romance

TBR List Check-Up: Book Series I’ve Been Meaning To Read

20th June 2017 by Gemma 5 Comments

Book Series to Read

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly bookish meme created and hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. More information, plus future topics can be found on this page. This week was ‘Top Ten Series I’ve Been Meaning To Start But Haven’t’.

I used to really love book series — some of my all-time favourite books are the Harry Potter books and The Lord of the Rings. The reader gets to keep coming back to that wonderful ‘verse and learn more about the magic rules/systems and the interesting characters inhabiting it. Unfortunately, some series don’t seem to have been originally planned to be such: the first book contains most of the details and the heaviest plot, and you can see the author trying to stretch it out in the following books but absolutely failing.

Here’s hoping the following books aren’t at all like that! …

Serial Summaries – Book Edition III: Jan/Feb Mini Reviews + Comment Challenge

26th February 2017 by Gemma 4 Comments

The last time I did this was back in August — how much do I fail on this? *laughs* At least this is my blog, so I am free to do what I please with it, and this time, instead of listing out the books I’ve read and bought for the month, it’ll have mini reviews of some books I’ve read but don’t have much to say about to warrant one whole post. I mean, surely, you do not want to click on a post that contains a whopping five sentences (or even less) about a book!

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Bibliophile Fridays: 5 Books That Made My Heart Flutter

10th February 2017 by Gemma 9 Comments

Bibliophile Fridays is a weekly meme hosted by Whoo Gives A Hoot and Foxes and Fairy Tale. More information on the Goodreads group. This week was ‘five books that made your heart flutter’!.

I was moaning on Twitter about this prompt because I couldn’t get past three books! I read romances from time to time, but not enough to make an impression, the way the first three on this list did.

I was trying to make a post for #BFridayPosts but I can't think of 5 books that made my heart seriously flutter. Um…

— Gemma (@gemkarita) February 4, 2017

I already gave up and shelved the idea — I don’t have a lot of time to make posts, so when I don’t have a concrete idea, I move on to something I can put together quicker. But then an email made me think of books from the past: the ones that never made a dent in the bestseller list, or the ones known as guilty pleasures. So that is what this list is made up of, with the book covers when I first read them.
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On The Nightstand: The Muse

4th September 2016 by Gemma Leave a Comment

I can’t exactly remember how I felt about The Muse before its release. Everyone was waiting excitedly for it, and while I was enthusiastic, I didn’t feel it was with as much intensity compared to those who have read The Miniaturist. I admit I haven’t read that one; I missed the month when we read it for book club, and the comments were quite divisive that I did not feel particularly keen to find out which side of the debate I’d fall.

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Blog Tour: The House in Quill Court – Author Q&A with Charlotte Betts

25th August 2016 by Gemma Leave a Comment

Today, I’m very happy to welcome multi-award-winning author Charlotte Betts to the blog! She has kindly consented to a short Q&A session to celebrate the release of her fifth book, The House in Quill Court.

If you’re a reader of historical romantic fiction, this book will be right up your alley. Here’s a quick blurb —

1813. Venetia Lovell lives by the sea in Kent with her pretty, frivolous mother, and idle younger brother. Venetia’s father, Theo, is an interior decorator to the rich, and frequently travels away from home, leaving his sensible and artistic daughter to look after the family. Venetia designs paper hangings, and she and her father often daydream about having an imaginary shop where they would display the highest quality furniture, fabrics, and art to his clients.

When a handsome but antagonistic stranger, Jack Chamberlaine, arrives at the Lovell’s cottage just before Christmas bringing terrible news, Venetia’s world is turned upside-down, and the family has no option but to move to London, to the House in Quill Court and begin a new life. Here, Venetia’s courage and creativity are tested to breaking point, and she discovers a love far greater than she could have ever imagined…

As part of #QuillCourt blog tour, I was given a chance to post the author some questions, and I love learning more about Charlotte through her eloquent answers.
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