Sunday Post #74 and Stacking the Shelves December 11th, 2016

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted  @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer. It’s
a chance to share news ~ A post to recap the past week on your blog,
showcase books and things we have received and share news about what is
coming up on our blog for the week ahead. See rules here: Sunday Post Meme.  Can I just say it has been almost two months since I’ve posted a Sunday Wrap-Up?  Wowza!  However, I have good excuses.  First, November was all about making my 50,000 words for NaNoWriMo, which I did.  Second, well, things have just been crazy busy!  But I’m back, with probably one of the last wrap-ups for 2016.  Since I haven’t done one in a long time, I’m not going to go back and recap everything since that October post, instead I’ll just do the past week for you!

Last week on my blog:

• Book Blitzes:  Alterations by Stephanie Scott (Giveaway), Mr. Match (Mister series #5) by JA Huss (Giveaway), and Sherlock Holmes and the Nine-Dragon Sigil by Tim Symonds (Giveaway)
• Let’s Get 2016 Over With a Giveaway –  closes on Tuesday, followed by a second round being posted that same day!
• Waiting on Wednesday:  Twist (Dive Bar #2) by Kylie Scott
• Cover Reveal:  Salvaged (Saints of Denver #4) by Jay Crownover
• Reviews:  Foreplay (Ivy Chronicles #1) by Sophie Jordan, and My Super Sweet Sixteenth Century by Rachel Harris 

So, I’m getting behind again on reviews.  I read Foreplay clear back at the beginning of October.  Now, My Super Sweet  Sixteenth Century I did just finish, but I also just got it for a review that needed to be posted by today, so that is why I am so quick getting it done.  My hope is that over my Christmas break from school I can just sit down and hammer out as many reviews as possible.  So look for possibly being bombarded by a couple reviews a day plus any other posts for the end of December and January.  One of my goals for next year is going to be to keep much more on top of reviews.  Let’s remember that I’m getting so much more reading done that part of the issue is just the number of books I’m reading.  Plus, now that I have a co-librarian who wants to do more things in the library, things that are more like my original thoughts for a library I want to work in, it keeps me from sitting and doing as much blogging at work as I used to.


Coming up this week on my blog:

• Promo Posts:  Hero High by Mina Chara, This Piece of My Soul:  Tampa Suns Hockey (Clearing the Ice #2) by Robyn M. Ryan, Thrust by Sybil Bartel, Membrane by Michele Corriel, and The Elf by Max Dune
• Let’s Get 2016 Over With a Giveaway Part 2 (Tuesday)
• Waiting on Wednesday
• Possible Reviews:  Teach Me to Forget by Erica M. Chapman, The Royals trilogy by Erin Watt, United (Alienated #3) by Melissa Landers (Audio)

Soooo far behind on reviews.  Gah!  As 2016 draws to a close, one thing I’m starting to think about is how my challenges for the year have ended up, most I think I’ve succeeded at.  I don’t know that I’ll be hosting any new challenges next year.  I feel like as much as I want to do that, maybe next year I want to concentrate on my reviewing and getting other things like that done on my blog.  More concentrating on reading and reviewing, less on doing things like hosting challenges.  That means for those of you that do host challenges, I’ll be signing up for your challenges!  I’m already saving all the emails I get with the challenges everyone else is signing up for, and debating over which I will join for 2017.  I don’t want to join too many, but I do want to join the ones that will align with my goals for the next year anyway.  So while I start planning my end of the year resolution/challenge sign up post, just know there’s lots of thinking going on about that.  


I have not been to the gym to walk since September.  🙁  I need to get back going.  My only thing that is going to be bugging me, is the fact about how busy it starts to get this time of the year because of everyone else getting their New Year’s resolutions started.  Oh well.  Guess in a way I’m doing the same.  One nice thing is that they built a Planet Fitness closer to where I live, so I’m going to see about switching my membership over to that one. Which will give me way less excuse to not go to the gym.

Also, I have continued doing Waiting on Wednesday, although it has been several weeks, months since Jill at Breaking the Spine has posted a new one.  I know that I’m not the only blogger out there concerned and hoping that Jill is okay.  A few of you have mentioned taking over the meme, but coming up with a new name for it.  If you decide to do that, let us all know, maybe a comment on the last WOW post to point us all towards it just in case.  

Stacking the Shelves is hosted by Tynga’s Reviews.
 It is a way for us to share the new books we have collected.  Let’s just say that there is absolutely no way I can share all the ebooks I’ve gotten over the past two months with you, those number in the hundreds.  Mostly free, but also a few purchased with Amazon GCs won from authors and giveaways.  I also am not going to include any books below that I may have already tweeted about receiving. The books below are ones that may have been from before this past week, but are ones that I still want to share.  I also have not been as good about keeping track of what egalleys I’m getting, at least not until I get my 2017 blog calendar set up, so won’t be sharing those either.  Just some actual physical books below.

In the picture here you can see on the left an ARC that was out for anyone to take at the library where I did a weekly write-in during November for NaNoWriMo.  On the right is a book that my co-librarian picked up for me when he went to the National Council of Teachers of English convention in November.

On the left is the first book in the Redhead series by one of my new favorite authors, Alice Clayton.  I have looked around for it, but finally had to give in and order it at my bookstore.  I ordered it during our employee appreciation days so I could get it for 40% off.  On the right is one of the Dollar Tree store finds.  I haven’t read this author before I don’t think, but this is one that is right up the alley of the types of books I used to read all the time, and one I hope to fit into my other reads next year.  

On the left side of this picture is a book I received through a trading group on Facebook called The Great Paperback Pay-it-Forward.  You get partnered up with someone, and you set an amount with them, usually $15-20 and then you pick paperbacks off of their wishlist and send them to them.  I know people say why not just buy for yourself, but I like buying for other people and don’t feel as guilty about that as buying for myself.  Plus they pick the book they send me, so it’s like a surprise!  On the right is a book I got through another trading group on Facebook, this one I just paid shipping for, the other person was just looking to get rid of some extra books.  I don’t mind paying shipping for an ARC, to me it is not the same as paying for it.  It is when someone wants me to pay regular finished book price that I have an issue.

Okay, here are some more items I bought for  myself.  First was one of the bargain books that I’m hoping to start doing more writing exercises with this coming year.  So I bought this one to add to my other pile of books to use.  The other one in the background is the adult coloring book that features pages having to do with some of the most popular romances out there these days, including my favorite, the After series by Anna Todd.  In the front you see some dachshund Christmas labels, and a little dachshund notebook.

I mentioned above that I would be probably doing a review of this series this week.  Well, not only do I own these e-books, but I decided I  needed to own the actual paperback copies as well.  So they were bought during my employee appreciation days at the bookstore where I work where I get 40% instead of just the usual 30% off of books.  I loved this series, and can see myself picking them up to read again and again.


Like I said at the start of this, the number of free ebooks I’ve been downloading has been crazy.  But it’s like if it is free on Amazon, has a four star or higher review, I can’t seem to keep myself from downloading the different romance titles I hear about.  I’ve also won a few $5 Amazon GCs that have allowed me to go and then buy the sequels to free books I’ve got, or other books that I hear about from authors on Facebook that I want to read.  Maybe I can start again in 2017 and list them weekly.  


So that is my really, super-duper quick recap of the past week and before.  I’m going to try to get out and visit a bunch of your weekly posts today and tomorrow, so I hope to hear from all of you how your weeks went and what new things you added to your shelves.  Thanks for stopping by!