Stacking The Shelves / What's Up This Week? (Aug. 24th)

Stacking The Shelves is a weekly event hosted by Tynga's Reviews where people can share the fabulous books they've bought, borrowed or received during the week.

For Review

Won

Bought

Bought

Bought

Breaking The Reins by Julianna Haygert

Snapshots by Patricia Lynne

The School For Good and Evil by Soman Chainani

If You Leave by Courtney Cole

Sweet Evil by Wendy Higgins 

Hey guys! 

I know--it's been a bit of a barren wasteland here for the last couple weeks. I've been insanely busy with the Sealer's Promise rewrite, though, and anyone who's been here a while knows how bad I can be about balancing blogging and writing. 

My plate's about to get even more full. Today is the start of Early Access for Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn, and I'm logging on there the moment I'm done here. <3! For those who don't know, I'm a huge gamer geek. :D I don't play as much as I use to, but I've been waiting months for this and the experience I had last weekend for their open beta was totally awesome, so I'm pretty excited. Anyone want the occasional screenshot in my "What's Up" posts? :) 

Are you attending the Ontario Book Blogger Meet Up? If so, you might want to go here and get involved in the book swap going on. :) I attended last year's meet up (my recap is here) and had an absolute blast. I can't wait to go again this November! :) 

Breaking The Reins

by Julianna Haygert

Horses, mansions, tea parties, and lies are twenty-year-old Hannah Taylor’s life. To others, her family and her relationship with Eric is perfect. But she knows the truth. She lives it.

After a fire takes her grandma's life and kills her horse, Hannah's immaculate life spirals out of control. Her father disapproves of her decision to run her grandma’s ranch instead of focusing solely on learning the family business; Animal Control brings her Argus, a mistreated horse that she can't turn away even though she's not ready for another horse; and her boyfriend, Eric Bennett, a world famous polo player, becomes possessive and authoritarian. Despite her best efforts to disguise it, Hannah grows wary of him.

Then, Leonardo Fernandes struts onto the polo scene. A cocky rookie with a messy life of his own, he’s drawn to Hannah and isn’t afraid of showing it, even when Eric makes it clear she is his and he’ll do whatever it takes to keep it that way. Hannah suffers for Eric’s jealousy. The abuse only gets worse when Leo steals the title of best polo player in the world from Eric.

But the title isn’t enough for Leo. He wants Hannah too, and she can’t deny her attraction to him either. Somehow, she must find a way to break free from abusive Eric before he breaks every bone in her body.

**New Adult Contemporary Romance Novel**
**Contains scenes of domestic violence**

I don't accept that many review requests, since I can't always get to them. This was a rather unique situation, though. I got contacted by Julianna after putting my name in for a twitter giveaway. I've been interested in this book for months, so I'm pretty thrilled to have it on my Kindle right now. I'm not reading quite as fast as I'd care for--which is why I'm only listing Breaking The Reins this week--but I am genuinely enjoying the book so far. :) 

Sealer's Promise Word Count Update: 45,000 words 

16 / 25 planned chapters. 

The blog is admittedly suffering, but progress on this rewrite is exceeding my wildest dreams. I started on August 3rd and have been writing four nights a week. I should be done by the middle of September by the latest, which should keep my lined up with my goals. 

I think the most shocking thing is how much the characters have grown in the jump from YA to NA, and how certain elements of the story have basically kicked it up a notch in response to this. Sealer's Promise won't be as long as my last draft (at 135,000 words) but it has a lot less fluff and a lot more meat.

Sarena has a lot more humor this go around and seems to know more what she wants, while Kesyl is doing things I could never have planned in a draft. (My drafts are like tourist guides--they'll help you find the landmarks, but they're not the same as living the experience of going somewhere.) I'm having an absolute blast writing this and am so glad I finally sat down and got to it. :) 

I'm going to be starting to look for betas in the coming weeks. If you think you'd be interested, feel free to leave your e-mail and a note that you're interested in the comments, or e-mail me. (The address is on my contact page.) 

So, did you get any awesome new goodies this week? Has anything exciting happened? Feel free to share in the comments, or link me to your STS, IMM, etc.