Bought, Borrowed & Bagged (73)

Bought, Borrowed and Bagged hosted by Talk Supe is a weekly meme where you can share your book haul, ongoing events and news about what is coming up on your blog for the week ahead.
Please Note: All images link back to their GR pages.
 

New Books

I won two giveaways this week, one $25 amazon voucher and an ebook of my choice, so I finally own Storm Fall by Tracy Banghart. I haven't spent the voucher yet though.

Recently on Northern Plunder

International Authors Day
Read Play Blog: Geek Conventions

Upcoming on Northern Plunder

N/A

Lauren's Progress

Read in 2015: 29 / 36
Kangoku Gakuen Volume 16 by Akira Hiramoto
One by Sarah Crossan 
 
Currently Reading:
Dismissed by Kristy McManus

News from Lauren

So I had really wanted to keep blogging whilst I visited my boyfriend this month but honestly I don't have the time to sit down and write reviews that I would be happy with, I have a few ready to post this month but as I can't blog hop as much as I'd like I'm taking this chance to announce that I'm not going to be posting until August when I get back home.

I will still be visiting everyones blogs and commenting, plus commenting back here just not as regularly as I would usually :)

Besides this we've been having a lovely time, his parents 25th Wedding Anniversary was this week plus his graduation tomorrow. Here have some lame drunk selfies of us at the party.
  

 

Please note that I've implemented a new drop down menu at the top but some pages are still in progress so the links haven't been added yet!

Read Play Blog: Geek Conventions

"Read Play Blog is a meme about video games and books, posted every 16th of the month. Bloggers are encouraged to answer a discussion question, and recommend a video game that is similar to a book they liked. Hosted by Happy Indulgence Books & Read Me Away."

What geek convetions have you been too or would like to attend?

I guess my "first" geek convention was during high school when I attended a Q&A with Louise Rennison as a school trip, she also signed our books.
When Comic Con first came to Manchester I attending that too, which I guess is my actual first geek convention. I really enjoyed it but had expected a little more. I haven't been back since because it is an expensive weekend.
I've also been to two Waterstones signing, one for Laini Taylor and one for Sarah J. Maas.
I would love to go to BEA or SDCC but alas I am stuck in the UK so that only makes it even more expensive. Maybe a London Comic Con will be more affordable for myself sometime soon.

Recommendation

My recommendation for this month has to be Life is Strange, I only own the first chapter which I have completed to 100% but its very story based and entirely up to you whether you talk to everyone to get all the dialogue options - the more you talk, the more of the story you know. Oh and you can rewind time if you're not happy with an outcome.

Currently Playing

The boyfriend and myself have finally stopped our binge on Killing Floor 2 which I mentioned last month and moved onto Dirty Bomb - a free to play first person shooter - each round you have objectives that you have to complete and you're either defending or attacking. Pretty straight forward but such a fast paced game that its a lot of fun to play a few games here and there.

International Authors Day Blog Hop

 

 

Debdatta at b00k r3vi3ws, is hosting an International Authors' Day Blog Hop where we get to talk about our favourite authors, books, and our reading habbits.

Favourite Authors

I actually have a post coming up later this month about my favourite authors of all time compared to when I started this blog and now. Today however I'm going to talk about some of my favourite indie authors.


Red Tash
I found out about Red's work thanks to a giveaway I won from Talk Supe and I've follower her work since then, I've read almost all of her books and enjoyed everything I've read so far.


Jen Meyers
I was lucky enough to recieve copies of all the above books for review thanks to Jen. I loved them so much that I've since purchased signed copies of Intagible, Imaginable, and Anywhere. I haven't yet started reading her new adult series but maybe one day soon I'll pick it up now its complete.


Tracy Banghart
I couldn't make this post without an honorable mention to Tracy, who has recently got her Rebel Wing series published with Alloy Entertainment, again another author I found out about thanks to book tours and Rebel Wing holds such a huge space in my heart. Storm Fall is next on my to purchase list but its been a while so I think I'll be rereading Rebel Wing soon.

All three of these authors I've mentioned are such wonderful ladies, so I highly suggest picking up a book or two of theirs.

Giveaway

A big thank you to Karen-Anne Stewart for sponsoring this giveaway for me, she does request that it be 18+ only due to the books content ;)
a Rafflecopter giveaway

Bought, Borrowed & Bagged (72)

Bought, Borrowed and Bagged hosted by Talk Supe is a weekly meme where you can share your book haul, ongoing events and news about what is coming up on your blog for the week ahead.
Please Note: All images link back to their GR pages.

New Books

My signed copy of the Pretty When She Dies trilogy already arrived, so thank you to my Dad.

I also go approved for a few books to review; One by Sarah Crossan (NetGalley), Dismissed by Kirsty McManus (Xpresso Book Tours / Author), Double Click and Right Click by Lisa Becker (author).
 

I also got a massive bag of books from my boyfriends sister that she no longer wanted, I'm still going through and adding them to goodreads so I'll save these for next week when I should be finished with them.

Recently on Northern Plunder

Current Plunder: How to be a Mermaid (Giveaway)
Review: Click by Lisa Becker
Review: The Assassin's Blade by Sarah J. Maas

Upcoming on Northern Plunder

Top 5 Authors

Lauren's Progress

Read in 2015: 27 / 36
Click by Lisa Becker
Currently Reading:
Heir of Fire by Sarah J. Maas
One by Sarah Crossan

News from Lauren

My boyfriend visited me this week and met some more of my family, we looked after the dogs and watched some movies. We also drove back to his house on Friday evening and now I'm here for the rest of the month, because of this I wont be as free as usual so my commenting and blog hopping will no doubt suck.  
Please note that I've implemented a new drop down menu at the top but some pages are still in progress so the links haven't been added yet!

Review: Click by Lisa Becker

Click by Lisa Becker
Series: Click Series #1
Genre: Romance / Contemporary
Length: 347 pages
Published on 29th March 2011 by author
Purchase: Amazon / B&N / The Book Depository
Stephanie Witter: Website | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads
Received from author

Synopsis:
Fast approaching her 30th birthday and finding herself not married, not dating, and without even a prospect or a house full of cats, Renee Greene, the heroine of Click: An Online Love Story, reluctantly joins her best guy pal on a journey to find love online in Los Angeles. The story unfolds through a series of emails between Renee and her best friends (anal-compulsive Mark, the overly-judgmental Ashley and the over-sexed Shelley) as well as the gentlemen suitors she meets online. From the guy who starts every story with "My buddies and I were out drinking one night," to the egotistical "B" celebrity looking for someone to stroke his ego, Renee endures her share of hilarious and heinous cyber dates. Fraught with BCC's, FWD's and inadvertent Reply to All's, readers will root for Renee to "click" with the right man.

I was lucky enough to recieve a copy of Click for review after mentioning it looked good over on Talk Supe's blog. The synopsis for this book seemed really interesting to me as I met my current boyfriend online, though not via a dating website. 

(If you must know we've followed each other on tumblr for 5 years and spent a lot of that time gaming together too, but we only got in a relationship this February) 

Okay so first things first even though I knew that it was email based, I didn't expect the whole book to be all from email perspectives but it was and wow, it worked so well.

Having the book in email format helped keep it chatty and hilarious, whilst allowing the pacing to be fairly quick due to the fact the main events would've already happened so you're finding out the important details as two friends talk about them. 

I love how each of the characters personalities are very different allowing for you to know easily who is talking in each email, y'know in case you happen to skim the header of the emails now and then.

As this book follows Renee looking for love the book isn't filled to the brim with romance, I think this is what made it so enjoyable for myself as I'm very picky with romances as they're not one of my go to genres. There are a lot of failed dates, or emails, some with hope that lead to heart break, and of course the one perfect man. 

Renee is such a great character, I loved how her confidence grew throughout the book and how her two best girl friends are very different but she still has close friendships with them that work. 

I also related to how she handled a smoker that she went on a date with, that was a big "you go girl" moment for me because ew smoking! 

The last few chapters made my heart do happy little jumps and then over anxiety clenching roller coaster rides. It was crazy how many emotions I felt towards the end of this book, the ending was so great and I can't wait to read the next books.

P.S. If reading explicit sex scenes isn't something you enjoy with romances (they're a bit hit and miss for me as when they're written badly its so obviously written badly, and euphemisms can be dreadful too) then this book will definitely work for you as you're always reading a recollection and gossip session between friends, who at times will want their privacy.

P.P.S. Don't be stupid and read the synopsis for book two 77% of the way through, don't do it. You  don't NEED to know the name of the final man at that point, you can just keep reading a few more pages to find out properly. It doesn't matter how impatient you're getting, stop being a fool.

5 stars / 5 stars

I look forward to reading the other books in the series