

Vampire Academy was my first proper YA Paranormal read and I haven't ever went back to read it again, I don't really know why. I loved this book and somehow ended up with two copies of it.

5. Wicked by Gregory Maguire

This was such an amazing book and a great start to the series. I loved Gregory Maguire's other books based on fairy tales and when I found out about Wicked I bought it right away. The story was well thought out and the characters came across as real people. 

6. Uglies by Scott Westerfield

Another start to a dystopian series. I had heard about this series years ago, my friend tried to make me read it but the broken Barbie doll pieces on the covers put me off at the time. After finally reading what Uglies was really about I snapped up the entire series and loved it!

7. Keeping Faith by Jodi Picoult

This was my third Jodi Picoult book, but it's the one I've enjoyed the most out of all her books.

The story in it is amazing, well thought out and very touching.

8. Wasted by Myra Honbacher

Loved this book so much at the time, I have went back and read it a couple more times but it just isn't the same. I think it's the initial shock and complete disgust you get when you first read it that really grips you.

9. Succubus Blues by Richelle Mead

My first venture into adult paranormal romance and the moment when I turned into Richelle Mead's biggest fan!

Such an amazing and totally different story at the time. I had only read the usual vampire or werewolf stories before then and this one opened my eyes to other paranormal creatures.

10. Marked by P.C. & Kristen Cast

I love the House of Night series, even though it's getting a bit old now.

Marked got me hooked on Zoey's story and at the time it was totally different from other vampire books.

In My Mailbox (IMM) #16