August Reading Round-off

Good morning chaps! I know it has been a while since I posted on this blog but I have to own up to be being busy with a new blog that I've been setting up to talk about my writing and studying for the next year. So you won't see any more Writing Ray posts on this blog, instead they will be over on my new wordpress blog Ray May Write where I will also be posting about my experience studying two Open University modules at the same time.
While I know it won't appeal to everyone, I hope that some folk who may be interested in some of the things that crop up from studying a Creative Writing or French course might consider heading over there and following the blog. I am going to try and make my posts both interesting and informative :P

Right now that bit's over let's turn to this month's reading. It was a decent month compared to previous this year. 12 Books were read although there were 5 re-reads. BUT I will defend myself by pointing out that two *had* to be read before Isla came out! And another needed to be re-read before I read the second book since it had been a few years.

Books read in August
77. The Masterful Mr Montague by Stephanie Laurens (1/8/2014 AM)
78. A Rake's Vow by Stephanie Laurens (1/8/2014 AM) *RE-READ*
79. The Library of Unrequited Love by Sophie Divry (7/8/2014 PM)
80. Anna & the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins (7/8/2014 PM) *RE-READ*
81. Lola & the Boy Next Door by Stephanie Perkins (8/8/2014 AM) *RE-READ*
82. Blood Red Road by Moira Young (8/8/2014 PM) *RE-READ*
83. Rebel Heart by Moira Young (13/8/2014 PM)
84. Isla & the Happily Ever After by Stephanie Perkins (14/8/2014 PM)
85. Roomies by Sara Zarr & Tara Altebrando (16/8/2014 AM)
86. Tribute by Ellen Renner (24/8/2014 AM)
87. Ruin & Rising by Leigh Bardugo (26/8/2014 AM)
88. Ultraviolet by R.J. Anderson (28/8/2014 PM) *RE-READ*

Book of the Month

This is going to be an easy decision because it's the book everyone has been waiting for since they read the first page of Anna & the French Kiss. After a wait that was a bit longer than we expected we finally got our mitts on Isla and the Happily Ever After on August 14th. Except it didn't go quite to plan since the UK pre-orders didn't get dispatched from Amazon so I had a very angry rant on Twitter before buying the e-book and devouring that instead. 

Stephanie is a sorceress I'm telling you - her words are pure magic and her characters make you laugh, cry, lust and generally FEEL ALL THE THINGS! Isla and Josh pulled me through a wringer of emotions, the ups had me grinning like a fool in love while the downs had me almost clutching my heart in the shared agony. It was a sublime ending to this trilogy of connected awesomeness and I am desperately awaiting whatever Stephanie writes next (Although I know she's got a short story coming out as part of the My True Love Gave to Me book which looks to be AMAZEBALLS).

Honourable Mention for Leigh Bardugo's Ruin & Rising (Grisha #3) the final book in her epic YA fantasy trilogy. It also had me running the gamut of feels and finished in a way that I hadn't really expected but really loved all the same. 

I had the really amazing opportunity to meet Leigh along with Moira Young (Author of Blood Red Road) when they did a Writing Q&A event at Birmingham Waterstones earlier this month. It was a fantastic day and I heard some excellent writing advice, even plucked up the courage to ask my own question and also got to chat books and writing with awesome folk. Jess did a great write-up of the event over here.

The week before that event Jess and I were in Birmingham for the David Levithan event. He did some readings from his new(ish) book Two Boys Kissing as well as answering questions from Steve Camden (Author of Tape) and the audience. It was at this signing that David told us that if we coming to see Leigh next week that we should ask her about her High school mascot. Me and Lily  of Whispering of the Pages actually asked Leigh about it as she was signing our books - her reaction went something like the pic below, followed by a vow to punch David in the face next time she saw time :P I also think that David had told fans at his Liverpool event to ask Leigh about it as well since she was tweeting after her event there about needing dirt on him stat. *hehehehe*

So it was a pretty awesome month since as well as going to these two events with Jess, I also went to see Brandon Sanderson (Author of the Mistborn trilogy and more recently the Stormlight Archives) in Nottingham with Le Boyf. He did some readings from a new book that is coming out soon as well as one from the third Stormlight book. I don't know what happened in that one since I had to go stand outside with the other naughty kids who hadn't read Words of Radiance yet since it would be spoilerific *hangs head*. Afterwards he signed books and I schlepped up with eight of the nine books that I own (fucking forgot the first half of the Way of Kings like an idiot) and got them signed, some personalised to me and some to Le Boyf since we've both read almost all of his books.

September is going to be a quieter month I think in terms of bookish things, I'll be gearing up towards starting my OU modules and there are no more author events for the time being so I gotta get to work.

Hope everyone had a good August, summer is nearly over!

Ray x