Sunday post #20

Sunday is when I sit back with a lovely cup of tea and write about all the wonderful new books I've received and purchased in the past week. This post participates in fab memes Showcase Sunday and Stacking the Shelves.


• Split Second by Kasie West (review copy)
• The Fall and Rise of Lucy Charlton by Elizabeth Gill (unsollicited review copy)
• The Dark Inside by Rupert Wallis (gift)



I've not received many review books recently :( The annoying thing is that quite a few publishers have contacted me asking if I want to review something and even though I reply back straight away saying that I'd be delighted to I then never hear anything back. I always try to wait a week before emailing them again so I don't think I'm being impatient, but when publication dates rapidly move closer it becomes harder for me to review in time when something eventually arrives - if it even does at all... *sigh* Sorry, enough ranting for one post, on to the fun stuff!

I am super excited to read Split Second by Kasie West, the sequel to the brilliant Pivot Point (find my review for the first instalment in the series here). I had the pleasure of interviewing Kasie on my blog this week (see here) and HarperCollins 360 kindly offered me Split Second afterwards. I'm also very interested in reading The Dark Inside, which was a gift from the lovely Vicky at Books, Biscuits and Tea, who I got to meet this week in person which was wonderful :) (more about this later)

Last week I was invited to attend the launch party for Rosie Blake's debut novel How To Get a (Love) Life , the brand new novel from the Novelicious imprint - and what a delight it was. There were drinks, lovely bookish people to chat too, a hilarious speech by Rosie herself and these postcards with quotes from the book; all in all a great evening. I've also read (and loved) the novel and will post my review next week.

On Thursday I attended a preview screening of The Book Thief thanks to Vicky. We thought it was a screening held by Transworld Publishers (as they were the ones sending out the invite) but it actually turned out to be a press screening! I thought the movie was stunning, atmospheric and very authentic. It's a story told many times before but that didn't make it any less harrowing. Sophie Nélisse, the young girl who plays Liesl, was fantastic and really managed to carry the film and her innocence provided some much-needed light-heartedness to what otherwise could've been a consistently devastating story. I also really liked Ben Schnetzer (Max) who perhaps doesn't have the largest speaking role, but his haunting appearance certainly left an impression on me. Both Geoffrey Rush and Emily Watson were amazing as well, but then I expected nothing less from them.

My one major gripe with this film though was the language; sometimes they speak and write German which is then subtitled and at other times they speak English with a German accent and the text in books is in English. I would much prefer the entire film was German for authenticity but I do understand that to mass-market it to an American/British audience they choose English instead (even if I don't agree with this personally). Either way, just pick one! Overall, while I didn't think this was the best film ever, I did find it incredibly beautiful and poignant and I feel fortunate for having had the chance to see it early. P.S. Bring tissues!