Blogger Book Nook #6 // Swap a Book

Here we go, another month means it’s time for February’s Reading Challenge for the Blogger Book Nook. I’m really excited for this month’s Reading Challenge as it’s a little different from usual! This month’s Reading Challenge is Swap a Book. With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, it was decided we should swap books with someone else in the group to share our love of reading!

We receive our monthly Reading Challenge from either Abbey or Tabitha, two of the kindest girls, on the Facebook page. Here we have some great conversations and are able to talk books! This is also the perfect opportunity to get to know new bloggers, ones that have a similar interest, books and reading.

Right, let’s get on with February’s Reading Challenge.

If you missed my Introduction to: Blogger Book Nook you should definitely check that post out here, before reading February’s Reading Challenge! I don’t want to fill this post up with too much of that as it’s all there for you to enjoy. For each Reading Challenge, Abbey and Tabitha come up with five questions for us to answer in relation to the prompt.

1) Is there a fellow book blogger whose shelves you’d love to raid?
I would love to raid Abbey’s shelves as the books she’s reviewed for Blogger Book Nook I would love to get my hands on! She’s got a lovely variety and they all seem to be different from one another. I particularly love the sound of The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey, even though it’s not my typical genre, Abbey makes the book sound amazing.

2) If you could swap lives with any book character for a day, who would it be?
I would love to swap lives with Katniss Everdeen, she is such a strong character and I feel she can take on anything. I would love to have this strength, it just seems like nothing phases her and she wants to do the best for her friends and family. I would love to experience this and maybe learn something from it.

3) Do you normally swap books with friends or do you hang on to books you’ve finished reading?
I don’t really know very many people who enjoy reading the genres that I do, so all my books I hold onto. I would love to be able to swap books with friends as you find new genres and authors. I’m always on the search for new books to read so I feel this is a great way to do it!

4) If you could send a copy of one book that you really love to everybody on the planet, which would it be?
This is a lovely question! I have so many great books in my collection but I believe it would be Snow Like Ashes by Sara Raasch. I fell in love with this book when I first came across it, Sara is such a talented author and the way she wrote made the story very exciting and kept me hooked. It’s definitely an eye opener book.

5) Is there a book on your shelf that you love so much, you’d never swap it with anybody?
I don’t think I could ever swap Aussie Grit: My Formula One Journey by Mark Webber with anyone! When he was in Formula 1, he was my favourite racing driver and this autobiography is such an eye opener to his career, I could definitely never part with this book. I fell in love with it too much and I would definitely miss it, with it featuring images of his life, it’s great to look back at those.

Of course, we couldn’t have February’s Reading Challenge without indulging in a book that I was gifted by someone else! This month Zoe Jackson from With an Ocean View kindly sent me Graveminder from Melissa Marr. As soon as I opened the parcel I was so happy to see this book, it looks so inviting and the cover is brilliant! It instantly looks like something I would pick up.

Graveminder? Let me tell you a little bit about it;

Rebekkah Barrow never forgot the tender attention her grandmother, Maylene, bestowed upon the dead of Claysville. While growing up, Rebekkah watched as Maylene performed the same unusual ritual at every funeral: three sips from a small silver flask followed by the words, “Sleep well, and stay where I put you.” Now Maylene is gone, Bek must return to Claysville and the man she abandoned a decade ago.

In Claysville, the worlds of the living and the dead are dangerously connected and beneath the town lies a shadowy, lawless land ruled by the enigmatic Charles. From this dark place, the deceased will return if their graves are not properly minded. And only the Graveminder, a Barrow woman, and the current Undertaker, Byron, can set things to right once the dead begin to walk.

I am soo addicted to this book, from the very first chapter I fell in love! I’ve never read a book before from Melissa so I didn’t know what to expect but thankfully I am very happy. She chucks you straight into the story, of course, there’s a little background with Maylene but the story mainly focuses on Rebekkah and what life now means for her. Suddenly everything has changed and she’s now become something important.

I love how she’s told the story, it’s very in-depth and before you realise, you’ve read ten chapters within an hour! Of course the chapters are quite small, but still, yesterday I was addicted to this book and I could not put it down. I even got moaned at by Yasmine for losing track of time. I said I would read for a little bit, then do chores around the house, but before I realised an hour and a half had passed.

If you’re looking for a book where you get sucked in, I would definitely recommend this, Melissa is such a great author and she’s really built the scene and characters. As I previously mentioned the chapters are a little short, I think this is because she changes between different characters. Allowing you to understand the background of what’s happening with Rebekkah.

This works especially well, you are introduced to Daisha and understand what’s going on in her life. I like when authors do this in their writing as it adds more depth to the story, she’s filling in the gaps that would be there if this chapter wasn’t written in Daisha’s POV. I am so close to finishing this book, that I couldn’t put it down before bed but I had to else I wouldn’t have had any sleep.

You just get lost in the world of Claysville, which is lovely, it’s definitely a good book to lose a couple of hours to. There’s a lot of secrets, which slowly throughout the book you start to uncover, for me, this is what makes a book interesting and worthy of keeping you reading. It definitely gets you thinking as well as wondering, I’m on the final chapters so I’m excited to read how Melissa finishes it.

I hope I haven’t given too much away for Graveminder, there’s definitely a lot more I can speak about but it would be too spoilerific. I would love to know if this is a book you would consider picking up or even if you have, what are your feelings on it? Also, in return, I gifted Zoe Marked, the first book in the House of Night Series by P.C Cast. If you want to read her thoughts on the book, check out her review here!

I hope you have enjoyed this post! Let me know in the comments one book you would swap with a friend. I am always on the search for new recommendations. Just maybe I’ll add them to my Goodreads Bookshelf.

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