In My Mailbox #4: New Kindle Fire... and a story

Welcome to In My Mailbox (IMM)! IMM is a weekly meme created by Kristi @ The Story Siren which features books bought/received in the mail, borrowed from the library as well as other awesome book-related goodies in your mailbox.

Free Kindle ebook of the week: STOLEN by Keren Hughes — one girl's mission to free her parents' stolen souls.

Also, I won a bunch of signed swag and an ebook of my choice up to $5 from The Passionate Bookworms' Facebook giveaway! The ebook I chose was I AM FOREVER, the sequel to WHAT KILLS ME by Wynne Channing (my review here). Am eagerly awaiting the swag (:

Thank you, Michelle! *dances around*

Michelle runs The Passionate Bookworms with her co-blogger, Brittany, and they're holding TWO giveaways to celebrate 1,000 likes on their Facebook page! Remember to like and enter ;)

Now... for my new Kindle Fire!

Yay!!

Actually, before we get to that, I just wanna share a little story on how I got my first Kindle Fire.

The Rathausplatz. I'm still Vienna-sick even to this day.

In December 2009, I went on a trip to Bratislava, Slovakia and Vienna, Austria with my school choir. gorgeous. So much music and architecture. The best thing was that we could break into song randomly on the streets and people wouldn't look at us as if we were nutcases.
We were part of the IV International Festival of Advent and Christmas Music – a choral competition in Bratislava. After the competition (we got gold), we toured Vienna and let me tell you, it was

After I got back, I was having major withdrawals. I stayed updated with Vienna through the Vienna Tourism Facebook page and the newsletter of the official WienTourismus website, www.wien.info.

Towards the end of 2011, Wien.info announced that they were nominated for that year's .INFO Awards and needed its fans to vote for their official site. I went to vote and didn't think much of it, until I received an email in December that same year saying I'd won a Kindle Fire. I thought it was spam and almost deleted the email until I went back to the .INFO website and saw, right at the bottom of the page, that five voters would be randomly selected to win Kindle Fires. It made my Christmas that year and my love for the city of music has stayed strong even till today.

So that's how I got my first Kindle Fire! It has a lot of sentimental value to me. It's a first generation one because Amazon had just rolled it out that year (I think) and it was all the rage.

Anyway, early February this year saw my Kindle going all spazzy on me. The touchscreen just went all nuts and completely unusable... I had no choice but to, well, like Elsa said in Frozen, let it go. *laughs lamely* Reading then became really inconvenient for me because I didn't like sitting at the computer all day, and the Kindle Reading app for iOS is only available in the U.S. iTunes store.

My dad agreed to get me a new Kindle for my birthday, though! I wanted a Paperwhite, but he was adamant that I get to surf the web with the tablet, so I finally ordered a Kindle Fire 2nd gen (I figured I didn't need HD because I can't get apps outside the U.S. anyway) and it arrived last Saturday on the 15th!

The Amazon packaging box is now black! So cool. Thank you, daddy <3

And for good measure, BOTH Kindles. I can't even slide open the lock screen for the old one; it's that unresponsive. Oh well. 

Old Kindle on the left, new Kindle on the right.

So that's it for IMM this week! What bookish goodies have you received? Leave a comment with your link and I'll get my fins flippin' over to your blog ;)

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Blog Tour: The Memory Witch by Heather Topham Wood (Review + Giveaway!)

Welcome to the first day of Heather Topham Wood's THE MEMORY WITCH blog tour!

I'll be reviewing the novel and showcasing my favourite quotes of the novel. There's also a giveaway where you can win a $30 Amazon Gift Card (:

Click on the blog tour banner for a list of other blogs participating in the tour!


The Memory Witch (The Memory Witch, #1) by Heather Topham Wood
Publisher: Crescent Moon Press
Released: December 15th 2013
Format: Ebook
Source: Review copy provided by publisher
Blog tour hosted by: Itching For Books

Ten years ago, Quinn Jacobs’ mother made a bargain with a local witch—steal away Quinn’s memories from the first eight years of her life and in return, Quinn would spend a year in servitude to the witch.

On Quinn’s eighteenth birthday, she’s forced to leave her home and friends behind. For the next year, she’ll live at the Chadwick House, learning everything she needs to know about being a spellcaster. As her powers grow, Quinn begins to unravel the secrets of the past and the reason her mother was so desperate to conceal the horrifying truth.

Wood weaves a dark tale with a touch of magic in The Memory Witch – the first in a series. I have always loved tales with witches in them and was drawn to Quinn's story.

Quinn was a character that I quickly grew to like. Wood brilliantly set up the plot and characters, making it very believable that Quinn had no choice but to leave with Stella, the witch. There was also a significant build-up of events before Quinn left for Stella's place, which I greatly appreciated because the pacing would have been off if Wood had jumped straight into Quinn's tutelage with Stella.

Throughout her stay with Stella, Quinn echoed similar thoughts I had and I really liked how she smart and mature she was:

If I was going to be here for a year, I had to encourage a level of civility with my instructor. If I had to venture a guess, it would be that staying on the witch's good side was vital to my survival.

You go, girl!

Simply put, I'm a little sick of hot-headed heroines who don't put a bit more thought into their next plan of action. Quinn was a hardworking student and strove to follow Stella's instructions. She was also determined about not being involved with Mason and followed through with it albeit having warring emotions (yay!).

Stella was a character that grew on me from the very beginning. I have a feeling the opposite might have been intended for readers, but Stella came across as a stricter Professor McGonagall from Harry Potter with a capacity to care more than she should. She was an awesome mentor to Quinn and was a little disturbing at times, but I still really, REALLY like her!

Mason and Quinn were so hot. So hot. *fans self* Mason is that complicated boy with the complicated past, and though they always say you should NEVER go for a bad boy, I'm just glad that he stepped into Quinn's life. Mason's backstory was heart-wrenching and the way these two fell for each other was just – *searches for appropriate gif*

Yup.

One thing that irked me was how Wood's writing seemed to tell more than show. I'm sure we're all familiar with how we should show, not tell with writing. I felt that there was so much more between Quinn and Stella's relationship that could've been fleshed out if Wood had shown more instead of just telling us what happened between the two of them, such as this:

A few incidences after snapping at Stella, I had ended up getting stuck doing deep cleaning in the bathrooms.

This happened many, many times. Not of Quinn cleaning the bathrooms, but of how incidents that could've been used to further show the relationship between characters were not put to good use. I couldn't see the "cruelty and disdain" Quinn spoke of Stella at one point. I also didn't get how Stella and Quinn's mother ended up in a screamfest – my guess is that there should've been a build-up of show, not tell because I completely missed the signals prior to that. Additionally, Quinn frequently commented how Mason didn't want to get near her at the beginning, that he was hot-and-cold. Often I found myself questioning, really? I guess it would have been more evident if Wood had fleshed out their relationship more at the start.

Nevertheless, the story held my attention for a good whole day. The ending made The Memory Witch so much darker than I thought it would be, too, and it didn't help that I was finishing it up close to midnight. I just can't help but wonder if Wood had experienced an element of Quinn's past – be it personal, or having been exposed to something similar like that in her life so far. It was... very disturbing, not to mention heartbreaking. I felt like someone had used my body as a gong after finishing this book – my feelings were all over the place, reverberating inside of me.

The Memory Witch has been planned for a trilogy, and I'm definitely looking forward to more Quinn and Mason, as well as a whole new bunch of characters!

FAVOURITE QUOTES

"Stella could make that boy of yours infertile with a snap of her fingers." — Quinn's mother

"You make me feel things for you that I have no business feeling." — Mason

"I'm not exactly badass witch material." — Quinn

"You can't let a lifetime of hate produce a lifetime of misery." — Stella

" 'You're being a stubborn witch. I need you back to your old self. If I have to listen to another client complain about their pitiful love life, I'm going to have to start handing out hexes instead of potions,' I threatened. 

[Stella's] laugh turned into a fit of coughing."

Thanks for stopping by, and don't forget to enter the giveaway!

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Heather Topham Wood’s obsession with novels began in childhood while growing up in a shore town in New Jersey. Writing since her teens, she recently returned to penning novels after a successful career as a freelance writer. She’s the author of the paranormal romance Second Sight series and the standalone The Disappearing Girl.

Heather graduated from the College of New Jersey in 2005 and holds a bachelor's degree in English. Her freelance work has appeared in publications such as USA Today, Livestrong.com, Outlook by the Bay and Step in Style magazine. She resides in Trenton, New Jersey with her husband and two sons. Besides writing, Heather is a pop culture fanatic and has an obsession with supernatural novels and TV shows.

Connect with Heather: Blog | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads

Get your copy of The Memory Witch!

Amazon US | Amazon UK | The Book Depository | Barnes & Noble

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Review: Eternal Starling (Emblem of Eternity, #1) by Angela Corbett

Eternal Starling (Emblem of Eternity, #1) by Angela Corbett
Publisher: Pendrell Publishing
Released: December 2nd 2011
Format: Kindle ebook
Source: My own

A love so strong, even eternity can’t separate them.

Evie Starling has lived a relatively uneventful life hanging out with friends, gossiping about boys, and driving her 1966 Mustang. All of that changes when she moves to Gunnison, Colorado, to start college and meets two mysterious men.

For centuries, Alex Night and Emil Stone have yearned for Evie—but they each have their own reasons for wanting to be with her. When both men claim to be her soul mate and tell her about an unbelievable past, Evie learns that she’s not the person she thought she was. Soon, Evie finds herself in the middle of an age-old battle between the Amaranthine Society—the soul protectors, and the Daevos Resistance—the soul destroyers. With a past she doesn’t understand, and a future rife with danger, Evie has to decide who she can trust. But Alex and Emil aren’t the only ones who want Evie, and her soul is about to become the rope in an eternal tug-of-war.

I have extremely mixed feelings about this book.

I'm not a large fan of love triangles, but having said that, I don't hate them either – in fact, I'm pretty open to them. However, it also really depends on how well the author can pull it off.

So let me say that in Eternal Starling, the love triangle was literally a mess. This novel is majorly confusing, boring, predictable and yet unpredictable.

I know, that wasn't very helpful at all. *facepalms*

How I felt when reading the book.

First off: Corbett's writing was clear and descriptive. I found it just right. The first 20% of this book proved to be interesting. However, a ton of other stuff made my reading experience not-so-fintastic.

I felt that the main character, Evie Starling, didn't have enough depth to her at all. Evie has a knack for cars and mechanical stuff, which is unique, and she's a rebel who doesn't do what she's told. But beyond that, I couldn't truly grasp who Evie was. The way she interacted with Alex and Emil was so frustrating and I found myself disliking Evie further and further.

"I like knowing what's going on, it makes me feel more in control of things."

Well, then, Evie, why didn't you demand to know what in the fishcakes was going on with either boy?

It was so contradicting whenever Alex or Emil talked about things Evie obviously didn't understand and though she did ask them what was going on, she was very easily dissuaded from pursuing the matter by them. I also did NOT like how Evie was considering a rebound relationship. It was like when Edward left Bella in Twilight, except this Evie-Bella didn't do all the crying crap and stuff and instead just went out with another guy immediately.

Now for the boys (and Evie).

Evie and Alex: I really thought these two had it going for each other. But then something happened, and the middle part was all about Alex trying to convince Evie that Emil was dangerous and evil (even though Emil didn't display anything to validate that) by periodically dumping a bunch of information on her. It was so damn repetitive. After Alex and Evie argue, Alex always goes, "Okay it looks like I gotta give you more details on Emil so you'll believe me" and then Evie's torn between both boys. At the same time nothing interesting happens, so the boys just get mad at each other and the cycle starts again.

Evie and Emil: I didn't like how they got together. Evie didn't seem sure of herself and like I said, I got frustrated with how she wanted a rebound relationship. Nothing special happened between these two and I found Evie petty for complaining about Emil's mannerisms to herself, which I thought were fine.

Yes, Alex and Emil are smokin' hot. But none of them are going to be my book boyfriends now. Even though their personalities were vastly different, they didn't have depth to them just like Evie. I felt Alex had the potential to be expanded into a worthier character, but I was wrong. Emil didn't do anything much at all. Here's how the middle part of the novel went:

Evie talks to Alex. Evie talks to Emil. Evie is conflicted. Evie thinks. Evie talks to Alex. Alex gives a junkload of information. Evie talks to Emil. Evie is conflicted. Evie thinks. Evie talks to Alex. Alex gives a junkload of information. Evie thinks. Evie talks to Emil.

AND SO ON.

Every time Evie talks to Alex, Alex tries to persuade her against being with Emil. He plops information about the Amaranthine Society or the Daevos Resistance in a bid to enlighten her on how evil and dangerous Emil is, but because Emil doesn't do anything much till the 80% mark, Evie's stance is always sorry-Alex-but-Emil-hasn't-given-me-reason-to-doubt-him-so-let's-just-keep-this-up. This continued in circles and it was so draggy and boring. I was all Team Alex in the beginning, then got annoyed and bored in the middle and by the end of the book I was like meh, I don't care. Now, Alex is just an annoying buffoon who always goes "But you don't know what he (Emil) is like!!!!!".

The chain of events was largely predictable too. The only time Corbett surprised me was how Emil greeted Evie the first time they met, and even so, I didn't like how Evie went all insta-swoon over him. A same tactic was used to dish out more info on Alex and Emil's backgrounds to the reader – two double dates with Evie's friend Jasmine and her boyfriend. The setting did nothing to enhance the storyline at all. There's no other interesting action whatsoever in the middle except for a camping trip, which made no difference to the story plot. The guys could be staying over at Evie's parents' house for all I cared and the same thing would unfold, so it was nothing special at all.

Also, Eternal Starling has no major action at all until the 82% mark. I kid you not. Halfway into reading, I realised I was still reading Eternal Starling ONLY because of Alex, not Evie.

Main character couldn't sustain my interest.

I got the sense that Corbett was trying to drag events out till a point where Evie could BAM-understand-what-in-the-starfish-pants-was-going-on, like how heroines usually do in other books. But other than soulmarks, the lead-up of events wasn't interesting enough and there was no BAM moment at all. Alex just plopped info on Evie in chunks at random moments in the book. Corbett introduced two flashbacks into the past at the beginning but she didn't use that fully to her advantage. I think the plot would have been more visual if flashbacks had been used to help Alex relay information to Evie, especially her past.

The stakes in this book were high, but I couldn't see why Evie was so special or why everything had to revolve around her. In the story, there are others of her kind out there and it wasn't like she was the only one who could 'tip the scales' or something (Fallen series reference here). The villain in Eternal Starling caught me off guard, but the amount of power he suddenly acquired just seemed like an easy way out to pose danger to the main characters.

The ending: Unsatisfactory. Evie's 'abilities' are nothing special nor surprising.

Eternal Starling had potential, but it just somehow turned out boring. I was unusually distracted from this novel because of how un-captivating it was. Not gonna pick up the sequel because I couldn't care for the characters after finishing it.

I was THIS bored with the book.

One starfish for the nice writing style, another for what could've been. Half a starfish for hot guy Alex who started off smexy but... turned out, well, meh.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
As a child, Angela Corbett’s most prized possession was a set of read-along books. She used to follow along with the narrator on the stereo and dream of when she would be able to read by herself. Her childhood reading habit led her to consider her future career. However, after consulting with her parents, she realized she had already exceeded hobbit height and since fairies and dragonslayers were tricky jobs to get, she decided she wanted to create worlds of her own. She started writing poetry in elementary school and worked as a journalist in high school and college, but could never leave her love for writing fiction behind.

She is a graduate of Westminster College where she double majored in communication and sociology. She has worked as a journalist, freelance writer, and director of communications and marketing. She loves classic cars, traveling, and escaping in a good book. She lives in Utah with her incredibly supportive husband and their five-pound Pomeranian, Pippin, whose following of fangirls could rival Justin Bieber's.

Eternal Starling is her debut novel and the first book in the Emblem of Eternity trilogy.

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