Tales Post – Two Year Bloggerversary!
Today the 16th November 2016, marks the day of my second bloggerversary!
*blows party poppers*
I have lots of thank you giveaway’s below but first a few words…..
It’s been two whole years since I posted my first post on Tales Of Yesterday and jumped into the book blogging community!
Over these two years I have been welcomed with open arms by the community. By other bloggers, authors, publishers and more and it was so wonderful and kind.
Hand on heart it is the best decision I have ever made. Combining my love of books with like minded people that I can chat to about books or gain recommendations or just have a general chat is just amazing and I can honestly say that I have made some truly good friends along the way!
Looking back over the past year I have achieved so much. I’ve been busy on my blog welcoming authors for guest posts and interviews, running spotlights and reviewing books.
I have overcome fears and chaired 3 authors panels at Waterstones Birmingham with my fourth upcoming chairing event with one of my favourite authors Jennifer Niven.
I have helped host a blogger breakfast at Foyles Birmingham and a co hosted a workshop at YA Shot this year.
I have become a part of the YA Shot team and organised a huge blog tour for 75 authors and 75 bloggers over the course of 3 months and also helped the Lost and Found Authors organise a mini blog tour too.
I attended YALC in July 16 and other awesome bookish events including blogger events at publishers and had so much fun.
I was recently nominated for Blogger Of The Year 2016 and Champion Of Social Media at the #UKYABA2016 and won 4 other blogging awards including champion adult blogger and growing blogger which was all voted for by you. Something of which I am still so amazed and grateful for.
My blog has helped me to explore my passion for reading more and especially delve more into the wonderful world of YA (especially UKYA) and MG which I love with all of my heart.
Find out why I love the UKYA community here
I even won NanoWriMo at the end of November 2015 and I am currently working on the words I created during that time and have a brilliant mentor in the form of Keris Stainton which is completely awesome!
Don’t get me wrong. Book blogging is hard work. Working full time, having an eleven year old who has just started secondary school, finding time to read and blog can be a juggling act especially as I am now trying to find time to write too. Many a late night has been spent typing up posts. Many a TV show I really wanted to watch sacrificed as I just could not put my book down. Many a neglected husband who puts up with me typing away at a computer whilst he is tucked up in bed asleep. But I love it. I find it fun and enjoyable. My escapism. My hobby. My passion.
This time last year I was celebrating my 170th post. This post marks my 373rd post on Tales. Wow! 373 posts in two years! I never thought that that would be possible on any level or scale.
This time last year I was celebrating reaching 1500 followers on twitter. I recently hit 4000 followers on twitter which brought tears to my eyes….mainly because I feel sorry for you all with my random rambling tweets, but also because you all are amazing and put up with me being on twitter a little to much than I should!
I’ve started using Instagram and Litsy a bit more over this year and have been having fun taking photos of books….so many books.
Any way enough of me going on!
A huge thank you to everyone who has supported me over the past two years! Thank you for being on this journey with me and sailing along with me, supporting me. You are all truly amazing….so much so I am failing to put anything into words the one thing I really do need to say….
THANK YOU *hugs everybody* x
Giveaways!
With thanks to some wonderful publishers I am hosting some giveaways in celebration of my second bloggerversary. These giveaways are mainly YA or MG releases.
Some lovely publishers have kindly donated some wonderful wonderful prizes that I cannot wait for you all to see!
All the giveaways including details of the books are listed below and will be on a week long rafflecopter giveaway for each giveaway**. Some are single book giveaways some are book bundles.
**Excludes one giveaway that is being hosted on twitter here**
Do check the terms and conditions before entering and good luck!
Please note these giveaways will be UK only unless specified.
A huge thank you to all of the publishers who donated prizes.
Giveaway One
With thanks to the lovely people at Chicken House I have 5 copies of The Secret Of Nightingale Hall by Lucy Strange to giveaway to 5 lucky winners.
UK Only
1919. Mama is ill. Father has taken a job abroad. Nanny Jane is too busy to pay any attention to Henrietta and the things she sees – or thinks she sees – in the shadows of their new home, Hope House. All alone, with only stories for company, Henry discovers that Hope House is full of strange secrets: a forgotten attic, ghostly figures, mysterious firelight that flickers in the trees beyond the garden. One night she ventures into the darkness of Nightingale Wood. What she finds there will change her whole world …
Giveaway Two
With thanks to the lovely people at Scholastic I have brilliant YA Contemporary Book Bundle to giveaway to 1 lucky winner.
UK Only
The book bundle includes…..
Avery Dennis is a high school senior and one of the most popular girls in her class. But a major public breakup with her boyfriend threatens to ruin Avery’s plans for a perfect senior prom and Avery starts thinking about all the guys she’s dated. How come none of those relationships worked out? Could it be her fault? Avery tracks down her exes and interviews them, compiling a total account of her dating history. She discovers some truths about herself along the way…just in time for prom night!
I, Bella Fisher, am absolutely WINNING at FAILING at life. 1. I once got my tongue stuck to a box of Calippos in a supermarket. 2. I accidentally called my geography teacher Mum. Twice. He wasn’t impressed. 3. I’m a geek. And not in a geek-chic kind of way, but in a secretly-caring-about-failing-maths-and-science way. 4. I always fail maths and science. So it figures that when I meet the FITTEST BOY IN THE WORLD, Zac, I’m doing solo star jumps. While dressed as a cereal box. *(NOTE TO SELF, fancy dress = HE-WILL-NEVER-EVER-FANCY-ME dress.) Now I’ve got to somehow persuade Zac to come to prom with me while avoiding my evil ex and dealing with a secret so mega-awks I want to Ctrl-Z my brain… What could go wrong? Oh yeah, that’s right. Absolutely everything.
This summer, Summer’s saying goodbye to her best friend, her secret crush and her single mom and is off on a trip of a lifetime to visit her estranged artist father in France. But right before she’s about to board, her phone rings. Should she answer it? Either way, it’s going to be a summer Summer will never forget.
Penelope is a pretty regular sixteen year old girl living in New York City. Except for a few run-ins with her nemesis Cherisse, high school has been fairly drama free …until the day that Keats shows up at school. Handsome, charming, but with an edge, Keats comes in and upends everything. Faced with her first break-up, and her first heartbreak, Penelope decides to put together a collection to tell her story and help her sort out her feelings. Featuring a spectrum of artefacts that chronicle the lives of the curator, her best friends, her first boyfriend and some dinosaurs, the Museum of Heartbreak explores the giddy confusion, inevitable sadness and sheer joy of growing up and falling in love.
Giveaway Three
With thanks to the lovely people at Rock The Boat I have a brilliant sequel to giveaway to 1 lucky winner, Gemina by Jay Kristoff and Amie Kaufman.
UK only
Hanna Donnelly is the station captain’s pampered daughter and Nik Malikov is the reluctant member of a notorious crime family. Together they struggle with the realities of life aboard the galaxy’s most boring space station, blissfully unaware that Kady Grant and the Hypatia are headed right toward Heimdall with news of the Kerenza invasion.
Picking up about five minutes after Illuminae ends, Gemina is the electrifying sequel to the hottest YA novel of 2015.
Giveaway Four
Again with thanks to the lovely people at Rock The Boat I have two hard hitting brilliant books to giveaway as one prize pack.
UK only
The pack includes….
Charlie Davis is in pieces. At seventeen, she’s already lost more than most people lose in a lifetime. But she’s learned how to forget it through cutting; the pain washes out the sorrow until there is nothing but calm. She doesn’t have to think about her father or what happened under the bridge. Her best friend, Ellis, who is gone forever. Or the mother who has nothing left to give her. Kicked out of a special treatment center when her insurance runs out, Charlie finds herself in the bright and wild landscape of Tucson, Arizona, where she begins the unthinkable: the long journey of putting herself back together.
‘There were friends once, but they melted away. Things are different now I am a MONSTER’
Frances is alone. Cast away on a small island in the middle of the Indian Ocean, she has to find water, food and shelter. But survival is hard. Especially when she is haunted by memories of the things that she did before, the things that made her a monster. Pushed to the limit in extreme conditions, she battles to come to terms with her past, and find a future worth fighting for.
This is a gripping and thought-provoking story about one girl’s journey to become the person she believes she can be.
Giveaway Five
With thanks to the lovely people at Bloomsbury I have 3 sets of this fab trilogy including a poster to giveaway for 3 lucky winners!
UK Only
As a general’s daughter in a vast empire that revels in war and enslaves those it conquers, Kestrel has two choices: she can join the military or get married. Kestrel has other ideas.
One day, she is startled to find a kindred spirit in Arin, a young slave up for auction. Following her instinct, Kestrel buys him – and for a sensational price that sets the society gossips talking. It’s not long before she has to hide her growing love for Arin. But he, too, has a secret and Kestrel quickly learns that the price she paid for him is much higher than she ever could have imagined.
The first novel in a stunning new trilogy, The Winner’s Curse is a story of romance, rumours and rebellion, where dirty secrets and careless alliances can be deadly – and everything is at stake.
Lady Kestrel’s engagement to Valoria’s crown prince calls for great celebration: balls and performances, fireworks and revelry. But to Kestrel it means a cage of her own making. Embedded in the imperial court as a spy, she lives and breathes deceit and cannot confide in the one person she really longs to trust …
While Arin fights to keep his country’s freedom from the hands of his enemy, he suspects that Kestrel knows more than she shows. As Kestrel comes closer to uncovering a shocking secret, it might not be a dagger in the dark that cuts him open, but the truth.
Lies will come undone, and Kestrel and Arin learn just how much their crimes will cost them in this second book in the breathtaking Winner’s trilogy.
Following the intrigue and danger of The Winner’s Curse and the revolution and romance of The Winner’s Crime, Kestrel finds herself in the tundra’s mines and Arin has sailed home. The empire seems unstoppable.
Lies will come undone, and Kestrel and Arin will learn just how much their crimes will cost them in this third and final installment in the heart-stopping Winner’s trilogy.
Giveaway Six
Again with thanks to Bloomsbury I have two proof copies of The Edge Of Everything by Jeff Giles to giveaway for two lucky winners.
UK Only
**Please note these are proof copies and will not be finished copies**
Every day, Zoe struggles to keep going. The cruel winter took her father’s life and left her angry and broken hearted. As she carries her little brother through a snowstorm that could kill him in minutes, her only thought is finding shelter. The cabin beyond the woods is far from the place of safety she hoped it would be, but it is there that she meets a man whose muscular body, marked with strange and primitive tattoos, hints at an extraordinary story. He has the power to light up the lake, and with it, Zoe’s world.
Zoe calls the stranger X. He is a bounty hunter, tormented by the evils of his victims, which course through his veins. X has never known anything but hate, until he meets Zoe. She shows him what a heart is really for and, if they can find a way to be together, just maybe, his pain can help Zoe forget her own.
This high-stakes, heart-pounding romance will leave readers breathless for this break-out new series and its sequel.
Giveaway Seven
Another Giveaway with thanks to Bloomsbury – I have 5 copies of Stealing Snow by Danielle Paige each with its own compact mirror to giveaway to 5 lucky winners.
UK Only
Seventeen-year-old Snow lives within the walls of the Whittaker Institute, a high security mental hospital in upstate New York. Deep down, she knows she doesn’t belong there, but she has no memory of life outside, except for the strangest dreams. And then a mysterious, handsome man, an orderly in the hospital, opens a door – and Snow knows that she has to leave .
She finds herself in icy Algid, her true home, with witches, thieves, and a strangely alluring boy named Kai. As secret after secret is revealed, Snow discovers that she is on the run from a royal lineage she’s destined to inherit, a father more powerful and ruthless than she could have imagined, and choices of the heart that could change everything. Heroine or villain, queen or broken girl, frozen heart or true love, Snow must choose her fate .
A wonderfully icy fantastical romance, with a strong heroine choosing her own destiny, Danielle Paige’s irresistibly page-turning Snow Queen is like Maleficent and Frozen all grown up.
Giveaway Eight
With thanks again to Bloomsbury I have a copy of this gorgeous book to giveaway to one lucky winner.
UK Only
Frank doesn’t know how to feel when Nick Underbridge rescues her from bullies one afternoon. No one likes Nick. He’s big, he’s weird and he smells – or so everyone in Frank’s class thinks.
And yet, there’s something nice about Nick’s house. There’s strange music playing there, and it feels light and good and makes Frank feel happy for the first time in forever.
But there’s more to Nick, and to his house, than meets the eye, and soon Frank realises she isn’t the only one keeping secrets. Or the only one who needs help .
A poignant, darkly comic and deeply moving story about the power of the extraordinary, and finding friendship where you least expect it. Written by the author of the critically acclaimed The Imaginary and illustrated by award-winning illustrator Levi Pinfold, this is perfect for fans of Roald Dahl and Neil Gaiman
Giveaway Nine
Again with thanks to Bloomsbury I have three proof copies of The Dragon With The Chocolate Heart by Stephanie Burgis to giveaway to three lucky winners.
UK Only
**Please note these are proof copies and will not be finished copies**
Aventurine is the fiercest, bravest kind of dragon, and she’s ready to prove it to her family by leaving the safety of their mountain cave and capturing the most dangerous prey of all: a human.
But when the human she captures tricks her into drinking enchanted hot chocolate, she finds herself transformed into a puny human girl with tiny blunt teeth, no fire, and not one single claw. She’s still the fiercest creature in these mountains though – and now she’s found her true passion: chocolate! All she has to do is walk on two feet to the human city, find herself an apprenticeship (whatever that is) in a chocolate house (which sounds delicious), and she’ll be conquering new territory in no time . won’t she?
Wild and reckless young Aventurine will bring havoc to the human city – but what she doesn’t expect is that she’ll find real friendship there too, along with betrayal, deception, scrumptious chocolate and a startling new understanding of what it means to be a human (and a dragon).
A pinch of Ella Enchanted, a sprinkling of How to Train your Dragon and a generous helping of Eva Ibbotsen -The Dragon with a Chocolate Heart is entirely delicious.
Giveaway 10
Another giveaway with thanks to Bloomsbury I have three copies of the brilliant The Light That Gets Lost by Natasha Carthew to giveaway to three lucky winners.
UK Only
A small boy hiding in a cupboard witnesses something no child should ever see. He tries not to look but he still hears it. And when he comes out, there’s no mistaking. His mum and dad have been killed. And though he’s only small, he swears that he’ll get revenge one day.
Years later, Trey goes to a strange camp that is meant to save troubled teenagers. It’s packed with crazies, god-botherers, devoted felons and broken kids. Trey’s been in and out of trouble ever since the day the bad thing happened, but he’s not here for saving: this is where he’ll find the man who did it. Revenge and healing, salvation and hell are a boiling, dangerous mix, and Trey finds himself drawn to a girl, a dream and the offer of friendship in the dark.
Bonus Giveaway!
Another giveaway with thanks to Bloomsbury…..
I am currently hosting a giveaway on twitter to win one of three signed copies of A Court Of Thorns And Roses by the brilliant Sarah J Maas for three lucky winners!
UK/IRE
Feyre’s survival rests upon her ability to hunt and kill – the forest where she lives is a cold, bleak place in the long winter months. So when she spots a deer in the forest being pursued by a wolf, she cannot resist fighting it for the flesh. But to do so, she must kill the predator and killing something so precious comes at a price …
Dragged to a magical kingdom for the murder of a faerie, Feyre discovers that her captor, his face obscured by a jewelled mask, is hiding far more than his piercing green eyes would suggest. Feyre’s presence at the court is closely guarded, and as she begins to learn why, her feelings for him turn from hostility to passion and the faerie lands become an even more dangerous place. Feyre must fight to break an ancient curse, or she will lose him forever.
The start of a sensational romantic fantasy trilogy by the bestselling author of the Throne of Glass series.
Contains mature content. Not suitable for younger readers.
Just follow on twitter and retweet – here
Another huge thank you to all of the publishers that have contributed books to my two year giveaway.
And a huge thank you to YOU for all of your support over the past two years!
Good Luck and Happy Reading!
Happy blog birthday!!!
Great blog! Happy 2nd Bloganiversary. So many wonderful books.
Congratulations on your bloggerversary! You’re doing a great job. 🙂 And thanks so much for all these amazing giveaways. You do spoil us! 😛
thansk for running the giveaways! i love to read always on the look out for new authors
Happy Blog Birthday x Congratulations on two years of your wonderful blog.
Congrats on your amazing achievements over the past 2 years & thanks for organising this fantastic giveaway!
Happy Blog birthday <3
Congratulations on two years! And thank you for the lovely giveaway!
Happy 2 Year Bloggingversary! ???
PS. Thanks for the giveaways, keeping everything crossed for some freebies for my personal bookshelf at school.
Happy Blog-Anniversary! Has it really been two years? I feel like I’ve been following the blog so much longer… And thanks so much for such incredible give-aways 🙂 Fingers crossed!
Happy Blog Birthday, great prizes
Happy Bloggerversary! Thanks so much for the wonder competitions.
Great competitions 🙂
Happy anniversary, brilliant books