What I read in July 2024

I unfortunately do not have the energy to review every book I read or every game I play. I frequently say stuff on Twitter, but that's about it. I feel it would be nice to get back into the habit of monthly reads' plays so at least you know what I've been reading and gaming. So let's begin with the books! The games will be in a separate post

Due to being tired and unwell more than normal I didn't read a lot this month and that's ok

The Abandonned Empress by Yuna and Ina, Korean Manga, Excellent

The fact each page is full colour has me so happy! Trying not to be killed in her reincarnated life, this little Empress is smart, has the most beautiful clothes and a tale that I'm intrigued by and wish I could afford more than one book every 1-2 months. 

AdelAIDE by Melinda Salisbury, Young Adult, Dyslexia Friendly, Teen, Excellent 

And people wonder I don't like AI! this is edge of the seat reading. Review here.

 

 Peter Pan by J M Barrie, Classic Literaure, Okay 

Peter is the villain - he kills pirates! Literally! Glad I read it but won't reread. Review here.

 

Pirate Academy #1 New Kid on Deck by Justin Somper, Children's, 7 years +, Excellent

Adored Justin's Vampireate series, check out my review here.

Sunshine At the Cornish Bakery by Sarah Hope, Romance, Very good 

Who doesn't love a bakery themed read? Yes it made me want pastries a lot. But was a sweet romance. 

Shelter in Place by Nora Roberts, Thriller, Audiobook, very good

1st ever Nora Roberts book, long but extremely clever with plot twists. Looking forward to the other books I have of hers.

 

Major Winter Review Policy Change from October 2017 to March 2018

This picture is usually kept for blog information posts.

Those of you who email before this post goes live may already have the news from my blog email auto-reply.  

After much thought I am having a reviewing hiatus from 1st October 2017 to 1st March 2018.

I'm choosing to not accept books for review until March 2018 UNLESS it's for a favourite author. There are a few exceptions - I've contacted a few publicists to keep sending me requests as they are predominantly picture books which I can both read and review quickly. Yeah. I appreciate that may be a bit of a surprise, but it doesn't mean this blog is going quiet for several months! 

I'll still be here!

Let's call what I'm doing winter hibernation. Winter is my worst time of year health wise, I don't do so well when the temperature hits below 10C (& definitely not below 5C). Stress negatively impacts my health (it does for everyone but my condition responds to stress badly), and while reviews aren't a life/death thing, I figure that by doing a suspension on reviews until March 2018 means I can focus more on relaxing. I will still read, it'll just be mostly my own books. And probably a lot of gaming reviews which those who follow me on Twitter @Nayuleska know I tweet a lot about LLSIF (Love Live School Idol Festival) and Deresute. 

Time for a slight change as Winter approaches

Life's been a bit chaotic and stressful lately, and the temperature is starting to decrease already (ignoring this week which seems to be having at least 1 day of a heatwave) hence the change in review policy. If you aren't sure if you're a favourite author (or you look after a favourite author) please do get in touch either by the form on this website (on the right hand menu) and I'll let you know, or send me an email. 

This doesn't affect reviews I've already committed myself to between October and March 2018. I am upholding those, this is more for anyone requesting a review from today will probably get a negative response from me. I will answer emails explaining that as I know not everyone checks back on my review policy (or on the type of genres I do review...). I will try and repost this post once a month in the absence of being unable to sticky a post here. 

I hope I can start accepting books for review sooner than March, but it does depend entirely on the weather. If we have a good winter, I'll accept books sooner. However, if we have a bad winter that I may have to extend the Winter Policy into March. I simply won't know until I get to February, which isn't for a few months yet! I appreciate your understanding in this policy change.

It totally feels like my body has two modes: Winter and Non-Winter!

I hope this is all clear - please let me know if you have any questions. I promise this blog isn't going dark until March 2018! If you are able to wait until March for a review then please do still ask me to do them. I really appreciate your continued support and understanding for changes related to my blogging schedule.

This blog will always be full of fun things!

Nayu's News #195 The weekend is here!

Relaxing is good!

It's exciting to reach the weekend, as these days I try and have Saturday as a non-blogging day. For some reason Saturdays have always felt like a non-work day to me. I know they are, but until I left my day job to pursue my craft and writing dreams I always had to do blog work on my days off which included Saturdays. So from now Saturdays are my designated grocery day, although the earlier I can get there the better. Even if I'm half asleep shopping at 8am on a Saturday is a peaceful affair as most sensible people are having a lie in. 

This week has been mixed, with a fair few days of feeling flakey. However, happy events have included: 

Family making yummy treats 

I've had the hard tasks of testing them out, to make sure they're edible.

Yarn for my next Nayu's Crochet Dreams baby blanket finally arriving!

Actually it's my yarn!

Ordering a small range of pattern books (some will be returned) - more on why I've done that in tomorrow's post. 

Not quite sending a letter, I just love this pic!

Arranging to have lunch with my previous day job's colleagues twice next week 

I'm super excited about catching up with them, like Alicia and Akira in the naime Aria the Natural

Watching lots of Aikatsu anime! 

Since I'm rewatching it I'm back when Ichigo, Ran (pictured) and Aoi are the central characters - sometimes I do crochet at the same time as watching :)

There's always an upside to life, one that I try to seek out as much as possible especially if I don't feel brilliant. I'll leave you with two sayings I came across today: 

Nayu's News #194 Sleep, books, reviews & yarn

Something cute to brighten your day!

I'm 'cheating' a little bit today and not putting a book review up. I love different posts, and I've spent this morning writing the main text to reviews - I had a whole load stacked up and I really want to get on top of it. All I have to do now is schedule them up, add a few details and links, and voila! Since it's near lunch I've been doing this for several hours I'm not inclined to post a review up. 

Treasure your sleep - insomnia sucks

Friday night unfortuntely was a night of not so much sleep. I woke at 2am on Saturday, and stayed awake until 10pm. Because lack of sleep can lead to migaines far too easily for my liking I spent all of yesterday in my room, mostly lying down, as it's all I want to do. Being away from the normal family goings on reduces a migraine occuring as it's more peaceful and my body doesn't go into sensory overload. 

This was me - except I was in normal day clothes. Snuggling up with a hot drink and cuddly toy is exactly what you need when severely over tired.

I managed to do some crochet squares for a baby blanket for Nayu's Crochet Dreams, watched some Winx, read a bit, then put the text to speech function on when I couldn't read (since I don't have review books as audiobooks. Text to speech is really good, and you can increase the recitation speed so I can 'read' it as fast as I'd read it. Had to stop because after a while that got too much. 

Got to the stage of everything feeling like too much!

I was falling asleep from lunch onwards, not really taking in what anyone said to me, since all I was thinking was 'I want to sleep!' Napping is always out of the question because I then won't sleep as well that night, so I have to stick it out. Hot chocolate and cake were my friends ^o^ 

Thankfully I slept right through last night. Felt fuzzy headed today, but somehow managed to do blog work - yay! Time for lunch then rest with anime, crochet, and reading, a perfect afternoon! 

Bye for miaow!

Awesome books, hot chocolate and oreos.

I've bought everything mentioned in this post for myself. 

Childhood Ballet Book series Classic

Drina. I can't remember who mentioned it on Twitter, but it set off my memory. I loved the Drina series by Jean Estoril when I was little. I never had my own copy, but I borrowed my friend's copy all the time. I adore school series, even more so if the girls involved are learning a skill like dancing or ice skating. So off I set about looking for the books. 

I promise I'm not going off on a tanget now - not too much, anyway. Recently I've noticed how some anime boxsets which I've bought are now super hard to find, and being sold for what I call stupid money (very expensive). Mostly I read books which are newly published, and/or going to be published soon. So I was feeling a little panicked with the lack of Drina books. I had to pay a little more on 3-5 of them. I then had to hunt down the final book in the series. 

When I saw the price I nearly cried. £17 for a book? Ridiculous! That's way too expensive considering the others were an awful lot less. I didn't despair - I checked a few of the international versions of the website I use, and thankfully I found it in the French version for a much more sensible price. I bought it pretty quickly, because I didn't want anyone else to nab it. 

I'm now very happy that I've decided to splash out on the whole series while they are still in my price range. Some of the books are in good condition. A few are 'acceptable'. I don't care about that - so long as I can read them (which is mostly what acceptable is) I don't care that the covers are all different, or with creases on. I just want to read the books. 

White Hot chocolate review

The other day, in my panic of nearly running out of hot chocolate (it shouldn't happen. Ever.) I hopped over to Thornton's to check their range out. They had a lot, just like Whittards (whose hot chocolate is delicious), but both sites charge a fair bit for postage - enough to cover over 1/2 a tub of chocolate powder. So I said no. 

I then went to the hot chocolate shelf in a local supermarket, determined to pick some up. Imagine my complete surprise when I saw Thornton's hot chocolate! I nabbed the white hot chocolate, and was intrigued by it. 

This afternoon I chose the Thornton's white hot chocolate to be my chocolate milk after work. I opened it up, and ended up dueling with the foil. I lifted the tab to pull it up, and the tab broke. There is a bit left, so I tried pulling on that, but that broke of too. With a few careful stabs of the spoon on the foil, I was able to peel it off. 

I then was a bit miffed. The chocolate powder was in lumps. I grumbled to myself about how it possibly had been on the shelf for a bit. I dutifully put in the chocolate 'powder', and then, like I always do, I picked up one of the lumps and ate it (Doing that is often a way to see if hot chocolate is any good). I had an explosion of white chocolate melt in my mouth. I was so shocked I picked up the tin and scanned the description. The hot chocolate hadn't been on the shelf too long. It is hot chocolate powder and white chocolate drops!!! 

Divine is an understatement. This is seriously yummy white hot chocolate milk (I prefer mine cold to hot). I'm definitely getting it again! 

Oreo review

As well as books and hot chocolate, I also love oreos. At the same supermarket which I bought the hot chocolate, I got the original and the chocolate cream version for a good price. Then there was the double cream filled ones for 30p more. I thought I'd try them, although wasn't convinced of the price difference. I do enjoy the cream, but I don't see why it's worth 30p more. I will just buy the normal ones in the future. 

Tonight I'm reading some of a children's horse based book, and fairy book, as well as watching fairy anime (Winx!) and some Negima. No writing for me as I'm working tomorrow and am pretty tired after my first day back after being off sick.

EVENT CLOSED The magic of books & Competition, international, 3 winners ends 8th August

A photo of one set of my bookshelves - they look a bit different now, and I have twice that amount of books in my room.

THIS EVENT IS NOW CLOSED 

Today is another not so great day. The good news is that its not a virus/infection/whatever, so no germ gremlins per se. Just my body going on strike instead. 

I find laughter and friendship get me through the tougher times at the moment. But what I dangle in front of my mind are books. (Can you imagine if I did that physically? All those books swinging too and fro? Or if I had all the books I'd ever read - well, I wouldn't be able to move!) 

I got through work by the thought of flipping through a graphic novel when I got home(Yoko Tsuno series in native French), and also by selecting a few children's books for review - I picked out some cute looking pictures books and a few others. I came home to a box of books (always a happy sight!), and a catalogue of books (I'm in total dreamland with all the books!). 

I remember through the trauma of being a teen, books were stable (unless they got a dunking in the bath or other body of water), reliable (apart from the odd misprint of pages which always made me laugh), thrilling (I would read near the curtains in the height of summer when it was still light and I was supposed to be sleeping), good fun (even when I ended up with several heavy library fines!)

It's true that love makes the world go round, and to some extent money does too. People may not know that books makes the world go round too. Books are read as relaxation before bed. Books are used to explore concepts and situations which are pretty tough to deal with in real life. Books are there to bring smiles and laughter especially if the world is looking a bit skewed from where you're sitting. Books hold a magic all of their own: so how do you feel about books? What do you use them for? 

Competition

The prize: 3 winners will each receive 1 book picked at random from my shelves/stacks/piles of books (to avoid duplication I will double check that the winners haven't got the books I've picked for them. It could be in almost any genre.

The deadline: Friday 8th July 12pm GMT

The rules: Be sure to read the protection policy 

Who can enter? Anyone - it doesn't matter if you're a follower or not, as long as you love books you can enter! It's a worldwide competition, so let your friends on little islands and large continents know about the Magic of Books!