Authors Are Rockstars Tour - Leahfreakin'Clifford Interview + Extra

Today as a part of the Authors Are Rockstars Tour, I get to host the fabulous and one and only, Leahfreakin'Clifford - Queen of Dark and Twisty! ;)

The best way for me to express how much I love Leahfreakin'Clifford is to whip out my arsenal of gifs. There's just so much I want to say and the only way to clearly express those feels are through gifs.

Leah Clifford is one heckuva rockstar author to me because when A Touch Mortal debuted, there were so many mixed feelings about it that I just got the impression that it wasn't going to be something that I would thoroughly enjoy. Therefore, you can only imagine my shock when I fell head-over-heals-dumbfounded-in-all-sorts-of-crazy-stupid-love for A Touch Mortal.

In My Mailbox (14)

IMM is a weekly meme hosted by Kristi at The Story Siren with some inspiration from Alea at Pop Culture Junkie where we post about books we have received during the week via mailbox, local library, or store bought, etc.

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• Angelfire/Wings of the Wicked swag

• A Touch Morbid bookmarks

• A Grave Mercy bookmark

• Grave Mercy by Robin LaFevers (Goodreads | Amazon)

• A Pure bookmark

• An Angelina's Secret bookmark

• Elemental by Emily White (Goodreads | Amazon)

• An Elemental tattoo

• A Masters of the Veil bookmark

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Ha, I have a story to tell you guys about the books I got this week but first, to the swag!

A ginormous thank you to the fabulous Courtney Allison Moulton for sending me that huge load of amazing swag! If you guys don't know it by now, I'm like...the ultimate fan of the Angelfire series so when I got my sister-in-law to read Angelfire, she kept asking me how Will looked like, how Ellie looked like, etc. and when I went to look for my Angelfire bookmarks to give her a set, I was down to only a few...left for myself. And then...those awesome bookmarks showed up at my doorstep...well, my mailbox - same thing! I loooove them so much! <333

I didn't receive the two books until earlier today. I knew that the mail person came around 12-3 in the afternoon but I...just didn't go outside to check, lololol! I don't know...today has been such a weird day for me. Yesterday, when I got home from school, I knocked the eff out until 8pm, woke up for thirty minutes, then I crashed until 8am, this morning. I couldn't sleep anymore so I got up and watched Robin Hood; I told myself that after I finished the movie, I'll start on my homework. Gag - homework. That was such a slow and arduous process, nearly killed me. In between answering homework problems, I was tweeting and then a friend of mine asked if I had received Grave Mercy; that triggered me to go outside and check the mailbox. When I got to the mailbox, there were two awesome packages waiting in there for me! My reaction:

I totally should have checked sooner but I wasn't really expecting anything...well, I was expecting Grave Mercy but I didn't think it was going to show up until early next week. Anyway, I'm super duper excited to start that one; actually, I'm going to start it as soon as I finish up this post and this interview I have to do!

An enormous thank you to Shellie from Creative Reads for sending me her ARC copy of Grave Mercy! She knew that I have been wanting to read this one since the beginning of time and I seriously cannot thank her enough! She absolutely rocks the hardest! <333

Another big thank you to the amazing crew over at Spencer Hill Press for sending me an ARC of Elemental! I cannot wait to dive into this one! It's definitely up at the top of the pile! Also, the swag - eeep! When I saw the Pure bookmark in there, I realized that it was my very first one...which was sorta weird! I mean, I would have bugged the heck out of JenniferLA for sending me some Pure swag...but I...hmm, it never occurred to me! Anywho, I absolutely luuuurve it!

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So, what was in all of your guys' mailbox this week?! Anything superbly awesome?! Leave yo links and I'll be by! Happy reading!

And dudes, Games of Thrones is almost back! WOOT WOOT!

In My Mailbox (13)

IMM is a weekly meme hosted by Kristi at The Story Siren with some inspiration from Alea at Pop Culture Junkie where we post about books we have received during the week via mailbox, local library, or store bought, etc.

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• A Touch Morbid by Leah Clifford (Goodreads | Amazon)

• Incarnate by Jodi Meadows (Goodreads | Amazon)

• Wings of the Wicked by Courtney Allison Moulton (Goodreads | Amazon)

• Unearthly by Cynthia Hand (Goodreads | Amazon)

• Hallowed by Cynthia Hand (Goodreads | Amazon)

• Fracture by Megan Miranda (Goodreads | Amazon)

• Everneath by Brodi Ashton (Goodreads | Amazon)

• Pandemonium by Lauren Oliver (Goodreads | Amazon)

• Timeless by Alexandra Monir (Goodreads | Amazon)

• The Demon's Covenant by Sarah Rees Brennan (Goodreads | Amazon)

• Black City by Elizabeth Richards (Goodreads | Amazon)

• The Waiting Sky by Lara Zielin (Goodreads | Amazon)

• The Right & the Real by Joelle Anthony (Goodreads | Amazon)

• Cold Fury by T. M. Goeglein (Goodreads | Amazon)

• Angelfire by Courtney Allison Moulton (Goodreads | Amazon)

• The Iron Knight by Julie Kagawa (Goodreads | Amazon)

• Pure by Jennifer L. Armentrout (Goodreads | Amazon)

• Masters of the Veil by Daniel A. Cohen (Goodreads | Amazon)

A close up of the ARCS from Putnam

• Angelfire/Wings of the Wicked bookmarks

• Ten bookmarks

• A manuscript that I'm beta reading for the awesome Cait from Writer's Wanderings

• A CD of Alexandra Monir's book playlist for Timeless

Now, the copies of Angelfire, Wings of the Wicked, Incarnate, Everneath, Unearthly and Hallowed have already been featured in previous IMMs but I got them back yesterday from Katie over at Mundie Moms after she did me a huge favor by taking them to a Pitch Dark Days tour stop to get them signed for me!

Reapers, did ya see that? I'm her favorite! ;)

The three books below are also signed copies that I won in giveaways!

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Overall, it has been a pretty epic mail box week. I received my Dark Days Book and the Putnam ARCs just yesterday but the other books arrived earlier in the week or the previous week.  I am beyond excited to get to all of these awesome books!

A ginormous thank you to Putnam, Katie B., Cait, Amy from the YA Sisterhood, HarperCollins, Alexandra, Daniel, and Angela from Reading Angel!

Whew, it took me a decade and a day to get those photos formatted correctly! Anyway, it would be an understatement to say that I am excited to read all of these pretties; I've got enough to keep me occupied for a while! Eep! So, my awesome lovely bookworms, what did all of you receive this week? Leave your links or a comment below and I will surely check out your load!

Happy Sunday everyone! Omgomgomgomg, Sunday! Aah, the Walking Dead finale is tonight! WOOT WOOT!

In My Mailbox (11)

IMM is a weekly meme hosted by Kristi at The Story Siren with some inspiration from Alea at Pop Culture Junkie where we post about books we have received during the week via mailbox, local library, or store bought, etc.

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Yes, that is Wings of the Wicked all in its shiny, shiny, shiny glory! I'll tell you my story about it later because I have close-up pictures to show you guys of all the awesome goodies I received this week.

• Forbidden by Syrie James & Ryan M. James (Goodreads | Amazon)

• My Sould to Keep by Rachel Vincent (Goodreads | Amazon)

• Arcadia Awakens by Kai Meyer (Goodreads | Amazon)

• A Touch Morbid by Leah Clifford (Goodreads | Amazon)

• Incarnate by Jodi Meadows (Goodreads | Amazon)

• Wings of the Wicked by Courtney Allison Moulton (Goodreads | Amazon)

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Okay, so last night I was creepin' on the twittah and I saw a retweet by Jodi Meadows where someone had tweeted her and told her that their...B&N (I think) had copies of Incarnate out early. I got excited and thought that maybe my B&N might have copies of Wings of the Wicked and Incarnate out early so I immediately wanted to go right then...but sadly, I didn't have a ride to my B&N (which is only like five minutes away and if I was desperate enough, I could have walked).

So, this morning I got up around eight and my sister was doing her laundry and then we had to run to Wal-mart and.....fast forward this part of my story. After we left Wal-mart, I told my sister to drop by B&N because I really wanted to check. I'm never on my B&N's ass about their books and stuff so I didn't have much hope that they would have the books out early but I was telling my sister that the shipment of books for Wings of the Wicked and Incarnate were probably there already and if they weren't out, sitting on the shelves, they would be sitting in the back of the store...or something.

We were so early that I didn't think B&N opened yet so I had my sister drive right up to the door so I could see the store hours and they opened from 9am-10pm. I looked at the clock and it said 9:11 (but the clock is set five minutes ahead). My sister parked and then we went inside...and I'm pretty sure we were the first customers of the day. We were greeted by one of the employees who kindly said good morning to us and to my right, on one of the stands, I saw copies of Everneath then I pointed and said to my sister, "Ah, I gotta come back and get that one too!"

We walked towards the YA section and before I could even walk down the aisle, I saw Incarnate sitting there on the shelf. I ran up to it and touched the cover ever so lightly, adrenaline shooting through me. Then I looked down the aisle and there it was, Wings of the Wicked filled completely to the edge of the shelf, almost falling over. I ran to stand right in front of the book, looking at it in disbelief then I started clapping like a dolphin, shrieking, "IT'S HERE! IT'S HERE! THEY HAVE IT!" My sister came down the aisle saying, "You. Look. So. Scary." Then I hit her a few times because I was so freakin' ecstatic. After I was for sure that the copies were there and my eyes weren't playing tricks on me, I walked around the shelf to the other side just to get a look at all the awesome books sitting there.

My sister started rushing me and I had to just keep looking at Incarnate and Wings sitting there because it made me so happy. I counted how many copies were out and they had four copies of Incarnate and eight copies of Wings of the Wicked. :)

Needless to say, purchasing those two books most definitely made my weekend...if only I went and checked last night but better late than never, eh?

Some pictures of the books on the shelves:

Thanks to:

• Yara from Once Upon a Twilight!

• Rachel from Fiktshun

• Kreag from I Devour Books

Lastly,

What did you receive in your mailbox this week?

Top 10 Characters In 2011

Top 10 of 2011 is a week long event hosted by the awesome Jessica from Confessions of a Bookaholic, Lisa from A Life Bound By Books, Rachel from Fiktshun and Patricia and Jaime from Two Chicks On Books where we look back on all the awesome books of 2011 and look forward to all the amazing new releases of 2012.

This post can be anything related to book characters so I figured why not do a combination of favorite villains, bffs, the other guy in the love triangle, etc. ;) Throughout the year, as I was reading a fews books, these characters stood out to me...besides the leading male and female so here is where they get their spotlight!

TOP 10 CHARACTERS IN 2011

1. Brea from Half Moon by Jordan Deen

Why: If there was a Best Friend Award, Brea would totally get it hands down!

2. Kate from Angelfire by Courtney Allison Moulton

Why: Because she was so real and cool and chill and flat out awesome!

3. Toraf from Of Poseidon by Anna Banks

Why: Haha, I just love him. :)

4. Caleb from Half-Blood by Jennifer L. Armentrout

Why: If I were to have a guy bff, Caleb would be him, most definitely!

5. Diana from The Lonely Hearts Club by Elizabeth Eulberg

Why: Like I stated in my review, she showed the most growth to me and something about her just stood out to me.

6. Cadan from Wings of the Wicked by Courtney Allison Moulton

Why: For him and the two fellows below, do you guys even need a why? JUST CAUSE.

7. Seth from Pure by Jennifer L. Armentrout

Why: Like Seth would probably say, "What he ↑ ↑ ↑ said." LOL

8. Adrian Ivashkov from Frost Bite by Richelle Mead

Why: Better question, why NOT?! *wink wink*

9. Kristen from A Touch Mortal by Leah Clifford

Why: She's got so much spunk and attitude! I like. When I think Kristen, I see this:

10. Luke from A Touch Mortal by Leah Clifford

Why: He's the ultimate bad boy...and that's saying a lot because when the character is an obvious villain, I tend to stay away but man...I can't resist. ;)

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I think we have reached the easy posts of Top 10 of 2011 because this post for me was easy peasy! I think these characters will always be my top ten...for a while. But who knows. :)

What do you think? Do you agree with my choices? Have you ever heard of them? I like how I feature six characters from three authors, haha! Yeah, they're just that awesome!

Well, tomorrow is the last day of Top 10 of 2011 and that post is the one where we look back and forward, all at once. It will consist of the Top 10 Books I'm Looking Forward to in 2012 along with a few recaps of total number of books I've read, pages read, etc. I might even include some end of the year stats with any other stats I feel like sharing, haha!

Come back tomorrow, one last time, to look forward with me as we approach 2012.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAH!

Top 10 Books I’ve Read In 2011

Oh my gosh, here we are - the last week of 2011. I can't believe it, this year seriously flew by. I know, lots of people probably say this at the end of every year but for some reason, this year really flew by in the blink of an eye!


Top 10 of 2011 is a week long event hosted by the awesome Jessica from Confessions of a Bookaholic, Lisa from A Life Bound By Books, Rachel from Fiktshun and Patricia and Jaime from Two Chicks On Books where we look back on all the awesome books of 2011 and look forward to all the amazing new releases of 2012.
TOP 10 BOOKS I'VE READ IN 2011
Let me just say that I had a really hard time making this list. Well, it was hard until I took a look at my little scroll box down there on my sidebar where I listed all the books I read this year. And if you take a look, there are only thirty books there, lol. Then my choices were really narrowed down but it helped me out a ton too, so shall we get to it? Also, although I have my list numbered, there really isn't any particular order to them...besides the first three. ;)

1. The Crescent by Jordan Deen - I had read The Crescent way back in March, during the weekend of my birthday, to be exact, and instantly I fell in love with it. I'm not sure if it was because of my sister's constant raving that rubbed off on me or what, but the storyline of this series was unique and really captivating. I don't think many have heard of this series but I highly recommend it to everyone and anyone who can read. And I love it so much that my number two is:

2. Half Moon by Jordan Deen - Yeah, I love this series that much. Jordan Deen did amazing stuff in book two. I can't even express why I love them so much. Of the two though, this one is definitely my most favorite but who knows since book three hasn't been released yet. You know those kind of books where after you finish it you don't even know how to think or function? Yeah, these two stunned me breathless! I am still blown away by them because I still haven't gathered my thoughts completely to write my reviews for them. That amazing!



3. Wings of the Wicked by Courtney Allison Moulton - Aaah, I get so excited when I, or anyone, talks about Wings of the Wicked. It doesn't release until February 1st of 2012 (all of you should go pre-order it right now) so not a lot of people have read it yet but man oh man, this book did things to me. I think it was the emotional turmoil that took me over the edge. This book is action packed but I was hooked by the heart to Ellie and Will's relationship. Courtney Allison Moulton is a genius. A genius, I tell you!



4. Half-Blood by Jennifer L. Armentrout - I love this book solely for the leading female, Alex. Man, I feel like I've been raving about this girl for a decade now. ;) She makes the Covenant series what it is and I mean, the guys are a total plus but Alex is what makes this series shine! Also, the mythology behind it is also very interesting and nothing like I've ever read! Total favorite!



5. Shadow Kiss by Richelle Mead - Any book that can make me bawl my eyes out immediately make the list for me. And man, I cried like a little 5 year old throwing a tantrum at a grocery store. I'm serious. If any of you have read this series, you might be able to understand why I was furious towards the end of this book. I was furious because...it was one those situations where I was like, "YOU CAN'T UNDO SOMETHING LIKE THAT! WHAT THE HECK WAS RICHELLE THINKING?!" Yeah, I was uber sad and pissed at the same time so my tears were full of fury and pain. And this book was totally my favorite from the entire series.

6. Falling Under by Gwen Hayes - Like I mentioned above, I'm a sucker for books that stir my emotions straight to tears and this book was another one of those. Gwen Hayes surely knows how to write a creeptastic novel. I just remember being seriously creeped out by this book but I loved it at the same time. And the ending was intense...hence the tears!

7. A Touch Mortal by Leah Clifford - This book is definitely a dark and twisty read. Whenever I think about this book, I see darkness, lol! Deep sigh....this book was surely something. I really enjoyed this read because it was different; Leah took angels and demons to a whole new level! And look at that cover - gorgeous!

8. Of Poseidon by Anna Banks - Omg, I know this book is not even out until May of 2012 but the awesome author sent me a copy to read and asdfjkl;asdfjkl;! ;) I can't even...blerugh! It's such a terrific read, maybe because I haven't read anything with mermaids before, but either way, make sure you guys include this into your "Must Read for 2012" pile.

9. Original Sin by Lisa Desrochers - Original Sin was one hot, sizzling read! As most of you probably know, I am a ginormous fan of Lisa Desrochers's books. The guys in this series are to die for, I mean, Luc Cain - humananah humananah and Gabe definitely has his appeal too! The dialogue of the different points of views just flowed off the pages and it was very entertaining to read.

10. Angel Burn by L. A. Weatherly - First off, I absolutely love Weatherly's writing! It was just...beautiful! I was completely blown away by the different take on angels, like they were seriously scary! I am also madly in love with Alex Kylar because he was just the normal human boy but he was oh so very hot and sexy!

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What are some of your top ten books of 2011? Are some of your top ten the same as mine?! Do share in the comments below! I would love to see your top picks! :)

Also, be sure to check back tomorrow for my top ten book covers of 2011! Don't miss it!