Sunday Post #178

Posted May 15, 2016 by Lola in Sunday Post / 42 Comments

sunday post

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Kimba @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer.
It’s a chance to share News. A post to recap the past week, showcase books and things we have received and share news about what is coming up for the week on our blog.

What happened this week?

We had some really warm weather here this week, somehow the start of summer is always a bit difficult for me. I always feel grumpy and annoyed and I don’t have much energy and I sleep bad because of the heat. It still turned out to be a pretty productive week though, so that’s good. I usually get used to it in a few weeks, so I hope it gets better soon. It was a good week besides that, I got some media kits sent out, a blog tour continued this week and for next week 2 cover reveals are planned.

Besides that there isn’t much to tell. We bought a big watermelon last weekend, which was great with the heat. And all the BEA updates form others on social media, made me wish I could be there as well. I did a good job scheduling posts for blog ahead and got some extra posts written and scheduled. I managed to reach my goal and even get over it and ended with a total of 15 new posts written and scheduled these past few weeks. I got some awesome new books and still have trouble deciding what to read next every time I finish a book as there are so many good books I want to read right now. And I had my second DNF of the year :(.

And we finished watching the second season of the librarians and now we have to wait for season 3. We’re really enjoying this series. It’s fun to watch and every episode has it’s own adventure, but there’s an overarching plot as well. There’s an overarching plot line throughout the whole series, but also a plot per season. And all the characters are just great.

blog-ahead-2016-1
I am really happy with how I did for this challenge, I had hoped to compensate for the posts that went live and maybe increase my number of scheduled posts a bit, but I did much better than expected. I managed to write the full total of 15 posts listed for this challenge and ended with a total of 34 scheduled posts. Yay! So I am really happy with how this Blog Ahead went, normally the first two weeks are pretty busy for me, but it was a bit quieter than expected and I am happy with all the posts I manage to write.
Scheduled amount of posts on 1 May: 27 posts scheduled
Goal: 30 posts scheduled.
Scheduled amount of posts on 15 May: 34 posts scheduled!
Total post written during this challenge: 15!

Post scheduled this week:
– Lola’s Advice: How to Use Reviews to Promote Your Book – August 1
– Lola’s Kitchen: Top Five Warm Late Evening Snacks – June 24
– Lola’s Ramblings: Do you read all books by an author? – July 14
– Review: Rest in Peach by Susan Furlong – May 30
– Review: Vigilante Slimming Scanner by SJ Pajonas – June 9
– Lola’s Kitchen: Puff Pastry Snacks Recipe – July 1 (still needs pictures)
– Review: Forever and One Week by Caroline Cairn – May 25
– Lola’s Kitchen: Couscous with veggies and egg Recipe – June 10
– Sunday Post #179 – May 22
– Lola’s Ramblings: What do you think of Trigger Warnings? – July 21

Random Picture(s) of the Week

Watermelon
Last Saturday when we were walking to the restaurant for my grandma her birthday we passed a shop that sold watermelons. My boyfriend noticed it and we decided to buy a watermelon. The watermelon was 10 kilo/ 22 pound heavy, so it was quite a big watermelon. So we had watermelon to eat for some days this week. It was a really good watermelon and nice fruit to eat with the warm weather we’ve had here. Do you like watermelon?

What did I cook for dinner this week?

This week I blogged about:

Review: May by Audrey Carlan
Review: Secret baby Scandal by Joanne Rock – blog tour
Lola’s Ramblings: How Much will you pay for a book?
Lola’s Kitchen: Mashed Potatoes with sauerkraut and Lentils
My To-be Read List #21: the winner

What to expect next week on the blog:

– Review: Faerie Blood by Emma L Adams
– Review: Two Down, Bun to Go by H.Y. Hanna
– Lola’s Ramblings: What makes for a 5 star read and my recent lack of them
– Lola’s Kitchen: Are there Dishes you always eat on the same day?
– Review: True Colors by Krysten Lindsay Hager

Tours open for sign-up on Lola’s Blog Tours:

Review Opportunities:
Indestructible by Emma L Adams
Saven: Deception by Siobhan Davis
Summer Haikus by SJ Pajonas
Dominic’s Nemesis by D. Alyce Domain
Secret Baby Scandal by Joanne Rock
Micah by Lee DuCote
Check the full list of open review opportunities here.

Cover Reveals:
Cornered by JA Belfield – 16 May
Prom Queen Perfect by Clarisse David – 17 May
Kissing The Bride by Tracey Alvarez – 28 May

Tours:
Blog Tour: Forever and One Week by Caroline Cairn – 25 till 29 May
Book Blitz: Ella’s twisted Senior Year by Amy Sparling – 31 May till 6 June
Blog Tour: Princess Adele’s Dragon by Shirley McLain – 31 May till 13 June

Book Haul:

Faerie MagicFaerie Magic (The Changeling Chronicles #2)
by Emma L. Adams

Format: e-copy
Source: for review
You can find Faerie Magic on Goodreads

Blurb:
With the sexy and arrogant Mage Lord pressuring me to join his team and a dark movement in the magical underworld threatening to ignite a war between the half-faeries and other supernaturals, I have my work cut out.

Especially when a serum that’s deadly to half-faeries finds its way onto the market, luring in its victims with the promise of immortality.

To find the source of the lies, I have to go undercover to a dangerous magical contest where half-faeries compete for glory. Problem is, to get in, I have to pretend to be one of them.

Navigating my way between half-faeries who want my head on a platter and the Mage Lord who wants, well, me, is tricky enough. But then I learn something about my own magic that changes the playing field. If I don’t come out on top, a second faerie apocalypse is on the horizon.

Divided (Alliance #4)
by Emma L. Adams

Format: e-copy
Source: for review
You can find Divided on Goodreads

Blurb:
Divided (Alliance Book 4) will be published in Spring 2016. To be the first to find out the release date, sign up to my newsletter here: smarturl.it/ELAnewsletter

Guaranteed to BleedGuaranteed to Bleed (The Country Club Murders #2)
by Julie Mulhern

Format: e-copy
Source: bought with amazon gift card
You can find Guaranteed to Bleed on Goodreads

Blurb:
With his dying breath, Bobby Lowell begs Ellison Russell, “Tell her I love her.”

Unable to refuse, Ellison struggles to find the girl the murdered boy loved. Too bad an epically bad blind date, a vindictive graffiti artist, and multiple trips to the emergency room keep getting in the way.

Worse, a killer has Ellison in his sights, her newly-rebellious daughter is missing, and there’s yet another body in her hostas. Mother won’t be pleased.

Now Ellison must track down not one but two runaway teenagers, keep her promise to Bobby and elude the killer—all before her next charity gala committee meeting.

I haven’t read the first book yet, but couldn’t resist grabbing this one for only 0.99$

Sunborn Rising Beneath the FallSunborn Rising: Beneath the Fall
by Aaron Safronoff

Format: e-copy
Source: for review
You can find Sunborn Rising: Beneath the Fall on Goodreads

Blurb:
On a distant world of forests floating on an ocean around a star,
a blight threatens to plunge all life into darkness.
But three friends seek the light.
Together, they will Fall and be lost.
And at the very Root of darkness, they will find themselves.
But will it be enough to help them find their way home?

The World of Cerulean
Light and water flow from the ocean into the roots of the Great Trees, up through the boughs, and out over the lush canopy. But the once vibrant treescape has grown dim over generations of arboreal life, and the creatures of the forest have forgotten the light.

Barra, a young, willful Listlespur, finds her late father’s hidden journal, and reads about the old world and the mysterious plague her father believed destroyed it. He wrote that he warned the Elders. He urged them to take action. Those were his last words.

Together with her two best friends, Barra will explore every bark, wood, and leaf of the Great Forest to relight her world and complete her father’s story, even if she has to travel beneath the Fall.

This book sounds awesome and there’s artwork in the book! I found their site and it all looks amazing. Can’t wait to read this one.

Tags:


42 responses to “Sunday Post #178

  1. YUM WATERMELON. You know it’s summer when you start cuttin’ open the watermelons lol.

    It’s great that you did so well on the challenge, even if you didn’t quite make your goal, and I’m already excited for some of the posts you have scheduled! And it’s great that you got some blog tour stuff done.

    Love that cover for Faerie Magic! Enjoy your new books 🙂
    Kristen @ Metaphors and Moonlight recently posted…The Weekly Update: 5/15/16My Profile

    • I’ll probably start Faerie Magic soon, it’s neat the author writes these books so fast. And the covers for this series are great.

      I never really ate a lot of watermelons, but I quite like them now. It sure ads to the summery feel this week had.

      Actually I made my goal and then some more as my goal was to end with 27 or 30 scheduled posts and I ended with 34 scheduled posts. So I did much better than I had expected. It’s nice to have added a bunch of posts to my buffer 🙂
      Lola recently posted…Sunday Post #178My Profile

  2. I had a little BEA-envy myself this week. I hope to be able to go next year. It looked like everyone had so much fun!
    I’ll trade my cool/rainy weather for your warm any day. We are getting so stir-crazy. It’s too cool to enjoy being outside and the days where it might be warm enough it rains. Oh well! Hoping blackberry winter ends soon!!!
    Hope you have a good week and enjoy your new reads!
    Lillian @ Mom with a Reading Problem recently posted…Sunday Post #77 – Last Week of PreschoolMy Profile

    • I hope maybe one day I am able to go to BEA, it will be difficult with money and my fear of airplanes though, but it looks so much fun!

      I would love to switch our sun for a bit of your rain. Summer is always a bit too warm for me. I hope you get some sun soon!

  3. Thanks again for visiting my blog and commenting.

    I’m envious of your scheduled post stockpile, I’m still trying to get to that.

    And I am looking forward to your post on Trigger warnings, since I have a “Cautions” section in my Reviews and am trying to include anything I think someone might want to know, but worry that you can’t know what someone else will react to.
    Got My Book recently posted…text: 3 Blogging Conundrums: Can I Get a Little Help? [My Musings]My Profile

    • It takes time to get at that point. the first time I joined Blog Ahead really helped me to get there and form there onwards it’s just maintaining that amount of posts ahead.

      Yes exactly! I think that’s the tricky part about trigger warnings, you can never know exactly what someone will react too. I try and explore that part of trigger warnings in my post, why they are handy and why they are tricky. And now I wished I could share that post sooner, that’s definitely the difficult part about planning ahead, the waiting.

        • You can always take it slower a few weeks to work on your stockpile or when you have more free time. Or join the Blog Ahead challenge next time :). I am sure you’ll get a stockpile of posts eventually as well. I can understand being excited about your new design and just wanting to get started and put it live.

  4. I love having that problem, deciding what to read next. After a few weeks of sort of knowing, I got some new books (or added to my TBR) and it’s nice now having more of an idea what’s coming up. 🙂 And I with you on the heat, it does take a little getting used to after a long winter when it gets really hot. So far it’s been somewhat sunny here but not too warm.

    It will be interesting to see your thoughts on trigger warnings as that’s a hot topic these days. and yay for Guaranteed to Bleed. I just got her new one and it was fairly cheap too for the ebook.
    Greg recently posted…Sunday Post #142My Profile

    • It’s definitely a good problem to have :). I usually like not having a list of books to read next, but at this moment I am so excited for all of these books that I don’t mind as I want to read them all as soon as possible.

      we didn’t have a cold winter, but the weather here is always a bit weird, we had a mild spring weather and then suddenly this week with very warm weather. It can take some time adjusting to that.

      Trigger warnings are such a tricky topic and I really wanted to share my thoughts on the topic. I enjoyed writing the post and am looking forward to hear everyone their thoughts once it goes live. The waiting is the difficult part about scheduling posts so far ahead.

      I still have some gift card money left so if I enjoy the first two books in that series I’ll probably grab the third one too. I was lucky enough to get both the first two books during a sale for cheap, but I agree even the full price for these is a good price.

  5. I love watermelon but we don’t get good ones until middle of the summer here. You aren’t in the U.S. right? I hate summer and hot weather-my least favorite season of the year. I would be happy with Spring and Fall all the time! I was really jealous of the people at BEA as well. They had too much fun! Hope you have another productive and good week 🙂

    • That’s right I don’t live in the US, I am in the Netherlands. I think we got lucky with this watermelon as it was an imported watermelon I think. We normally don’t see these kinds in regular supermarkets. This was a small grocery store ran by a foreign looking man and they sell some foreign products as well.

      Summer also is my least favourite season, I much prefer spring and fall as well. BEA always sounds so fun with how you can meet other bloggers and authors. Maybe one day.

  6. I’m so jealous of your watermelon! That’s one of my favorite fruits and my oldest child loves it too. I used to eat a watermelon every week when I was pregnant with both of my kids. 🙂 I must have been dehydrated. I would crave it and call my husband to buy one on his way home from work. Lol. I’m waiting for consistently hot days here! I can’t wait! Even though we had a mild winter, our spring has been cooler than usual. Really, I’m just looking forward to pool days! 🙂
    S. J. Pajonas recently posted…#ChickLitMay Scavenger HuntMy Profile

    • I wish we could’ve given you a piece, it was a good watermelon. I never really ate them much so far, but I found out I quite like them.

      We should swap weathers, lol. Although this weekend it has been a bit cooler again, so that’s good. we also had a mild winter and then a mild spring too and the suddenly it’s really warm. The weather here is so weird sometimes.

  7. I wish I was at BEA too. I hoping to go somewhere next year. We will see. I love watermelon. I need to eat more of it. It is hard for me to a whole one, because DH won’t eat any. It would be just me. I can share with my horses. LOL I also can’t sleep if it is hot. I’m always told how cold my house is because of this. Especially in the winter, I keep the heat really low. I would love to keep the AC lower, but I try to keep my electric bill under control. I hope you have a great week.

    • Oh I can imagine it would be hard to eat one by yourself. Maybe you can buy a half one?
      It is difficult to sleep in the summer, luckily this week is a bit cooler again. I can’t stand the cold, but I also can’t stand the heat.

    • They had a post on the publishers page that they were looking for reviewers, so i contacted them and got a copy. the cover is so pretty and the site and artwork looks really beautiful. I hope I can read it soon!
      This week the weather is cooler again, so that’s a welcome change 🙂

    • The watermelon was really good and refreshing with the warm weather we had last week 🙂

      I couldn’t help but feel a bit jealous/ envious of the people there at BEA. It looks so fun. Maybe I should try that next year and stay away form social media for a week.

  8. We enjoyed a delicious watermelon today! Enjoy the Coffee Club Murders book. I can’t believe I couldn’t get over to BEA (it was so close), but it just didn’t work out. Have a great week.
    Nise’ recently posted…Weekly Reading Wrap UpMy Profile

    • 15 more scheduled posts than at the start of the month actually. It was nice to get so many extra posts scheduled.
      This week the weather is a bit cooler again, which is good.

  9. Mmm…I really do love watermelon. I hope you get used to the summer weather soon! it’s actually pretty cold where I am at the moment, but I KNOW I’m going to hate when it gets really hot! hah

    Congrats on doing so well for Blog Ahead! I have things scheduled for this week, but that’s about it. I really need to start writing more reviews and getting those scheduled, as well as some other fun posts – like discussions, etc.

    -Lauren
    Let’s Get Beyond Tolerance recently posted…Book Reviews: The Empty Hourglass + To Live AgainMy Profile

    • This week is a bit cooler again, so that’s good! I don’t like the too war weather. I rather have mediocre temperatures, not too hot and not too cold.

      I was pleasantly surprised how well I did for Blog Ahead! It really helps me to stay ahead as I feel less rushed and stressed then.

    • That’s nice you cut the watermelon up for your family. I quite like it and it’s so refreshing to eat it when it’s warm.

  10. That is a big watermelon!! I don’t think I have ever bought a watermelon or even had one??? I think I have only had watermelon flavored stuff. It makes me want to go buy one lol!

    • This was the first time I had seen such a big watermelon. I don’t think I ever had watermelon flavoured stuff, but I do like real watermelon. Especially in summer when it’s warm weather it’s really good.

  11. I’m sorry that warmer weather negatively affects you, Lola. I hope you get used to it soon and things get back to normal for you. 🙂 I’m glad that you had a productive week and enjoyed The Librarian as well as some watermelon! It’s not my favorite melon but I do eat it. 😀 Nice looking collection of books this week. And I also got Sunborn Rising: Beneath the Fall…at BEA! It looks amazing and the author was very kind. 🙂
    I hope this week has started well! I’ll be by as much as I can but my daughter graduates on Friday and we have family arriving starting Wednesday. <3
    Bookworm Brandee recently posted…Review ~ Nowhere Ranch ~ Heidi CullinanMy Profile

    • This week is a bit cooler so that’s good. the first weeks with warm weather always make me feel a bit off, but usually I get sued to it after that.
      I never ate a lot of watermelon, but now with the warm weather it was perfect.

      Yay! I am glad to hear you also got Sunborn Rising. That’s awesome you got it at BEA and met the author. I wish I could’ve been there. It sounds like a good book, so I hope to read it soon!

  12. Heat makes me cranky, too. I don’t sleep well and my energy is low. We still haven’t gotten all that warm. Some are impatient for summer around here, but I like the extended spring weather.
    Nice that you did great on the Challenge and on your tour work. I think we did pretty good on the challenge. I still have a few more summer posts to write along with my regular reviews.

    Oh yum! I do love watermelon. You’re right that it’s perfect for a summer refreshing snack. We get a big one and cut it up for a weeks worth of snacking.

    Nice haul! I was so tempted by $.99 books this week. Two were on my wish list, but I just bought four books last week on sale so I need to read them first.

    Have a good week!
    Sophia Rose recently posted…Only Beloved by Mary BaloghMy Profile

    • This week is back to spring weather again, so that’s good. I don’t like the too warm weather.

      The watermelon was perfect for the warm weather though and very refreshing.

      Glad to hear you did well on the Blog Ahead challenge as well, it’s always so motivating!

      Those 0.99$ sales can be so tempted sometimes. I am glad I won some gift card money, so I can buy one now and then.

  13. My, what a big melon yo have. 😀 I love the heat, but yeah, it always takes a little time in the beginning of summer to acclimate to the temp change. I’m gonna have to watch The Librarians, especially now that there’s two seasons out.
    Christy LoveOfBooks recently posted…The Fireman by Joe HillMy Profile

    • I don’t like the heat, but the first few weeks of warm weather are always the worst, after that I usually get sued to it. I really would recommend The Librarians! It’s such a fun series. I hope you’ll enjoy it when you get around to watching it.
      Lola recently posted…Review: Faerie Blood by Emma L AdamsMy Profile

  14. I’m so glad blog ahead went well for you, Lola. That is just awesome progress especially with how busy you are. Gah on the weather. The heat makes me grumpy too. We had a little cold snap this week randomly. It had been fairly warm then almost cold enough to pull out the electric blanket again. crazy! Yum on the watermelon!
    anna (herding cats & burning soup) recently posted…Bits & Nibbles– {The Duke of Olympia Meets His Match by Juliana Gray} & {Brave Enough by M. Leighton}My Profile

    • Thanks so much for hosting Blog Ahead again! I am glad I managed to do so well with this one as I hadn’t expected it.

      We have cooler weather again this weather! So that’s good. It’s crazy how the weather can switch so up and down sometimes. The weather sure is crazy sometimes.

Leave a Reply to Lola Cancel reply

CommentLuv badge

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.