December Wrap up + Book Haul + January TBR!

Hello, again! I know I am a little late to do this, but better late than never, haha! January is going to be insane for me, as my younger cousin is going to be here until Sunday and next week I may start a course – more info as my life goes, haha!

But I’m blabbering, let’s do this:

December Wrap Up

I’m very proud of my reading month! I’ve read 11 books!! =O I’m still wondering how I did it, so I can repeat the dose this month, haha!

• Shielded Past, from Patti Morelli [review here]

all pictures from my Instagram!

• Stripped with the Vampire, from Jax Garren [review here]

• Convincing the Secretary, from Ava March [review here]

• Cemetery Tours, from Jacqueline E. Smith [review here]

• Between Worlds, from Jacqueline E. Smith [review here]

• After Death, from Jacqueline E. Smith [review here]

• The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty, from Anne Rice [review here]

• Braver With You, from A. Hart [review here]

• Roses of the Angel, from Kalee Marshall [review here!]

• Secret Vampire, from L. J. Smith [review here]

• Daughters of Darkness, from L. J. Smith [review here!]

 

December Book Haul

• Fangirl, from Rainbow Rowell [review here]

• Peter Pan, Barnes & Noble edition

• A Court of Thorns and Roses, from Sarah J. Maas
• Of Poseidon, from Anna Banks
• Treble Maker (Perfect Harmony, #1), from Annabeth Albert (ebook)

 

Books I have won as gifts

• Leaving Amarillo, from Casey Quinn
• Convincing the Secretary, from Ava March
• The Christmas Pearl, from Dorothea Benton Frank
• After Death, from Jacqueline E. Smith
• 1/2986, from Annelie Wendeberg
• Between Sips, from Andrea Michelle
• Our New Love, from Melissa Foster
• Daughter of Smoke and Bone, from Laini Taylor
• The Vanishing Game, from Kate Kae Myers
• Book of Opera, from Arthur Jacobs and Stanley Sadie
• The Other Side of Midnight, from Sidney Sheldon
• The Devil’s Advocate, from Morris West
• Vixen 03, from Clive Cussler
• The Name of the Rose, from Umberto Eco
• Lie Down With Lions, Ken Follett
• An illustrated guide to Dresden
• Amar se Aprende Amando, from Carlos Drummond de Andrade
• Antologia Poética, from Vinicius de Moraes
• Antologia Poética, from Carlos Drummond de Andrade
• Dona Flor e seus Dois Maridos, from Jorge Amado
• Tieta do Agreste, from Jorge Amado
• Tenda dos Milagres, from Jorge Amado
• A Moreninha, from Joaquim Manuel de Macedo

I know, I know. So many books, haha! I can explain 🙂 14 of my won books were at my uncle’s place, waiting for death. Yeah. So I won a cattle with lots of books and selected the ones that seemed promising 🙂 I wish I could have saved all books that were there, but there were some destroyed ones by the time, others that I knew for being a bore and some that weren’t my thing at all… Anyway, at least I could save some of them, haha!

 

Freebies that I got this month

• Anywhere But Here (The Starborn Ascension Book 1), from Jason D. Morrow
• Beyond Secret Worlds: Ten Stories of Paranormal Fantasy and Romance
• The Ducal Gift and The Christmas Carriage, from Grace Burrowes
• Soar (The Empire Chronicles Book 1), from Alyssa Rose Ivy
• Hidden (Dragonlands Book 1), from Megg Jensen
• Aloha Texas (Aloha #1), from Chris Keniston
• Binarius: Episode I (The Binarius Series Book 1), from Kendra McMahan
• Globalização, Mídia e Ética, from Erasmo de Freitas Nuzzi and Clovis de Barros Filho

 

Received books of this month

• Escape to Gettis… and Love, from Gerri Bowen [talked about it here!]
• Home, from Jordan L. Hawk
• Stepping Out of Midnight, from Lee Basilford [talked about it here!]

 

[BONUS: Borrowed books from my younger cousin]

• Diary of a Wimpy Kid (Cabin fever), from Jeff Kinney
• The Book of Lost Things, from John Connolly
• The Key to Rondo, from Emily Rodda

 

January TBR

I want to play it low as I know my month will be crazy, so I have chosen six books:

• Spellbinder, from L. J. Smith (my current-read)
• Emma, from Jane Austen (NOW I WILL FNISH THIS, I AM SURE OF IT 8D)
• Percy Jackson and the Lightening Thief, from Rick Riordan (actually a re-read to a goodreads book club)
• Escape to Gettis… And Love, from Gerri Bowen
• Widdershins (Whyborne & Griffin, #1), from Jordan L. Hawk
• Fangirl, from Rainbow Rowell (I’m reading this with a book club and we shall finish it next week :D)

 

That’s it! Thanks for reading this giant post, haha! Let’s see if I can make it 😀 have you decided what are going to be your first books of 2016??

#12daysofbooksmas2 readathon: RESULTS!

Hello, again! Happy Wednesday for you 🙂

So, the #12daysofbooksmas2 readathon came to an end yesterday and here I am to collect war spoils and bury the dead, haha!

I’d like to start this report saying that this was my first readathon in life, so I didn’t really knew what I was doing, LOL. As I had 10 days, I thought it would be nice to pick a book for each day (spoiler alert: no, it wasn’t). As those 10 days preceded Christmas and my family’s trip, I thought I had the eternity to read the books that I wanted (spoiler alert pt. 2: no, I hadn’t). And as we had to read a total of 1.200 pages, I was insanely worried that I would never be able to read so much in practically two weeks (spoiler alert pt. 3: I was, haha!).

Keeping all of these impressions on mind, add the information that I graduated in Journalism to the mix. You may reach the conclusion that I have no time space notion, that I can’t do math to see that 1.200 pages totalize approximately 5 books of 300 pages each and that I just didn’t know what I was doing. You are totally right, haha!

But let’s go to the actual report:

Read books:

• Cemetery Tours series, from Jacqueline E. Smith [review here]
• Between Worlds, from Jacqueline E. Smith [review here]
• After Death, from Jacqueline E. Smith [review here]
• The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty, from Anne Rice [review here]
• Braver With You, from A. Hart [review here]
• Roses of the Angel, from Kalee Marshall [review coming soon!]

 

Completed challenges:

Read a book with red or green on the cover: check, Roses of the Angel

Read about book that’s on your end of the year tbr: check, all of the read books were on my TBR of the end of the year

Read a book that takes place during the holiday season: check, Braver With You

Read a sequel: double check, Between Worlds and After Death

Re-read a favorite book: flopped…

Read a book with a movie adaptation (and watch the movie): flop

Read a total of 1,200 pages! Check, as I’ve read 1.595 pages, haha!

It wasn’t great, but it was lots of fun 😀 Can’t wait for the next one, when I’ll be wiser, haha!

That’s it 😀 Thanks for reading and accompanying my progress in my first readathon!

Braver With You, from A. Hart (Great Love #1)

Hello, good Sunday to you! Another review is up on the blog, this time for Braver With You, which I received from dear A. Hart in exchange for an honest review. Thank you, I loved it!

from my Instagram 😀

The Story

Emerson looks like your regular girl, except that she’s anything but. Em won the fight of her life, against cancer. Now she just wants to have a normal and healthy life, free of drama and hospitals. And, if it’s not asking for much, beside the boy that she met during the darkest days of her life.

Calvin is a soldier, shipped everywhere to protect and serve his nation. He met Em while she was still fighting cancer and was thorn to leave her to attend another mission. Now Calvin is back to their small town and plans to stay after his last assignment, which shall take place in a couple of weeks. The trick will be convincing Em that what they had before can grow into so much more.

Two shattered hearts, one future. They only need to be brave.

The Analysis

Just remembering that those were my impressions and opinion as a reader 🙂

I have to say that contemporary romance usually is not my first choice of genre, but holy cow! A. Hart did an amazing job with this book! I really liked it and couldn’t stop reading ❤ Just the kind of book that makes you want to hug it and never let go, you know? It was a wonderful surprise to love Em and Cal, to support their love and be a witness of their happiness together. The only reason that I took off one star of the book was due to editing problems, but the story itself is a five stars one 😀

The narrative was very interesting. You see, it was first person and if you have read one or two of my reviews, you already know that I’m not a fan of this narrative style. Yet, Hart played with Em, Cal and Sid’s point of views, so the reader didn’t lose any part of what was happening, being able to understand all the reasons behind what was happening! It was brilliant! *–*

The plot is simple. Girl meets boy, they fall in love, have to split up thanks to life, meet again in the future and try to make it happen again. The master play in Braver With You is how Hart treats themes like cancer, responsibility, stalking, sexual harassment and abuse, recipes to happiness and love itself. Cancer, for example, wasn’t an active character, just a shadow. We don’t get to see Em’s time at the hospital, for which I’m very grateful (I lost an uncle for cancer last year, it would be impossible for me to read a book that talks about a cancer patient routine right now), we meet Em and Cal at their reencounter 🙂 The way Hart brings the stalking and sexual harassment into the plot is also very good. She shows how it can happen to anyone, without a previous warn, and that the people that do these sick things not always have mental issues. Sometimes, they are just that mean and, no matter how small the incident looks, ALWAYS report it to the authorities. ALWAYS, okay?

Now, characters. It was very nice to see that Cal didn’t leave Em because he was confused or anything. Cal, as a soldier, had responsibilities that he couldn’t and wouldn’t ignore and this is part of his charm. Em understood that to a point, but as they didn’t talk, she had her doubts. By the way, I loved them as a couple. Em could be a pain sometimes and Cal could be very dense, but those two together become better people after getting together. I LOVED IT! ❤ I really hated the bad guy that shall have his name hidden due spoilers. He was disgusting since scene one and I wanted to hit him with something heavy straight in the head.

Ahem.

Bonus point: besides the cool switching points of view, there is one other thing that made me love this book a lot. There is a scene where Cal and Em start to watch Funny Face, with Audrey Hepburn! This is my second favorite movie that she stars, just losing to My Fair Lady ❤ YOU ROCKED HERE, HART! /o/

if you didn’t watch it, please do! ❤

Overall, I enjoyed a lot this book, specially the twists in the end. After the major cliff hang on the last chapter, I can’t wait to buy and read the second book of the series, Stronger By Your Side 😀

That’s it! Thanks for reading and thanks once again to A. Hart for this heart-warming book ❤ Do you like contemporary romances?

 

 

Ps: That was my fifth book on the #12daysofbooksmas2 readathon!

#12daysofbooksmas2 readathon! <3

Hi, there! Good morning and Happy Friday! Friday is always happy, but okay, haha!

I’ve got exciting news! (cof not really if you follow me at Instagram cof) I’m going to be participating of the #12daysofbooksmas2 readathon! 😀 I was invited in by my lovely friend @thepagemistress and this will rock!

from @thepagemistress Instagram account!

Here we have the rules:

Read a book with red or green on the cover

Read about book that’s on your end of the year tbr

Read a book that takes place during the holiday season

Read a sequel

Re-read a favorite book

Read a book with a movie adaptation (and watch the movie)

Read a total of 1,200 pages!

This is going on from December 11th-22^nd

This readathon has also a photo challenge, but I’ll only do it at my Instagram account, so follow me there if you want to see what I’m about, haha!

As to my TBR pile, I’m going to risk this one:

• Night World, vol. 1, from L. J. Smith (729 pages)
• The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty, from Anne Rice (253 pages, talked about this book here)
• Cemetery Tours series, from Jacqueline E. Smith (514 pages, both books that I own. Talked about it here and, besides being my currently-reading, this is my sequel of the list!)
• Braver With You, from A. Hart (298 pages)
• The Carnelian Legacy, from Cheryl Koevoet (486 pages)
• Roses of The Angel, from Kalee Marshall (183 pages)
• Alice’s Adventures in Underland: The Queen of Stilled Hearts, from DeAnna Knippling (206 pages)
• The Answer, from D. M. Thornton (274 pages)
• Emma, from Jane Austen (currently-reading, my red book and book with a holiday season, haha!)

I know I am being too hopeful, but it’s my chance to knock my tbr pile of December for good, haha! Let’s see how I go! Oh, and I know there’s no signalized book with movie adaptation, I didn’t decide yet which one I’ll be reading, haha! Oops 🙂

That’s all about the readathon, for now! I’ll make another post about this when it’s over, talking about how it was my first readathon ever! ❤ Thanks again for inviting me, Lindsey, and thanks to you, that is reading the blog 😀

November’s Wrap Up, Book Haul and December TBR!

Hi, there! Omg, December is really here! I am sooo happy! ❤

November was a slow reading month for me, as I finished my dissertation and had my finals, but I got to read something 🙂 December will be a better month, as I’ll be on vacation after December 04^th, haha!

WRAP UP

I’ve read 8 books, 4 mangas and 1 comic book in November.

BOOKS

• A Arte de Editar Revistas, by Fatima Ali (Brazilian Portuguese book meant for my dissertation, so I won’t review it)
• The Complete Essays, by Michel de Montaigne (college reading, also won’t be reviewed even that it was very good)
• Em busca dos contos perdidos: O significado das funções femininas nos contos de Perrault (Searching for the lost tales: the meaning of the female functions in Perrault’s fairy tales), by Mariza B. T. Mendes (review here!)

• Finding Forever (The Chasing Series #2), by Linda Oaks (review here!)

• Introduction to Sociology, by Theodor W. Adorno (college reading, won’t be reviewed)

• Misunderstood: Secrets of a Teen Queen, by Anya Valentino (review here!)

• The Night Clock, by Paul Meloy (review here!)

• Renoir (Os Impressionistas), by Aldo Pereira (review coming soon!)

MANGAS

• Castle Mango, by Muku Ogura & Narise Konohara (review here!)

• Eerie Queerie!, by Shuri Shiozu (review here!)

• Ten Count, by Rihito Takarai (review here!)

COMIC BOOK

• My Little Pony: Equestria Girls, by Ted Andersen and Katie Cook (review here!)

BOOK HAUL

My haul for this month was almost non-existent again. My family has been going through difficult times, so I’m trying not to be a burden, haha! I got some freebies from Amazon and won a giveaway, so this is my haul:

• Devil’s Breath, by Jon P. Wells
• The Legend of the Blue Eyes (The Blue Eyes Trilogy #1), by B. Kristin McMichael
• Sachael Dreams (The Mine #1), by Melody Winter
• Widdershins (Whyborne & Griffin #1), by Jordan L. Hawk
• Daughters of Darkness – The Anthology (4 Paranormal Romance Novels), by Chrissy Peebles, Kristen Middleton, W.J. May and C.J. Pinard
• Red August, from H. L. Brooks (the book I won and already talked about here)

DECEMBER TBR

I’m still working on my December TBR, but I can tell you that I WILL FINISH EMMA, mwahaha mwahaha! ❤ What I’m sure for now:

• Shielded Past, from Patti Morelli (currently-reading) [UPDATE: review here]

• Emma, from Jane Austen (currently-reading)

• Night World, vol. 1, from L. J. Smith [reviews: book 1, book 2 and book 3]
• The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty, from Anne Rice (By the way, I already talked about this book here) [review here]
• Cemetery Tours series, from Jacqueline E. Smith [reviews: book 1, book 2 and book 3]
• Braver With You, from A. Hart [review here!]
• The Carnelian Legacy, from Cheryl Koevoet
• Roses of The Angel, from Kalee Marshall [review here!]
• Alice’s Adventures in Underland: The Queen of Stilled Hearts, from DeAnna Knippling

I always end up reading unplanned books in the middle of my selected TBR, so I’ll start the month with those and let’s see how it goes, haha!

That’s it! Thanks for reading! What is your first read for Christmas month??

August Wrap Up: readings, haul and news :)

Hi, there! August has ended, so it’s time to balance everything that has been happening with me and my books!

Wrap Up

 I’ve read 8 books, 5 mangas and 1 comic book this month. I hope I can do better than this in September!

• The Tutor – Bonnie Dee (review here)

From my Instagram account 🙂

• História da Vida Privada no Brasil (Brazil’s Private Life History) – Fernando A. Novais
• Chasing Rainbows – Linda Oaks (review here)

• The Need – S. L. Hannah (review here)

• A Moda (The Fashion) – Erika Palomino
• A Concise History of Costume – James Laver
• Shattered Blue (The Light Trilogy, #1) – Lauren Bird Horowitz (review here)
• Vexed by a Viscount (All’s Fair in Love, #4) – Erin Knightley (review here)

• Hey, Class President! – Monchi Kaori (5 volumes, review here!)
• Garfield 2.582 strips reunited – Jim Davis

Book Haul

 I’ve bought 3 mangas and 4 ebooks. That’s right, I didn’t buy a single paperback or hardcover this month and I’m depressed.

• A Miracle’s Path – Aaron Millar
• Glagnodian’s Vengeance (Book 1) – Aaron Millar
• Wanting – Piper Vaughn
• The Vampire King’s Husband – Amber Kell

 

Received books

 I’ve received 18 books in August in exchange for a honest review 🙂 Here’s the complete list, including my NetGalley books:

• Sigmund Shaw: A Steampunk Adventure – Mark. C. King (currently reading!)
• What Lies Within – James Morris
• Cemetery Tours and Between Worlds – Jacqueline E. Smith
• Braver With You – A. Hart
• Shattered Blue (The Light Trilogy, #1) – Lauren Bird Horowitz
• Roses of the Angel – Kalee Marshall
• Alice in Underland – DeAnna Knippling
• Dangerous Spirits (Spirits, #2) – Jordan L. Hawk
• Vexed by a Viscount (All’s Fair in Love, #4) – Erin Knightley
• Misunderstood – Anya Valentino
• The Answer – D. M. Thornton
• Tinsel Rose – Stephen Alix
• Cracking The Career Code – Tom Henricksen
• It’s Not Your Journey – Rebecca Lombardo
• Stripped with the Vampire – Jax Garren
• Secrets and High Spirits – Lou Harper
• The Night Clock – Paul Meloy

Four very busy weeks indeed, haha! And I also would like to say that my Review Policy is finally up!! It took me a while, but it’s beautiful ❤ I hope I can get more reading done this month 🙂

That’s it, guys! That’s my August report, haha! Thanks for reading! What have you been up to this last month?