Summer Book Haul!

Hello, guys! It's been quite a while since I last posted a book haul, and since then I have become the proud new owner of more than a few literary works. As summer is about to end, with school just around the corner, I thought why not write a post including all the books that have come to live in my shelves during this summer.

If you follow me on Twitter you'll know I've been traveling quite a lot around Europe this summer. First I went to Rome with my family as a surprise birthday present; a few weeks later I went to the UK for a university course at Newcastle and then to London for a few days with some of my friends; I then went to Pamplona (Spain) for San Fermines festivities; two weeks later I went to Paris with my sister; and last but not least I went to Mallorca for the weekend (the past weekend). This is A LOT for anyone, but it feels huge for me because I usually don't travel much, and for some reason it has come all at the same time. The thing is, I love buying books when I travel instead of the usual souvenir, so some of the mountains of books I bought this summer came from my travels. The rest, you'll find out about as you read along!

Without further ado, let's see how big my family has grown! 

The following books are in chronological order of purchase. I've included all my purchases from the day my summer started back in May.

Mini Review | Six of Crows, by Leigh Bardugo | 2017 Diverse Reads Challenge

Hello, everyone! I know I'm super, super, super late for this, but here's my mini review of the book I was supposed to read in March for the 2017 Diverse Reads Challenge! I hadn't had the chance to even read Six of Crows before last month because of the amount of ARCs I had to read (which, by the way, I was also late for). I had this challenge surprisingly well-planned, but I think it's pretty obvious I am not good at following my reading plans through! Anyway - it's summer now, and I do plan on getting back on track during the following months, so hopefully I'll be all set for September!

This will be a mini review because Six of Crows is the first book in a YA, fantasy duology - the second part of which I will be reading soon. I will post a full review for the two books once I finish the second part :)

This book falls within March's topic:

Disability

because its main character (Kaz) has a limp.  

"Criminal prodigy Kaz Brekker has been offered wealth beyond his wildest dreams. But to claim it, he'll have to pull off a seemingly impossible heist:

Break into the notorious Ice Court
(a military stronghold that has never been breached)

Retrieve a hostage
(who could unleash magical havoc on the world)

Survive long enough to collect his reward
(and spend it)

Kaz needs a crew desperate enough to take on this suicide mission and dangerous enough to get the job done - and he knows exactly who: six of the deadliest outcasts the city has to offer. Together, they just might be unstoppable - if they don't kill each other first." (Goodreads)

Cova Reviews | Caraval, by Stephanie Garber

Hello once more! This post will be a review of this year's release Caraval, by Stephanie Garber. It is a young adult, fantasy novel - the first in a series of books that are still to come. I listened to this book on Audiobook :)

"Remember, it’s only a game…

Scarlett Dragna has never left the tiny island where she and her sister, Tella, live with their powerful, and cruel, father. Now Scarlett’s father has arranged a marriage for her, and Scarlett thinks her dreams of seeing Caraval—the faraway, once-a-year performance where the audience participates in the show—are over.

But this year, Scarlett’s long-dreamt-of invitation finally arrives. With the help of a mysterious sailor, Tella whisks Scarlett away to the show. Only, as soon as they arrive, Tella is kidnapped by Caraval’s mastermind organizer, Legend. It turns out that this season’s Caraval revolves around Tella, and whoever finds her first is the winner.

Scarlett has been told that everything that happens during Caraval is only an elaborate performance. Nevertheless she becomes enmeshed in a game of love, heartbreak, and magic. And whether Caraval is real or not, Scarlett must find Tella before the five nights of the game are over or a dangerous domino effect of consequences will be set off, and her beloved sister will disappear forever.

Welcome, welcome to Caraval…beware of getting swept too far away." (Goodreads)

Top 5 Wednesday 3 | Books for your Hogwarts House

In the Goodreads Group Top 5 Wednesday we're given a topic for each Wednesday of the month, and we are meant to say our top 5 related to the topic. It was created by Lainey, and you can find more information here :)

Books for your Hogwarts House

Hello everyone! This week's T5W is all about Hogwarts - the top 5 books that represent our Hogwarts house. Now, you might think you belong to a certain Hogwarts House because that's the one you like or the one you think you'd fit in best, but truth is you'll never really know unless you've taken Pottermore's House sorting test. Yes, my friends. This page, ran partly by J.K. Rowling herself, is the ultimate tool for you to navigate through the wonders of Harry Potter's magical world. You can get your hands on the one wand meant just for you, and you can even attempt to get into Hogwarts by getting your head under the famous Sorting Hat. Only then you'll know for sure what your Hogwarts House is. 

I have, of course, taken the test, and I was lucky enough for the Sorting Hat to place me in the House I'd always wanted to be in - Gryffindor, the House for the brave and the courageous and the chivalrous. It had to be that one! 😏

And thus the books I have chosen to include in this post will for the adventurous, the daring, and the brave. Beware!

Cover pictures are linked to their respective Goodreads page.

Cova Reviews | The Raven Boys, by Maggie Stiefvater

Hello again! Today I bring to you a review of amazing YA, paranormal novel The Raven Boys, by Maggie Stiefvater. I'd heard some about it, and I found an awesome deal, so I just decided to buy it and only then asked if it was any good :P Luckily for me, I ended up really loving it! It is the first book to a series that has 4 books in it so far - The Raven Cycle. As I read it in audiobook format, it adds to the list of books I've listened to for my 2017 Audiobook Challenge! :D (surprisingly, I am 50% done with it and were're only half-way through March!). 

"“There are only two reasons a non-seer would see a spirit on St. Mark’s Eve,” Neeve said. “Either you’re his true love . . . or you killed him.”

It is freezing in the churchyard, even before the dead arrive.

Every year, Blue Sargent stands next to her clairvoyant mother as the soon-to-be dead walk past. Blue herself never sees them—not until this year, when a boy emerges from the dark and speaks directly to her.

His name is Gansey, and Blue soon discovers that he is a rich student at Aglionby, the local private school. Blue has a policy of staying away from Aglionby boys. Known as Raven Boys, they can only mean trouble.

But Blue is drawn to Gansey, in a way she can’t entirely explain. He has it all—family money, good looks, devoted friends—but he’s looking for much more than that. He is on a quest that has encompassed three other Raven Boys: Adam, the scholarship student who resents all the privilege around him; Ronan, the fierce soul who ranges from anger to despair; and Noah, the taciturn watcher of the four, who notices many things but says very little.

For as long as she can remember, Blue has been warned that she will cause her true love to die. She never thought this would be a problem. But now, as her life becomes caught up in the strange and sinister world of the Raven Boys, she’s not so sure anymore." (Goodreads)

Cova Reviews | The Wrath and the Dawn, by Renée Ahdieh | Diverse Reads Challenge

Hello, people! So here is the first post of the series of posts I am planning to make for the 2017 Diverse Reads Challenge I signed up for this year :) January was the month for Folktale/Mythology, and I decided to go for the first option. 

The Wrath and The Dawn, by Renée Ahdieh is a YA, re-telling of the One Thousand and One Nights tale. In some part of Arabia, a whole kingdom is terrified and outraged by their young boy-king Khalid. No one knows why, he takes a girl from the city every so often, marries her and kills her the next morning. Families are destroyed, and no explanation is given to them. One day, Shahrzad volunteers to be the next girl, but she has no intention of dying.

Most exciting releases of 2017!

Hello, hello! Even though it's not the start of the year anymore, I thought I'd still write a post about the books I'm most excited for which will come out this year. I don't usually search for books that are not yet published -I'm used to waiting for other people to read them and see what the bookish community thinks. But for some reason, this year I've found myself searching for books that I could read for my reading challenges, and some of the ones I found had not been published yet but still I really wanted to read them! Also, as most people do, I always wait for book sequels to come out, and there are two I am very excited about this year!

So summing up, here are the 2017 releases I am most excited for! If you click on the images, it should take you to the Goodreads page for the book :)

Cova Reviews | A Monster Calls, by Patrick Ness

Well, well, well. Now, what do we have here? A Monster Calls has been all over the media for quite a while now -especially now that the film has come out. I have been wanting to pick it up since before I even knew there was going to be a movie based on it, and around one week after I bought the book, a friend of mine came to me and said "You know what, Cova? I went to the cinema yesterday and watched A Monster Calls, and you want to know something? The monster is ****************". I almost died right there and then... I could kill him!! He'd spoiled a story that I had been wanting to get to for so long!! Luckily, he was just being an asshole and that had absolutely nothing to do with the story :D I did not have a good time, though!

We could say A Monster Calls is a fantasy book about loss, hope and growing up. I honestly did not know what it was about when I read it, and that went extremely well for me, so I'm just going to leave you here the synopsis from Goodreads:

"The monster showed up after midnight. As they do.

But it isn’t the monster Conor’s been expecting. He’s been expecting the one from his nightmare, the one he’s had nearly every night since his mother started her treatments, the one with the darkness and the wind and the screaming…

This monster is something different, though. Something ancient, something wild. And it wants the most dangerous thing of all from Conor.

It wants the truth." (Goodreads)

Glass Sword (Red Queen #2) by Victoria Aveyard

Hello everyone! This week's post will be about Glass Sword -the second book to the Red Queen series, by Victoria Aveyard - her young adult, dystopian, fantasy series. As a note, I will tell you that the author has recently announced her plan to add a fourth book to what originally was going to be her first trilogy. The title and release dates of both the third and fourth novels has not been set yet (I don't think even the 3rd one is fully finished, so... :P). What I know is that the third novel will be out in 2017, and I can guess it will be around February - just as the previous two were. Let's hope it's not later than that!

I would advise you to only read the following plot summary if you've already read Red Queen (I won't write any spoilers, but I wouldn't read about a second book if I haven't read the first one). Otherwise, you can read what the first book (Red Queen) is about here. 

"If there’s one thing Mare Barrow knows, it’s that she’s different.

Mare Barrow’s blood is red—the color of common folk—but her Silver ability, the power to control lightning, has turned her into a weapon that the royal court tries to control. 

The crown calls her an impossibility, a fake, but as she makes her escape from Maven, the prince—the friend—who betrayed her, Mare uncovers something startling: she is not the only one of her kind.

Pursued by Maven, now a vindictive king, Mare sets out to find and recruit other Red-and-Silver fighters to join in the struggle against her oppressors. 

But Mare finds herself on a deadly path, at risk of becoming exactly the kind of monster she is trying to defeat. 

Will she shatter under the weight of the lives that are the cost of rebellion? Or have treachery and betrayal hardened her forever?

The electrifying next installment in the Red Queen series escalates the struggle between the growing rebel army and the blood-segregated world they’ve always known—and pits Mare against the darkness that has grown in her soul. " (Goodreads)

Cinder - Marissa Meyer

I was lucky enough to win Amanda's Back to School giveaway at her blog Orandi et Legendi, from which I got this book which I really wanted to read. I am very grateful to her for that :) 

Cinder is a Young Adult, fantasy novel inspired in the classic Cinderella - the first of The Lunar Chronicles' trilogy by Marissa Meyer. 

"Humans and androids crowd the raucous streets of New Beijing. A deadly plague ravages the population. From space, a ruthless lunar people watch, waiting to make their move. No one knows that Earth’s fate hinges on one girl.
Cinder, a gifted mechanic, is a cyborg. She’s a second-class citizen with a mysterious past, reviled by her stepmother and blamed for her stepsister’s illness. But when her life becomes intertwined with the handsome Prince Kai’s, she suddenly finds herself at the center of an intergalactic struggle, and a forbidden attraction. Caught between duty and freedom, loyalty and betrayal, she must uncover secrets about her past in order to protect her world’s future." (Goodreads)