I'M BACK! And With a Giveaway! (Cuz Dark Lord Funk Gon' Giveaway)

HIIIIII, GUYS! I missed you and your gorgeous internety faces! Life got super lifey lately, that rat bastard, so I took a bit of an internet hiatus. But I plan to return with a VENGEANCE, just like His Royal Voldyness, taking on my enemies with Dark Lord style.




The one good thing about taking a blogging break was that I read A LOT. And most of the books I read were super great, so bow I'm going to chat about the very best books I read in the interim. I'm definitely planning on doing reviews for them, but obviously my unintended hiatus knocked my schedule rather out of whack, and I don't want these wonderful books to fall by the wayside. And besides, I just like yammering about good books and showering them with as much attention as they deserve, which is a lot.

And at the end of this post is... a giveaway! To say how much I really did miss you, my faithful Book Eaters. You all look ravishing in your evildoers' robes and masks.



The books:



The Storyspinner by Becky Wallace
EMOTIONS. I HAD THEM. I was not expecting that! I was expecting a high fantasy romp with SHIPPING and banter and magicks and mayhems and kidnapping and murder and betrayal. And I got that... but I also got a sucker punch to the stomach. And a SHIP. Shipshipshipship. Shippity ship. Shippppadeedoodah.

Edit:

The WONDERFUL Becky Wallace offered to through in a bonus prize for the winner: a signed map bookplate for The Storyspinner! Check it out:

So basically, I've decided there will be TWO winners of this giveaway. The first winner will win their book of choice, and if they choose The Storyspinner, they'll get the book and a bookplate. The second winner will either get The Storyspinner if the first winner didn't choose it or they book of choice if the first winner did! (Less confusing than it sounds.) Basically, I'm giving away a copy of The Storyspinner and this book plate one way or another.

EVERYBODY THANK THE FABULOUS BECKY!



The Wrath & the Dawn by Renee Ahdieh
SPEAKING. OF. SHIPS. Guys. I barely know how to talk about this one without rolling around and making sort of scary moaning noises and clawing at the sky. It's lush, romantic, terrible, twisted, beautiful, and spellbinding. Shazi is a firecracker of a heroine, the side characters are sublime, and Khalid. Khalid and Shahrzad. I have been rendered unable to complete the task known as "even-ing".



The Girl at Midnight by Melissa Grey
Usually describing a book as X meets Y hardly ever captures the true essence of a book, and mostly comes across as a bit of a cheesy marketing thing. ("Graceling meets Buffy the Vampire Slayer!" "The Fault in Our Stars meets Eon!" "Eleanor and Park meets X-Men!") (By the way, someone write me those.) But The Girl at Midnight ACTUALLY IS Daughter of Smoke and Bone meets City of Bones. It's City of Smoke and Bones! It's about a race of dragon people at war with a race of bird people and the snarky, sassy human girl who stands between them. Exactly my kind of urban fantasy!



A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab.
This book had SO. MUCH. HYPE, but the degree to which I love Victoria's is astronomical, so I was expecting greatness. And then Victoria was like I SEE YOUR GREATNESS AND I RAISE YOU MASTERLY PERFECTION and then laughed in my face. This booooooooooook. The worldbuilding is mindblogging, gorgeous and rich and complex and terrifying. The characters are amazeballs (Delilah Bard is my patronus). And the book is just stupid beautiful to look at, too, which does not hurt.

Unsurprisingly, March has been a fantasy-heavy month for me, because fantasy is the best genre ever to genre and all who disagree must fall.



Giveaway time! Yay! This competition is open internationally, though you must live in a country that The Book Depository ships to. The winner will get to choose one of the above books as their prize. For books not yet released, the winner will receive a preorder, NOT an ARC. All prizes will be finished copies.

a Rafflecopter giveaway
 


Dark Lord funk you up, Dark Lord funk you up