May 2019 Book Haul!

Well all...I'm a tad disappointed in myself because of the number of books I'm hauling this month but I'm also not that upset since I'm so excited for all of these. I have a massive amount of books to talk about today so I'm going to keep individual comments on each book to a minimum, but I thought an explanation here would be a good idea. I got a total of 44 books this month. I know...I'll let that sink in. I can't say I'm particularly proud of that number, but I'm not upset. Let me start off by saying that 11 of those books were free, 10 were books that I'd already paid for before this month, and the rest were all either super bargain finds or preorders where I was able to use gift cards on some. Someone should really tell publishers that there are other months in the year to release books because so many amazing books published this month and I still haven't even gotten all the ones I want yet. 

Anyway, for this haul I'm going to split it into sections rather than go by when I got them like I usually do. I'm going to start with preorders and then talk about books that I got for free. After that, I'll move into books that I found really good prices on before finishing with books that were just some random purchases. Let's just go ahead and dive right in! 

I'm starting out with my preorder and new releases that I got this month. Despite how many there are here, I was actually pretty selective with what I purchased considering how many amazing books released in May. I'll definitely be playing catch-up with all these releases for months to come.

Up first, we have books that released on May 7th, the first of those being Again, But Better by Christine Riccio in the Barnes & Noble signed exclusive edition. I'm pretty excited to have this on my shelf, even though I was originally going to wait on buying it. I enjoyed this story when I read it in April and I do love the physical beauty of the book.

Next is Broken Throne by Victoria Aveyard, which is also a signed Barnes & Noble exclusive edition. I've actually never read Red Queen but I am planning to read through as much of the series as I can this summer so I decided to go ahead and get this one while I had a gift card. It's definitely my favorite cover of the series and I already am excited to read it.

The last book I got on May 7th was Finale by Stephanie Garber, also a Barnes & Noble exclusive edition. I am beyond excited for this book and I'm planning on reading it this month. After the ending that was book 2 in this trilogy, I really have no idea how this book is going to go but I'm excited nonetheless.

The next book releases I got this month were released on May 14th. The first of these was Red, White and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston. This book wasn't even on my radar until April but I am beyond excited to have a copy. I don't read much contemporary but this one sounds so good and there have been a lot of positive reviews floating around.

The next book I got May 14th was We Hunt the Flame by Hafsah Faizal. This is another book with stellar reviews and a lot of hype that I am super excited to read. Not only is it simply gorgeous but I am obsessed with the synopsis. I honestly hope I can read it this summer before I leave for abroad, but we'll see.

The last two book releases I got this month are actually for the same book which released on May 21: Kingsbane by Claire Legrand. I got the regular US hardcover and also the Fox and Wit special edition which has beautiful black sprayed edges. I love both of these editions and, after meeting Claire, they're both signed and so special to me! 

I got a pretty good number of free books this month! Five of those were physical books and the rest were ebooks/audiobooks. I honestly don't think I've had a month where I've gotten more free books sent to me and I'm honestly quite giddy when I look back on these.

The first book I got was an advanced copy of We Contain Multitudes by Sarah Henstra which was sent to me by Novl. The moment I read the synopsis for this book I knew that I had to read it and I'm so grateful that I was sent a copy. I have already read and reviewed this book and, spoiler, I loved it! 

Up next I got a copy of Angel Land by P.S. Scott which was sent to me for a bookstagram tour that I participated in. I don't know much about this book other than there's angels but I do know that I really like the cover a lot. 

Then my friend gave me a copy of The Mermaid's Voice Returns in This One by Amanda Lovelace. I enjoyed The Princess Saves Herself in This One but I haven't yet read the second collection in this companion series thing. I am super excited about this and I'm currently reading my way through it! 

Next I got an advanced copy of Dragonslayer by Duncan M. Hamilton which was sent to me by Tor. I am participating in a blog tour for this book next month and I'm super excited about it. This book sounds super fun and it's not really that long, which is nice because I need a break from super long books. 

The last book I got sent for free was Only A Breath Apart by Katie McGarry which was sent to me by Tor Teen. I've absolutely loved every one of Katie McGarry's books that I've read so far and I cannot wait to read this one. It sounds amazing and I'm super excited to see Katie write a little bit of paranormal mixed into her contemporary.

In mid-April, I placed a Book Outlet order. I was having a stressful month--even though April was a great month, looking back there was SO much going on--and I decided to just take a peek at Book Outlet. Lo and behold, they had so many amazing books on there...books that had been on my Amazon wishlist for a very long time. They were also having a sale and free shipping, so I decided that if I made it through my stressful English Lit presentation, I would reward myself with an order. And I did. It was waiting for me when I got home from college so let's just dive in! 

First things first, I got the entire Something Strange and Deadly trilogy by Susan Dennard. I love Susan's other series and I'd both heard good things about this book and been interested in reading it. Plus, they had the new covers that I much prefer to the old ones so I decided to get the entire trilogy. I am planning on reading the entire trilogy this summer, and I've already read the first one. 

Next, I picked up Endsinger by Jay Kristoff as I saw they had the out-of-print hardcover available. I decided I wanted to collect this trilogy in hardcover so that it matched my other Jay books and I'm super excited to have this on my shelf. 

Up next I picked up Winterspell by Claire Legrand. This is one that I'd been wanting for a while and, when I saw it on sale, I decided to go ahead and pick it up. Additionally, I was hoping that there was a chance I was going to be able to meet Claire on her Kingsbane tour, so I wanted to snag a cheap copy while I could.

Then I got The Masked City and The Lost 
Plot by Genevieve Cogman, books two and four in The Invisible Library series. I got book one and three for Christmas, and I actually read book one in May, so I decided I would get the other books in the series with matching covers as I'm also planning on reading the entire series this summer. 

The last two books I got were Sabriel by Garth Nix and City of Lies by Sam Hawke. Both of these are fantasies that I've heard good things about and have been on my wishlist for a while but I hadn't ever pulled the trigger on buying them. The covers are gorgeous and I can't wait to get around to these eventually. 

I also went to my local used bookstore when I got home from college and placed a couple eBay orders that had some good deals on them. The great thing about my local used bookstore is that when you bring books in to donate, they give you in-store credit that you can apply to up to half-off your purchase. This means that the already-cheap books that I'm about to talk about were even cheaper.

First, I got the US paperback of A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas. It's another edition of this book but the reason I got it is because I want to collect the US paperbacks and heavily annotate them, something I'm not willing to do in my signed/special edition hardcovers.

I also picked up a copy of The Young Elites by Marie Lu. I've heard nothing but amazing things about all of Marie's books and I figured that when I saw it in perfect condition for so cheap, I would give it a try. While I know the Legend trilogy isn't connected to this one, I still think I'm going to read Legend first.

Then I picked up Uglies by Scott Westerfeld in the new paperback covers. I first read a couple books in this series back in middle school when they still had the ugly old covers. Still, I loved the books but never finished the series so my plan is to read Uglies again and, if it's still good, I'll collect the other beautiful paperbacks to read.

Next was a completely random find and that was a bind up of the complete Night Angel trilogy by Brent Weeks. I was actually completely unfamiliar with this trilogy before going to the used bookstore today, but the bind-up was super cheap (I mean...where else am I going to get an entire trilogy for $4) and I have heard a lot of good things about Brent Weeks in general.

Lastly from the local used bookstore is what I consider to be the best bargain find of the whole trip: Iron Gold by Pierce Brown. This hardcover is in near perfect condition and I got it for...wait for it...$5. Retail price is $28 and I don't think I would have been able to find a better copy on eBay or anywhere. Add in that I was going to buy this soon anyway and we have a very satisfied bookworm.

I then placed two eBay orders for books in the same series, so I'll just talk about them all together. I got books 2-5 and one of the novellas in the Covenant series by Jennifer L. Armentrout. These are Pure, Deity, Apollyon, Sentinel, and Daimon (the novella). I found these in pretty good condition for super cheap prices in the out-of-print covers that I really wanted to match the first book. I can't believe I found these for such cheap prices and I'm so excited that I can finally continue on with reading this series. 

I have a few random purchases thrown in this month that don't fit into any of the categories above. The first of these is Crown of Feathers by Nicki Pau Preto. I've heard a lot of good things about this book and the author just opened up spots on her street team, so I figured I would read the book before applying for that.

I also got the paperback of Furyborn by Claire Legrand. The reasoning behind this was that I went to Claire Legrand's signing in May and you had to buy a book to enter the signing line, so I decided to get the paperback of Furyborn since I had been wanting that edition since it came out. I also got it signed and personalized, so I'm very excited about that!

The last two books I'll be talking about are Stormdancer and Kinslayer by Jay Kristoff in the gorgeous US hardcovers. It was a tad difficult finding these editions since the hardcover is out-of-print but I was able to find them for pretty reasonable prices. Now, combined with Endsinger from my BookOutlet order, I have the entire trilogy and can binge-read them soon!

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I'm not going to go into a lot of depth for my ebooks and audiobooks that I got this month because that's just a lot of typing still, but I am going to list them here:

eBooks:

1. Empire of Sand by Soneela Nankani

2. Song of the Current by Sarah Tolcser

3. Embrace by Jessica Shirvington (free)

4. Before the Broken Star by Emily R. King (free)

5. This Night So Dark by Amie Kaufman & Megan Spooner (free)
6. Tempting the Best Man by Jennifer L. Armentrout
7. L1F3LIKE by Jay Kristoff

Audiobooks:
1. Aurora Rising by Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff (free)
2. Kingsbane by Claire Legrand (free)

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Overall, while this was a large number of books, I'm not overly ashamed of it. All of the books I got this month are ones that I'm super excited about and I can't wait to read. I do plan on seriously cutting back on my book buying, however, as I focus on reading the books I got this month. Though I can already tell that June will be bigger than I anticipated--though not as big as May--just from the amount of books I have coming from publishers. 

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Thanks for reading!

xoxo

Lauren

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"Kingsbane" Book Tour Experience!

I am flying high right now. I'm writing this the morning after getting back from the Kingsbane/Claire Legrand tour and I still can't believe how amazing of a night it was. I wanted to write this as soon as possible so that I didn't forget anything so let's just dive into a recap of last night!

For starters, I went with my two best friends, Lexi and Bella. We left around 3 pm which gave us 4 hours to drive and get food in St. Charles. The event was at a library in a suburb of St. Louis, MO and it wasn't until we arrived there that we realized we'd been to a signing at that library before. It was pretty cool returning to it and we also realized that that library has a Drive Thru for books?! I wish my library had that! 

Anyway, the drive went pretty smoothly. I get motion sick so I took Dramamine and napped for a little bit of the trip. Other than that we just jammed to music and ate a lot of snacks. We got to the library about an hour before the event started so we decided to go ahead and drive around to get food. We ended up at White Castle, which I've never had before. I just got some loaded fries but I have to admit that next time I'd just get regular fries if I had to go back. Something about ranch and cheese on fries just didn't mix well for me. 

But then we went back to the library and went in. There were a few people there and we decided to go ahead and buy our books in advance rather than right as the signing started. They didn't have many of Claire's backlist titles like I was hoping. I was planning on getting Foxheart and Cavendish Home for Boys and Girls, but they only had Furyborn, Kingsbane, and Sawkill Girls. Either way, I just decided to get the paperback of Furyborn for my collection and Sawkill Girls for a friend who couldn't make the event. I still had eight books of my own to get signed and one for my sister, so it wasn't a big loss. If anything, this means I'll have books to take to get signed next time she goes on tour (which is hopefully in my area again).

Somehow we ended up getting to sit in the front row for the conversation. Claire was so personable and fun. She talked a lot about how The Empirium Trilogy came to be, her inspirations, and a lot of the struggles she's gone through in getting these books published. She also talked about how she writes super long first drafts (Kingsbane was 250k words and written in just 5 months!) and then cuts them down in editing. One scene that got cut because it didn't contribute to the story movement was a scene of Rielle, Audric, and Ludivine getting drunk in a pub and playing an impressions game. I would love to see that scene! Hopefully one day, as Claire talked about, there might be a novella released or bonus content in her newsletters that show this scene. 

I think one of my favorite moments was when she discussed her fancast for the characters. The fancast she had in her head was from when she was younger and first started writing, so when she talked about them she told us to think of them as, "the energy of these actors but age-appropriate). For Corien, she said Cillian Murphy was her vision of him and for Simon, a young Daniel Craig. Interestingly, she said she'd never been able to find someone who embodies Rielle or Eliana so she hopes that if the books do get adapted that there are some amazing unknown actresses found to fulfill those roles. 

Claire also talked candidly about being a writer with depression and anxiety. Sometimes writing is therapeutic but other times it is just a stressor. Hearing how she copes with it while writing was pretty inspiring. Additionally, all of her writing tips were super helpful and I can't wait to try using some of them! 

She also chatted a very small amount about the frustrating aspects of publishing and how she's able to stay motivated throughout that. It's very hard to make money in publishing and a lot of it in America is centered in New York City where it's hard to work unless you're rich (and usually white). Despite that, Claire said that her passion for the characters and story are what motivates her to push through publishing and that, without Furyborn, she probably would have quit a long time ago. 

We then all lined up for the signing. We actually had to finish putting post-its in our books so we ended up at the end of the line and let the girl behind us go first since we had a collective 16 books between the three of us. Standing in line was fun in itself because I got to chat with my friends who I don't get to see much when I'm away at college and because we chatted a bit with the people around us. One of the girls in line near us had read Foxheart, the book I was hoping to buy there, and told me that it was really good and I should read it. We also chatted a bit with one of the booksellers and she had the cutest little owl-themed bag. 

We finally got up to Claire and it was amazing. I've never talked so much with an author before and it was such a great experience. For starters, she recognized me from my bookstagram (insert happy crying emoji here)! I've never had someone recognize me from bookstagram before. She said she'd seen my comment earlier about being excited for the event and was wondering where I was in the crowd/signing line. I'm still crying over this. 

So there we were, my two friends, Claire, and me, talking for a while. We all chatted about so many different things from writing to publishing to college. She seemed really excited to hear that I wanted to work at Sourcebooks after graduation since that's her publisher. We didn't talk much about the actual books but it was a really amazing conversation. It was so amazing, in fact, that I forgot to get a picture with her (insert sad crying emoji here). The bookseller did take a picture of all of us at the end of the line with Claire and she said it was for Facebook, so I'm definitely going to stalk that Facebook to see if I can get that picture. 

But at the end, it was just a lot of thank you's and drive safe's as we walked out. I think being at the end of the line was definitely the way to go since we didn't have to feel guilty about anyone waiting for a super long time behind us. 

Once we were in the car leaving, I knew I was most likely going to fall asleep from my Dramamine but I honestly didn't want to because I was so happy. We all talked in the car for a while about how amazing it was for a while before I ended up falling asleep. 

We hit some heavy rain on the way home. It was storming but we just drove real slow until we got out of the super heavy patch of rain. I was pretty exhausted when I got home since I'd hardly slept the night before and I would have slept in longer this morning if I didn't have work soon. Honestly, though, I'm still feeling giddy over last night so I'm not too angry at still being awake. 

Overall, this event was so much better than I could have ever dreamed. I was so worried about freezing up and not being able to say anything when I met Claire but she was so personable and nice. I absolutely cannot wait to meet her again and I know I will treasure this experience for so long. It was the best author signing I've ever been to and I am just so happy with that fact and the entire night. 

Here are all the books I that I got signed (minus my sister's book). Something to note is that I already had a signed hardcover edition of Furyborn from last year, hence why that edition is missing from the ones I got signed!

Furyborn US paperback

Furyborn limited edition ARC

Furyborn final cover ARC

Kingsbane US hardcover

Kingsbane Fox & Wit Special Edition

Kingsbane ARC

Winterspell US paperback

Sawkill Girls ARC

Temporary Tattoos & Double-Sided Bookmarks!

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Thanks for reading!

xoxo

Lauren

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You can follow my bookstagram here. A brand new giveaway will be posted soon!

To get more awesome content like this post, click the follow button to the right!

I am a "BookishTextDesign" Influencer! Use my code LAUREN10 for a discount off your bookmark purchases! Check out the shop here

Get free worldwide shipping with Book Depository using my affiliate link

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