Two more books

Gonna run out of place preetty quick if I continue to buy more books...
Oh well! These books have actually been on my desk for over a week now, but I haven't had the time nor energy to sit down and write tbh. Been in a zombie mode for a while..

Until now.. Hello!

So here we are again! New books (and less space left in my bookshelf)! I did actually have some kind of a reason for purchasing these two books though😛 They might sound weird but in my head these reasons sounded perfectly reasonable at the time. Almost..

The Dreaming Void by Peter F. Hamilton
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (The original screenplay) by J. K. Rowling

Book #1: Lack of space for new english books in the store - Bought this one to get at least some space that I could fit some of the new ones. Did not take one just to get some space, I actually wanted to check it out as well so it was a "win-win" situation (and also a reason to buy a book)..

Book #2: Was the first to unpack these gorgeous looking copies of Fantastic Beasts at work - Bought one in case we ended up selling everyone by the end of the day. Turned out this was not as popular as the other HP book.. we still got plenty left in stock. But hey! At least I got one 😛

Excuses, excuses.. I know, but.. you know.. it sounded reasonable enough in my head😆


And that's the end of the last blog entry for today. Hopefully it won't be long till the next entry. I am currently reading The Sunrise by Victoria Hislop so there will be a new review up soon-ish. Gonna try and write it the same day I finish reading the book unlike the other review that took me almost 2 weeks to write. It's up now though so.. better late than never..?

Bye! xx

Daughter - Jane Shemilt

I actually started on this review almost two weeks ago, but haven't had the time nor energy to finish it (been in a zombie mode this passed week so all the energy I have had, I used on my daily drawings..)😴

Anyway... back to the review!😉

Daughter was the first book I've read by Jane Shemilt. I didn't know that much about this book before I started, but I was not that disappointed 😊 

The Blurb:

The night of the disappearance

She used to tell me everything.

They have a picture. It'll help.

But it doesn't show the way her hair shines so brightly it looks like sheets of gold.

She smells very faintly of lemons.

She bites her nails.

She never cries.

She loves autumn, I wanted to tell them. She collects leaves, like a child does. She is just a child.

FIND HER

One year later

Naomi is still missing. Jenny is a mother in the brink of obsession. The Malcolm family is in pieces.

Is finding the truth about Naomi the only way to put them back together?

Or is the truth the thing that will finally tear them apart?

My Thoughts:

Like I said in the beginning of this review, I started writing this review almost two weeks ago which means that it's been around two weeks since I read this book. So.. I might have forgotten some of the things that happened in this story, but I will try my best!🙊

So this is one of the typical disappearance stories about someone who's missing and the mother (or another family member or someone else) who wants to find the truth of what happened that horrible night. And it also got this mysteriousness to it that keeps people like me wanting to find out more and ends up reading the whole book 😛  There's also a twist in the end as it usually is with these kind of stories.

The story changed between the past (the days before the disappearance and after) and present (round a year later). I know I've said something like this before, but the way the chapters changed between then and now was not as confusing as it can be when it comes to these kind of stories. I did go back once to almost at the beginning to check something out that turned up at the near of the book, but that was it 😛

I can say that the ending was quite a surprise. I did not see that coming at all! I had some suspicions in my head, but this ending was not one of them. I was not that disappointed either about the end. I actually want to know what happens next, but I know I will never find out. I think. 

All in all, this was a nice and suspenseful thriller with a huge twist at the end and (like I said) I was not disappointed! I will definitely check out more of her books one day😊 

And that's the end of this review! Can't think of anything else to say so this is it. 

Bye! x

(I'm going to upload a new blog entry pretty soon that was also supposed to be up a while ago.. whoopsie!)

(Also..just discovered the emojis that's been added recently as you probably have noticed by now 😛)

Currently reading - The Sunrise by Victoria Hislop

On the Other Side - Carrie Hope Fletcher

On the Other Side is Carrie Fletcher's debut novel (apart from her biography called All I Know Now). I found out about her through her brother, Tom (from McFly, my all time favourite band) some years ago and been watching her yt channel and stuff since then. When she announced that she was writing a book, I was excited to see how it would turn out! And here I am, writing my review on her book :)

The Blurb:
Your soul is too heavy to pass through this door: Leave the weight of the world in the world from before.

Evie Snow is eighty-two when she quietly passes away in her sleep, surrounded by her children and grandchildren. It's the way most people wish to leave the world, but when Evie reaches the door of her own private heaven, she finds that she's become her twenty-seven-year-old self and the door won't open.

Evie's soul must be light enough to pass through so she needs to get rid of whatever is making her soul heavy. For Evie, this means unburdening herself of the three secrets which have weighed her down for over fifty years, so she must find a way to reveal them before it's too late. As Evie begins the journey of a lifetime, she learns more about life and love than she ever though possible, and somehow, some way she may also find her way back to the only man she ever truly loved...

Powerful, magical and utterly romantic, On the Other Side will transport you to a world that is impossible to forget. This is a love story like no other which will have you weeping because of the sheer joy and beauty of it all.

My Thoughts:
This was such a lovely novel! I got sad, angry (at her mother in particular and the tradition the family had.. grrr! What a cold mother she was!) and happy reading about Evie and the other characters in this story. I also had tears in my eyes at one point! The story between Evie and this guy called Vincent (you get to know him after few chapters so no spoilers there) was so sweet, and romantic and also sad. The things she had to let go because of reasons I'm not going to say was devastating.

I liked the way the chapters were divided into different sections between the three secrets she had to let go of. The chapters were divided between Evie's "afterlife" (how she ended up there, what she had to do to reach these people to get to the other side), the past (were we find out what happened when she was young and in love) and the present (the people she have to tell her secrets to). It sounds like it could be bit difficult to follow because of the timelines, but it wasn't. She did a great job with that :) There were also chapters were you first read about one person and in the middle of the page, you end up reading from another character's perspective, which also sound confusing, but wasn't :P (this whole explanations of the chapters sounds confusing to understand....oh well)

There were also moments when I had to read the same things over and over again to figure out wether some of the things that happened was a metaphor or if it literally happened. Like, for example:"my face turned into stone", is it just a metaphor or did my face literally got turned into stone?... (weird example, but you know..) So there were few times were I just sat there and didn't know if there was some magic involved or not :P Other than that, I really liked the way this story turned out. It had some disney-ish about it (like the surnames of the characters and some things that happened) and there was also a Once Upon a Time reference in there as well. I liked that :P

After finishing this, I'm pretty sure there was some real magic going on in there because of the things that happened :P

The ending was amazing and I had a huge grin on my face at the end of it (and maybe some happy tears). All in all, this is truly a wonderful "girlie book" were magic things happens and hearts gets broken. All in true disney style (that sounded weird but I wanted to write something like that so there it was). And maybe, just maybe, there's chance of a happy ending for Evie after all..? Who knows?

Guess you have to find out for yourself! ;)

I know this review sounds confusing and stuff, but I have a reason for that (for once)... I've been really tired today and my head has been a derpiederp all day (even at work I felt like I was a "walking dead"...you know.. the zombies, not the main characters) but I wanted to write this review today anyway so here it is :P

And here I am, signing off.

Bye! xxx

4/5
Next book to read: Daughter by Jane Shemilt

The Secret Keeper - Kate Morton

The Secret Keeper is the second book I've ever read by Kate Morton. I read The House At Riverton a while back ago and feel completely in love with that book. I'm glad my grandmother told me that I should read this right away. If she hadn't borrowed it from me few month ago, then it might have taken some time before I would pick it up (got lots of other books to read so..). But here we are and I was not disappointed at all!

The Blurb:
1961: On a sweltering summer's day, while her family picnics by the stream on their Suffolk farm, sixteen-year-old Laurel hides out in her childhood tree house dreaming of the bright future she can't wait to seize. But before the idyllic afternoon is over, Laurel will have witnessed a shocking crime that changes everything.

2011: Now a much-loved actress, Laurel finds herself overwhelmed by shades of the past. Haunted by memories, and the mystery of what she saw that day, she returns to her family home and begins to piece together a secret history: a tale of three strangers from vastly different world - Dorothy, Vivien and Jimmy - who are brought together by chance in wartime London and whose lives become fiercely and fatefully entwined.

Shifting between the 1930s, the 1960s and the present, The Secret Keeper is a spellbinding story of mysteries and secrets, murder and enduring love.

My Thoughts:
One thing..: How am I going to review this without any spoilers?! This is not going to be easy, mind you but I will try my very best to not spoil anything important!

Ok, first of all, what a book! After finishing the first chapter, I was hooked! Unfortunately my eyes thought otherwise.. which was frustrating. The reason why it took me so, so long to finish this book was because my eyes got tired pretty much in the middle of every single chapters. No matter how thrilling that chapter was, my eyes could barely keep themselves up. Argh! Maybe because the text was small or something.. I don't know.

Despite my tired eyes, I loved this book as much as I loved The House at Riverton. It was suspenseful, thrilling and all in all a great book to curl up with on a rainy day (or weeks in my case).

The characters had their own personalities and you felt like you got to know them well. The shifting from past and present, and between the characters was well written and didn't feel "messy". I liked the way the stories from the past kind of blended with the things Laurel found in present time. I didn't have to wait long for the meaning behind those findings and it still made me wanting to find out more about the life of her mother and also the other people that was part of her life one way or another.

And that ending. That was a huge twist right there! I literally had tears in my eyes reading the last page. I really, really want to spoil it all but I won't do it. You just have to read it yourself!

That's all I'm going to say. If you want to know more then.. well.. read it! (You can also ask me or look up more reviews online :P )

Bye! xx

5/5

Next book to read: On the Other Side by Carrie Hope Fletcher

Oh look! More books!

Like I said last time, no more promises about not buying any more books for a while. So here we are :P

It was half price on everything at work Wednesday evening so I decided to buy some books (you know... because it was 50% off... can't miss those deals, can ya? :P ) and I also bought a book yesterday when I was at work..for uhm.. research..*ahem*. So this week I ended up buying 6 more books to add to my collection. Three of those are in Norwegian and they are also some of the books I don't mind reading in my language. That also mean that I won't be doing any review on those since, you know, they're in Norwegian :P

Steinhimmelen by Karin Brunk Holmqvist
Rosa Elefanter by Karin Brunk Holmqvist
Kaffe med Musikk by Karin Brunk Holmqvist
Six of Crows (#1, Six of Crows) by Leigh Barduco
I Let You Go by Clare Mackintosh
Daughter by Jane Shemilt

Lots of things has happened these past few days with work and all so today I felt like I could sit down and write this blog post. I also finished The Secret Keeper by Kate Morton late last night so there will be one more post up pretty soon!


See ya!

Bye xx

When there's a sale online...

Here we are yet again... another book in my shelves. I'm officially done promising myself not to buy any more books for a while. It doesn't work. I give up.

So yes, there'a a sale on Bookdepository where you can buy books with up to 50% off! Yey! Of course I had to check that out when I got an email about this glorious bargain! I found 5 lovely books I wanted and added them to my 'cart' (also found out that some of the books I had bought in August/September-ish was 50% off as well...but hey! What can you do?!). After finishing my little "shopping-spree", I thought I had purchased them and didn't think any more about it, until I got an email last week(?).  They told me that my lovely books felt bit lonely and asked me if I wanted to keep them or not (something like that). I went back to the page (after checking both my email accounts for any confirmations on the purchase with no luck) and saw that 3 out of 5 of the books I wanted was now unavailable... I was sad, but I ended up only order the 2 books that was left from my previous attempt which was still available without really trying to find something else (I did look through the books, you know...just one last check). But, it doesn't stop there because few days later I got this in the mailbox:

"I am terribly sorry to inform you that on this occasion we have been unable to fulfil part of your order.

If your order was a pre-order unfortunately, information ahead of publication is not foolproof so a new title may be cancelled or postponed indefinitely. An edition scheduled for reprinting may be similarly abandoned by the publishers.

If you have ordered other titles, we will send you the remainder of your order immediately."

And the last part of the email:

"Again, please accept my apologies and I hope we can be of service to you in the near future."

So.. I ended up getting only 1 book out of 5, but it's OK because I already got so many I haven't read yet and I don't really mind even though I kinda wanted the book that got cancelled.

The last part of that email sounded so sad that I just want to give them a hug and tell them that I still love them and I will continue to buy books from Bookdepository. Why, you might ask? Because I love this page. The price is just perfect, they arrive pretty fast (and I live in Norway so that says something) and this is also the only time they have "messed up" my order. And I have ordered loads of books from there these past few years! So..

Dear Bookdepository,

I accept your apologies. I am not going to give you up because of this little problem. I will always love you and I know you will "fulfill" my "book-needs" whenever I want to go shopping. So thank you so much of being a part of my life and for being there when a girl needs to burn most of her money on more books even though she already has bought tons of books just few weeks previously. (You should probably put on some limit or something when someone buys more book than actually needed, knowing they won't be able to read all of them in their lifetime unless they got the same powers as The Flash)

Love from,
Me x

Ok.. back to the main reason of this blog post! The newest addition to my bookshelf! 

Before We Met by Lucie Whitehouse

I have been back and forth with this book, but when it was 50% off, I decided that I wanted to buy it after all :) After reading the "blurb" again, it did sound better than I remembered :P 

I have absolutely no idea what else to say.. I think I have already written enough about this whole book-shopping fail and troubles so.. But I can give you a quick update on the book I'm currently (still) reading since I'm already here :)

Currently reading update:

I'm still reading The Secret Keeper by Kate Morton. My grandmother told me I should read this one next and so I did. I got hooked from the beginning, but the saddest thing is is that I get really tired of reading it and ends up closing the book in the middle of the chapter (happens pretty much all the time :( ) It doesn't mean that it's bad, because, trust me.. it's not! It's really good and I hate myself for having those eyes that won't stay open when I'm in the middle of a chapter! I will finish it. I must! It will take some time but I will. So be patient with me! The review will come one day in the near future! 

Bye x

(I was supposed to finish this blog entry earlier today, but things got in the way. I'm sorry for the late update!)

Paris For One - Jojo Moyes

Here we are again.. I told you I would write another review soon so here I am again! It's bit late but anyways! So, Paris For One by Jojo Moyes is part of a quick read thingy so it didn't take me that long to finish it. Since it was a short story, it also means that this review might be short since there's not much to discuss. So here we go!

The Blurb:
Nell is twenty-six and has never been to Paris.
She has never even been on a weekend away with her boyfriend.
Everyone knows she is just not the adventurous type.

But, when her boyfriend doesn't show up for their romantic mini-break, Nell has the chance to prove everyone wrong.

Alone in Paris, Nell meets the mysterious moped-riding Fabien and his group of carefree friends.

Could this turn out to be the most adventurous weekend of her life?

My Thoughts:
After this book got released here in Norway (the translated version) last week, I've heard the reviews haven't been that great. No real bad reviews, but not that great either. I haven't read any of the reviews and am not going to either because I like Jojo Moyes' books and knew that I would adore this story as much as the others. And I was right. For being a quick read, I really enjoyed reading this one. It was sweet, funny and overall adorable and lovely.

A girl called Nell finds herself alone in Paris and trying to make the best of it without her boyfriend (which sounded like a lazy guy who didn't care about anything more or less). And, as always with these kind of stories, she meets a guy called Fabien (who's nice and lovely.. as usual) and they are having a great time. Nothing more, nothing less... Just another sweet little love story you should read once in a while :)

I liked the ending, but tbh, I also wants to know what happens next! I know that I will never know and just have to imagine how this whole thing works out. I can live with that.. for now. But, if Jojo Moyes finds out she wants to write more about Nell then I won't hesitate to buy that book!

Like I said, this would be a short review, because I don't have anything else to say without spoiling.

And there's that. My second review in under 24 hours!

Bye x

4/5

Next book to read: The Secret Keeper by Kate Morton