Stacking The Shelves / What's Up This Week?

Stacking The Shelves is a weekly event hosted by Tynga's Reviews where we share the books we bought, borrowed or received this week.

Well, this week has certainly been "unique". My parents went to Cuba, and I stayed here with my brother Shawn and his girlfriend Kate. On Wednesday night we went into Kingston for shopping and some dinner at 5 Guys Burgers and Fries. While there I picked up these two lovelies at Target.

I've been a huge fan of the House of Night series for several years now, so picking up Revealed, the latest book in the series, was just a matter of time. Most of them I've just grabbed around town but for some reason the amount of YA in Napanee has been on the decline. So when I saw this I grabbed it purely for convenience.

I don't have the same history with Rainbow Rowell, but Fangirl has been on my radar for a while now. It seemed quite popular at this year's Blogger Meetup. As someone who is releasing her first novel next year, and someone who was both a wannabe author and rather awkward during college (University) I think I can relate to this one. I hope I love it as much as I *think* I will. :)

My Kindle also got some love:

So I finally started reading the Night Huntress series. I'm pretty sure the fact that there are two books here from it makes it pretty obvious I'm liking it quite a bit. It's by far one of the most action oriented series I've ever read with a female lead and romance. Most of the stuff I've read in the past that blends paranormal, action and romance tends to either have the heroine in a less active role, have less "action" in general, or have people freaking out that the heroine is being heroic. I wouldn't want ALL the books I read to be this way, but right now? It's refreshing.

As for Everneath, I was sold when I read the words "Underworld" and "bring her back as his queen". Um, yeah. I don't think any further explanation is needed for anyone who knows me. :D It also doesn't hurt that it was on for $2. Again, you guys know how much I love a sale. Anyone read this? I'd love your thoughts. :)

So, yeah. This was suppose to be the perfect week to get Sealer's Promise revised and ready for betas. And I'll be totally up front, people: that totally didn't happen. For most of my life I've been one of those people who can get into a total slump when the sun starts to hide itself for the majority of the day, and this year that crap hit me hard. I'm talking I slept for 10-14 hours a day hard. I had absolutely no drive. Zip. Zilch. Nada. And I was freakin' weepy to boot. Not fun.

Fortunately, a bit of retail therapy and drag-your-butt-outta-the-house therapy on the part of Kate and Shawn has me feeling much more normal. Aside from the two pretties above and the yummy food at 5 Guys, I also found the Skylanders bargain to top all Skylanders bargains:

This is Granite Crusher. He's a series 2 (Giants) figure that was exclusive to Target before there were target stores in Canada, and before Jay and I got into Skylanders. We figured we'd never get this figure because it sells for $45--$70 online. ...Until I found two at Target and bought them for retail price ($15). I even got the 2nd one for 5% off because there's some wear on the packaging. Like we care: these bad boys will get taken outta their packaging the next time Jay visits and I can't wait to see them light up. I hear they glow blue and they're one of the figures that actually looks different in-game.

It's also been a good week for music. I bought Lady Gaga's new album, Artpop, just before my parents left for their vacation and I'm quite impressed with it. More shocking is my reaction to the two CDs Kate bought. I really didn't have any intention of listening to "Wild Life" by Hedley--it wound up on my iPod by accident. But the Sealers have claimed a couple songs. (Might as well give it a listen--it was already there anyway.). As for "Pure Heroine" by Lorde we listened to it on the way to Kingston and I'm very eager to sit down with it and get more time with the music. My initial takeaway was extremely positive. Odds are high I'm going to start doing some album reviews on here (I love music.) and these will likely be among the first albums I talk about.

Something new is happening in the Coleman household this holiday season: we're doing Christmas "secret Santa" style. So with only Shawn, Jay, Merissa and my Grandma to shop for, I needed to find a way to fill the gap because I *love* Christmas shopping. I have found the solution in adding two bookish Secret Santa events to my holiday plans (thanks Mom for agreeing to help me mail the package for the Broke & Bookish one!). I've done RAK before and I'm excited about that too. I already have my Broke and Bookish person and I need to send in my response for the RAK Secret Santa because it's due Monday. But I wanted to be sure and list both of these events because I think they're really neat.

I Just Finished...

In Short: Loved.

Longer: Bones is hot and Bones and Cat together kick ass.

Want to know more? Check out my full review later this week.

If it tells you anything, I'm already 15% of the way through the next book.

What's Up Next...

Two words: That Ending!

A bit more: I had to jump right into the next one. And I plan to do that a lot more often. It's how I read before I started reviewing.

Thoughts so far: Where the hell is Bones?

And if I finish this...

Fangirl was the most popular pick from this week's What's Next post. (I tried Cinder, guys, and it wasn't for me. Rather annoying since I also have Scarlet.)

I wanted this book enough that I bought it in print. Lets not have it sit for a year like oh, say, Prodigy and Unravel Me. (Sorry, books! I will get to you!)

I really hope this is good. I am not in a patient and 'forgiving' mood toward books that don't grab me right now. Fortunately, I did love the sample.

I haven't been focusing well on the task of writing. Which is one of the reasons that I am focusing so much on blogging and reading. It's clear to me that my brain needs to untangle the two yarns I'm working on--editing / revising Sealer's Promise, and outlining / planning Sealed With A Kiss. (No, we're not going to talk about how I blew NaNoWriMo. I wrote 60k of my Sealer's Promise rewrite in August.)

I really, really hate to say this but I may end up having to delay the Sealer's Promise launch. Why? Because (1) It's not ready for betas yet. And (2) I'm not a soulless yeti who would try and get people to beta my work while they're trying to get ready for Christmas. They're doing *me* a favor. Meaning that as it stands SP won't be with betas until at least January (I am finally starting to get some energy back, thank goodness.) and I probably won't get it back from them until February. (If I do great, but I'm not one to expect things.) I set up the date I did to get myself to write a draft I was really freaked out about writing and that worked. But ultimately the most important thing for me, as a (future) author, is making sure that I release the absolute best book I can. I owe it to myself, my readers and my characters.

I think the time away has done some good. I understand a few things both inside this book and inside the overall Sealer Saga that I didn't a few weeks ago. While it might be frustrating now, I believe that it will pay off in the end.

So, did you get any fabulous bookish goodies this week? Did anything exciting happen? Feel free to link me to your Stacking the Shelves / In My Mailbox / Book Haul, or whatever you're calling it so I can find out. :) Have a great day!