Saturday, 12 September 2015

Stacking the Shelves #101


Stacking the Shelves is a meme hosted by Tynga’s Reviews
Stacking The Shelves is all about sharing the books you are adding to your shelves, may it be physical or virtual. This means you can include books you buy in physical store or online, books you borrow from friends or the library, review books, gifts and of course ebooks! Click on the link under the book to find its page on Goodreads or Smashwords. 

Please note that I always leave a message on your STS/SP if you visit me, but if you use DISQUS or a similar third party I will not be able to leave a comment on your page. And sometimes, I have problems leaving messages on blogs hosted by Wordpress so you might get a double message sometimes! Blame them, not me!

Hi everyone! Last Saturday I posted to say I planned to take a couple of days off blogging to rest and read but instead, as some of you already know, my dad surprised me by taking me on holiday to Blackpool from Sunday to Thursday, which was a bit of a shock! We haven't been away since 2013 so I didn't expect to have to pack in a rush! We had a really great time and the weather was awesome! As well as my dad, I took one of my many children with me! This is Otis with the Big One rollercoaster behind him. Monkey selfie...!


The weather was over 20 degrees every day we were there, except for a stronger breeze on Sunday afternoon. We got a few good pictures so here is one looking down from South Pier towards Blackpool Tower, using the zoom lens.


I only took a few photos of the Pleasure Beach and this was the only one that really came out because of the glare on the screen! I couldn't see what I was taking half the time! This one features the newer Blackpool trams which are great to travel on!


So we had a really great time, strolling along the seafront eating junk food and enjoying the sun. I always do a lot of walking so I've been stiff and sore since I got home! My dad bought lots of great T shirts in the markets while I of course grabbed dvds and books and dinosaur stuff! But I didn't read a thing when I was there because I was tired every night from the heat and exercise! Since I got home I have read a graphic novel and short story so hopefully my reading slump is slowly ending! I hope so anyway...

Right, the books! You know I'm a horror/monster/zombie kind of girl and I do love reading those subjects. And of course I have zombies and psychos in my haul this week! But sometimes I look at popular genres like the fantasy and YA genres and see people rave about certain books that I've never considered reading and I think that there are bound to be books in here that I might like if I have the patience to look at reviews and stuff. I guess I just feel like a bit of a change, trying a few books and authors and seeing if I can find a few new hidden gems! So I took the plunge with a few trades and my holiday money! I'm a bit nervous at a few of my choices but I did get them at reduced price in Waterstones sales. Wish me luck, I'm going in!

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Friday, 11 September 2015

Top Ten Tuesday: Completed series I have yet to finish!


Yes I know, it's Friday, and a bit late to be posting this but I've been on holiday for four days and this is a topic I do want to post about! I have lots of series I need to catch up with but here are 10 completed series that I need to finish... 






















1) Rachel Caine-The Morganville Vampires
15 novels and a ton of short stories...but I've only read the first book in the series! ERK! To say I'm way behind is putting it mildly! I loved the cover which is what attracted me to pick it from the shelf and it sounded great. When I read it, I loved it and bought the others as they came out. As soon as the short story anthology is released, I'm doing a Morganville month to get all of it read!

2) John Marsden-Tomorrow when the war began
A series and a spin off trilogy but I have read and loved the first two books in the series. I love this dystopian series about a group of teenagers who return from a camping trip to find their town and country invaded by enemy troops. This is about how they fight back. LOVED the action and tension and really want to get on with the series!




3) Carrie Vaughn-Kitty Norville  
This series is about 15 books long with the short story anthology and again I've still only read book one! I enjoyed it and as I'm a big werewolf fan, it had something a bit different to it. Course, I read it so long ago I can't remember anything about it so a full series catchup is required!

4) Jaye Wells-Sabina Kane
A shorter series but I've only read the first book, though I have another series by the same author with awesome covers that I haven't started yet. I liked the characters, the humour, the action and the funny sidekick demon!






















5) DD Barant-Bloodhound Files
Paranormal creatures, a golem sidekick who is seriously cool, being kidnapped to a place where humans are the minority to help solve hate crimes, kickass heroine, humour, action-this series has everything! I LOVED the first book and want to see what happens in the rest of the series.

6) Eoin Colfer-Artemis Fowl
I've read the first three or four books and I loved the humour and the characters. I really need to do a series reread and get caught up with everything.

 

7) Christina Henry-Black Wings
I'm never a huge fan of romance in UF books but this one gets it right and has the right blend of action and humour to go with it along with an adorable gargoyle sidekick! I've only read the first book but I really want to read the next six!

8) CE Murphy-The Walker Papers
This was totally different-coyote spirits, OAP sidekick, mythology, action, The Wild Hunt...I really enjoyed book one. There are about ten books in the series so again, I'm way behind!






















9) Joelle Charbonneau-The Testing
I've read the first book in this series and thought it was a great read so I'm excited to read the rest of the trilogy. The first half of the book is the brutal and fatal tests that the students must pass, the second half is a survival journey where your fellow students, starvation and danger might kill you. Loved it!

 10) RL Naquin-Monster Haven
Take a clumsy, empath wedding planner and a supercook closet monster, and have them run a sanctuary for magical creatures who need help. Skunk Apes, brownies, reaper romance and a sadistic incubus killing off women in the town. This is funny, action packed and has some wonderful characters! The only reason I haven't read the last two books is that I don't WANT it to end!!!

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Thursday, 10 September 2015

Back online!


I had planned to have a few days offline to just rest and read but it didn't go quite to plan! On Saturday night my dad told me he had booked a surprise holiday for us and we left for a four day break down to Blackpool in England on Sunday! I just got in an hour ago and we had a great time! I LOVE Blackpool but we didn't go last year because we had just lost my mum to cancer last June and didn't want to be there without her. However this year my dad decided that it would be good for us to go and I'm so glad we did! We've been going there on and off as a family since I was three years old!


The weather was superb! In September in Blackpool you can get the four seasons in one day but we had sun the whole time-no rain, no freezing winds! Pretty happy with that! We strolled along the south shore a few times a day watching everyone scream on the rollercoasters, eating hotdogs and drinking slush puppies! We also did some shopping at the beach markets and of course I managed a nice visit to Waterstones to buy a few holiday books...well, it would be rude not to! I was so knackered each night that I had no energy to read but it was great to just have a rest away from here and have a bit of fun. I haven't had time to upload some holiday photos but I'll put a few on my next STS on Saturday.

So now it's back home and I need to find some energy to do the holiday washing and ironing (GROAN!!!) get some shopping in and get some reading done.

 I think I need a holiday!

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Saturday, 5 September 2015

Stacking the Shelves #100


Stacking the Shelves is a meme hosted by Tynga’s Reviews
Stacking The Shelves is all about sharing the books you are adding to your shelves, may it be physical or virtual. This means you can include books you buy in physical store or online, books you borrow from friends or the library, review books, gifts and of course ebooks! Click on the link under the book to find its page on Goodreads or Smashwords. 

Please note that I always leave a message on your STS/SP if you visit me, but if you use DISQUS or a similar third party I will not be able to leave a comment on your page. And sometimes, I have problems leaving messages on blogs hosted by Wordpress so you might get a double message sometimes! Blame them, not me!
    
Firstly I can't believe that this is my 100th Stacking the Shelves post! That is pretty exciting stuff! I have to celebrate with a nice book haul! Since I reached my goal of reducing the tbrs to 500, I haven't picked up a single book! I've just sat in front of the TV with old reruns of Masterchef which is lazy but has been fun. But not getting anything read is disappointing so this week I need to find a way out of my reading slump. I'll be taking a few days off the computer just to try and relax, sleep and read so replies to any messages you leave on the blog might be slower than usual so bear with me! I will respond to everyone before next weekend!

I've sneaked up over 500 books due to a few purchases but that will come back down if I get some reading done this week. So I'm still happy enough with things. This week we have zombies, vampires and shifters-YES! What more could a girl want on her book list? I have read the first two Mountain Man books and liked it enough to buy the series in paperback. Mountain Man and Safari are in one volume under the name Mountain Man book 1 but I've listed them seperate the way they are on Kindle just to show off the covers! I was also pleased to get my copy of the Mercy Thompson anthology which has just been released. I'll be reading that asap. 

I've also done a few book trades on RISI which helped me get rid of some unwanted books. I decided to trade them for some books in genres I don't normally read just for a change. I'm not sure how I'll get on with them but at worst, I can trade or bookcross them. 

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Thursday, 3 September 2015

Beware the mouth of a gift horse...!


Gah! It's been nearly a whole week since my last blog post and it has not been an enjoyable one! I was still feeling sorry for myself over this stupid head cold I've had for about 3 weeks. It's mild as infections go but feeling tired has left with no concentration to read which is annoying!

 Then came the hell unleashed. My dad ordered a couple of items from a magazine called Daily Record Offers which came free in the Daily Record newspaper. While on the phone ordering, he was asked to look at a free trial for some kind of money off vouchers thing and he just agreed to it. I wish he had asked me first as I would have told him to say NO because I've read about it online!!! The first I knew about it was when a package arrived welcoming him as a member of easylife rewards club, sent by The Rocket Marketing Group. We were charged £2.99 for just agreeing to receive the welcome pack. It contains money off vouchers and things which some people might find useful I guess but it's when you read the small print that you realise what this is going to cost you.

 If you don't cancel during your 21 day trial period you are upgraded to annual membership which costs you £69.99 per year, taken automatically from your bank account. As part of this upgrade "...you will also be offered up to 3 Exclusive Membership Offers at a cost of no more than £20 each. We will notify you of these in advance and they will be automatically charged to you unless you opt out within the 21 days." So if you don't cancel in the 21 day trial period you get charged £69.99 plus three further payments of £20 each...umm, £129.99???? For a few vouchers which might not be for things that interest you? Erk! Still, if you cancel in 21 days, none of this will happen to you...

 This is where the problems come. Online there are people who cancelled without a problem but there are a TON of people who tried to cancel and were hit with problems resulting in losing the money from their accounts ie

 -we didn't get your cancellation letter
-we didn't get your cancellation request processed within the 21 days
-we didn't get your email
-one person sent their cancellation letter by recorded delivery as soon as he received and read about the fees in the welcome pack and it reached the company in days-but he still got charged because they failed to process his cancellation until the 21 days was up. 

Here are a few examples of various complaints about Rocket Marketing Group tactics:
http://www.sheffieldforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=887959 
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=581318
http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showthread.php?t=1144110

 So I had to trudge to the bank to tell them what happened and they said the only way to ensure that no more money came off after the 21 day trial was to close the account. My dad had given the company my account details by mistake so this led to having to try and stop a pile of payments from/to companies and contact the benefits agency to suspend payments into that account...that took a whole day to sort plus I cannot access the money in the account, which the bank had transferred to a new account-I'll only be able to access that when I get my new card in which could be a week or more...PLUS I can't get my money from the benefits agency until all this is sorted! Utter chaos! 

We still need to return this welcome pack they sent me at own cost recorded delivery within this 21 days-as they can't get into the bank account, they will try to get it by cheque so we need proof we sent it back with plenty time to spare. That way, if they claim to have had no time to process the cancellation, we have proof to fight them. So that is what I've spent all of yesterday doing. Today I had to take my dad to the doctor because of the stress of it all.

 Great bloody week we've had!

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