Valentine Murder

In order to restore my pride, I buckled down and read a cozy mystery to make up for my January failure.    

Valentine Murder by Leslie Meier

There wasn't very much of a Valentine's Day theme to this book.  It had more to do with a library, antiquing, and construction.  It was a pretty good read however, at least it was MUCH better than the previous cozy mystery that I attempted.  It was a cute, light read and I could see myself recommending this series to someone who is looking for a quiet mystery.  It also made me want cupcakes. Pink cupcakes with conversation heart candies on top, to be specific.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

True Crime
Fantasy
Horror
Mystery - “Cozy”
Mystery - other
Romance
Science Fiction
Western
Thriller
Christian Fiction
Paranormal

Failure

I must admit to failure.  The first month of my reading challenge I dropped the torch.  I tried, I really did!  I started reading...gosh I can't even remember the name.  It was a cozy mystery with a clever, punny title about death and books.  It just wasn't for me.  It lost me when the heroine found the body and the last lines of the chapter were something like "I saw him lying on the thick purple Parisian carpet with his throat slit.  He was dead."  All I could think was (and excuse my meme-ing):

Really?  His throat is cut, and he died?  That almost never happens, except for pretty much always.

 

Moving on to February, in which I successfully read a book from my challenge!  

Into the Darkest Corner by Elizabeth Haynes

This book was split into two timelines.  There was the story going on in 2003-4 and followed Catherine Bailey as she met the man of her dreams, and we witness through her eyes as he you discover how crazy and violent he is.  The second storyline follows Cathy Bailey as she is dealing with OCD and PTSD as she struggles to deal with the trauma of her past.  The suspense aspect comes in when she starts to suspect that he is coming back for her.

Haynes delivered an extremely suspenseful and gripping read.  It started out slow, but it built up the small details which made the suspense even that more heart pounding.  I will admit this isn't terrible outside my normal reading, I do love suspenseful books, I just rarely pick them up.  I am very thankful to my goodreads friend who reviewed this book.  I have been telling my friends all about it in person, and I know I have at least one adding this to their goodreads now.

This fits into my "thriller/suspense" catagory.

True Crime
Fantasy
Horror
Mystery - “Cozy”
Mystery - other
Romance
Science Fiction
Western
Thriller
Christian Fiction
Paranormal

The Dreaded Cowboy

For this coming year, I have decided to challenge myself.  As a reference/fiction services worker I feel I ought to expand my knowledge base.  Every month this year I am challenging myself to read a book from a genre that I generally don't touch.  And in some cases it will be the first book of the sort I have ever read. (*cough* Westerns *cough*)  I am mostly excited, except for a couple of genre's that I am a little more hesitant towards...(*cough* Westerns *cough*).

The list, in no particular order, is as follows:

True Crime
Fantasy
Horror
Mystery - “Cozy”
Mystery - other
Romance
Science Fiction
Western
Thriller
Christian Fiction
Paranormal

The last month is reserved for a genre of my choice.  I will keep track of my progress here.  I hope this proves to be a valuable exercise and not the portrait of one girls decent into madness (*cough* Westerns *cough*).

Watch Locket Craft

I realised that I have about a million cheap old watches that have died.  And it would be cheaper to replace them with a new cheap watch, rather than buy a battery.  Plus, I never wear watches.  So I decided to recycle them into lcokets!

Ok, that is a lie.  My dad had this idea, actually, and told me I should do it.  To my credit however, I recognized the idea for the genius it was and successfully brought the project to life.

Step One:  I found a watch that I wanted to use.
 (Or in this case, several.)

 

Step Two:  Then I pried the back of with a butter knife, and took out its innerds.  I saved the clock faces for later crafting purposes.

Dismantled watch in all its glory.

Then I shrunk down a few favourite photographs in Paintshop, printed 'em out, cut them to fit and voila! Stuck them in, shut the back and now I have a bunch of beautiful lockets. Super easy.

Emo Love Poetry

Today marked the first rehersal for Shakspeare in the Park year 4! This year is Romeo and Juliet, and I was lucky enough to snag Juliet. And my Romeo is one of my good friends, who I have already acted "the lover" with so its not so terrifying as it might be. Also the first full day being home from school and it was great to see all my friends.

I wish I had a better point to this post, other than to gush about how great rehersal has been.

We only have about 8 weeks untill performance which is only scary if you think about it. So I won't. All better :)

But no matter HOW rushed we are we will definitly be better than this...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zr1gk9nwTYY

(pssst... follow the link... I dont know how to embed videos. dont worry no nudity, strong language or other offensive articles)

Also a great moment between my and friend, also daddy capulet...

Daddy Capulet- "Your only 14! You don't know what love is! Paris is love!"
Juliet- "No, its Emo Poetry, and thats what me and Romeo have!"

Well. It was funny at the time.

So, yeah.

Here's the thing.
There is this really really good book called Wither by Lauren DeStefano. And the auther is having a contest where you can win a personalized copy of Wither AND the yet-to-be-released ARC of its sequal, Fever. In order to enter the contest, you post a link back to the contest and then post a comment on the blog with a link to where you posted it.
So thats all this blog post is really about. No big insights, or words of wisdom, or hilarious stories from my life.
No no.
It's better. Its a chance to go enter yourself in this contest yourself! or at least a nudge to go pick up Wither. Cus its super good.

Here is the link! Click away!

Favourite 10 Books of '10

So I have decided to share my favourite books from 2010. They were not all published in 2010 because I tend to buy books and read them a while later, or wait till the paperback comes out. And some are oldies that I have only finally gotten to.

1. Guernsey Literary and Potatoe Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Schaffer and Annie Barrows
I got this one for christmas and read it in about one sitting.

2. Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan
This is one where I waited for the paperback. And now I am eagerly waiting for the sequal to come out in paperback!

3. Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katherine Howe
Another wait for paperback book. Magical and suspenseful and just lovely.

4. Linger by Maggie Steifvater (2010)
This one I didn't wait for paperback! Loved the first one and couldn't wait to get my hands on the sequal. It lived up to the first one for sure, and I am now on pins and needles waiting for the third.

5. Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
Yep. Didn't read this one till this year. Fairly recently in fact. I heard alot of good things about it and decided to buy it when in came out in paperback. Two excuciatling long years later it was finally published and I found I regreted waiting so long.

6. Pretty Little Liars(series) by Sara Shepard
I read this whole series on the kobo application on my blackberry. Definitly made my long bus rides worthwhile! Very good series, full of mystery and suspense and brand names. I am very happy to hear the author is adding four more books to the series.

7. Jane by April Lindner (2010)
This was a buy-it-the-very-day-it-came-out kind of book. Come on, modern retelling of Jane Eyre?! Got to have it! And I loved it!

8. The Chosen One by Carol Lynch Williams
Had me sweating and breathing hard and clutching the book in panic at the end. Suprisingly very suspenseful. Got me into reading a bunch of other polgymist novels as well. Its a interesting subject to say the least!

9. The Shadow Rising (Book 4 of the Wheel of Time Series) by Robert Jordan
Been working on this series since about this time last year so I feel it must be mentioned as it is as a series VERY good! I chose this book to represent it as it was in this one that it first really grabbed me and realise how amazing a Weaver of Story and Awesomeness Robert Jordan is. Aiel history FTW.

10. Will Grayson, Will Grayson (2010) by John Green
Shiny. So shiny. And Made of Awesome.

So there you have it. This list is kinda like, 1/6th if my entire years reading. Those darn blasted Wheel of Time books sure take a toll on my overall book number. Though if I took to counting pages instead I am sure my stats would be double just because of those monsters. Well instead of moping because of my book count, I think I shall go work on adding another to my list.

Currently reading : Heat Wave by Richard Castle and Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife by Linda Berdoll.