Potterheads, this is the end love. For Real

Unless, of course, J. K. Rowling decides to pull a Cassandra Clare and make Harry Potter 8... this is it *Did I ever tell you how glad I am that Deathly Hallows didn't disappoint like Breaking Dawn? Hahaha, suck on THAT twihards* 

Seven years of my life (I was 14 when I first read HP) and I'm glad it will end with a BANG! i.e. a summer blockbuster. 

So, grab your butterbeer, sit back and be ready to gape in awe




Be sure to wear your Hogwarts robe to the premiere! 

p/s: Arriving with a Firebolt is optional.

Waiting on Wednesday: The Girl in the Steel Corset

[Waiting on Wednesday description: A post where I rant about books that have not yet been published but my omg-this-might-just-be-a-good-book sensors think will be a good read. This weekly meme is created by Jill at Breaking the Spine.]

The Girl in the Steel Corset by Kady Cross

Release Date: May 24, 2011

In 1897 England, sixteen-year-old Finley Jayne has no one…except the "thing" inside her. When a young lord tries to take advantage of Finley, she fights back. And wins. But no normal Victorian girl has a darker side that makes her capable of knocking out a full-grown man with one punch. Only Griffin King sees the magical darkness inside her that says she's special, says she's one of them. The orphaned duke takes her in from the gaslit streets against the wishes of his band of misfits: Emily, who has her own special abilities and an unrequited love for Sam, who is part robot; and Jasper, an American cowboy with a shadowy secret. Griffin's investigating a criminal called The Machinist, the mastermind behind several recent crimes by automatons. Finley thinks she can help—and finally be a part of something, finally fit in. But The Machinist wants to tear Griff's little company of strays apart, and it isn't long before trust is tested on all sides. At least Finley knows whose side she's on—even if it seems no one believes her.

How catchy is that title? It would have definitely stop me in my track if I see it in a bookstore. The interesting combination of steel + corset bounds to be awesome, right? Plus, did u read the summary? A girl with spine, a duke and another girl falling for a part human part robot? This just gets better and better! Oh, and a cowboy. You gotta love a cowboy.

It's steampunk, it has a Gothic vibe, mayhem and a gorgeous cover. No wonder my sensors twanged. Hopefully, it will live up to my expectation if I buy it.

Fancy reading an excerpt? Click here!

Sunday Slumber: The Things They Carried Excerpt + Free Weekly Blog Planner

I love Sunday. At the place I'm living now, time seems to move a fraction slower on Sunday and everything is so quiet. Birds chirping, tousled sheets and vanilla latte. Today is the best time to lie down and perhaps crack open a book while slow music plays in the background.

 ♫ Anya Marina - Waters of March

So no reviews or meme or ranting in general today. Let's just bask in Tim O'Brien's talent to weave beautiful sentences. Seriously, some people just got it you know? Make us mere mortals feel even more self-conscious of our own writing.

First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross carried letters from a girl named Martha, a junior at Mount Sebastian College in New Jersey. They were not love letters, but Lieutenant Cross was hoping so he kept them folded in plastic at the bottom of his rucksack. In the late afternoon, after a day's march, he would dig his foxhole, wash his hands under a canteen, unwrap the letters, hold them with the tips of his fingers, and spend the last hour of light pretending. He would imagine romantic camping trips into the White Mountains in New Hampshire. He would sometimes taste the envelope flaps, knowing her tongue had been there. More than anything, he wanted Martha to love him as he loved her, but the letters were mostly chatty, elusive on the matter of love. She was a virgin, he was almost sure. She was an English major at Mount Sebastian, and she wrote beautifully about her professors and roommates and midterm exams,

about her respect for Chaucer and her great affection for Virginia Woolf.  

She often quoted lines of poetry; she never mentioned the war, except to say, Jimmy, take care of yourself. The letter weighed four ounces. They were signed Love, Martha, but Lieutenant Cross understood that Love was only a way of signing and did not mean what he sometimes pretended it meant. At dusk, he would carefully return the letters to his rucksack. Slowly, a bit distracted, he would get up and move among his men, checking the perimeter, then at full dark he would return to his hole and watch the night and wonder if Martha was a virgin.

Aaawesoomee.... *rub hands* I'm gonna read that again.

Feeling suffocated with an avalanche of bloggy things to-do? Sunday is the perfect time to de-clutter your mind by jotting down your plans for the week to come on a paper or better yet, a planner! Especially if it's free and as cute as this!

 

Download your cute planner here: oh my! handmade goodness

Review: Butterface by Gwen Hayes

Butterface by Gwen Hayes
Short Story (Ebook)

Publisher: Gwen Hayes

ISBN: 978-1-4524-6529-6

Beth wasn't pretty. Born with hemifacial microsamia, she's supposed to feel lucky that it wasn't worse, that the surgeries made her almost normal, and that the scars are mostly not noticeable. Nobody told her how to hide the scars on the inside though.

Lucas O'Leary, Lucky, doesn't even notice Beth's face. He's finding out that underneath her granite hard shell, she's really a sweet girl. He enjoys spending time with her and is beginning to realize he might want to be more than just her friend.

But Lucky has a secret--if he doesn't bring Beth to the "dog dinner" party his roommates are having, he's off the team. The soccer scholarship is paying his college tuition--he HAS to stay on the team. But if Beth ever finds out she's his entry in the contest for ugliest date, he stands to lose even more.  

Butterface is such a sweet love story. This is a wonderfully written short story with three-dimensional characters that are real and strong. Beth was funny in a sharp, sarcastic way (“I always look weird. I was just standing here wishing I was a lesbian is all.”) while Lucky was a sweetheart ("There wasn’t a villain in sight—how does a guy slay dragons for a girl when they’re all in her head?"). I was fully immersed in the story from the first page when we were first introduced to Lucky who was studying at a diner where Beth worked. Their progress from a platonic relationship into something more was very endearing to read without overdosing on too much saccharine. But keep in mind, Butterface is not an empty fluffy story; both Lucky and Beth struggled with self-image issues and Gwen Hayes handled it with taste. My only complain would be the length of the story. It was too short leaving me wanting for more . The ending also feels a bit rushed. I wanted more! I actually like this short story more than Gwen Hayes's debut novel, Falling Under.

Pick this up if you fancy a quick, fun read with a cute story that will touch your heart!

Find it here: Amazon | Smashwords