Seven Days of Austen: Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

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Publication Date: Originally published in 1811
Publisher: 2008, Random House Publishing
ISBN:  009951155X
Age Group: Young Adult/Adult
Genre: Classic/Romance
Source: Bookshelf
Lootability: ***

Elinor is as prudent as her sister Marianne is impetuous. Both sisters must learn from the other after they are forced to leave their home and enter into the contests of polite society after the untimely death of their father. The charms of unsuitable men and the schemes of rival ladies mean that their paths to success are stocked with disappointment, but together they attempt to find a way to happiness.

Seven days of Austen: Persuasion by Jane Austen

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Publication Date: Originally published 1818
Publisher: Oct 1st, 2008 Random House Publishing
ISBN:  0099511177
Age Group: Adult
Genre: Classic/Romance
Source: Bookshelf
Lootability: *****

Eight years ago Anne Elliot bowed to pressure from her family and made the decision not to marry the man she loved, Captain Wentworth. Now, circumstances have conspired to bring him back into her social circle and Anne finds her old feelings for him reignited. However, when they meet again Wentworth behaves as if they are strangers and seems more interested in her friend Louisa.

7 Days of Austen: Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

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Publication Date: Originally published 1813
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
ISBN:  0679783261  
Age Group: All Ages
Genre: Classic/Romance
Source: Bookshelf
Lootability: *****


What is it about Pride and Prejudice that makes it such a successfil and romantic love story? Why do Elizabeth (Lizzy to her friends) Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy appeal to us, and make such a dynamic duo?
I first read P&P when I was fifteen and spending the last two weeks of my summer holidays trying not to look like a dunce in literature by reading classics. I expected to struggle, to miss the fantasty realms I was used to, what I didn't expect was to fall head over heels in love with this book.

Win a signed copy of Maria V Snyder's Touch of Power

Touch of Power
By Maria V. Snyder

Laying hands upon the injured and dying, Avry of Kazan absorbs their wounds and diseases into herself. But rather than being honored for her skills, she is hunted. Healers like Avry are accused of spreading the plague that has decimated the Fifteen Realms, leaving the survivors in a state of chaos.Stressed and tired from hiding, Avry is abducted by a band of rogues who, shockingly, value her gift above the golden bounty offered for her capture. Their leader, an enigmatic captor-protector with powers of his own, is unequivocal in his demands: Avry must heal a plague-stricken prince—leader of a campaign against her people. As they traverse the daunting Nine Mountains, beset by mercenaries and magical dangers, Avry must decide who is worth healing and what is worth dying for. Because the price of peace may well be her life...

Thanks to Maria V Snyder, Raiding Bookshelves is hosting an international give away and you can win a signed copy of Touch of Power. Just enter using the Rafflecopter form below.

a Rafflecopter giveaway
- Open internationally to participants over the age of 13.
- The prize will be awarded randomly
- Open between 22/JUN/12 and 29/JUN/12
- Don't post your contact details on the post.
- If the winner doesn't respond within 72 hrs, a new winner will be chosen.

Wards of Faerie by Terry Brooks

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Publication Date: August 21st, 2012
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
ISBN:  0345523474
Age Group: Young Adult/Adult
Genre: Fantasy/Adventure
Source: ARC provided by Edelweiss
Lootability: ***

When the world was young, and its name was Faerie, the power of magic ruled—and the Elfstones warded the race of Elves and their lands, keeping evil at bay. But when an Elven girl fell hopelessly in love with a Darkling boy of the Void, he carried away more than her heart. Thousands of years later, tumultuous times are upon the world now known as the Four Lands. Users of magic are in conflict with proponents of science. Elves have distanced their society from the other races. The dwindling Druid order and its teachings are threatened with extinction. A sinister politician has used treachery and murder to rise as prime minister of the mighty Federation. Meanwhile, poring through a long-forgotten diary, the young Druid Aphenglow Elessedil has stumbled upon the secret account of an Elven girl’s heartbreak and the shocking truth about the vanished Elfstones. But never has a little knowledge been so very dangerous—as Aphenglow quickly learns when she’s set upon by assassins. Yet there can be no turning back from the road to which fate has steered her. For whoever captures the Elfstones and their untold powers will surely hold the advantage in the devastating clash to come. But Aphenglow and her allies—Druids, Elves, and humans alike—remember the monstrous history of the Demon War, and they know that the Four Lands will never survive another reign of darkness. But whether they themselves can survive the attempt to stem that tide is another question entirely.

Tuesdays at the Castle by Jessica Day George

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Publication Date: October 25 2011
Publisher: Bloomsbury
ISBN:  1599906449
Age Group: Children
Genre: Adventure/Fantasy
Source: NetGalley
Lootability: ****

Tuesdays at Castle Glower are Princess Celie's favorite days. That's because on Tuesdays the castle adds a new room, a turret, or sometimes even an entire wing. No one ever knows what the castle will do next, and no one-other than Celie, that is-takes the time to map out the new additions. But when King and Queen Glower are ambushed and their fate is unknown, it's up to Celie, with her secret knowledge of the castle's never-ending twists and turns, to protect their home and save their kingdom. This delightful book from a fan- and bookseller-favorite kicks off a brand-new series sure to become a modern classic

Author Interview: Maria V Snyder

Maria V Snyder is the New York Times best-selling author of the Study Series, which includes her first published novel Poison Study. 
Snyder grew up in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania where she earned a Bachelor of Science (Meteorology) and she was working as a meteorologist until, as a young mother, she began writing down story ideas and produced Poison Study. Her skills as a meteorologist helped her to produce her Storm series, which began with Storm Glass.
Snyder has also released a two book sci-fi series, Inside Out and Outside In, and has a new series coming out at the moment, starting with her 2012 release A Touch of Power and a sequel Scent of Power expected out next year. 
She lives in Pennsylvania with her family, and a black cat named Valek.

A Midsummers Night's Giveaway: Rumplestiltskin

Sam from A Journey Through Pages is hosting an awesome fairytale adaptation themed giveaway and is awesome enough to let me participate! Also participating is Rose from The Cosy Dragon.

What's in a name? To be as corny as possible, would a rose by any other name smell as sweet? For centuries cultures around the world have been convinced that there is power in a name. The greatest example of this is the widespread variations of the classic fairytale Rumplestiltskin. 
The earliest version of Rumplestiltskin is Johann Fischart's adaptation of Book 1 of Francois Rabelais'  between 1494 and 1553.


A Brief Discussion of Rumpelstiltskin
The best known edition of Rumplestiltskin originated in Germany with the Grimm Brothers in their 1812 edition of Children's and Household tales. The Grimm Brothers collected four different versions of Rumplestiltskin in their search for fairy tales, and compiled them all into the story we know today. 
Some variations on the Rumplestiltskin tale include: 

• Tot Tit Tom -
 in England;

• The Golden Spinster - a Hungarian-Slovenish tale;

• Kruzimugeli - in Austria; and

• Penelop -
from Wales.

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Moonglow by Kristen Callihan

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Publication Date: August 1st 2012
Publisher: Forever
ISBN:  1455508586
Age Group:
Genre: Young Adult/Adult
Source: NetGalley
Lootability: ****

Once the seeds of desire are sown . . .Finally free of her suffocating marriage, widow Daisy Ellis Craigmore is ready to embrace the pleasures of life that have long been denied her. Yet her new-found freedom is short lived. A string of unexplained murders has brought danger to Daisy's door, forcing her to turn to the most unlikely of saviors . . .
Their growing passion knows no bounds . . . Ian Ranulf, the Marquis of Northrup, has spent lifetimes hiding his primal nature from London society. But now a vicious killer threatens to expose his secrets. Ian must step out of the shadows and protect the beautiful, fearless Daisy, who awakens in him desires he thought long dead. As their quest to unmask the villain draws them closer together, Daisy has no choice but to reveal her own startling secret, and Ian must face the undeniable truth: Losing his heart to Daisy may be the only way to save his soul,

A Midsummers Night's Giveaway: Beauty and the Beast

Sam from A Journey Through Pages is hosting an awesome fairytale adaptation themed giveaway and is awesome enough to let me participate! Also participating is Rose from The Cosy Dragon.

Originally published by Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve, Beauty and the Beast is one of the best known and celebrated fairytales of all time. Known in various forms across Europe the best known version (apart from the 1991 Disney movie) is an abridgement of Villeneve's by Jeanne-Marie Le Prince de Beaumont.


A Brief Discussion of Beauty and the Beast
Mostly, the characters of Beauty and the Beast exist outside the usual peasant and royalty standards of most fairy tales. Beauty comes from a once wealthy, now impoverished, merchant family and the Beast can be royalty, aristocracy or simply a wealthy and demanding land owner. Their positions within society are not important, it is how they come to view each other and society that matters.
For a quite different version of Beauty and Beast you can look at the classic Norwegian tale East of the Sun, South of the Moon or for a mythological look at the tale check out the Greek tale of Cupid and Psyche. Both are classified as Animal Bridegroom fairytales (425A) while Beauty and the Beast has been given its own subcategory (425C). 
Some other tales in the Animal Bridegroom category include some familiar favourites: The Enchanted Frog, The Princess and the Pig and The Summer and Winter Garden.
This means that modern adaptations of the Animal Bridegroom stories can recreate a Beauty and the Beast story with a million possibilities.  

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A Midsummer's Night Giveaway: The Twelve Dancing Princesses

Sam from A Journey Through Pages is hosting an awesome fairytale adaptation themed giveaway and is awesome enough to let me participate!

Today I'm going to focus on my favourite fairytale. It's always been hard for me to choose a favourite fairytale but I was forced to during uni in my (lucky me) fairytale themed classes. In the end I chose the Twelve Dancing Princesses.
There are a lot of different fairytale elements within the Dancing Princesses that appeal to me, and there are so many variations of the original tale which creates a wide base of possibilities for re-imagining the fairytale.

I'm going to introduce you to some of my favourite websites: SurLaLune Fairy Tales where you can take a look at most of the classic fairy tales and learn more about their origins. Or you can check out ABC Televisions Re-Enchanted, I went to a series of lectures by the creators last year and this crew really know their stuff!

I'm going to include the annotated version of Twelve Dancing Princesses as told by the Brothers Grimm available on SurLaLune for you to explore. Click on the links to reach SurLaLune's annotations discussing where this story is different to other editions or explaining old fashioned terms.

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Devon Ashley's Blog Tour for Ordained starts today!

Normally, the school creates the hunters - not the monsters.
Abby Sorrensten likes to play rough. Ripping the horns off the foreheads of demons, manipulating lightning and setting things on fire with the flick of your wrist can give you a serious rush. So she probably wasn’t the best choice for the Order’s experimental training program. Thirteen years of isolation, lack of affection and a bruised and broken body from horrendous training sessions creates more than just an exceptional fighter. It creates an evil within - an evil responsible for several deaths the night she left.
Two hundred years later Abby resurfaces as the very thing the Order trained her to kill: a vampire. A mythical demon has set his sights on the school and only the ordained hunter has the powers to face it. Unbeknownst to the Order, Abby’s their precious ordained one and their only chance for survival. As much as she would love to leave them hanging, she’s not willing to risk the life of Emily, a fellow friend and hunter also fed up with the organization. 
But for Abby, locking herself away in a fortress with angry descendents of those she killed causes suspicions and tensions to run high. Abby must learn the demon’s weaknesses for battle before the Order learns hers.

Check out Raiding Bookshelves on June 27th for my review and keep an eye on Devon Ashley's blog where she will be giving away fun prizes!

Timepiece by Myra McEntire

A threat from the past could destroy the future. And the clock is ticking...
Kaleb Ballard's relentless flirting is interrupted when Jack Landers, the man who tried to murder his father, timeslips in and attacks before disappearing just as quickly. But Kaleb has never before been able to see time travelers, unlike many of his friends associated with the mysterious Hourglass organization. Are Kaleb's powers expanding, or is something very wrong?
Then the Hourglass is issued an ultimatum. Either they find Jack and the research he's stolen on the time gene, or time will be altered with devastating results. 
Now Kaleb, Emerson, Michael, and the other Hourglass recruits have no choice but to use their unusual powers to find Jack. But where do they even start? And when? And even if they succeed, it may not be enough...

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Publication Date: 12 June 2012
Publisher: Egmont USA
ISBN:  1606841459
Age Group: Young Adult
Genre: Sci-fi/Adventure
Source: ARC provided by Netgalley
Lootability: ****

Cover Reveal: Guardian & Avenger by Heather Burch

Book One Out now.

Book Two available October 2012

Book Three available February 2013

Isn't she a beautiful cover model for this series? I love the coloured backgrounds too, they're very striking. I'm also very jealous of her green and her purple leather jackets. 

Keep your eyes on Raiding Bookshelves for a free Halfings novella due out within the month. Check out my interview with Heather Burch or read the RB review of Halflings.

Hourglass by Myra McEntire

One hour to rewrite the past . . . 
For seventeen-year-old Emerson Cole, life is about seeing what isn't there: swooning Southern Belles; soldiers long forgotten; a haunting jazz trio that vanishes in an instant. Plagued by phantoms since her parents' death, she just wants the apparitions to stop so she can be normal. She's tried everything, but the visions keep coming back. So when her well-meaning brother brings in a consultant from a secretive organization called the Hourglass, Emerson's willing to try one last cure. But meeting Michael Weaver may not only change her future, it may change her past.
Who is this dark, mysterious, sympathetic guy, barely older than Emerson herself, who seems to believe every crazy word she says? Why does an electric charge seem to run through the room whenever he's around? And why is he so insistent that he needs her help to prevent a death that never should have happened?

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Publication Date: 14th June 2011
Publisher: Egmont USA
ISBN:  1606841440
Age Group: Young Adult
Genre: Sci-fi/Adventure
Source: Library
Lootability: ****

To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

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Publication Date: October 1st 1986 (first published 1860)
Publisher: Arrow
ISBN:  0099419785
Age Group: Young Adult/ Adult
Genre: Classic
Source: Bookshelf
Lootability: ****

The unforgettable novel of a childhood in a sleepy Southern town and the crisis of conscience that rocked it, To Kill A Mockingbird became both an instant bestseller and a critical success when it was first published in 1960. It went on to win the Pulitzer Prize in 1961 and was later made into an Academy Award-winning film, also a classic.
Compassionate, dramatic, and deeply moving, To Kill A Mockingbird takes readers to the roots of human behavior - to innocence and experience, kindness and cruelty, love and hatred, humor and pathos. Now with over 18 million copies in print and translated into forty languages, this regional story by a young Alabama woman claims universal appeal. Harper Lee always considered her book to be a simple love story. Today it is regarded as a masterpiece of American literature

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

Wuthering Heights is a wild, passionate story of the intense and almost demonic love between Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff, a foundling adopted by Catherine's father. After Mr Earnshaw's death, Heathcliff is bullied and humiliated by Catherine's brother Hindley and wrongly believing that his love for Catherine is not reciprocated, leaves Wuthering Heights, only to return years later as a wealthy and polished man. He proceeds to exact a terrible revenge for his former miseries. The action of the story is chaotic and unremittingly violent, but the accomplished handling of a complex structure, the evocative descriptions of the lonely moorland setting and the poetic grandeur of vision combine to make this unique novel a masterpiece of English literature

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Publication Date: Originally published 1847
Publisher: Norton and Company
ISBN:  0393978893
Age Group: Adult
Genre: Classic/Gothic/Supernatural
Source: Bookshelf
Lootability: *****

It's Classics Month at Raiding Bookshelves!

Well, it's classics month at Raiding Bookshelves and I'll be starting with one of my all time favourites: Emily Bronte's ground breaking gothic novel Wuthering Heights.

You can also expect to see Harper Lee's celebrated novel To Kill A Mockingbird.

Also, to celebrate Jane Austen week (dates to be confirmed) I will be doing Seven days of Austen. A review a day!

I haven't chosen a fourth novel yet, but this will be something I have never read before. I'm wavering between The Great Gatsby and Catcher in the Rye.

Meanwhile, don't forget to enter my Shadowfell giveaway!

Mistwood by Leah Cypess

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Publication Date: April 27th, 2010
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN:  0061956996
Age Group: Young Adult
Genre: Fantasy/Adevnture
Source: Library
Lootability: ***

The Shifter is an immortal creature bound by an ancient spell to protect the kings of Samorna. When the realm is peaceful, she retreats to the Mistwod.
But when she is needed she always comes.
Isabel remembers nothing. Nothing before the prince rode into her forest to take her back to the castle. Nothing about who she is supposed to be, or the powers she is supposed to have.
Prince Rokan needs Isabel to be his Shifter. He needs her ability to shift to animal form, to wind, to mist. He needs her lethal speed and superhuman strength. And he needs her loyalty—because without it, she may be his greatest threat.
Isabel knows that her prince is lying to her, but she can't help wanting to protect him from the dangers and intrigues of the court . . . until a deadly truth shatters the bond between them.
Now Isabel faces a choice that threatens her loyalty, her heart . . . and everything she thought she knew.

The Kings of Samora have always had one great weapon to protect the royal line. The Shifter is an ancient creature of unknown power that resides in the Mistwood. An ancient spell keeps the Shifter loyal to the royal family after it has been summoned to protect them.
When Prince Royan summons Isabella to be his Shifter he unleashes a series of evens that may do more harm to his Kingdom than good.

What I Liked: Isabella's exploration of herself through her discovery of her abilities as a shapeshifter and the recovery of her unwanted history. As she discovers new things about herself and her powers, Isabella finds her loyalties are being twisted in a way the Shifter has never been before.
The characters are complicated, determined to hide 'unnecessary truths' and manipulative to the point of forcefulness and more resourceful than I could have imagined.
Isabella's memories and history remained an intriguing mystery until the moment of revelation. I wholeheartedly enjoyed the surprise and was able to understand the clues retrospectively. I appreciated Cypess' imaginative writing.

What I Didn't Like: Sometimes, to keep secrets hidden and mysterious, it felt like Cypess just made the narrative confusing. Particularly when sorting through Isabella's thoughts. It was almost as though she was trying to stop anyone guessing the twist.

Raiding Bookshelves Rating

Shadowfell by Juliet Marillier

Its name is spoken only in whispers, if the people of Alban dare to speak it at all: Shadowfell. The training ground for rebels seeking to free their land from the grip of the tyrannical king is so shrouded in mystery that most believe it to be a myth.

But for Neryn, Shadowfell's existence is her only hope. She is penniless, orphaned, and utterly alone - and concealing a treacherous magical power that will warrant her immediate enslavement should it be revealed. She finds hope of allies in the Good Folk, fey beings whom she must pretend she cannot see and who taunt her with chatter of prophecies and tests, and in a striking, mysterious stranger, who saves her from certain death but whose motives remain unclear. She knows she should not trust anyone with her plans, but something within her longs to confide in him.
Will Neryn be forced to make the dangerous journey alone? She must reach Shadowfell, not only to avenge her family and salvage her own life, but to rescue Alban itself.