FictionTea

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Five Authors I’d Love To Meet

Over the past few years, I have gotten the chance to meet authors such as; Samantha Shannon, VE Schwab, Laini Taylor, Pierce Brown, Maggie Stiefvater, Holly Black, and Cassandra Clare amongst many others. I love to meet authors who’s books I’ve thoroughly enjoyed, or who’s books I’m eager to pick up in the future. However, there are some I’ve never met or, they’ve been to the UK before and I’ve not been able to attend. Usually this is because it’s a “UK tour” meaning, England tour stops only.

I made a list of top five authors (in no particular order) that I’d like to meet in the future. I hope that at least some of them come to/return to the UK at some point, because I’m positive that there are many other readers within the UK who would love to attend their events.

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World Book Day | My Top 5 Childhood Books

It’s World Book Day!

Which means, it’s basically Christmas for all bookworms out there.

So, what is World Book Day?

“World Book Day is a registered charity on a mission to give every child and young person a book of their own. It’s also a celebration of authors, illustrators, books and (most importantly) it’s a celebration of reading. In fact, it’s the biggest celebration of its kind, designated by UNESCO as a worldwide celebration of books and reading, and marked in over 100 countries all over the world.” – worldbookday.com

The theme for this year is Share A Story. Myself and a whole bunch of other lovely and talented UK book bloggers have decided to celebrate by posting our top 5 childhood reads. The graphic at the bottom of this post illustrates all the bloggers who will be participating and posting every half hour throughout the day.. The lovely blogger before me was Olivia from StageyBookish!

Choosing only 5 was particularly hard for me, because when I was a child, all I did was read. Every waking moment I had, if I wasn’t at school, I was reading a book. My Gran always encouraged me to fit in at least an hour or two of reading before bed every night as well, so it’s fair to say that I read a lot of books when I was little.

But of course, I always had a couple of books that I always gravitated towards if I wasn’t sure what to read. That’s what I’ll be sharing today, my top 5 childhood books. Without further ado, let’s get started!

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Book Tag | The Greatest Showman

Hello friends,

Today, I’m bringing to you, ‘The Greatest Showman‘ book tag. I was eager to post this tag today specifically as a year ago today, this wonderful masterpiece of a movie hit the big screens. I proceeded to see it six times in the movies and fall completely in love with the soundtrack. It is officially one of my favourite movies and movie soundtracks of all time, so I could not pass up on marking the 1st anniversary of this movie with a fun book tag.

The creator of this tag is NightlyReading. But, I came across it on Victoria‘s blog a few months ago and yes, you guessed it, I have waited till now to post it, just to celebrate the movie’s 1st year in the world.

Now, without further ado, let’s jump right into this. Preferably with the soundtrack blasting in the background.

 

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Book Review: ‘Kingdom of Ash’ by Sarah J Maas

Title: Kingdom of Ash
Author: Sarah J Maas
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Release Date: 23rd October 2018
Genre/Age Group:  Fantasy, New Adult, Adventure
Format:  Hardcover (992 pages)
Source: Purchased
Rating: 

(This review is spoiler free, however, may contain spoilers for previous books)

 

Synopsis

Aelin has risked everything to save her people―but at a tremendous cost. Locked within an iron coffin by the Queen of the Fae, Aelin must draw upon her fiery will as she endures months of torture. Aware that yielding to Maeve will doom those she loves keeps her from breaking, though her resolve begins to unravel with each passing day…

With Aelin captured, Aedion and Lysandra remain the last line of defense to protect Terrasen from utter destruction. Yet they soon realize that the many allies they’ve gathered to battle Erawan’s hordes might not be enough to save them. Scattered across the continent and racing against time, Chaol, Manon, and Dorian are forced to forge their own paths to meet their fates. Hanging in the balance is any hope of salvation―and a better world.

And across the sea, his companions unwavering beside him, Rowan hunts to find his captured wife and queen―before she is lost to him forever.

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Book Review: ‘Ash Princess’ by Laura Sebastian

Title: Ash Princess
Author: Laura Sebastian
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
Release Date: 14th June 2018
Genre/Age Group: Fantasy, Young Adult, Romance
Format: Paperback (448 pages)
Source: ARC (Sent by publisher in exchange for an honest review)
Rating: 

(This review is spoiler free!)

 

Synopsis

“Theodosia was six when her country was invaded and her mother, the Fire Queen, was murdered before her eyes. On that day, the Kaiser took Theodosia’s family, her land, and her name. Theo was crowned Ash Princess–a title of shame to bear in her new life as a prisoner.

For ten years Theo has been a captive in her own palace. She’s endured the relentless abuse and ridicule of the Kaiser and his court. She is powerless, surviving in her new world only by burying the girl she was deep inside.

Then, one night, the Kaiser forces her to do the unthinkable. With blood on her hands and all hope of reclaiming her throne lost, she realizes that surviving is no longer enough. But she does have a weapon: her mind is sharper than any sword. And power isn’t always won on the battlefield.

For ten years, the Ash Princess has seen her land pillaged and her people enslaved. That all ends here.”

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Kiss, Marry, Kill with BooksNest

Hello friends! It’s time to ask another book blogger to decide the fate of some fictional characters!

Just in case you missed the last post, I’ve recently decided to start this new feature on my blog as a bit of fun. I used to enjoy watching booktuber’s Kiss, Marry, Kill tags, where they would write out a collection of fictional characters and put them in a jar. They would pull three out at a time and decide which of the three they’d kiss, marry and kill. How terribly morbid!

Each week I will feature a different blogger/bookworm to let us know what their choices would be and why. After all, who doesn’t love the pressure of choosing the fates of their favourite fictional characters?

Last time, WhatVickyRead was featured and she definitely had to make some tough decisions. You can read that post here.

This week, the lovely Beth from BooksNest will be taking part, and we’ll get to see which fictional characters she would choose to kiss, marry or kill. *insert evil laugh here*

Below you can see my magical plastic cup of fictional characters (unfortunately I had no aesthetically pleasing mason jars at hand) which I will choose twelve sets of three characters out of for every feature. This cup has a mix of female and male characters, and of course, some villains as well.

Disclaimer: Please keep in mind that this feature is only for fun!

 ✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* Magical cup of fictional characters ✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*

Without any further ado, let’s get to the fun stuff.

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YALC 2018 Review

It’s officially been one week since YALC, it’s crazy that the UK’s biggest young adult book convention has already been and gone. This time last week, I was in London with friends, filled with excitement about the event. And now, I’m already anticipating next year.

If you were following the YALC updates in the months leading up to YALC, then you know that a few things changed this year that quite a lot of attendees where unsure about. We weren’t sure if these changes would be good or bad when compared to previous years. If you read my previous post, My Guide to YALC, then you know that this was my third year attending. So, I thought I’d do a review of YALC 2018 and let you guys know what I personally thought of the changes and how I found this year compared to the previous two years that I’ve attended.

As always, please be aware that these opinions are my own and this is what I personally thought of YALC this year.

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Kiss, Marry, Kill with WhatVickyRead

I’ve decided to start this new feature on my blog as a bit of fun. I used to enjoy watching booktuber’s Kiss, Marry, Kill tags, where they would write out a collection of fictional characters and put them in a jar. They would pull three out at a time and decide which of the three they’d kiss, marry and kill. How terribly morbid, I know.

Each week I will feature a different blogger and bookworm to let us know which their choices would be and why. After all, who doesn’t love the pressure of choosing the fates of their favourite fictional characters?

Below you can see my magical plastic cup of fictional characters (unfortunately I had no aesthetically pleasing mason jars at hand) which I will choose twelve sets of three characters out of for every feature. This cup has a mix of female and male characters, and of course, some villains as well.

Disclaimer: Please keep in mind that this feature is only for fun!

 ✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* Magical cup of fictional characters ✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*

 

The first blogger to take part in this feature is the lovely Vicky from WhatVickyRead who is a wonderful friend of mine and who was more than ready to decide what characters she would kiss, marry and kill. I could think of no one better to start off this new feature!

Let’s do this!

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My Guide to YALC

YALC (Young Adult Literature Convention) is the UK’s first young adult book festival. You could say it’s the UK’s equivalent of BookCon and BookExpo which take place in a big city within the US each year. This convention started back in July 2014 with author Malorie Blackman being heavily involved in it’s creation. Over the years, YALC has managed to bring along best-selling authors such as Cassandra Clare, Holly Black, Maggie Stiefvater, VE Schwab, Samantha Shannon, Marcus Sedgwick, Patrick Ness and many more, making it one of the most exciting events for book bloggers around the UK. I’ve been travelling down to London for YALC from Scotland every Summer since 2016, this will be my third year attending and so I thought I’d share some tips and tricks for you guys to help make your YALC experience more enjoyable.

When I went to YALC the first time, I had no idea what was going on. You’d look one way and people would be running towards a booth. You’d look the other way and people would be searching the hall for a hidden object. The first time was absolute madness for me, but I managed to make some new friends as well as hang out with friends I’d met through the book community too. I hope these tips and tricks will be useful for you, I have learned these from experience, but also remember that everyone handles events like this differently, so make sure you know what you want out of this experience, whether it’s to meet your favourite authors, get your books signed, make new friends, talk to publishers, take part in the workshops, etc. Know what you want out of this experience, then plan and organise around it.

(I may use photos that are not mine for this post to give you guys a feel of YALC, I don’t really have many photos inside of YALC, unfortunately! I will credit and link the owner below each photo, unless it really is mine.)

Anyway, let’s get to these tips…

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The Mid-Year Book Freak Out Tag (2018)

I’ve seen this tag creep up around booktube lately and I thoroughly enjoyed hearing everyone’s answers to the questions. It was lovely to see that I wasn’t the only one freaking out about my reading goals for the year. So, I thought, what the hell! I’m way behind on my reading goal, why not channel my worries into the Mid-Year Book Freak Out Tag. I’ve been very lucky to have read some fantastic books throughout the first 6 months of 2018, but I’m going to try not be repetitive with my answers, and I’ve read quite a few arcs that won’t be published till later this year, so I’m going to stick to books that are already published (or are about to be very soon). Let’s do this! *cracks knuckles*

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