Howling for Books

3 June 2017

Stacking the Shelves (60)

Stacking The Shelves is a weekly meme hosted by Tynga's Reviews, and is all about sharing the book you are adding to your shelves, may it be physical or virtual. This means you can include books you buy in physical store or online, books you borrow from friends or the library, review books, gifts and of course ebooks!

Purchased

For Review

2 June 2017

Release Day Blitz: Mature Content by Megan Erickson & Santino Hassell

Mature Content (Cyberlove, #4)
by Megan Erickson & Santino Hassell
M/M contemporary romance

My life plan is to be brutally honest all the way to the bank. Don't believe me? I run a popular YouTube channel called TrashyZane, and my claim to fame is oversharing about every aspect of my personal life. Sometimes while tipsy. Not everyone loves my style, but I have a long history of icing out people who can't handle me. I have no time for judgmental foolishness.

Except, apparently, when it comes to Beau Starr. His channel is the polar opposite of mine, and so is he. Wholesome, inspirational, and clean-cut. Everything about him should turn me off, but when we hook up following a confrontation at a convention, my world flips upside down. Not only does Beau Starr turn me on, he uses the exact combination of dirty talk and roughness needed to turn me out.

But we still hate each other. I think.

Excerpt

“You want to talk now that Ian is gone?” Jesse asked knowingly.

I flicked the seam of my pillow. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’re being weird, and I’m not sure if it’s because of Zane or something else.”

“It’s not because of Zane. Well, some of it is, I guess.”

“Ah.” He grinned. “Does that mean there is a thing with Zane?”

I stood up and ran my hands through my hair, which had a life of its own due to the amount of grease in it. “Fine, yes. Okay? We fucked at NerdCon. It was amazing, but we still hate each other, so it’s not happening again.”

Jesse’s eyes were huge. “I’m…not sure what to say right now?”

I wasn’t either. All our lives, I’d been the bossy one, the leader, and Jesse had been the follower. I was the ambitious one, the person with answers and advice. And now the shoe was on the other foot. Jesse had a career and a happy life, and I was a goddamn mess. But maybe I’d always been a mess. I was just excellent at covering it up with a smile.

Author bios

Megan Erickson is a multi-published romance author with Avon, Berkley and Entangled. RT Book Reviews said her debut LGBTQ romance was “a coming out story for a new age.”

Website

Twitter

Facebook

Santino writes queer romance that is heavily influenced by the gritty, urban landscape of New York City, his belief that human relationships are complex and flawed, and his own life experiences.

Website

Facebook

Twitter

1 June 2017

Wrapping the Month: May

What's greater way to start new month than taking a look at previous one?

As you might have noticed, May was pretty quiet on the blogging front for me. I had all the intentions and plans for posts but I always ended up, well, doing something else. First it was exams (and procrastination because of those exams, which naturally meant I spend the time reading Drarry fanfiction because nothing soothes my nerves better) and when the holidays officially started, I got a little bit crazy and basically did nothing besides binge reading books for two weeks. BUT. I'll do better in June, I promise! For one, I want to write and post all the reviews for the amazing books I read in May and then there's some super exciting book tours/blitzes and few new releases that I'm really excited about. So I'll get out of this flunk of not blogging and getting back to the game!

May was all for new releases and few eARCs which I was so excited for! I did use some bookstore points to get few other books, and I'm especially starting to get some books from authors I want to meet at YALC this summer, and now I just really need to start reading them before end of July!

I just had to put extra photo of these hardcovers because the covers are stunning!

May's reviews:

Concourse (4 stars)

Magnus Chase and the Hammer of Thor (4 stars)

May was absolutely brilliant when it came to books I read: all of them were either five or four stars, and there's some new favourites there (I absolutely fell in love with The Love Interest, and Riordan's Apollo series is brilliant and I need more right now). So I'm super happy with all the six books I read!

In June I just hope I'll get actually more blogging done, although the midsummer may slow things a bit because I'm going back to Finland then to enjoy the midsummer fest with family. But I'm planning to write posts before I go there so that I'll have posts going up if the internet connection is bad on the cottage at the island where I'm going.

Hugs,

Henna

30 May 2017

Flash Sale: Fast Connection by Megan Erickson & Santino Hassell

Fast Connection (Cyberlove, #2)

by Megan Erickson & Santino Hassell

Published 11th July 2016

After a decade of serving in the Army, everyone still expects me to be Dominic 'Nicky' Costigan--the skirt-chasing player. They don't know I've been spending my days trying to figure out my post-military life. Including how to pick up guys.

When I meet Luke on a hookup app, he makes it clear it's for one-night only. That's fine with me, because I'm down to see what this silver fox can do. But after I arrive at his doorstep, it doesn't take long to realize we have serious chemistry, and we end up meeting again.

He's got more walls around his heart than a military base, but I think he's as addicted to me as I am to him. He can't resist me for long. I mean, who can? Except Luke's rules exist for a reason, and when I test his limits, things get complicated. Maybe too complicated.

For a limited time, Fast Connection is only 0.99 in various online retailers! You can get a copy from the following places:

Author bios

Megan Erickson is a multi-published romance author with Avon, Berkley and Entangled. RT Book Reviews said her debut LGBTQ romance was “a coming out story for a new age.”

Website

Twitter

Facebook

Santino writes queer romance that is heavily influenced by the gritty, urban landscape of New York City, his belief that human relationships are complex and flawed, and his own life experiences.

Website

Facebook

Twitter

Top Ten Tuesday: Most Anticipated Books For the Second Half of 2017

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. Each week participating bloggers can create lists of topic given by the host, and share them with others!
I only came up with eight most anticipated because a lot of new releases I was anticipating was published in May and thus can't be included in this list. But here's eight books I'm super excited about and which will published between June and December 2017.

Shouldn't be any surprise because Megan Erickson and Santino Hassell (together and separate) are my favourite and go-to-authors when it comes to superb M/M romance.

I could not mention some of my favourite authors' new releases; I'm eagerly waiting for the last installments on both Magnus Chase trilogy and Monsters of Verity duology. And Renegades just sounds so good!

I just need both of these because of gorgeous covers and the blurbs! I'm especially interested in reading V.E. Schwab's and Marissa Meyer's short stories about villains.

29 May 2017

Out Now: Heels Over Head by Elyse Springer

Heels Over Head

by Elyse Springer

Published by Riptide Publishing

New Adult, LGBT, contemporary, romance, sports

Jeremy Reeve is one of the best divers in the world, and he’s worked hard to get where he is. He intends to keep pushing himself with one very clear goal in mind: winning gold at the summer Olympics in two years. That medal might be the only way to earn his father’s respect as an athlete.

Brandon Evans is everything Jeremy isn’t: carefree, outgoing, and openly gay. With his bright-blue eyes and dramatic tattoos, he’s a temptation that Jeremy refuses to acknowledge. But Jeremy can’t ignore how talented Brandon is—or that Brandon has no interest in using his diving skills to compete.

They’re opposites who are forced to work together as teammates, but Jeremy’s fear of his own sexuality and Brandon’s disinterest in anything “not fun” may end their partnership before it begins. Until a single moment changes everything, and they help each other discover that “team” can also mean family and love.

Heels Over Head is out today! I was lucky to get a chance to read an ARC of this, and you can find my review here and see how much I LOVED the story. Go check it out!

You can purchase the book several places, including
Amazon UK
Amazon US
Book Depository

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28 May 2017

Review: Magnus Chase and the Hammer of Thor by Rick Riordan

Magnus Chase and the Hammer of Thor (Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard, #2)
by Rick Riordan
Published by Puffin
Hardback (purchased)
Young Adult, fantasy, mythology, adventure

Thor's hammer is missing again. The thunder god has a disturbing habit of misplacing his weapon - the mightiest force in the Nine Worlds. But this time the hammer isn't just lost, it has fallen into enemy hands. If Magnus Chase and his friends can't retrieve the hammer quickly, the mortal worlds will be defenseless against an onslaught of giants. Ragnarok will begin. The Nine Worlds will burn. Unfortunately, the only person who can broker a deal for the hammer's return is the gods' worst enemy, Loki - and the price he wants is very high.

The Hammer of Thor continues beautifully where The Sword of Summer left. The humour is on point as I really love Magnus's sarcasm and comebacks, and the titles are seriously so hilarious. I just love it, and Magnus to be truthful because he's precious with all his jokes and jabs and how much he cares for his friends and how he's a healer among the dead warriors preparing for Ragnarok.

Alongside Magnus, there's all the characters from the first installment and some new faces, which always spices things up. I continued to love the friendship Magnus, Blitzen and Hearthstone have, because they really are adorable (and I ship Blitzen and Hearthstone, they just need to get together okay?) And I'm just saying without spoilers that Riordan's Heimdall totally destroys the image that the Thor movies made. He's just beyond hilarious, and there's plenty of eye-rolling because of him and it's funny.

Basically, if you like the first book, then The Hammer of Thor is solid sequel that has all the aspects that made the first one so good. Some spark was missing for me, but then again I had one minor issue that probably won't be issue with anyone else. I still enjoyed the story thoroughly and I'm eagerly anticipating the last part of the trilogy!

4 of 5 stars

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25 May 2017

#COYER Summer 2017 Sign Up

I'm so excited about the COYER reading challenge, even if I failed it notoriously last summer. Last summer was so bad reading wise for me, but I hope to conquer that this year - especially since I have been doing well so far! So I'm hoping that COYER will continue to inspire me to read more and stay on top of my reading coals for this year!

COYER is hosted by Berls @ Fantasy is More Fun, Michelle @ Because Reading and Stormi @ Books, Movies, Reviews! Oh My!

COYER will run from June 17th to September 9th, 2017.

The Rules
1. You must create a sign-up post anytime between now and August 1st – on blog, goodreads, fb, google+, etc.Yes, that means you can sign up until August 1st! But don’t wait, you’ll miss most of the fun!
2. You must link to the sign-up post below (don’t link to your blog, link to the sign-up post).
3. You must review books somewhere & link the reviews to the review linky to be eligible for one of the grand prize giveaways.
4. Have Fun!

There's also few additional rules if you want to take part of the Summer Reading List challenge and you can find those on the sign up post here, but I chose not to take part of that because I'm not that good of following TBR's and I'd rather wing it. I, however, made up a tiny plan to just give you (and me) an idea what I'd like to do during COYER.

The Plan

I'd like to read 2 books per week, at least. It shouldn't be too challenging because if I'm on top of my reading game, then I can usually read from two to four books per week (and then I slack for few weeks so yeah, bad me). I'll be delighted if I manage to read more than two books per week! Overall my goal for the whole year is sixty books which is five books per month, so I'll aim to read at least the minimum of five books per month.

Secondly, I try to read similar amount of ebooks and physical books. This will depend a lot of my moods and what kind of books I have on hand and on my Kindle, but I'll probably read both formats, especially since I prefer ebooks when I travel and I have two longer trips planned for the summer. I'm not fan of audiobooks so I probably won't listen any of those.

I'll try to post an update post every Sunday once the COYER challenge starts.

23 May 2017

ARC Review: Concourse by Santino Hassell

Concourse (Five Boroughs, #5)
by Santino Hassell
Published by Riptide Publishing
eARC (received via NetGalley)
Adult, LGBT, contemporary, romance

Ashton Townsend is the most famous celebutante of Manhattan’s glitterati. The black sheep of his wealthy family, he’s known for his club appearances, Instagram account, and sex tape. Most people can’t imagine him wanting for anything, but Ashton yearns for friendship, respect, and the love of his best friend—amateur boxer Valdrin Leka.

Val’s relationship with Ashton is complicated. As the son of Ashton’s beloved nanny, Val has always bounced between resenting Ashton and regarding him as his best friend. And then there’s the sexual attraction between them that Val tries so hard to ignore.

When Ashton flees his glitzy lifestyle, he finds refuge with Val in the Bronx. Between Val’s training for an upcoming fight and dodging paparazzi, they succumb to their need for each other. But before they can figure out what it all means—and what they want to do about it—the world drags them out of their haven, revealing a secret Val has kept for years. Now, Ashton has to decide whether to once again envelop himself in his party-boy persona, or to trust in the only man who’s ever seen the real him.

Concourse was an engaging read and true to Hassell's style with flawed, real and truly fleshed out characters. The main characters Ashton, who's a sweetheart who wants to be accepted and loved but never gets it from his family, and Valdrin, who's always had almost crippling sense of responsibility of his family and Ashton. In that sense of responsibility, Valdrin was very easy to relate with. Ashton and Valdrin were friends even though they were from very different upbringings, Valdrin coming from Bronx with little money and Ashton being socialite and heir from Manhattan. However, they have been friends for years, although sometimes their friendship was quite sexual, almost bordering friends with benefits type of situation.

Concourse was engaging and hard to put down because Valdrin and Ashton had this connection that was very magnetic and there were a lot of push and pull. There were plenty of emotional turmoil with drama and angst because of their life situations and feelings for each other which they battled a lot. I have to admit that some moments were just a bit too dramatic, and I wanted to slap both Valdrin and Ashton because most of the time, they made the situation way more hard than it had to be. But it also showed how messy and scary love really is, and sometimes you are the biggest object to overcome the difficulties that lie before the possibility of relationship with someone.

There were plenty of characters, some of them who were interesting and downright delight such as Nunzio and Matt, and some who I just couldn't connect with any level and was left more irritated than anything else. Anyway, Concourse was entertaining read with truly fleshed out characters, and I really liked the boxing aspect even if I'm not a big sports fan. Ashton and Valdrin were just so cute together, too, so I enjoyed it a lot.

4 of 5 stars

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Thank you, Riptide Publishing, for giving me a chance to read and review Concourse!

(A copy of this ebook was provided in return for an honest review.)