Weekly Haul #21

This ended up being quite a mixed bag of stuff this week. It's a bit more than just my haul but we can all live with that right? And I apologize I that I did get extra gabby. I have babbled on quite a bit. I swear I won't do this every time! Maybe... This is more like the last 3 weeks worth of things and I did go a bit crazy but I had saved for months for the new computer and when I got it I had quite a bit left over that I wasn't expecting so I may have splurged. Just a bit.

Stacking the shelves is a weekly meme hosted by Tynga's Reviews. It's basically a way in which we get to show off the lovely new goodies we got over the past week/month however you decide to do it.

For Review/Blog Tour:

To start off with, after coming back from my forced hiatus I had a couple of messages from probably one of the sweetest authors I've had the privilege of getting to know since I started blogging. She's a Dutch author who translates all of her books to English herself and self pubs them. Her latest book in her series The Island, and if I'm not mistaken it's the last one (I could be wrong it happens. A lot...) just published at the beginning of this month and so she was so sweet and sent me a copy of each one plus another book. So awesome!! Thank you Jen Minkman! :) I've read another of her books before, Shadow of Time, and really enjoyed it so I'm looking forward to reading more of her work.

The Island (The Island #1) 

 The Waves (The Island #2) 

 The Deep (The Island #3)

and

The Boy From the Woods

Gifted:

I'd also like to say a huuuuge thank you to a really good friend of mine, Erika. Long before I started this blog and I was obsessively going through my vampire phase, I had finished Vampire Academy and was going through withdrawls and Erika suggested I try the first book in the Undead series by MaryJanice Davidson called Undead and Unwed. I did and I loooved it. It was so funny. Every once in a while we would talk about books and the series would pop up and I'd confess that I still had yet to buy the rest of the books. Well Erika is one of those 'read them once and be done' types of people so she said "I have the next 6 or 7 books and I'm just going to send them to you." I have amazing friends do I not? Well not only did she send the next few Undead books but she also sent the first 3 in a another series by the same author that wrote the Sookie Stackhouse books (Yanno, True Blood :D) the Harper Connelly series by Charlaine Harris. So Erika, YOU my friend are full of awesome and I love ya! She doesn't book blog but she does have a nail blog so if you'd like to check her out you can do so here: Polish Fixation

I actually did have these piled up in their reading order when I was getting ready to take the shot but...klutz that I am, one of them was a bit crooked so I went forward to adjust it and what I tripped on I will never know. Probably my own feet *eye roll* and I ended up knocking them and all my candles off the top of my shelf so the link up above for the series has them listed there.

Now for my spending spree...

Bought:

I spent some time shuffling most of my TBR shelf on Goodreads over to my book wishlist on Amazon. I figured it would be an easier, one less step, whenever I wanted to buy books. Instead of going to GR shuffling through my list there then going to the page on Amazon, I'd just go straight to the source. Well in that process I found numerous books that were, physical copies even, for less than $6 so I have a few series starters and some that I'm trying to finish.

From top to bottom:

Soulmate (Ganzfield #6) by Kate Kaynak - This is the final book in the Ganzfield series which breaks my heart. I'm really scared with how this will end (Kate likes killing people off! Haha) But I also cannot wait. It's truly a very fun paranormal series. Like most of you I'm usually highly against insta-love situations but this series is like my one exception because I just love it so much!

Wings (Black City #3) by Elizabeth Richards - Once again a final book in a really, really good distopian sort of vampirish world. Seriously love this series. Need my Ash fix!

White Hot Kiss (The Dark Elements #1) by Jennifer L Armentrout - Um hi. It's JLA. Enough said.

Sweet Evil (The Sweet Trilogy) by Wendy Higgins - This was one of those 'I can't believe it's so low for a paperback I must buy it now!' books. Lots of great reviews. Can't wait to start it!

Under the Never Sky (Under the Never Sky #1) by Veronica Rossi - I have been wanting to read this series for so long. With this first book being so inexpensive I couldn't resist jumping on it.

Shatter Me (Shatter Me #1) by Tahereh Mafi - Yep...haven't read this series yet. Can't wait to see what all the fuss is about!

Insurgent (Divergent #2) by Veronica Roth - I have a new rule that I will not watch a movie adaptation of a book until I've read the entire series if there is one. Mortal Instruments had a few tiny spoilerific things happening in the movie that you don't really know for sure by the end of book 1. I mean honestly I had a strong feeling that things were going to happen how they did, but still I was a bit miffed nonetheless. So I'm not taking my chances and I'm slowly buying all the books in this series before hand so it doesn't happen again.

Mistborn: The Final Empire (Mistborn #1) by Brandon Sanderson - Fantasy, especially Epic/High Fantasy will forever be my one true genre love. I have never read anything by Brandon Sanderson before. My absolute favorite series is, The Wheel of Time, by the late Robert Jordan. Whom very sadly passed before the series finish. Brandon Sanderson was "the chosen one" to finish the last 3, I think it was, books. I've been told that he did a really great job (I'm only on #6 currently in my reread and haven't yet read the ones Brandon wrote) and that I must read the Mistborn series so I'm pretty excited to give them a go.

Down for the Count (Dare Me #1) by Christine Bell

Recipe for Seduction (Madewood Brothers #3) by Gina Gordon

Vanilla on Top (Walk on the Wild Side #1) by C.J. Ellisson

Seducing the Playboy (Hot Night #2) by Amanda Usen

I find it difficult to resist an Entangled Brazen book. And they had a $0.99 thing going on a couple weeks back so I may have snagged a few...

V is for Virgin (V is for Virgin #1) by Kelly Oram

Serial Hottie by Kelly Oram

Being Jamie Baker (Jamie Baker #1) by Kelly Oram

Of Silver and Beasts (Goddess Wars #1) by Trisha Wolfe

I went a bit one click happy on Kelly Oram books after reading The Avery Shaw Experiment. She can write the hell out of YA Contemporary so I'm interested to see if I get equally excited about these other books she wrote. *Fingers crossed* Of Silver and Beasts was free for Kindle and it's been on my TBR for a while so it was great timing.

Werewolves Be Damned  (Magic & Mayhem #1) by Stacey Kennedy

Bared (Club Sin #2) by Stacey Kennedy

The Sum of All Kisses (Smythe-Smith Quartet #3) by Julia Quinn

A Night Like This (Smythe-Smith Quartet #2) by Julia Quinn

I've finished Bared already at this point and let me just tell you this, I am becoming a huge fan of Stacey Kennedy. Now I want to see how she does with paranormal! The Smythe-Smith family is quite notorious for their own humorous reason within another Julia Quinn series, a personal favorite of mine. So I read the first in this series a few months back and loved it. Julia Quinn is a historical romance goddess!

*****

Hey look at you! You stuck with me this far and I'd just like to say thank YOU for reading my babbling up to this point. I just want to throw one last thing out into the interwebs before I go. Something that I've been really diggin' the last couple of days. Sorry but I may go on and on again. I promise not to make a habit of this!

So let me just start this off by saying music is a huge thing in my house with both myself and my teenager. Honestly I pay for 2 Spotify accounts every month (one for me and one for T, because you can't listen to the same account on 2 devices at the same time. I understand why I mean obviously you could just pay for one account and end up sharing it with people outside your household as well. Still it's worth it for us..) Anyway...Unless we're asleep we're usually plugged in and listening to something. Together or separate. He loves to share his new finds with me. So I wasn't surprised when he came home after a party on Friday evening and instead of saying hi, his first words were "Open YouTube I just found a new band." I smiled and obliged because the boy has good taste. So then he proceeds to tell me to type in "Steam Powered Giraffe"

He was like "Look I know. I never thought this would have been my thing, I didn't even know what Steampunk really was but we've been listening to them all evening and I really like it. Just look it up."

I'm officially obsessed. Especially with the song that I'm about to put up for you. I've listened to a lot of their work the last few days and it's just so interesting and I don't know I just feel like I need to share it. I mean I'm sitting here watching world cup (ENGvsITA) and I have the TV muted and SPG blasting in my ears.  ANYWAY. Give them a shot if you're up for something new. It won't be everyone's cup of tea but maybe, hopefully, I'll convert a couple of you out there :)

Steam Powered Giraffe - Honeybee

Okay that's it! I swear I'm done now. If you stuck through the whole thing you're awesome and thanks for putting up with me!! What's going on in your world this week? What books am I missing out on? Let me know! I know I've gotten off to a slow start this week there's been a lot going on. I have visited lots of blogs I just haven't had time to spend thinking up something witty to comment as I'm usually tired by the time I get to it. I'll be commenting and responding more starting this week so I apologize for being a silent stalker.