Featured Tuesday: Passenger

Every once in a while you pick up a book, you hold it in your hands and you think to yourself: this is simply beautiful! Passenger was definitely one of those books for me. From the cover to the spine, from the title page to the beginning of every chapter, this book is absolutely stunning! For not mentioning the amazing cover inside the dust jacket which just so happens to be one of my favorite colors! I haven’t started reading this yet but it’s on the top of my TBR list and hopefully the inside will be just as awesome as the outside. And because it’s so beautiful, I couldn’t resist sharing it with you so here are a few photos of it I took the other day:

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By the way, I was typing this blog post while listening to Passenger by Iggy Pop. Very fitting, huh? 😛

Goodreads summary:

Passage, n.
i. A brief section of music composed of a series of notes and flourishes.
ii. A journey by water; a voyage.
iii. The transition from one place to another, across space and time.

In one devastating night, violin prodigy Etta Spencer loses everything she knows and loves. Thrust into an unfamiliar world by a stranger with a dangerous agenda, Etta is certain of only one thing: she has traveled not just miles but years from home. And she’s inherited a legacy she knows nothing about from a family whose existence she’s never heard of. Until now.

Nicholas Carter is content with his life at sea, free from the Ironwoods—a powerful family in the colonies—and the servitude he’s known at their hands. But with the arrival of an unusual passenger on his ship comes the insistent pull of the past that he can’t escape and the family that won’t let him go so easily. Now the Ironwoods are searching for a stolen object of untold value, one they believe only Etta, Nicholas’ passenger, can find. In order to protect her, he must ensure she brings it back to them— whether she wants to or not.

Together, Etta and Nicholas embark on a perilous journey across centuries and continents, piecing together clues left behind by the traveler who will do anything to keep the object out of the Ironwoods’ grasp. But as they get closer to the truth of their search, and the deadly game the Ironwoods are play­ing, treacherous forces threaten to sep­arate Etta not only from Nicholas but from her path home . . . forever

Shelf it on Goodreads

Buy on Amazon

Buy on Book Depository

The Coffee Book Tag

Good morning bookaholics! Well, maybe it’s not morning where you are but it is morning here, so it’ll have to do. Another Monday has come, which means it’s time for another tag! Today, I’ll be sharing with you The Coffee Book Tag! I especially loved this one because it combines two things that are necessarry in my life, coffee and books! I literally cannot live without those and they do go well together, don’t they? I was tagged for this by the amazing T. K. Lawrence @ Read It or Not Reviews. Go check this blog out because it’s seriously awesome! Let’s get started, shall we?

Black: A series that’s tough to get into but has hardcore fans

I’ve only read the first book but I think A Song of Ice and Fire is a perfect answer for this question. George R. Martin’s writing is a bit hard to get into at first and the plot is really complex, especially with all the POVs, but once you do get into it you realize it’s quite brilliant. And I honestly don’t think there’s a book that has a more hardcore fanbase than this one.

Peppermint Mocha: A book that gets more popular during the winter or a festive time of year

I’m also gonna have to say A Christmas Carol for this. Charles Dicken’s “ghostly little book” is an all-time Christmas classic and one of the most popular Christmas stories ever to be written and is the perfect book to read while cozying up in front of the fireplace on a cold winter night during the holiday season. Personally, I make it a habit of reading it every Christmas and it never gets old!

Book Recommendations: High Fantasy

I realized that I’ve never done a themed recommendation post before and what better way to start than with my favorite genre? High fantasy. High fantasy (also known as epic fantasy) is a subgenre or fantasy, that is usually defined by its setting in an imaginary world rather than the real one. Note that high fantasy is not the same as dystopian fantasy (although the two can merge) and it’s usually set in a world that is a stack in a previous era. Some typical characteristics of high fantasy include fantastical elements such as elves, fairies, dwarves, ogres, goblins, giants, dragons, demons, magic or sorcery, wizards or magicians, some type of monarchy, constructed languages, quests, coming-of-age themes and multiple point of views, and it’s protagonists can be typically called epic heroes.

What I most love about high fantasy books is that each one gives readers the opportunity to enter a world completely different from their own. Speaking as a fantasy writer myself, the world building has always been one of my favorite parts of writing a story and I can deeply appreciate the beauty of a complexly crafted fictional world. High fantasy has risen in popularity quite a lot recently but the earliest – and most famous – example of the genre I can think of is probably Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy. Tolkien is undoubtedly the master of high fantasy and his Middle Earth is an exquisite example of how far imagination can go and one that all fantasy writers and readers should admire. Another popular high fantasy series that quickly comes to mind is A Song of Ice and Fire by George R. R. Martin. And while none of the books I’m going to mention here are as complex as the above two examples, they’re all fine represations of the high fantasy subgenre, which I totally loved.

To make things easier I’m gonna split the books into three different categories. So let’s get started!

My favorites in high fantasy

 

Throne of Glass

After serving out a year of hard labor in the salt mines of Endovier for her crimes, 18-year-old assassin Celaena Sardothien is dragged before the Crown Prince. Prince Dorian offers her her freedom on one condition: she must act as his champion in a competition to find a new royal assassin.

Her opponents are men-thieves and assassins and warriors from across the empire, each sponsored by a member of the king’s council. If she beats her opponents in a series of eliminations, she’ll serve the kingdom for four years and then be granted her freedom. Celaena finds her training sessions with the captain of the guard, Westfall, challenging and exhilirating. But she’s bored stiff by court life. Things get a little more interesting when the prince starts to show interest in her… but it’s the gruff Captain Westfall who seems to understand her best.

Then one of the other contestants turns up dead… quickly followed by another. Can Celaena figure out who the killer is before she becomes a victim? As the young assassin investigates, her search leads her to discover a greater destiny than she could possibly have imagined.

Shelf it on Goodreads

My thoughts: Throne of Glass is one of my absolute favorite fantasy series, if not the favorite. What else is left to say about this one? I enjoyed the first book a lot but it was the next three books in the series that made me fall in love with Sarah’s world and writing. Queen of Shadows was absolute brilliance and I seriously can’t wait for the fifth book in the series, the title for which was recently revealed and is Empire of Storms! Such an awesome title, isn’t? If you haven’t read these books yet, what are you waiting for? Go pick them up now!

3 Quotes, 3 Days Challenge: Day 3

Third and last day! Again, thank you to Peculiarb @  The Book and the Bone for tagging me to do this! It’s a really fun challenge! Today, I will show you some of my favorite quotes from classic books. Here they are:

And the last one is not exactly from a classic, but in my opinion it was brilliant and it was said by none other than the amazing Jem Carstairs, whom I can’t help but adore!

I Tag:

Jaymee @ Bookciology

Jen @ Reader In A Reverie

Pretty Prose

3 Quotes, 3 Days Challenge: Day 2

I’d like to thank Peculiarb @  The Book and the Bone one more time for tagging me to do this. Yesterday, I chose three quotes from my favorite fantasy novels, so today I’m going to be showing you three of my favorite quotes from contemporary books. Enjoy!

I Tag:

The Orang-utan Librarian

Katie @ Into The BookCase

Analee @ Book Snacks

If you’ve already done this tag, feel free to ignore this!

3 Quotes, 3 Days Challenge: Day 1

I was tagged by Peculiarb @ The Book and the Bone to do this, and I’m really excited for it because I love quotes and I’ve never done this before! So thank you so much for tagging me! The rules for this are:

1. Post three consecutive days
2. You can pick up to three quotes per day
3. Challenge three different bloggers per day

I got a bit over excited so I’ll be doing three quotes per day. And I decided to divide them in categories according to the books they come from, to keep things more organized. So, for Day 1 I have chosen three quotes from three of my favorite high fantasy novels, which is my favorite genre! Here they are:

I Tag:

• T.K. Lawrence @ Read It or Not Reviews
• Catia @ The Girl Who Read Too Much
• Niv @ The Book-loving Nerd

Review on “Half Bad”

Series: The Half Bad Trilogy #1

Genre: Fantasy, YA

Format: paperback

Publisher: Penguin

Published: March 4th, 2014

Pages: 380

 

Goodreads summary: 

Wanted by no one.
Hunted by everyone.

Sixteen-year-old Nathan lives in a cage: beaten, shackled, trained to kill. In a modern-day England where two warring factions of witches live amongst humans, Nathan is an abomination, the illegitimate son of the world’s most terrifying and violent witch, Marcus. Nathan’s only hope for survival is to escape his captors, track down Marcus, and receive the three gifts that will bring him into his own magical powers—before it’s too late. But how can Nathan find his father when there is no one safe to trust, not even family, not even the girl he loves?

Half Bad is an international sensation and the start of a brilliant trilogy: a gripping tale of alienation and the indomitable will to survive.

 

My thoughts:

You might wanna sit back and relax a bit because I have a lot of things to say about this book and unfortunately they’re not all good. Well, to be honest, Half Bad wasn’t a bad book. It was only half bad. Yep, I just did that. And it was different. It actually gets points for that, for managing to surprise me because it was really not what I expected, but there were plenty of things I didn’t like about it.

The book started off really slow and super weird and for a very big part of it the plot wasn’t progressing at all, especially at the beginning. It took 130 pages for something interesting to happen and at least 30 more before I was invested in the story. And then, we went back to boring for about 50 or so pages, before the plot started building momentum again but still not dramatically. This is mainly because the writer used those first 150 pages to insert the backstory (both of her world and her main character) and tell us how Nathan got to the point he is at, in the beginning of the book. So basically, those 150 pages were a really long flashback. Reading about Nathan’s childhood was all good but personally, I think it would have been much more efficient, if she had added those flashbacks in dribbles and spread them throughout the story, so that readers wouldn’t be tired reading them.

The writing style was quite complex and not as easy to adapt to as usual, mainly because of the parts that were written in second person, which I really don’t like. However, since most of the book was written in first person, I was able to overlook that. And the writing on its own was quite brilliant. The story was deep and well thought, which I appreaciated, and I liked the fact Nathan’s voice seemed to grow more mature as he grew up and matured himself. Like the summary suggests, this is a story about survival and alienation and I have to say I was impressed by how deeply Sally Green inserted those two elements in her story.

Book Traveling Thursday #4

Hello people of the blogosphere! It’s Thursday again, so you know the drill. Time for another Book Traveling! Book Traveling Thursday is a weekly meme hosted by Danielle at Danielle’s Book Blog and Catia at The Girl Who Read Too Much. You can check out the rules and themes in the Goodreads page here! This week’s theme is:

“It was International Women’s Day!! Choose a book with a badass heroine.”

Well, of course I had to go with Celaena Sardothien for that! She’s one of the most badass heroines I’ve ever encountered in books and I honestly love her! Granted, she might be a “fire breathing bitch queen” at times, but we all have to admit she is quite awesome! She’s also an assassin, which I’ve always found makes for a very interesting trait, and her love life is also quite interesting. I still haven’t decided which of all her love interests is my favorite but oh, well. Why do I have to choose anyway? And plus, Throne of Glass has become one of my favorite series ever ( I could honestly call it epic) and Sarah J. Maas is an excellent writer. So here we go:

Original cover:

Cover from my country (Greece):

These books have yet to be translated in my language but I can’t say I mind it because I was going to buy them in English anyway.

Featured Tuesday: My Bookmark Collection

Hello everybody! Today, I am back with another Featured Tuesday post. This time, I’m going to show you my bookmark collection! I love collecting bookmarks and whenever I find them in a bookstore I’m having a hard time walking away without buying at least one. One can never own enough bookmarks in my opinion, just like one can never own enough books, and there are always going to be books that need them. Even so, I was kinda surprised by how many I actually have. I’m going to be splitting them in five categories. So here we go:

Regular bookmarks

I don’t own that many of those, I realize. Just two actually. Although I guess the ones from Book Depository count as regular bookmarks too, but I have a different category for those. Here are the two I have:

Rip It or Ship It Book Tag

Hello everybody! Another week is starting and I hope it will go well for all of us! Today I’ll be doing the Rip It of Ship It Book Tag. I saw this at Catia’s blog The Girl Who Read Too Much, so you can go and check it out and maybe give her a follow because she’s awesome! All you have to do is write down the names of various characters, put them in a jar and pick two at random. And then decide whether you like the pairing you chose or not. Simple right? And also hilarious, as it turns out. Here’s what I got. Let’s laugh a bit together!

Round 1

Draco Malfoy – Cress

Starting off super weird. I’m having such a hard time seeing those two together. Cress is really sweet and innocent and Malfoy is obviously not. So I RIP IT.

Round 2

Dorian Havilliard – Tessa Gray

Now that’s an awesome pairing. Yes! Absolutely yes! I think Dorian and Tessa would be great together, especially since they both love books so much. I mean, as long Tessa didn’t have Will of course. I SHIP IT.

Round 3

Chaol Westfall – Feyre

Hmm, that’s interesting. It could happen, yes. Chaol and Feyre have both strong and stubborn personalities so I think they would get along just fine. I SHIP IT.

Round 4

Tris Prior – Prince Kai

Uh, no. I love Kai and I found Tris extremely annoying so I would never do this to him. I RIP IT.