January Monthly Wrap Up

Hello lovelies! I have been intending to start monthly wrap ups for a while now and what better time to do it than at the start of a brand new year.

On The Blog

January has seen several changes to Bookish Treasures, most notably that the blog design is now different. I have also added several pages to make old posts more discoverable. I already had a page for reviews (which has been updated) but there are also pages for discussion posts and guest posts / interviews. Hot New Releases is back on a weekly basis as is Stacking The Shelves - my weekly wrap up of the books I received that week.

I have started utilising Instagram a lot more so please come and join me over there!  http://instagram.com/lauramaycarter/

I have been shortlisted for Best Growing Blogger in the UKYA Book Blogger Awards! I would love it if you could vote for me :)

I have done some fun posts this month - Tips For New Bloggers and 10 Signs You Might Be A Bookaholic and I plan to continue having posts like this throughout the entire year.

The most viewed posts from January

Tips For New Bloggers
Guest Post - From Indie to Traditional: The Story of One Little {Twisted} Book That Could
Hot New Releases: December 24th - January 6th

Reviews posted

I didn't post any reviews this month :( This is down again to my broken laptop but now that I have a replacement I already have some written for February. Expect reviews for a variety of books over the coming months.

Events Attended

This month I attended an event at Harper Voyager to celebrate the upcoming release of The Fire Sermon by Francesca Haig. The day started with me meeting a few lovely bloggers at Euston Station (Luna's Little Library, Much Loved Books, Choose YA) and finding our way to the new Harper Collins office in London's Newscorp building. On arrival and bumping into a few other bloggers on the way (we would be here for ever if I named everyone so lets leave it at that) we were met by several of the editors and publicists at Harper Voyager.

After a short of amount of socialising and admiring the views of London from the 14th floor, Editorial Director Natasha Bardon welcomed us all before playing us a clip from a documentary celebrating 20 years of Harper Voyager. Then came the main attraction of the day - Francesca Haig read two passages from the book and answered all of our questions. Not only is her book fantastic (I had finished it on the train earlier that day), she is also incredibly smart and witty and the SF&F community should be incredibly happy that she decided to take a short break from writing poetry to pen the fantasy / dystopian novel that was floating around in her head.

After the Q&A we were treated to some delicious snacks including some incredible cupcakes with mini-versions of the book on top whilst we spent more time socialising. I think I managed to speak to pretty much everyone there as well as hogging quite a lot of Francesca's time :P Near the end we were surprised with finished copies of the book to get signed and a goodie bag containing three other Harper Voyager titles - Game Of Thrones, Half A King and Bird Box and a few leaflets about their upcoming titles including Ember In The Ashes which I am very excited about.

After a quick trip to Foyles it was time to head home after a fabulous day. I hope to be off to another event soon!

Personal Things

Early January saw the end of a long term relationship and I am actually enjoying the extra time and reduced amount pressure that comes with being single. I have received most of my marks for semester one of my MA Publishing degree and I am really happy with all my grades and feedback so far.

 

Dance and Cheerleading at University is starting to get very intense as we have our first competition next month and we are really hoping for a personal best in where we get placed which means multiple extra practices at the moment to make sure we are ready. I have also joined an allstar cheerleading team which I am loving so far as it is a higher level team the University and therefore more of a challenge.

 

In more dance related news last week I performed with my dance school in a pantomime of Jack and the Beanstalk which was a lot of fun as I never got the opportunity to do anything like that when I was younger.

 

My laptop decided January was the perfect time to breakdown on me (wrong!) leaving me laptop-less for two weeks whilst deciding on and then waiting for a new one. I did toy with the idea of getting a MacBook but decided against it due to the outrageous cost of getting one. 

Books Read

Book Releases

 

There have been a lot of amazing releases this past month and a greater number are mentioned on my weekly Hot New Releases posts but here is a highlight of just a few that are extra special.

 

The Art Of Being Normal - This LGBT novel sounds incredible and ground-breaking and has been attracting a lot of positive  attention over here in the UK. This is definitely right at the top of my wish list and how amazing is that cover?!

 

The Girl On The Train - This mystery / suspense / thriller novel is getting a lot of attention and has been widely proclaimed as "the next Gone Girl".

 

Beautiful Redemption - The newest book by bestselling author and queen of NA Jamie McGuire, this only released on Jan 27th and is already at over 150 reviews on Amazon.

 

Geek Girl - This book was the bestselling YA title of 2013 in the UK and two years after its original release it has finally made its way over to the US. If the US loves Harriet Manners as much as the UK does expect this book and the sequels to be HUGE.

 

Beyond The Consequences - Aleatha Romig is one of the worlds best authors when it comes to her suspense and mystery filled romances and this is the latest instalment in her bestselling Consequences series.

 

The Darkest Part Of The Forest - Holly Black is quite a big name in YA Fiction and this intriguing LGBT contemporary fantasy will only bring her more attention.

 

Firefight - My favourite of this months releases has to be Firefight by top fantasy author Brandon Sanderson. This is the second book in The Reckoners series which started last year.

 

Never Never - This new book is by not one but two bestselling authors and has been highly anticipated by a large number of romance readers for a long time. So far it has nearly 1000 mostly positive reviews. In under a month!

 

February Goals and TBR

 

I am planning on participating in Finish It Feb and finally reading some of the sequels and series enders that I actually already own but just have not read yet. I don't have an exact TBR for February but a few of these books I am definitely going to read for Finish It Feb.

 

 

Feel free to recommend which of these you think I should read first.

 

Here's to a hopefully fantastic February!